Saturday, November 14, 2009

The technology exists, therefore we have the right to use it however we choose! (This attitude explains why my father described Ireland as a country “where, on occasion, peace breaks out.”) Also note the number of misspellings in the article. Perhaps they should concentrate on teaching?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5354

Ie: School in row over CCTV cameras in bathrooms

November 13, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Non-U.S., Surveillance, Youth

From the Irish Examiner:

A Kildare school is at the centre of a dispute over CCTV cameras in the bathrooms.

It follows a walk out by students at Scoile Mhurie in Clane in protest over the installation fo (sic) the cameras in the school toilets.

The board of managment (sic) at the school is insisting that privacy is preserved.

Parents claim they were not informed of the decision which the school says is in response to vandalism.

Kildare Fine Gael Councillor Bernard Meld, a member of the school board, has said the cameras are staying.

Thanks to Brian Honan for this link.

In separate coverage of the walk-out, J.P. Anderson writes:

However, a statement from the Department of Education said that, while the supervision of students is the responsibility of the Board of Management, the installation of cameras in toilets may be illegal.

“The guidance available from the Data Protection Commissioner said the use of CCTV to monitor areas where individuals would have a reasonable expectation of privacy such as in toilets and rest rooms would be difficult to justify under data protection legislation,” a statement read.



Ha! I thought so. That's why we teach Ethics as part of our CS degrees.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/13/1715202/Bernie-Madoffs-Programmers-Arrested?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Bernie Madoff's Programmers Arrested

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday November 13, @03:55PM from the what-corporate-veil dept.

ZipK writes

"With their former boss cooling his heels on a 150-year sentence, programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez are now in the US Attorney's crosshairs. They've been arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, and 'accused of producing false documents and trading records at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in New York.' Apparently Madoff's fraud was too large and too complex to be foisted entirely by hand." [Anyone can steal, but to steal Billions, you need a computer? Bob]



Wouldn't these arguments apply to any Cloud vendor?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5371

Amazon called out over cloud security, secrecy

November 14, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Internet

Jon Brodkin reports:

Amazon’s cloud computing service should not be used for applications that require advanced security and availability, the Burton Group analyst firm says in a report accusing Amazon of secrecy regarding its cloud data centers.

[...]

Specifically, Burton Group says Amazon customers have no way of determining the “physical redundancy level and data protection” of physical components such as servers, storage devices, network and power infrastructure. Burton Group also faulted Amazon for replication rates in its Simple Storage Service and a lack of failover between data center regions.

Amazon spokeswoman Kay Kinton said the Burton Group report contains inaccurate statements. For example, the report says Amazon lacks SAS 70 security certification, when in fact Amazon does have that certification, Kinton writes in an e-mail to Network World.

Read more on Network World.



Video discussing the need for Cyber-Warriors and the high school kid who won. Note that his high school does not teach Security.

http://gov2summit.blip.tv/file/2610813/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+oreilly%2Fnews+%28O%27Reilly+News%29

Gov 2.0 Summit 09: Alan Paller and Michael Coppola, "Cybersecurity Challenge"



Of course it works. Strange that only 4 percent were sufficiently paranoid to check. Will that number jump to 115% of registered voters if Chicago ever goes to this system?

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/rivest-voting.html

Cryptographic voting debuts

A new system for ensuring accurate election tallies, which MIT researchers helped to develop, passed its first real-world test last Tuesday.

Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office

… Going into the Takoma Park trial, the crucial question was whether 2 percent of voters would bother to write down their codes and check them online. According to Poorvi Vora, a member of the Scantegrity team at George Washington University, 1,722 votes were cast and 66 people checked their codes — almost 4 percent.



With all the code now available free, we may be kick starting another generation of phone phreaks!

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/11/14/android-2-0-source-released-already-ported-to-the-g1/

Android 2.0 source released, already ported to the G1

by Greg Kumparak on November 14, 2009

… As the sun set over the Silicon Valley last night, Google pushed the source code for Android 2.0 to the Android Open Source Project. Within two hours, the endlessly able Android community had it up and running on the eldest Android of them all, the T-Mobile G1.



