Wednesday, October 03, 2012

I'm not going to say “I told you so!” Not often, anyhow. Q: Why did it take them 2 years to blow the whistle? A: There's a lot of money flowing to the states because of this program. Unfortunately, none of it flows to John Q. Public.
Intelligence effort named citizens, not terrorists – Senate report reveals uselessness of fusion centers for fighting terrorism
October 2, 2012 by Dissent
Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo of Associated Press reports:
A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone’s ability to control.
What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.
Read more on Yahoo!
Update: Huffington Post has uploaded a copy of the full report. [Broken link, see below Bob] But take your blood pressure medication before reading it because it is truly scathing and will infuriate anyone who is sick and tired of privacy and civil liberties being sacrificed while taxpayer dollars are wasted on useless programs that do not not protect us from terrorism.
The full report is HERE.


Perhaps we could have a Privacy Seminar and invite the Royal Family?
Kate Middleton and Privacy Law
October 2, 2012 by Dissent
Privacy law scholar Dan Solove writes:
The recent incident of paparazzi snapping photos of Kate Middleton sunbathing in the nude has sparked renewed attention to privacy law. According to the Washington Post: “The royals contend that the photos of Middleton — apparently taken by a single paparazzo — violate her privacy and that the photographer trespassed on the private French estate where she and Prince William were vacationing. The editor of the Italian magazine disputes the trespassing allegation, saying the photos were shot from a public road.”
Many pundits have said dismissingly that any legal action Middleton might take is essentially a fool’s errand and she shouldn’t have expected privacy. For example, Donald Trump has declared in a tweet that Middleton has “only herself to blame.” [..and The Donald should certainly know about Blame... Bob] According to a Washington Times editorial: “Princess Kate needs to remember there is no privacy, so keep your top on.”
These sentiments are the typical reactions to media invasions of privacy — people should expect no privacy whenever they are outside the confines of their homes. I contend that this view isn’t correct both descriptively and normatively.
Read more on Linkedin.


I can see swarms of high schoolers asking such intellectually stimulating questions as “Boxers or briefs, Mr. President?”
October 02, 2012
Government Agency Consortium Launches FOIAonline
"FOIAonline is a tool that allows both the public and agency staff to make, monitor, and manage FOIA requests from a single website. Requesters may choose to submit requests and file appeals by registering for an account. This will also allow requesters to track progress and communicate directly with agency staff. Prior to making a request, a searchable repository of records previously released may be reviewed to eliminate the need to make a new request. Agency staff can move requests between organizations, review documents for potential withholding, generate invoices and make referrals and consultations quickly to other partner agencies. Agency management will be pleased with the time saved to prepare the Annual Report to the Department of Justice, a standard report in FOIAonline. FOIAonline was developed by a small group of government agencies looking for ways to use technology to process FOIA requests in a cost-effective way. FOIAonline operates as a module of the eRulemaking system and, like eRulemaking, is managed by a Change Control Board of partner agencies. The current partner agencies are: Departments of Commerce and Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, National Archives and Records Administration, Merit System Protection Board and Federal Labor Relations Authority."


Perspective Sometimes, great business models are obvious – in retrospect.
The World's Largest Payment Platform Can Reach 2 Billion People
When Jana co-founder Nathan Eagle needed to connect to a cell carrier in the developing world, he'd come to meetings with a duffel bag full of cash and say that he wanted to buy airtime. For carriers who were taking on more customers than ever, but struggling with declining revenue per user, it was an irresistible sales pitch. The result, two years later, is that Jana is now the largest payment platform in the world.
Eagle describes Jana as an "opt-in mobile network" that pays users to fill out consumer surveys and try products. The company has access to 100% of the users on 237 cell carriers in 101 countries throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.
By 2004, there were more mobile subscribers in the developing world than in developed countries, and the gap has been widening ever since. In 2012, Jana estimates that of the 6.5 billion mobile subscriptions on Earth, 5 billion are in emerging markets. The World Bank estimates that 75% of the people on Earth have access to a mobile phone. According to the McKinsey Quarterly, three billion people are projected to move into the middle class in the next twenty-five years. Right now their mobile devices are in some respects the most direct way to reach them.
Eagle comes from an academic background--he has appointments at Harvard and MIT and once more than a year as a Fulbright professor in Kenya--and his roots lie in using technology for development and social good. Jana was born, in part, of Eagle's success in setting up a network in rural villages in Kenya for nurses to text in status reports on supplies of hospital blood banks.
Jana's network, which is connected directly to the computer systems used by mobile carriers around the world, doesn't send actual money; instead, it gives mobile-phone credit. In emerging markets, where, according to Eagle, the average user spends 8%-12% of his or her income on prepaid mobile service, that's almost as good as cash.
… Often, Jana links its promotions to purchases in the physical world. "In the Philippines, if you go out and buy a particular brand of candy bar, if you get three of your friends to also buy it, all of you get it for 50% off." says Eagle. "We can validate the purchase because 7-Eleven is now printing Jana IDs on every receipt they have. At any of 713 7-Elevens, it's on the receipt." In another promotion, consumers in Indonesia who purchased two or more Danone yogurt products got 5,000 rupiahs ($0.52) worth of airtime directly on their phones.


