http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8619
School laptop spy case prompts Wiretap Act rethink
March 29, 2010 by Dissent
Nate Anderson reports:
When Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion school district installed remote control anti-theft software on student laptops, it had no intention of dragging Congress into a national debate about wiretapping laws and webcams—but that’s exactly what it got (in addition to some unwanted FBI attention and a major lawsuit). The key question: should the school’s alleged actions be made illegal under US wiretap law?
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee of Crime and Drugs schlepped out of DC today and wound up in Philadelphia’s US District Court, Courtroom 3B, to hold a field hearing on “video laptop surveillance.” The trigger issue was Lower Merion, which stands accused of using the anti-theft software to remotely peep on students using their own webcams, even outside of school hours.
The existing Wiretap Act already bans oral, wire, and electronic communications gathered without consent (unless a court orders it). “Oral” communication is clear enough, but “wired” communications also need to have an aural component, according to the law. And “electronic” communications only include data such as e-mails.
The upshot is that the Wiretap Act does not currently regulate silent video communication.
[...]
EFF lawyer Kevin Bankston blasted the current law in his testimony, telling the subcommittee this morning, “It makes no sense that if the Lower Merion School District’s administrators had eavesdropped on students’ conversations at home using the laptop’s microphone, or had intercepted a student’s private video chats, they would clearly be guilty of a felony violation of Title III, but surreptitious video surveillance is not regulated by the statute at all.”
Bankston called for an immediate change in the law, saying that webcams were “awesomely useful” but that “surreptitious video surveillance has become a pervasive threat.”
Read more on Ars Technica.
Electronic Health Record systems are not simple, but they will (eventually) be developed.
http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33812
The Evolving e-Prescribing Landscape
Full Document (PDF; 852 KB)
[From the document:
Our primary intent in this paper is to first provide you with some essential information regarding e-prescribing: a history and overview and a discussion of the e-prescribing process. Next we’ll present a more detailed treatment of the e-prescribing landscape, focusing on: the regulatory environment; marketplace strategies and stakeholder incentives; and some critical e-prescribing challenges. Finally, we’ll present some recommended next steps to consider in support of your organization’s efforts to achieve a financially and functionally successful e-prescribing implementation.
The nuclear option? My students will want one, but will the TSA allow them on planes?
Self-Destructing USB Stick
Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday March 30, @07:57AM
Hugh Pickens writes
"PC World reports that Victorinox, maker of the legendary Swiss Army Knife, has launched a new super-secure memory stick that sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible. The Secure Pro USB comes in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB sizes, and provides a variety of security measures including fingerprint identification, a thermal sensor, and even a self-destruct mechanism. Victorinox says the Secure is 'the most secure [device] of its kind available to the public.' The Secure features a fingerprint scanner and a thermal sensor 'so that the finger alone, detached from the body, will still not give access to the memory stick's contents.' While offering no explanation how the self-destruct mechanism works, Victorinox says that if someone tries to forcibly open the memory stick it triggers a self-destruct mechanism that 'irrevocably burns [the Secure's] CPU and memory chip.' At a contest held in London, Victorinox put its money where its mouth was and put the Secure Pro to the test offering a £100,000 cash prize ($149,000) to a team of professional hackers if they could break into the USB drive within two hours. They failed."
Colorado Tech is adding a class on the care and feeding of Cloud Computing (Buy or Lease, legal issues, return of data, etc.) About time the government started addressing it.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023883.html
March 29, 2010
Federal Cloud Computing Initiatives Gain Traction
Follow up to previous postings on cloud computing, see this i360Gov.com Special Report, April 2010 - Federal Cloud Computing Initiatives Gain Traction.
"The current administration recommends launching cloud computing pilot tests for applications ranging from communications and remote access, to virtual data centers, analytics/reporting, web portals, collaboration and both records and case management. And while U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra intends to shrink the total number of government IT initiatives, cloud computing remains a top priority. In fact, public sector investment in cloud computing will likely more than double in the next five years, according to a recent report by analyst firm INPUT in Reston, Va. As the federal government modernizes IT infrastructures, agencies are exploring cloud computing as a viable alternative to buying and maintaining additional servers and software. Industry observers cite the administration’s Open Government Directive and the apps.gov website as a prime example. NASA, meanwhile, launched Nebula, a home-grown cloud computing environment designed to let outside scientists contribute..."
(Related) No sooner do we recognize Cloud Computing as a viable paradigm when someone suggests it is obsolete. Of course, there's a bit of marketing involved here.
Hello, iPad. Hello, Cloud 2.
by Marc Benioff on Mar 29, 2010
… The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about repurposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential of the new computers and the new cloud—and because you have to reach this pinnacle). Finally, the industry is fun again.
Cloud 1 ————————————->Cloud 2
Type/Click———————————->Touch
Yahoo/Amazon—————————–>Facebook
Tabs——————————————>Feeds
Chat——————————————>Video
Pull——————————————->Push
Create—————————————->Consume
Location Unknown————————->Location Known
Desktop/notebook————————->Smart phone/Tablet
Windows/Mac——————————>Cocoa/HTML 5
(Related) This is worth reading. Tim often gets it right and is always a good read.
The State of the Internet Operating System
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 30, @09:24AM
macslocum writes
"Tim O'Reilly: "I've been talking for years about "the internet operating system", but I realized I've never written an extended post to define what I think it is, where it is going, and the choices we face. This is that missing post. Here you will see the underlying beliefs about the future that are guiding my publishing program as well as the rationale behind conferences I organize.""
Eventually, someone is going to get it right. Perhaps someone already has. But the lobbyists will never stop asking for changes.
EU Demands Canada Gut Its Copyright and Patent Laws
Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday March 30, @01:28AM
An anonymous reader writes
"Late last year, a draft of the European Union proposal for the intellectual property chapter of the Canada — EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement leaked online. The leak revealed that the EU was seeking some significant changes to Canadian IP laws. Negotiations have continued and Michael Geist has now obtained an updated copy of the draft chapter, complete with proposals from both the EU and Canada. He says the breadth of the demands are stunning — the EU is demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of Canadian IP laws including copyright, trademark, databases, patent, geographic indications, and even plant variety rights."
This is in the UK, but Warner Cable has offices here, perhaps my students would be interested in learning how to pirate movies? (So they could stop it of course...)
Warner Brothers Hiring Undercover Anti-Pirates
Posted by samzenpus on Monday March 29, @07:29PM
An anonymous reader writes
"TorrentFreak reports that Warner Brothers UK is hiring college students with an IT background to participate in an internship that will pit them against pirates on the world wide web in an effort to crack down on illegal digital distribution. The intern will literally be on the front-lines of the epic battle against pirated content, ensnaring users in incriminating transactions, issuing takedown requests, and causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the Internet."
I've used SharpReader for years. Probably time to upgrade.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-10-downloaded-rss-newsreader-apps-movers-shakers/
Top 10 Most Downloaded RSS Reader Apps [Movers & Shakers]
Monday, March 29, 2010
Free 33 Page Guide - Google for Teachers
… This guide avoids some of the obvious things, like using Google Docs for collaborative writing, and instead focuses on some of the lesser-used Google tools options like publishing an online quiz using Google Docs. In all there are 33 pages containing 21 ideas and how to instructions for creating Google Maps placemarks, directions creating and publishing a quiz with Google Docs forms, directions for embedding books into your blog, and visual aids for accessing other Google tools.
You can download the document from Yudu or DocStoc.
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