If you were not at the Privacy
Foundation Seminar yesterday, shame on you. Nothing beats having the
people who are actually involved with the topics under discussion
exchanging information. It was probably educational but definitely
amusing – what could be more fun than watching lawyers argue
hypothetical scenarios that involve technology they almost
understand.
(Related) This is one of the Privacy
related topics debated at the seminar... It's interesting to see
that the NJ judge reached the same conclusions as some of the
lawyers on the panel.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20120510/NJNEWS/305100032/Judge-Cellphone-password-off-limits?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE&gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Judge:
Cellphone password off-limits
A tractor-trailer driver allegedly
found with 364 pounds of marijuana in his rig in Mount Olive cannot
be forced to reveal the password to unlock his Nextel BlackBerry
phone, a judge ruled Thursday.
State Superior Court Judge Stuart
Minkowitz, sitting in Morristown, found that suspect J. Arturo
Vergara’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination
would be violated if authorities compelled him to testify, in effect,
by disclosing the password to his BlackBerry.
… The judge noted that, under
certain circumstances, a person could be required to give up a
password or decrypt a computer hard-drive for police. But those
circumstances involve proof that the device absolutely belongs to the
suspect and independent information that makes it a “foregone
conclusion” that evidence will be found on the device.
Perhaps they can “notify” users by
changing their “Status” from “Mr. Friendly” to “Stalker”
Facebook
Fleshes Out Privacy Policy To Comply With Data Protection Audits,
Will Hold Q&A On Monday
May 12, 2012 by Dissent
John Constine reports:
Today Facebook
will start sending the first of three billion notices
to users about proposed
changes to its privacy policy, which were made to comply with a
Spring deadline for implementing recommendations from an audit
by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner. The three biggest
changes Facebook’s
Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan told me about when we
spoke this morning are several clarifications of
existing but sometimes vague policies:
- A clarification regarding Facebook’s existing policy that it may use your data to serve you ads outside of Facebook.com while you’re on other websites
Read more on TechCrunch,
while I mull over Facebook’s “clarification” that it can follow
you around on other web sites to serve you ads based on your data.
Kash Hill has more on this on Forbes.
Another “audit failure”
May 11, 2012
DHS
OIG - U.S. Customs and Border Protection Privacy Stewardship
U.S.
Customs and Border Protection Privacy Stewardship, OIG-12-78,
April 2012
- "CBP has made limited progress toward instilling a culture of privacy that protects sensitive personally identifiable information. This is in part because it has not established a strong organizational approach to address privacy issues across the component. To strengthen its organizational approach to privacy, CBP needs to establish an Office of Privacy with adequate resources and staffing and hold Assistant Commissioners and Directors accountable for their employees’ understanding of and compliance with their privacy responsibilities. In addition, CBP needs to improve its compliance with Federal privacy laws and regulations. Specifically, it needs to develop a complete inventory of its personally identifiable information holdings, complete privacy threshold analyses for all systems, and develop accurate system of records notices for its systems. CBP also needs to ensure that privacy impact assessments are conducted for all personally identifiable information systems."
This should not be a surprise. They
took the money for rural phone access and did nothing there either.
AT&T,
Feds Neglect Low-Price Mandate Designed to Help Schools
At the dawn of the Internet era,
Congress set out to avert a digital divide between rich and poor
students. In a landmark bill, lawmakers required the nation’s
phone companies to provide bargain voice and data rates to schools
and to subsidize the cost of equipment and services, with the biggest
subsidies going to the schools with the most disadvantaged children.
More than a decade later, as schools
struggle for funding amid widespread budget cuts, there is growing
evidence that the program’s crucial low-price requirement has been
widely neglected by federal regulators and at least one telecom
giant.
A decade after the program started,
AT&T was still not training its employees about the mandatory low
rates, which are supposed to be set at the lowest price offered to
comparable customers. Lawsuits and other legal actions in Indiana,
Wisconsin, Michigan and New York have turned up evidence that AT&T
and Verizon charged local school districts much higher rates than it
gave to similar customers or more than what the program allowed.
Of course they do. And of course they
must deny or “no comment” the relationship.
Court
Upholds Google-NSA Relationship Secrecy
A federal appeals court on Friday
upheld the National Security Agency’s decision to withhold from the
public documents confirming or denying any relationship it has with
Google concerning encryption and cybersecurity.
That’s despite the fact that Google
itself admitted it turned to “U.S. authorities,” which obviously
includes the NSA, after the search giant’s Chinese operation was
deeply hacked. Former NSA chief Mike McConnell told the Washington
Post that collaboration between the NSA and
private companies like Google was “inevitable.”
