http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11607
Napolitano: Internet Monitoring Needed to Fight Homegrown Terrorism
June 19, 2010 by Dissent
The Associated Press reports:
Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
Read more on FOX News.
Danger, Will Robinson! If this is going to be used as a justification for more warrantless searches of communications of Americans, I hope that there will be an uproar and that people won’t buy into the same old arguments about sacrificing a little privacy for security.
Does this suggest that the schools have the technology to monitor student cellphones – or will they search the phones at the metal detector? Is porn sexting? (Is Miley Cyrus child porn?)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=11600
NYC Dept. of Education Going After Teen ‘Sexting’ — In The Home
June 19, 2010 by Dissent
Parents and schools struggle with the role technology plays in kids’ lives. But a new push to keep them safe has some saying it goes too far.
Schools now want to punish students caught “sexting” — no matter where they do it.
The Department of Education wants to ban both cyber bullying and sexting in New York City’s public schools at all times, even outside of school hours.
“We’ve always been respectful of first amendment rights. I think we’ll get the right balance here,” said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
Read more on CBS.
The NYC chapter of the ACLU will be all over this one, and rightfully so.
[From the article:
The proposal would let a principal do anything from hold a parent conference to expel for cyber bullying.
If you truly believe that government should control everything because individuals are too stupid can't, then this makes perfect sense.
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2938
How Democrats Killed Medical Privacy in Colorado
By Dissent, June 20, 2010 7:13 am
This commentary by Mike Krause was written in May, but I just came across it and thought it important enough to post, even late:
….. Take health care in Colorado. Last year, State Rep John Kefalas sponsored legislation that would have laid “the groundwork” for government-controlled health care, a.k.a. single-payer, to all Coloradans by 2011. It failed even in the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
This year, Kefalas and other Democratic legislators tried a different approach. HB 1330, the All-Payer Health Care Cost Database was signed into law by Governor Ritter on May 26. The bill grants unlimited power to the Executive Director of Health Care Policy and Financing to mandate the collection of any and all health care data, to conduct audits, to give the data to third parties without seeking permission, and to impose unlimited fines for refusing to provide data to the database.
Read more on Huffington Post.
[From the post:
The legislation is a frightening invasion of privacy because patients and providers have no say over whether the state may have, according to the bill, "access to individual information on physical functioning, medical treatment, supposed mental stability, marital problems, family structure, sexual habits, addictions, adherence to government health recommendations, and individual financial arrangements."
Kefalas bragged about the massive privacy invasion in a press release, "You can't manage what you can't measure." In other words the state must know the intimate details of your private medical records in order to "manage" your health care for you.
Since the packets are 'broadcast,' they hit your antenna unfiltered. If you examine them to filter out non-essential data (beyond that needed to establish that a given WiFi signal is unsecured and unique) aren't you basing that decision on publicly available data?
Why Google's Wi-Fi Payload Collection Was Inadvertent
Posted by kdawson on Saturday June 19, @02:32PM
Reader Lauren Weinstein found a blog post that gives a good, fairly technical explanation of why Google's collection of Wi-Fi payload data was incidental, and why it's easy to collect Wi-Fi payload data accidentally in the course of mapping Wi-Fi access points.
"Although some people are suspicious of their explanation, Google is almost certainly telling the truth when it claims it was an accident. The technology for Wi-Fi scanning means it's easy to inadvertently capture too much information, and be unaware of it. ... It's really easy to protect your data: simply turn on WPA. This completely stops Google (or anybody else) from spying on your private data. … Laws against this won't stop the bad guys (hackers). They will only unfairly punish good guys (like Google) whenever they make a mistake. ... [A]nybody who has experience in Wi-Fi mapping would believe Google. Data packets help Google find more access-points and triangulate them, yet the payload of the packets do nothing useful for Google because they are only fragments."
Is it time to push for a government-run infrastructure with any company allowed access for a fee?
Verizon Hints At Scrapping Unlimited Data Plans
Here's a functional business model that you could easily under bid.
Getty's Flickr Sales, Money Spinner Or Ripoff?
Posted by kdawson on Saturday June 19, @03:37PM
"Photo-sharing site Flickr is offering photographers a new way to cash in on their work. The 'Request to License' scheme allows renowned photo agency Getty to sell photos on behalf of Flickr members. Once part of the scheme, all of the user's photos will carry a Request to License link (users can't select certain photos to license in this way). People wishing to buy the photos are directed to Getty's staff, who 'will help handle details like permissions, releases, and pricing,' according to Flickr. However, the last time Getty sold images on behalf of Flickr members, it led to complaints that photographers were being exploited, with commission on photos as low as $1. So who's doing best out of the deal, photographers or Getty?"