A business model that was not obvious...
Changemakrs Looks To Reinvent Inspirational Quotes For A More Social Web
A few months ago, former Facebooker Sacha Tueni and Matthias Wagner were working on a Twitter client. Yes, a Twitter client — several years after Tweetdeck launched and Seesmic pivoted toward being a social media reader. While their app Zerobird was good at filtering interesting content, investors weren’t biting. It was also going to be a long uphill battle in the app store and on Twitter’s increasingly politically complicated platform.
So they took some good advice to heart. Steve Jobs’ advice, in fact. They built a tribute site to the late visionary. It was spartan, with that famous photograph of him sitting in an unfurnished house. They overlaid some of his best advice on that picture.
The barebones site quickly went viral, accumulating 3 million pageviews in about 48 hours. Surprised by the response to such a simple concept, they redid it with other figures. They did it with Yoda, and got 300,000 visitors. Then they did it again with Albert Einstein, and immediately got 400,000 visitors. Again, they did it with Lady Gaga, and got 700,000 visitors with 16 percent of them clicking through to a music track.
Thus, a new idea was born. What if they built a platform where anybody could share and accumulate bits and pieces of aspirational wisdom? So they created Changemakrs, which is a site full of inspirational quotes from different people ranging from celebrities to intellectuals, and even entrepreneurs from this community. It’s in beta and invited members can piece together quotable advice from anyone else.


...and a business model to give the RIAA heartburn.
One of the biggest cost centers for streaming audio providers is royalties paid to artists and music publishers. Music streaming company Rdio has announced a plan that will see it pay musicians a significant amount of money for each new subscriber the artist brings to the streaming service. Rdio launched an Artist Program this week that will pay musicians as much as $10 per subscriber.


For my Statistics students...
October 02, 2012
BLS Launches Data Sets Finder Search Tool Launched in Beta
"Data Finder is a new search and navigation tool for BLS time series data available on the BLS website. Rather than searching individual data sets, Data Finder allows users to conveniently search multiple data sets all at once. Users can extract specific data by searching by keyword or by filtering through multiple topics, measures, and attributes. This tool is designed to eventually replace many of the existing query tools on data.bls.gov. It is being developed iteratively, and we plan to update the application on a regular basis. We therefore encourage feedback, which we will use to plan and prioritize enhancements. We want to make this product useful to you." [Codeword check: Are they saying there is data here that will embarrass politicians? Bob]

(Ditto)
"The phrase 'correlation does not imply causation' goes back to 1880 (according to Google Books). However, use of the phrase took off in the 1990s and 2000s, and is becoming a quick way to short-circuit certain kinds of arguments. In the late 19th century, British statistician Karl Pearson introduced a powerful idea in math: that a relationship between two variables could be characterized according to its strength and expressed in numbers. An exciting concept, but it raised a new issue: how to interpret the data in a way that is helpful, rather than misleading. When we mistake correlation for causation, we find a cause that isn't there, which is a problem. However, as science grows more powerful and government more technocratic, the stakes of correlation — of counterfeit relationships and bogus findings — grow larger."


For all my Intro to Security students...
We know what you're doing...
… queries Facebook's Graph API and outputs the results. There is nothing on this website that cannot be accessed by anyone else.

(Related) I suspect it is because we have not yet developed a culture of appropriate action (we ain't got no good examples)
"An article in the WSJ discusses why internet users are more rude online than they are in person. The story discusses some of the possible reasons. For example, a study found that browsing Facebook tends to lower people's self control. An MIT professor says people posting on the internet have lowered inhibitions because there is no formal social interaction. Another theory is that communicating through a phone or other device feels like communicating with a 'toy,' which dehumanizes the conversation. Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years."


Student cell phone rings. Professor grabs cell phone. Shoves it where the sun... Okay, maybe just a “No cell phones, please” sign.
There are several ways to make animated GIFs: You can use a bunch of pictures you took and combine them, you can create one on the go using a webcam, and you can take an existing video and turn it into an animated GIF. Most of the tools you’ll find below are meant for the first method. Turns out that by using a series of pictures you’ve taken yourself, or just some pictures you like, you can actually create some really beautiful things!


Geeky stuff?
YouTube is the undisputed king of online video, even though there are several willing (but somewhat lacking) competitors. With that in mind, a list of 10 technology YouTube channels you cannot afford to miss would seem to be appropriate.


Another list, with some Free Stuff!
15 Must Have Windows Utilities

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