Stay up to date...
… It was recently revealed that
there may be a large Zero-day exploit causing problems for IE users.
If an Internet Explorer user visits a malicious site that exploits
this security hole, the results could be quite bad for them. This
issue will not cause a problem for users of Internet Explorer 10.
Only users running IE version 7,8, or 9 on a machine running Windows
XP, Vista or 7 are at risk.
Essentially, with this Zero-day exploit
an outside party could gain control over the infected machine and
have the same privileges and access as the current user.
Like “situational ethics” Privacy
based on specific technologues rather than “inalienable rights”
is backwards... Isn't it?
On
Reverse Engineering Privacy Law
September 18, 2012 by Dissent
Omer Tene writes:
Michael
Birnhack, a professor at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, is
one of the leading thinkers about privacy and data protection today
(for some of his previous work see here
and here
and here;
he’s also written a deep, thoughtful, innovative book in Hebrew
about the theory of privacy. See here).
In a new article, Reverse
Engineering Informational Privacy Law, which is about to be
published in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Birnhack sets
out to unearth the technological underpinnings of the EU
Data Protection Directive (DPD). The DPD, enacted in 1995 and
currently undergoing a process of thorough review, is surely the most
influential legal instrument concerning data privacy all over the
world. It has been heralded by proponents as
“technology neutral” – a recipe for longevity in a
world marked by rapid technological change. Alas,
Birnhack unveils the highly technology-specific fundamentals of the
DPD, thereby putting into doubt its continued relevance.
Read more on Concurring
Opinions.
For my Statistics students... Honest!
"The BBC has a fascinating
look into the music download habits of the UK population based on
stats compiled by Musicmetric.
The stats, gathered through the monitoring of BitTorrent swarms and
geo-locating the IPs, shows the hotspots for music copyright
infringement across the UK and regional preferences for certain types
of music. Some of the outliers are somewhat unusual though,
suggesting some problems with the methodology or sample size, unless
people on the Isle of Wight really do prefer trumpet-playing crooner
Louis Armstrong to the likes of Rihanna and Ed Sheeran who top the
lists nationwide. Not in the UK? There are some global stats on the
' Most
pirated near you? tab' of the story. Better
yet, if you want to crunch the numbers for
yourself all of the data has been made available at
the Musicmatch website
under the Creative Commons Attribution
Non-Commercial ShareAlike license and a RESTful
API to access the data (free for non-commercial use, but
requiring an API token) is also available."
How can you tell a lawyer is destined
for politics? They suck at actual lawyering...
Lawyer’s
Facebook postings cause mistrial in Miami-Dade murder case
September 17, 2012 by Dissent
David Ovalle reports on a mistrial
caused by a public defender’s inappropriate conduct on Facebook:
A Miami-Dade judge
declared a mistrial in a murder case Wednesday after a defense lawyer
posted a photo of her client’s leopard-print underwear on Facebook.
The defendant:
Fermin Recalde, accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death in
Hialeah in 2010.
Recalde’s family
brought him a bag of fresh clothes to wear during trial. When
Miami-Dade corrections officers lifted up the pieces for a routine
inspection, Recalde’s public defender Anya Cintron Stern snapped a
photo of Recalde’s briefs with her cellphone, witnesses said.
While on a break,
the 31-year-old lawyer posted the photo on her personal Facebook page
with a caption suggesting the client’s family believed the
underwear was “proper attire for trial.”
Although
her Facebook page is private and can only be viewed by her friends,
somebody who saw the posting notified Miami-Dade Judge Leon Firtel,
who declared a mistrial.
Read more on The
Miami Herald. Apparently, that wasn’t the PD’s only
imprudent conduct on Facebook in this case, and the judge did the
right thing, in my opinion. But apart from her being fired
immediately, I’d like to know if she will be facing charges with
the bar association. At the very least, it seems that a refresher
course in ethics would be in order. Or is it considered permissible
for a defense attorney to disparage or make fun of their clients
among friends?
Ovalle also mentions a few other cases
where mistrials have occurred because of lawyer or juror misconduct
involving social media.
(Related)
Facebooker
jailed for LOL car crash post
… As
Wave 3 TV in Kentucky relates it, Asher's post: "My dumbass
got a DUI and hit a car LOL" wasn't appreciated by the parents
of the teens who happened to be in the car she hit.