A point in the technical/legal debate
yesterday. If everyone is using location services, can they argue
that they didn't know they could be tracked?
May 11, 2012
Pew
- Three-quarters of smartphone owners use location-based services
Mobile,
Social Networking Three-quarters of smartphone owners use
location-based services, by Kathryn Zickuhr, May 11, 2012
- "A new report finds that 74% of smartphone owners use their phone to get real-time location-based information, and 18% use a geosocial service to “check in” to certain locations or share their location with friends. Over the past year, smartphone ownership among American adults has risen from 35% of adults in 2011 to 46% in 2012. This means that the overall proportion of U.S. adults who get location-based information has almost doubled over that time period, from 23% in May 2011 to 41% in February 2012. The percentage of adults who use geosocial services like Foursquare has likewise risen from 4% in 2011 to 10% in 2012."
I wonder if they are more concerned
with the hackers or the politicians reaction to the hackers...
More
Americans Worried About Cybarmegeddon Than Terrorism, Study Finds
More Americans want the presidential
candidates to focus on protecting the government and the electrical
grid against hackers than fighting terrorism groups.
That’s according to a new
security study by Unisys (.pdf), which found that the three
highest priorities for Americans when it comes to security issues in
the presidential campaign are:
- Protecting government computer systems against hackers and criminals (74 percent)
- Protecting our electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks (73 percent)
- Homeland security issues such as terrorism (68 percent)
Tools for teachers?
Video
Collaboration Service TenHands Launches Free Browser-Based WebEx
Competitor
As the capabilities of modern browsers
expand and developing standards like Google’s WebRTC
initiative for real-time communications slowly find their way into
most popular browsers, we’ll likely see more video collaboration
software that’s currently still client-based move to the browser as
well. TenHands, which is
launching its private beta today (you can request an invite here)
wants to be the first out of the gate in this market and sees itself
as a direct competitor to Cisco’s
WebEx, Microsoft
Lync and other incumbents in this space. The service offers free
video conference calls, screensharing, as well as built-in
support for sharing documents from your desktop and Box.net.
As for pricing, TenHands’ COO and
co-founder Jack Blaeser told me earlier today, the company is
planning to use a freemium model after the beta phase ends. Users
will get three free hours of usage per month and will have
to pay $10/month if they need more time.
Interesting. “Learn anywhere, pay
for credit here.” One possible “Future of education?”
Groups
Team Up to Turn Free Online Courses Into Cheap College Credit
The Saylor Foundation has been building
an online catalog of free,
self-paced college courses since 2010. But students who completed
those courses could not typically earn credit toward a degree, since
the nonprofit group is not an accredited institution. Saylor’s new
partnership with the online course-provider StraighterLine seeks to
change that, giving students an inexpensive way to earn academic
credit using freely available materials.
The collaboration, announced today,
will give students two different ways to save money when pursuing
academic credit. Beginning in the fall, students can study free
courses on Saylor.org and then enroll at StraighterLine to take an
exam. After passing, they will receive American Council on Education
recommended credit. Students could also enroll in a StraighterLine
program, using Saylor’s free course materials as they go along.
You still need more artistic talent
than I have...
Infographics are all over the web right
now because they can be great for displaying and sharing information.
If you have wanted to try making infographics or try having your
students make them, but were worried that you needed to possess some
talent for design, you need to try Easel.ly.
… Easel.ly provides a canvas on
which you can build your own infographic by dragging and dropping
pre-made design elements. You can use a blank canvas or build upon
one of Easel.ly's themes. If Easel.ly doesn't have enough pre-made
elements for you, you can upload your own graphics to include in your
infographic. Your completed infographic can be exported and saved as
PNG, JPG, PDG, and SVG files. Watch the video below for an overview
of Easel.ly.
Did you ever smack yourself upside the
head when you realized you missed a great opportunity? (Far greater
than “I could have had a V8”) This one nearly gave me a
concussion!
GoGoFantasy
Is A New Kinkstarter For Porn
GoGoFantasy
is a patent-pending system for crowdfunding porn. Folks with
fetishes, grandmas with groin urgings, and couples into copulating
can create projects and request cash in return for filming certain
acts. For example, one young lady will mount two cameras in a small
plane and film her activity in the cabin. And she won’t be reading
her Kindle and eating peanuts, if you catch my meaning.
… the creators of GoGoFantasy have
patented their idea so expect to see some delightful lawsuits in the
future