http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090104153912115
UK: Police set to step up hacking of home PCs
Sunday, January 04 2009 @ 03:39 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.
The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.
Source - Times Online hat-tip, tech.blorge
[From the article:
Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.
A remote search can be granted if a senior officer says he “believes” that it is “proportionate” and necessary to prevent or detect serious crime — defined as any offence attracting a jail sentence of more than three years.
Is this a good idea or is the Air Force asking for trouble? (Flowchart to determine if you should respond to Blog postings.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/020222.html
January 04, 2009
U.S. Air Force Leveraging Web 2.0 Apps - Twitter and Blogs
Via David Meerman Scott's blog WebInkNow, news about forward thinking and actionable PR and IT business process improvement from the U.S. Air Force: "David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology at the Air Force Public Affairs Agency in the Pentagon [in response to a direct message via Twitter], indicated that "the Air Force employs 330,000 communicators! Their mission is to use current and developing Web 2.0 applications as a way to actively engage conversations between Airmen and the general public. Yes, that’s right, the goal of the program is that every single Airman is an on-line communicator." Note, this post includes a very useful Air Force blog assessment flowchart.
You can't announce that you've fired your expert witness for incompetence.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F05%2F0139216&from=rss
WSJ Confirms RIAA Fired MediaSentry
Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 04, @10:23PM from the meet-the-new-boss dept. Music
newtley writes
"Two days ago we discussed the earlier p2pnet report that the RIAA had fired MediaSentry (now called SafeNet). Now the Wall Street Journal is confirming this report. MediaSentry has been 'invading the privacy of people,' the WSJ quotes Ray Beckerman; 'They've been doing very sloppy work.' Beckerman cites MediaSentry's practice of 'looking for available songs in people's filesharing folders, uploading them, and using those uploads in court as evidence of copyright violations.' MediaSentry 'couldn't prove defendants had shared their files with anyone other than MediaSentry investigators.' The WSJ notes, 'In place of MediaSentry, the RIAA says it will use Copenhagen-based DtecNet Software ApS. The music industry had worked with DtecNet previously both in the US and overseas, and liked its technology...' "
Would that any modern technology would have as long a life!
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F05%2F0224202&from=rss
Player Piano Roll Production Ceases
Posted by kdawson on Monday January 05, @03:28AM from the day-the-music-died dept. Media Music Technology
boustrophedon writes
"The Buffalo News reports that QRS Music Technologies halted production of player piano rolls 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago. QRS continues to make digitized and computerized player-piano technology that runs on CDs. 'We're still doing what we always did, which is to provide software for pianos that play themselves. It's just the technology that has changed. But I would be lying to say [the halting of production] doesn't sadden me,' said Bob Berkman, the company's music director. Piano rolls can last for decades, but not forever. Volunteers at the International Association of Mechanical Music Preservationists build piano-roll scanners to scan rolls optically and convert them to MIDI files. The IAMMP archive and others contain thousands of scanned rolls."
Got DSL? Test it! (Simple but cute)
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/speed-io-check-your-true-internet-speed
Speed.io – Check Your True Internet Speed
It’s hard to know if you’re getting the speed you pay for. I mean, unless you’re some sort of tech geek/god/hacker, you’re not going to really figure out if you’re getting what you paid for. If you’re having your doubts, then you should check out Speed.io. With this easy to use service, you’ll be able to check you download and upload speeds. It also checks connections and pings, making it for a very complete connection test.
... It even figures out who your internet provider is, your IP address, and the browser you’re using.
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