So, as
NBC News continues the story, Judge Mary Jane Phelps ordered her
to shut down her Facebook page.
Perish the concept, seemed to have been
her reply, one that cost her dearly. For her alleged omission in
shutting down her account led to the judge putting her in jail for
two days.
The charge? Contempt for humanity.
I'm sorry, I believe it may have been contempt of court.
Asher told Wave 3: "I didn't think
LOL would put me in jail."
Some would say the words "LOL
would put me in jail" were unnecessary in that sentence.
Perspective I keep trying to get the
concept of “large” datasets and “cloudy” (multiple and
dynamic) jurisdictions straight in my head.
"Google
has made public the details of its Spanner database technology, which
allows
a database to store data across multiple
data centers, millions of
machines and trillions of rows. But
it's not just larger than the average database, Spanner also allows
applications that use the database to dictate
where specific data is stored [pick
a jurisdiction? Bob] so
as to reduce latency when retrieving it. Making this whole concept
work is what Google calls its True Time API, which combines an atomic
clock and a GPS clock to timestamp data so it can then be synched
across as many data centers and machines as needed."
Original
paper. The article focuses a lot of the Time API, but external
consistency on a global scale seems to be the big deal here. From
the paper: "Even though many projects happily use Bigtable, we
have also consistently received complaints from users that Bigtable
can be difficult to use for some kinds of applications: those that
have complex, evolving schemas, or those that want strong consistency
in the presence of wide-area replication. ... Many applications at
Google have chosen to use Megastore
(PDF) because of its semi-relational data model and support for
synchronous replication, despite its relatively poor write
throughput. As a consequence, Spanner has evolved from a
Bigtable-like versioned key-value store into a temporal multi-version
database. Data is stored in schematized semi-relational tables; data
is versioned, and each version is automatically timestamped with its
commit time; old versions of data are subject to configurable
garbage-collection policies; and applications can read data at old
timestamps. Spanner supports general-purpose transactions, and
provides a SQL-based query language."
The Internet of Things. Crowd funding
allows us to see what customers want – or is this just geeky enough
for a few gadget freeks? (Should I buy the 100 bulb package?)
Kickstarter
project reimagines the lightbulb
… After all this time, lightbulbs
are still only able to do one thing, and do it well: emit light.
That's all about to change with the
launch of the LIFX
Kickstarter project, a WiFi enabled,
multi-color, energy-efficient LED light bulb that is
designed to integrate technology that allows you to control it with
your iOS or Android device. It's similar to how a NEST
thermostat integrates with your existing
heating system, but works in any of your lighting products around
your house.
The project is just
over 24 hours old and already it has achieved its $100,000 goal,
reaching $230,134 from 1,780 backers.
… The team have made a number of
different pledges available, with the $99 deal for two bulbs already
sold out. However, you can grab one for $69, pay $119 for two or
$196 for four. Distributors can also purchase a $5000 pack that
offer 100 bulbs, helping get the LIFX out to a wider audience.
Speaking oabout “what customers
want,” I like to know what percentage of teens werer sexualy active
in the 60's or (better) through the last century. (Or were Romeo &
Juliette truly scandalous?)
Teens
who sext more likely to be sexually active
After reviewing data from 1,839 14- to
17-year-old high-school students in Los Angeles, researchers are
confirming what may otherwise seem obvious: sexting
and sex go hand in hand.
… As for how many teens are
actually sexting, the data remains unclear, most likely because these
studies rely on self-reporting. While this most recent study out of
L.A. found that 15 percent of teens report having sexted, another
study in December of 2011 found
only 1 percent admitting to it, and yet another put the number at
20 percent.
Because a note (email, or tweet) is not
as staisfying as a good scream!
The Internet offers numerous
text-to-speech applications. But often you do not have any options to
control the computerized voice that gives a voice to the words you
type. An exception to this rule is the web app called LaloLi.
LaloLi is a free to use web service
that helps you create audio messages. You make these messages by
typing in your words and the application speaks them out loud in a
computerized voice. Unlike other similar text-to-speech apps,
LalolLi gives you control over the voice’s specifications such as
amplitude, pitch, speed, and word gap.
The play button can be used to hear
what you just typed with the new settings. When you type in the
words, the site URL is updated in the address bar; you can copy it
from there and share it with your friends; alternatively you can
click on the Twitter, Facebook, BitLy, and Google+ buttons to share
the link with your friends.
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