Privacy, Mobile Phones, Ubiquitous Data Collection
Posted by timothy on Thursday September 03, @06:03PM from the first-plan-your-safeguards dept.
ChelleChelle writes
"Participatory sensing technologies are greatly expanding the possible uses of mobile phones in ways that could improve our lives and our communities (for example, by helping us to understand our exposure to air pollution or our daily carbon footprint). However, with these potential gains comes great risk, particularly to our privacy. With their built-in microphones, cameras and location awareness, mobile phones could, at the extreme, become the most widespread embedded surveillance tools in history. Whether phones engaged in sensing data are tools for self and community research, coercion or surveillance depends on who collects the data, how it is handled, and what privacy protections users are given. This article gives a number of opinions about what programmers might do to make this sort of data collection work without slipping into surveillance and control."
(Related) I didn't know the the National Enquirer had a Hacking Department. [Seriously, could they be targets of terrorists? Why are they using this technology? Bob]
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3561
Prince William and Harry’s mobile phones ‘may have been hacked’
September 3, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Non-U.S., Surveillance
Chris Irvine of Telegraph reports:
Prince William and Harry’s mobile phones may have been hacked into by journalists, MPs have heard.
Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams, from the Metropolitan Police, raised the possibility at the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
When asked if he suspected journalists had hacked into the princes’ mobile phones, Mr Williams told the committee: “Yes, I think they may well have done.”
Read more on Telegraph. Thanks to Brian Honan for this link.
The White House had to drop their website asking citizens to rat out anyone who dared to question the Health Plan. Too public I guess. This is their second attempt? (We can, therefore we must?)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3542
Obama’s secret plan to harvest personal data from social networking websites
September 3, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Govt, Internet, Surveillance, U.S.
Ken Boehm reports that the:
NLPC [National Legal and Policy Center] has uncovered a plan by the White House New Media operation [??? Bob] to hire a technology vendor to conduct a massive, secret effort to harvest personal information on millions of Americans from social networking websites.
The information to be captured includes comments, tag lines, emails, audio, and video. The targeted sites include Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and others – any space where the White House “maintains a presence.”
In the course of investigating procurement by the White House New Media office, NLPC discovered a 51-page solicitation of bids that was filed on Friday, August 21, 2009. Filed as Solicitation # WHO-S-09-0003, it is posted at FedBizzOps.com. Click here to download a 51-page pdf of the solicitation.
While the solicitation specifies a 12-month contract, it allows for seven one-year extensions. It specifies no dollar cap. Other troubling issues include:
extremely broad secrecy terms preventing the vendor from disclosing to the public or the media what information is being captured and archived (page 7, “Restriction Against Disclosure”)
wholesale capturing of comments by non-White House staff [The enemy? Bob] on publicly accessible sites
capturing of content of any type (text, graphics, audio, or video)
capturing of comments by both Obama critics and supporters, with no restriction as to how the White House would use the information.
Read more on NLPC
Only amusing to me? First thing that occurred to me was: “He's too drunk to consent!”
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3551
AZ court: DUI blood test requires warrant or consent
September 3, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Surveillance
The Associated Press reports an Arizona court ruling that authorities must either obtain a search warrant to conduct a blood test of a DUI suspect or obtain the suspect’s clear consent to having blood drawn. Simply not objecting to the blood test is not sufficient. According to the AP, the Court of Appeals sent the case back to a lower court for a finding on whether the man involved actually consented.
As goes Massachusetts and California, so goes the country! (At least when Congress is controlled by the Democrats)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3538
Mass. health bill would allow warrantless arrests, quarantines
September 3, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Legislation, U.S.
