Based on the number of articles, this
is going to be a biggie.
Reflections
on the Oral Argument in United
States v. Jones, the
GPS Fourth Amendment Case
November 8, 2011 by Dissent
Orin Kerr comments on oral arguments in
United States v. Jones, the GPS case argued before the Supreme Court
this morning:
1) My basic
reaction was that the outcome was too close to call. The Justices
gave both sides a very hard time, and few Justices tipped their hand.
The Justices pushed Michael Dreeben (arguing for the United States)
on the consequences of his argument: If the Government was right,
they noted, then the government can install a GPS device on all the
Justices’ cars and watch them, too, along with everybody else.
They pushed Steve Leckar (arguing for Jones) on the difficulty of
identifing a clear Fourth Amendment principle to distinguish visual
surveillance from GPS surveillance. The votes were hard to count,
but if you had to summarize a reaction of the Court as a whole, I
would say that the Justices were looking to find a principle to
regulate GPS surveillance but unconvinced (at least as of the
argument) that there was a legal way to get there without opening up
a Pandora’s Box of unsettling lots of long settled practices.
2) The Justice who
most clearly showed his cards was Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia
made clear that he would overrule Katz v. United States;
make common law of trespass the test for what is a search; and say
that the installation of the device was a search because it was a
technical trespass.
Read more on The
Volokh Conspiracy.
(Related)
More
reactions to this morning’s oral argument at SCOTUS
November 8, 2011 by Dissent
Another helpful write-up on oral
argument this morning in United States v. Jones – this one
by Kashmir Hill of Forbes, who starts her piece:
The Supreme Court
justices were decked out in their usual black robes today for a case
involving the question of whether police need to get a warrant in
order to attach a GPS tracker to someone’s car. But given their
paranoia about possible technology-enabled government intrusions on
privacy, it might not have been surprising if they had also been
wearing tin foil hats.
Read more on Forbes.
Personally, I don’t think I’d describe concerns about widespread
government intrusion on privacy as “paranoid,” but I’m
unabashedly a “privacy wonk.” I think some of the justices got
it exactly right: if the government prevails, there is nothing that
stops the government from monitoring our movements in public 24/7/365
if they feel like investing in the technology – no warrant
required.
The transcript of this morning’s oral
argument can be found here
and it makes for a fascinating read.
I think this is a first also...
Online
Advertiser Settles FTC Charges ScanScout Deceptively Used Flash
Cookies to Track Consumers Online
November 8, 2011 by Dissent
Online advertiser ScanScout has agreed
to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceptively
claimed that consumers could opt out of receiving targeted ads by
changing their computer’s web browser settings to block cookies.
In fact, ScanScout used Flash cookies,
which browser settings could not block. The proposed settlement bars
misrepresentations about the company’s data-collection practices
and consumers’ ability to control collection of their data. It
also requires that ScanScout take steps to improve disclosure of
their data collection practices and to provide a user-friendly
mechanism that allows consumers to opt out of being tracked.
… According to the FTC complaint,
from at least April 2007 to December 2010, ScanScout’s website
privacy policy discussed how it used cookies to track users’
behavior. The privacy policy stated, You can opt out of
receiving a cookie by changing your browser settings to prevent the
receipt of cookies.” However, changing browser settings
did not remove or block the Flash cookies used by ScanScout, the FTC
charged. The claims by ScanScout were deceptive and violated the FTC
Act, the complaint alleged.
Source: FTC
Related case materials: In
the Matter of ScanScout, Inc., a corporation; FTC File No.
1023185
“Thank you for helping us make a
safer product!” NOT!
Apple
expels serial hacker for publishing iPhone exploit
November 8, 2011 by Dissent
Dan Goodin reports:
Charlie Miller,
the serial hacker who has exposed more than a dozen critical
vulnerabilities in Apple’s Mac and mobile platforms, was kicked
out of the company’s iOS developer program after publishing an
application that demonstrated a serious new bug in iPhones and iPads.
Miller’s
InstaStock app, which was accepted into the iTunes App Store in
September, bills itself as a program that tracks stock prices in real
time. On Monday, Miller announced that the app contained a secret
hack that bypassed protections built into iOS devices that prevent
code from running on them unless it has been signed by Apple’s
official cryptographic seal.
As a result,
Miller was able to endow InstaStock with powerful capabilities that
were never approved during the app store application process,
including the ability to remotely download pictures and contacts
stored on an iPhone or iPad that has the app installed.
Read more on The
Register.
Ah, my fears about apps have been
reinforced, it seems. Although Miller may be one of the good guys,
who knows what else is going on out there?
So, we can pass a new law that
overrides EU law?
Updated
European law will close Patriot Act data access loophole
November 8, 2011 by Dissent
Zack Whittaker reports:
European lawmakers
have been revising and updating the data protection laws that apply
to all 27 European member states, after it was
discovered that the United States can use the Patriot Act to access
European citizens’ data without their consent.
The European
Commission’s justice commissioner Viviane Reding met with German
Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner, discussed
the new directive yesterday and outlined plans for the updated
law to compel any non-European company — with customers or clients
within Europe — to comply with European regulations.
Read more on ZDNet.
Local (...and in its spare time, it
will host “Leisure Suit Larry”)
IBM
picked to supply Wyo. climate supercomputer
IBM has beaten out three competitors
and won a bid to supply one of the world's most powerful
supercomputers for use in climate research at a new facility in
Cheyenne.
The supercomputer, to be called
Yellowstone, will begin running computations next summer for
scientists associated with the Boulder, Colo.-based National Center
for Atmospheric Research, NCAR announced Monday.
The machine will be capable of 1.6
petaflops. That's 1.6 quadrillion operations per second — or more
than 221,000 calculations per second for every man, woman and child
on Earth — making it 30 times more powerful than the machine
currently in use at NCAR's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder.
Curious, because it was never about
taking a picture, was it? It was about having the print
"Long before Facebook and
Twitpic, photos were shared by simply handing someone a print. No
camera made this easier than the once-ubiquitous Polaroid. Nothing
represented instant gratification better in the film era than having
a print develop before your eyes, ready to hand out in a minute.
Unfortunately for Polaroid, the advent of digital photography sounded
the death knell for its iconic instant print cameras. A brief
reprieve in the form of inexpensive sticker-printing versions was
ended by the cellphone camera revolution. Now, after a decade in
remission, Polaroid has returned with a
full-up digital camera that incorporates instant printing technology.
The Polaroid Z340 is a 14MP digital with an integrated Zink-enabled
(Zero Ink) printer. In a nostalgic touch, the new camera prints
3×4-inch images, the same size as the original Polaroid film
cameras. Remarkably, all this fits in a one-pound, seven-ounce
package, about the same weight as a mid-range DSLR."
Dr. Michelle Post send me this list.
Michelle is an expert on the technology of teaching...
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