I learn new things every day. Today I learned the term “constructive dismissal” and how to build a case against corporate surveillance. Now I need to figure how to translate that into a case against all that government surveillance.

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090319052606435

Ca: A fine line between privacy and managing the workplace

Thursday, March 19 2009 @ 05:26 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

What happens when employee privacy rights collide with an employer’s right to monitor its workplace? As the London, Ontario offices of Cornerstone Properties recently discovered, an employer must tread carefully or risk inadvertently dismissing its own employees.

After working for seven years without incident, Coleen Colwell trusted her employer. She had been promoted to manager and was given her own private office at the company’s workplace. However, her trust was dashed when she suddenly learned that a secret surveillance camera had been installed in the ceiling of her office.

Source - Metro News Toronto

So easy, even a non-hacker can do it! Perhaps we need to show people how to look for their userid/passwords and what to do when (not if) they find them. Something for my Intro to Computer Security class (the advanced students wouldn't find this surprising or too dangerous.)

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/2228250&from=rss

Social Search Reveals 700 Comcast Customer Logins

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 18, @09:56PM from the easiest-password-to-remember dept. Security The Internet

nandemoari writes

"When educational technology specialist Kevin Andreyo recently read a report on people search engines, he decided to conduct a little 'people search' on himself. Andreyo did not expect to find much — so, imagine the surprise when he uncovered the user name and password to his Comcast Internet account, put out there for the entire online world to see. In addition to his personal information, Andreyo also discovered a list that exposed the user names and passwords of (what he believed) to be 8,000 other Comcast customers. Andreyo immediately contacted both Comcast and the FBI, hoping to find the ones responsible for divulging such personal information to the public. While the list is no longer available online, analysts fear that the document still lives on in various cache and online history services."

[Worried you might be on the list? One commenter (clearly a newbie) was and asked where he could find a copy of the list. Another commenter helpfully responded by posting the list. Bob]

About bloody time! We don't want citizen reading our data – and finding out we read their data (see next article)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090318105118289

UK: HMRC publishes data security rules

Wednesday, March 18 2009 @ 10:51 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) staff have been issued with a data security handbook, instructing them to ensure all data is encrypted when it is off the premises.

The handbook has instructed staff to only carry as much data as is needed to do their jobs on any mobile device. In addition, all mobile devices that carry the information, like Blackberrys or laptops, must be encrypted.

Source - publicservice.co.uk

OMG Winston dude u was rite. Thot police evrwhr

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/1858217&from=rss

UK Gov't May Track All Facebook Traffic

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 18, @03:20PM from the posted-before-curfew dept. Privacy Government Security The Internet

Jack Spine writes

"The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian, has said that it is considering snooping on all social networking traffic including Facebook, MySpace, and bebo. This supposedly anti-terrorist measure may be proposed as part of the Intercept Modernisation Programme according to minister Vernon Coaker, and is exactly the sort of deep packet inspection web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned about last week. The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic."

Here's a paper waiting to be written. Touched of an interesting (and voluminous) discussion in the Comments.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/1341233&from=rss

Internet-Caused Mistrials Are On the Rise

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 18, @10:15AM from the jurors-with-blackberrys dept.

The NYTimes is running a tip-of-the-iceberg story about how the age of Google is resulting in more mistrials as the traditional rules of evidence, honed over many centuries, collide with the always-on Internet. Especially when jurors carry the always-on Internet in their pockets. (We discussed one such case recently.)

"The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges. ... Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system's complex rules of evidence."

Related? (as in: another potential paper?)

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/2223232&from=rss

Google's Information On DMCA Takedown Abuse

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 18, @07:59PM from the hassle-your-way-to-the-top dept. Google

Binestar writes

"According to a PC World article, Google has submitted a brief to New Zealand about its proposed copyright law (section 92A). "In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.""

God forbit companies should act logically. Something for the Business Illiterate to over-react to: “It's not fair! Big companies make profits and everyone knows that's evil. They should give all their income away!”

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/19/0319248&from=rss

Shell Ditches Wind, Solar and Hydro

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 19, @03:08AM from the do-what-you-know dept. Earth Businesses Technology

thefickler writes

"Shell has decided to end its investment in wind, solar and hydro projects because the company does not believe they are financially sound investments. Instead Shell is going to focus on carbon sequestration technologies and biofuels. Not surprisingly, and perhaps unfairly, bloggers have been quick to savage the company: "Between Shell's decisions to stop its clean energy investments and to increase its debt load to pay for dividends, the company is solidifying an image of corporate greed over corporate responsibility." Is Shell short sighted, or is it just a company trying to make its way in an uncertain world?"

Do you have a webcam? Even my students know something (e.g. How to send text messages during class.)

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/moontoast-com-sharing-knowledge-online

Moontoast.com - Sharing Knowledge Online

http://www.moontoast.com/

The tagline of this new resource is “Together we know everything”, and such a phrase captures the spirit of the whole endeavor quite accurately. Broadly speaking, Moontoast is a user-powered site that will let anybody share his knowledge with others in a setting as elastic as the web makes for.

Each person who offers his knowledge online is termed an “expert”, and experts have profile pages where they explain what it is they excel at, and how can they help others. They also set down their rates therein.

When it comes to the way teaching is done, both chat sessions and online video classes are duly taken into consideration.

Here it is in black & white!

http://blog.toptenreviews.com/?p=2305

Fujitsu eBook Reader - With Color!

March 18th, 2009 by Andrea Edmunds

Related Baen (http://www.baen.com/) offers many free SiFi books on their web site and claims hardcopy sales increase each time one is added.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/publishers-part.html

Major Publishers Partner with Scribd for Viral E-book Marketing

By Chris Snyder March 18, 2009 9:48:14 AM

Random House, Simon & Schuster and several other publishers announced a wide-ranging partnership Wednesday with Scribd to begin to release an increased number of best sellers as free e-books — a major marketing push to harness the long tail of a literate social network that boasts some 50 million loyalists.

Related This field is booming, but do you really need a reader? Will the first laptop with an easy-to-read screen kill the Kindle?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10199846-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Google deal brings classic books to Sony Reader

by Jennifer Guevin March 19, 2009 12:28 AM PDT

Sony's e-book reader is about to get a little help from Jane Austen in its battle with the Kindle.

Sony announced a partnership with Google Wednesday night that will bring a half-million classic books to the Sony Reader Digital Book. Users will now be able to access the free book downloads through Sony's eBook Store.

… For now, Google is providing books to Sony whose copyrights have expired, which means most of the new additions to the Sony Reader will have been published before 1923, according to The New York Times. [So very few computer books... Bob]