Follow the money...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10397787-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Google Books settlement sets geographic, business limits

by Elinor Mills November 13, 2009 10:19 PM PST

… The settlement now applies only to out-of-print books registered with the U.S. Copyright office or published in the U.K., Australia, or Canada, countries that have a common legal heritage and similar book industry practices, according to the FAQ on the revised settlement.



This is interesting. Will consumers flee the free and queue up to pay Murdoch? More likely, Google will buy Reuters or CNN

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/13/murdoch-google-bing-mexicanstandoff/

How Murdoch Can Really Hurt Google And Shift The Balance Of Power In Search

by Michael Arrington on November 13, 2009

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who used to work for Murdoch’s Digital Chief Jonathan Miller when the two were at AOL, posted a video last week (embedded below) with a simple suggestion: Not only should Murdoch de-index from Google, but he should get Bing to pay him for the exclusive right to index it. TechCrunch Europe’s Mike Butcher has been sniffing down a similar trail.


(Related) Lest you think this was too far out.

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2009/11/13/badda-bing-microsoft-woos-newspapers-by-funding-their-stick-to-beat-google/

Badda Bing! Microsoft woos newspapers by funding their stick to beat Google

by Mike Butcher on November 13, 2009

As Microsoft shed its beta tag for the launch of the UK version of Bing today, TechCrunch Europe has learnt that it held a secret meeting with a group of big European publishers, mainly newspapers.



Moving steadily toward the model I've been describing for years. Watch how the debate in the comments plays out...

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/11/13/2329235/Time-To-Ditch-Cable-For-Internet-TV?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV?

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 13, @07:55PM from the slowly-but-surely dept.

itwbennett writes

"A flurry of announcements from YouTube, Boxee, Dell and Clicker on Thursday brought good news for anyone considering canceling their cable service in favor of internet TV. First, YouTube announced that within the next few days it will start offering full 1080P HD streams; better than your cable company can offer. Next, Boxee announced a 'Boxee Box' that promises to make it easier to get the content off your computer and onto your TV. Or you could hook up Dell's Inspiron Zino HD instead. 'This is an 8" x 8" PC running Windows 7 (with an option for Ubuntu) that you certainly could use as a desktop machine, but the form factor just screams 'Hook me up to your TV!' via its HDMI port,' says Peter Smith. And, last but not least in this roundup of announcements is the launch of Clicker, a programming guide for internet TV that aims to help you find what you want, when you want it."



Hi there! We're the department of defense. Let's twitter and friend each other before we bomb you back to the stone age.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022790.html

November 13, 2009

Directory of DoD Social Media

Directory of DoD Social Media Links: "The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense of the linked web sites, or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) sites, the United States Department of Defense does not exersise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. All links are provided consistent with the mission of Defense.gov." [via Wired Danger Room]



Do you suppose this would work (i.e. That I could make money) in other disciplines like law, computer security, etc.?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10397758-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Medpedia to best the more democratic Wikipedia?

by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore November 13, 2009 6:43 PM PST

Medpedia, a collaborative project for medical information launched in February, is getting beyond the medical-data basics as it adds answers, alerts, and analysis.

… While Medpedia uses the open-source software Mediawiki (also used by Wikipedia), it is less collaborative than the vast encyclopedia site, allowing only physicians and Ph.D.s approved by an editor to contribute to and edit articles. (The less medicine-literate masses are allowed to create accounts and suggest changes, but not actually make them.)



Another tool for finding videos to show my students.

http://www.clicker.com/

Clicker is the complete guide to Internet Television. Our mission is to make it simple for you to find the right show, right now.



For those of us who teach...

http://teachingcollegemath.com/?p=1772&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TeachingCollegeMath+%28Teaching+College+Math%29

Best of the Ed Tech Freebies

… You can access all the links for all the programs in a Zumlink here.

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