http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/pickpockets/
Feds Swoop In on Nationwide Pickpocket, I.D. Theft Ring
By Kim Zetter June 10, 2009 9:33 pm
Federal prosecutors in Virginia have leveled conspiracy and bank-fraud charges against the alleged leader and nine members of a national organization of high-tech pickpockets that’s been the scourge of police around the country since at least early 2007.
… The charges represent the federal government’s first large-scale swipe at the 200-plus members of “Cannon to the Wiz,” a Chicago-based identity-theft ring known for marrying high-tech fraud techniques with the Dickensian art of pickpocketing.
Police have said the thieves sometimes keep computers, cameras and printers in their cars so they can substitute their own photos on stolen driver’s licenses within minutes of lifting them, and rack up thousands of dollars in charges at nearby shops before victims have even noticed they’ve been robbed.
The feds say the crooks also worked a convoluted shell game to exploit victims’ bank accounts. They’d steal personal checks from one victim, deposit them into another victim’s legitimate account, then withdraw the money and disappear. The scheme, known as “split deposits,” resulted in losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars to banks.
I suppose this makes if “Official”
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090610172238816
Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security
Wednesday, June 10 2009 @ 05:22 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A generation is growing up with social networking web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, casually posting accounts of their lives for their friends -- and the world -- to see. Few of these users realize that the information they post, when combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data, can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators, according to faculty at Wharton and elsewhere.
"The way privacy has traditionally been defined is being challenged," according to Wharton legal studies professor Andrea Matwyshyn, who earlier this year organized the Information Security Best Practices Conference at Wharton. Among other topics, the conference addressed security and safety issues raised by the social networks.
Source - Knowledge@Wharton
Related See how easily you could be flagged as a trouble maker? (It does seem a dumb business move.)
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9134218
Angry iPhone owners blast AT&T over upgrade pricing
Thousands sign Twitter petition, want carrier to retreat from $200 surcharge on iPhone 3G S
By Gregg Keizer June 10, 2009 02:51 PM ET
Computerworld - iPhone users angry over AT&T's pricing policy for the new iPhone 3G S have taken their campaign to Twitter, where more than 4,400 have added their names to an instant petition.
They're mad as hell about AT&T's plan to charge them an additional $200 to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S if they haven't fulfilled most or all of their two-year contract with the carrier. "AT&T should give existing customers the same rate for the new iPhone 3G S that they do for new customers," the Twitter petition reads. "New customers or not, another 2-year contract is being made."
Related. “We do it for the convenience of our customers...”
Security Firms Fined Over Never-Ending Subscriptions
Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 10, @03:38PM from the crooks-v.-thieves- dept. court business security money
Barence writes
"'Security firms Symantec and McAfee have both agreed to pay $375,000 to US authorities after they automatically renewed consumers' subscriptions without their consent.' The two companies were reported to the New York Attorney General after people complained that their credit cards were being charged without their consent. The investigators found that information about the auto-renewals was hidden at the bottom of long web pages or buried in the EULA."
If they can “open source” some of the RIAA's evidence and “expert testimony” I can see them getting massive support from the tech community. Should be a fun one to watch.
Lawyers plan class-action to reclaim "$100M+" RIAA "stole"
Lawyers in this year's two highest-profile file-sharing cases have joined forces, and they plan to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer to claw back the "$100+ million" that the RIAA "stole."
By Nate Anderson Last updated June 10, 2009 6:01 AM CT
The recording industry has spent (and continues to spend) millions of dollars on its litigation campaign against accused file-swappers, but if two lawyers have their way, the RIAA will have to pay all the money back. Not content simply to defend Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her high-profile retrial next week in Minnesota, lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer.
The goal is nothing less than to force the industry to pay back the alleged "$100+ million" it has collected over the last few years. Perhaps the RIAA had good reason not to send those settlement letters to Harvard for so long.
Truth in advertising?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10262116-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
HP's Friendlee: Stalk and rate your friends
by Rich Trenholm June 10, 2009 1:01 PM PDT
Friendlee keeps track of who you interact with the most, and organizes your friends list in that order. Status updates show what those contacts are up to, as well as the local time and whether their phone is on, off, or set to silent. You'll even be able to see where your contacts are, similar to Google Latitude. You, like your contacts, will be able to control who can see your information.
What do they expect to find in those laptops, evidence of really dumb terrorists?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090610090213893
ACLU Seeks Records About Border Laptop Searches
Wednesday, June 10 2009 @ 09:02 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) policy permits officials to search the laptops and other electronic devices of travelers without suspicion of wrongdoing, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU filed the FOIA request with CBP, a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to learn how CBP's suspicionless search policy, first made public in July 2008, is impacting the constitutional rights of international travelers.
Source - Common Dreams
Related Imagine how a trained investigator could facilitate this 'vigilante Sherlocking”
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/10/1614227/Online-Vigilantes-Or-Crowdsourced-Justice?from=rss
Online Vigilantes, Or "Crowdsourced Justice"
Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 10, @01:14PM from the when-internet-detectives-attack dept. privacy censorship social internet
destinyland writes
"The Chinese credit the 'human flesh search engine' for successfully locating 'the kitten killer of Hangzhou' from clues in her online video. But in February, the same force identified a teenage cat-abuser in Oklahoma — within 24 hours of his video's appearance on YouTube. 'Netizens are the new Jack Bauer,' argues one science writer, and with three billion potential detectives, 'attempts to hide will only add thrill to the chase.' But China's vigilantes ultimately turned their attention to China's Internet Propaganda Office, bypassing censorship of a director's personal information using social networks, including Twitter. The author suggests there's a new principle emerging in the online world: 'The Internet does not forget, does not forgive and cannot be stopped. Ever.'" [Can you say, “Skynet?” Bob]
Is this “We can, therefore we must” or is the government just making an RIAA-like grab for the low-hanging fruit?
