Sunday, July 20, 2008

Interesting case of identity theft, but a bad place to try to capitalize on it...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080718/od_nm/divorce_dc;_ylt=AsadUFgsMEkQo6CZVRt0oOOs0NUE

Reuters

With this fake wife, I divorce thee

Fri Jul 18, 10:43 AM ET

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - An Indian man who took an impersonator to court to get a divorce faces legal action after his real wife found out, lawyers said Friday.

... Both said they sought a mutual divorce, something the court granted immediately.



Might make a good ethics case...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_re_us/library_privacy;_ylt=AgKRBGZe2uNnmoe91wOLgYis0NUE

AP

Library confrontation points up privacy dilemma

By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 49 minutes ago

RANDOLPH, Vt. - Children's librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on "Love That Dog" when police showed up.

They weren't kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library's public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

... Investigators did obtain a warrant about eight hours later, but the June 26 standoff in the 105-year-old, red brick library on Main Street frustrated police and had fellow librarians cheering Flint.

... But the investigation of Brooke Bennett's disappearance wasn't a Patriot Act case.

"We had to balance out the fact that we had information that we thought was true that Brooke Bennett used those computers to communicate on her MySpace account," said Col. James Baker, director of the Vermont State Police. "We had to balance that out with protecting the civil liberties of everybody else, and this was not an easy decision to make."

... Cybersecurity expert Fred H. Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, said the librarians acted appropriately.

"If you've told all your patrons `We won't hand over your records unless we're ordered to by a court,' and then you turn them over voluntarily, you're liable for anything that goes wrong," he said.

A new Vermont law that requires libraries to demand court orders in such situations took effect July 1, but it wasn't in place that June day. The library's policy was to require one.



Disconnect? “We assure you we have the best crime fighting tools in the world – and we'll suppress any attempt to disprove that statement.”

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/20/0244237&from=rss

FBI Fights Testing For False DNA Matches

Posted by timothy on Saturday July 19, @11:06PM from the grassy-knollers-know-it's-easy-to-blame dept. Privacy The Courts United States Science Technology

Statesman writes

"The Los Angeles Times reports that an Arizona crime lab technician found two felons with remarkably similar genetic profiles, so similar that they would ordinarily be accepted in court as a match, but one felon was black and the other white. The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. Dozens of similar matches have been found, and these findings raise questions about the accuracy of the FBI's DNA statistics. Scientists and legal experts want to test the accuracy of official statistics using the nearly 6 million profiles in CODIS, the national system that includes most state and local databases. The FBI has tried to block distribution of the Arizona results and is blocking people from performing similar searches using CODIS. A legal fight is brewing over whether the nation's genetic databases ought to be opened to wider scrutiny. At stake is the credibility of the odds often cited in DNA cases, which can suggest an all but certain link between a suspect and a crime scene."



They have already claimed that “making available” replaces “distributing.” Perhaps they could do away with laws entirely... and courts... Just hire their own 'hit men' and they can deal with anyone not paying protection... er... legitimate fees.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/07/universal-says.html

Universal Says DMCA Takedown Notices Can Ignore 'Fair Use'

By David Kravets EmailJuly 18, 2008 4:46:45 PM

[Interesting that Wired magazine included a link to the video in the article. Sort of rubbing it in Universals face (as if the Streisand Effect wasn't enough.) Bob]



Even the note takers look interesting...

http://petsymposium.org/2008/

The 8th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2008)

Leuven, Belgium July 23-25, 2008

The 8th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium will bring together anonymity and privacy experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and new perspectives in privacy for the Internet and other communication networks.

... In a departure from previous years, the symposium proceedings will be available at the event, rather than after it. They will continue to be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.



Interesting list of “wants” Perhaps an e-commerce class would find this interesting?

http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

Paul Graham July 2008



For your home network: Why give everyone their own PC when you can do the same things from a terminal?

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63847.html

NComputing: Little Box, Big Aspirations

By John Boudreau San Jose Mercury News 07/20/08 4:00 AM PT

... NComputing expects to sell 1 million "seats" -- the thin box that connects a monitor, keyboard and mouse to a nearby PC -- this year at a cost of just US$70 each.



The new Monopoly money? I am surprised that Zimbabwe hasn't become one big 'free fire' zone... Yet.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/19/zimbabwe.banknotes/index.html

July 19, 2008 -- Updated 1235 GMT (2035 HKT)

Zimbabwe introduces $100 billion banknotes

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