[From the article:
Getty will negotiate prices on an individual basis, although the company's sample price chart shows fees ranging from £5 for a 170 x 113 pixel version of an image to £400 for a 5,616 x 3,744 pixel snap.
Why my Ethical Hackers hack.
Turning Attackers' Tools Against Them
Posted by kdawson on Saturday June 19, @08:19PM
"The BBC has an interesting Web security snippet from the SyScan 2010 security conference in Singapore. In a presentation, security researcher Laurent Oudot released details of bugs found in commonly used attack kits such as Neon, Eleonore, and Sniper. These loopholes could be exploited to get more information about the attackers, perhaps identifying them, stealing their tools and methods, or even following the trail back to their own computer."
This also has the advantage of clouding election fraud, since you can screw with more votes than people... The alternative is to stagger the elections so that each seat is decided in separate elections, like we do for the US Senate.
"Cumulative Voting" Method Gaining Attention
Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 20, @04:59AM
"The AP reports on a system of voting, called 'cumulative voting,' which was just used under court order in Port Chester, NY. Under this system, voters can apportion their votes as they wish — all to one candidate, one to each candidate, or any combination. The system, which has been used in Alabama, Illinois, South Dakota, Texas, and New York, allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes behind specific candidates. Courts are increasingly mandating cumulative voting when they deem it necessary to provide fair representation."
Wikipedia notes that cumulative voting "was used to elect the Illinois House of Representatives from 1870 until its repeal in 1980," without saying why the system was abandoned.
I find that when someone you frequently disagree with demonstrates an understanding of your field of expertise and reaches a conclusion you agree with, the paradigm shift can make you dizzy. Makes for lots of interesting quotes too.
The-times-they-are-a-changin’ is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty
Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia Concurring Opinion in City of Ontario, California v. Quon, 560 U. S. _ (June 17, 2010).
Justice Scalia may not be one of your favorite judges, but in this one line in Quon he sums up the core problem with the law today. Not surprising, he does so by borrowing from the unacknowledged poet laureate of our Age, Robert Allen Zimmerman (a/k/a Bob Dylan). Here is the context of this quote in this conucrring opinion to Quon:
Applying the Fourth Amendment to new technologies may sometimes be difficult, but when it is necessary to decide a case we have no choice. The Court’s implication, ante, at 10, that where electronic privacy is concerned we should decide less than we otherwise would (that is, less than the principle of law necessary to resolve the case and guide private action)—or that we should hedge our bets by concocting case-specific standards or issuing opaque opinions—is in my view indefensible. The-times-they-are-a-changin’ is a feeble excuse for disregard of duty.
… Lawyers and judges are not keeping up with technology and this failure is endangering our whole profession, indeed our whole way of life.
(Related)
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10838t.pdf
The Challenges of Managing Electronic Records
… as GAO has previously reported, records management has received low priority within the federal government. Prior reports have identified persistent weaknesses in federal records management, including a lack of policies and training.
… Electronic records are challenging to manage, especially as electronic information is being created in volumes that pose a significant technical challenge to the ability to organize and make it accessible. Further, electronic records range in complexity from simple text files to highly complex formats with embedded computational formulas and dynamic content, and new formats continue to be created. Finally, in a decentralized environment, it is difficult to ensure that records are properly identified and managed by end users on individual desktops (the “user challenge”)
Ore-Ida should buy Duracell, Idaho is the new Texas and Ireland is the new Middle East? Will it be cool for my students to carry potatoes in their pockets?
Potato-Powered Batteries Debut
Posted by kdawson on Saturday June 19, @10:46PM
"Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has just introduced what they're calling 'solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes.' In short, it's a potato-powered battery, and it's as real as you're hoping it is. The simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in developing nations."
[From the article:
In their research, they discovered a new way to construct an efficient battery using zinc and copper electrodes and a slice of your everyday potato. The scientists discovered that the simple action of boiling the potato prior to use in electrolysis, increases electric power up to 10 fold over the untreated potato and enables the battery to work for days and even weeks.
Because you will need it eventually.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/restore-windows-computer-factory-settings/
How To Completely Restore Your Windows Computer To Factory Settings
Because you need it NOW
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/identityfinder-secure-confidential-information/
IdentityFinder: Find & Secure Confidential Information On Your PC
For my Intro to Computer Security class
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/history-computer-viruses-worst-today-case-wondering/
A History Of Computer Viruses & The Worst Ones of Today [In Case You Were Wondering]
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