Alex Newman writes:
A pandemic and disaster preparation bill (S. 2028) passed unanimously by the Massachusetts Senate earlier this year is receiving wide-spread criticism as citizens mobilize to oppose its passage in the commonwealth’s House of Representatives. “Under this bill, Massachusetts becomes a medical police state. There is no debating it,” wrote Natural News editor Michael Adams in an August 28 article entitled http//naturalnews.com/026934_health_public_health_quarantine.html Wake Up, America: Forced vaccinations, quarantine camps, health care interrogations and mandatory ‘decontaminations,’” where he suggested America was delving into medical fascism. “The citizens of Massachusetts will have no rights, period. The Constitution is ancient history. You are now the property of the State.”
The bill contains a number of controversial, alarming, and blatantly unconstitutional provisions. Under an emergency declared by the governor, the statute purports to give the health commissioner, and law enforcement and medical personnel broad authority to mobilize forces, vaccinate the population, enter private property with no warrants, and even quarantine people against their will.
Read more on http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1797 New American
Related: Text of Senate version of the bill can be found here (pdf).
Related: Kurt Nimmo is also very negative about the bill and wonders why it is not getting mainstream coverage.
Some monopolies are worse than others. On the other hand, now you can buy an election from a single source!
ES&S To Buy Diebold, Blackbox Voting To Sue
Posted by kdawson on Thursday September 03, @07:05PM from the all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace dept.
Gottesser writes
"Long-time election rights activist Bev Harris (she had an HBO special a while back where she hired Hari Hursti to hack an optical scan voting machine) just sent this out: 'Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most US voting under one privately held manufacturer. And it's not just the concealed vote-counting; these companies now also produce polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software, and vote-by-mail authentication software.' Our voting system is heading toward a server-centric model with our vote being delivered to us by computers under lock and key far away from public oversight. Here's ES&S's press release. Wikipedia's got something on the ongoing string of ES&S controversies as well."
For my Data Mining & Analysis class. Illustrates how to present data mined from multiple sources. (Can't help noticing that Washington DC is high on every map. What a shock, huh?)
http://www.wired.com/culture/education/magazine/17-09/st_sinmaps
American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins
By Kristina Shevory 08.24.09
We're gluttons for infographics, and a team at Kansas State just served up a feast: maps of sin created by plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy) and STDs (lust).
Very useful source of ebooks on Computer Security and other topics. Some old, some new – including the textbook I'm using for Business Continuity.
ebook30
Tools & Techniques Economics? Statistics? Finance?
Google Domestic Trends: Should You Invest Based On Google Searches?
by MG Siegler on September 3, 2009
Google has launched a new area of Google Finance called “Google Domestic Trends.” Basically, it allows you to look at various sectors of the U.S. economy based on how they are performing in Google’s search index. The idea is that the volume of searches for related queries to a specific segment may “provide unique economic insight,” says Google.
Tools & Techniques Security
Free CAPTCHA that stops spam, not humans!
VidoopCAPTCHA is an image-based verification solution used to distinguish a human from a computer program, protecting web sites against malicious bot attacks. When compared to traditional text-based CAPTCHAs predominant on the web, VidoopCAPTCHA is easier on the user. And it’s FREE!
Tools & Techniques For my website students – I don't grade on content, I grade on the technology behind the content.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/convert-a-file-to-html-instantly-with-file2-ws/
Convert A File To HTML Instantly With File2.ws
Sep. 4th, 2009 By Karl L. Gechlik
File2.ws allows us to convert almost any type of file into an HTML webpage with zero knowledge necessary in any web language or programming skills.
… Once your file has been successfully transferred to their site you will see a success screen with a link to your new webpage containing your document’s contents.
If you click on the link it will take you to the page. It should appear identical to your original with the exception of the Adsense or Bidvertiser ads at the top of your document directly under your title.
Need to store a huge database? (For the IT Architecture class)
http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/
Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage
Tim Nufire September 1
At Backblaze, we provide unlimited storage to our customers for only $5 per month, so we had to figure out how to store hundreds of petabytes of customer data in a reliable, scalable way—and keep our costs low. After looking at several overpriced commercial solutions, we decided to build our own custom Backblaze Storage Pods: 67 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.
In this post, we’ll share how to make one of these storage pods, and you’re welcome to use this design.
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