$33 Million In Poker Winnings Seized By US Govt
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 10, @08:02PM from the mine-now-I-take-it dept. court money internet politics
An anonymous reader writes
"A New York Times story reports that, 'Opening a new front in the government's battle against Internet gambling, federal prosecutors have asked four American banks to freeze tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to people who play poker online. ... "It's very aggressive, and I think it's a gamble on the part of the prosecutors," Mr. Rose said. He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, as opposed to the money of the companies involved.' Many players are reporting that their cashout checks have bounced."
Did Napoleon define privacy?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/french-court-savages-3-strikes-law-tosses-it-out.ars
French court savages "three-strikes" law, tosses it out
France's groundbreaking "three strikes" law that would disconnect repeat Internet file-swappers has been overturned by the country's Constitutional Council. "Innocent until proven guilty" still means something in France.
By Nate Anderson Last updated June 10, 2009 12:01 PM CT
Have they invented “virtual graffiti?” Overlay a video with your “message.”
Using Mobile Phones To Write Messages In Air
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 11, @04:54AM from the invisible-ink-2.0 dept. inputdev cellphones technology
Anonymous writes
"Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that note automatically sent to an e-mail address. The 'PhonePoint Pen' can be held just like a pen, and words can be written on an imaginary whiteboard. With this application a user could take a picture with a phone camera, and annotating it immediately with a short caption. Duke Computer Engineering Professor Romit Roy Choudhury said that his research group is envisioning mobile phones as just not a communication device, but a much broader platform for social sensing and human-computer interaction. Such interactivity has also emerged in the work of other research groups, such as MIT's Sixth Sense project, Dartmouth's MetroSense project, and Microsoft Research's NeriCell project, to name a few."
Ain't technology wonderful? This may lead to devices you never need to plug in to recharge. It will also lead more folks to wear their tinfoil hats as they realize they are being irradiated as well as their phones.
Nokia Developed Wireless Power-Harvesting Phones
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 10, @06:56PM from the tesla-would-like-a-word-with-you dept. cellphones power
Al writes
"An engineer from Nokia's UK research labs says that the company is developing technology that can harvest ambient electromagnetic radiation to keep a cellphone going. The researcher says that his group is working towards a prototype that could harvest up to 50 milliwatts of power — enough to slowly recharge a phone that is switched off. He says current prototypes can harvest 3 to 5 milliwatts. It will require a wideband receiver capable of capturing signals from between 500 megahertz and 10 gigahertz — a range that encompasses many different radio communication signals. Other researchers have developed devices that can harvest more modest power from select frequencies. A team from Intel previously developed a compact sensor capable of drawing 6 microwatts from a 1.0-megawatt TV antenna 4.1 kilometers away."
Practicing medicine without a license?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10262251-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Pew study: More patients turning to the Web
by Dara Kerr June 10, 2009 9:01 PM PDT
… 61 percent of American adults who look online for medical advice and information, according to "The Social Life of Health Information," a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation.
This report shows that more Americans are reading commentaries about medical issues, consulting rankings or reviews of doctors, or listening to health-related podcasts.
A smaller group of so-called e-patients, 20 percent, actively post comments and reviews on different online list-servs, blogs, or message boards. Rachael, for example, fits into this group. "We are beginning to see e-patients turning to interactive features both to help them find information tailored to their needs and to post their own contributions," said Susannah Fox, co-author of the report and associate director of Pew's Internet & American Life Project.
In 2000, 25 percent of American adults looked online for health information. Now, it's more than double and the majority are happy with the results they find, according to the report. Only a small portion of e-patients, 3 percent, say they or someone they know has been harmed by following medical advice found on the Internet. [How does that compare to advice from doctors? Bob]
Something for my website students
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-your-own-email-client-with-roundcube-webmail/
Create Your Own Email Client With RoundCube Webmail
Jun. 10th, 2009 By Damien Oh
… RoundCube Webmail is a browser-based multilingual IMAP client packed with plenty of AJAX goodness. It comes with an application-like user interface and provides full functionality you expect from an email client, including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation, message searching and spell checking.
The best thing about RoundCube is that it is lightweight, simple to use and lightning fast. As long as your web host supports PHP 5 and MySQL, you will be able to install in your site and access it on your domain.
Ditto
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/uizard-org-web-based-ajax-development-tool
UIzard.org - Web Based Ajax Development Tool
UIzard (short for “User Interface Wizard”) stands as a web application development tool created with the purpose of letting users develop such applications in web environments. Supported browsers include Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Internet Explorer is not supported yet, but work is underway on that one.
In order to get to grips with this open source project you can either watch the provided tutorial video as well as reading the official manual. In any case, most actions are carried out in a drag and drop fashion or by adding a Javascript or HTML code, without needing to open different editors to do so.
As it is explained by the programmer, the long-term goal of this user interface wizard is to be a general development tool that takes shape and evolves with the participation of everybody. If you want to join in the adventure, simply pay the site a visit and have a good look around. And I don’t want to forget mentioning that the site is available not only in English but also in Korean.
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