No mention of a computer, but still an interesting insider job.

AU: Grave security breach of confidential police information puts informants at risk

Anthony Dowsley reports:

The lives of informers and police officers have been put at risk over the “gravest” of leaks from inside the force.

Police raids across Melbourne three weeks ago discovered volumes of confidential and sensitive police files dating back three years.

So far, a junior police officer from the northern metro region has been suspended without pay after sensitive police documents were found at three addresses.

Chief Commissioner Ken Lay today described the breach as “damaging and horrible”.

One of the locations raided had direct links to an outlaw motorcycle gang, and some of the files involved organised crime.

Those most at risk are believed to be criminals who have co-operated with police.

Read more on The Telegraph.

Lot's of ways this could have been 'leaked' to the defense. How would they determine the leak was based on the stolen information?

Mystery over laptop stolen from psychologist whose testimony in the Jodi Arias murder trial poked holes in the accused murderer’s self-defense plea

From the Daily Mail:

The psychologist who testified in the Jodi Arias murder trial had her laptop stolen in February, just weeks before she was slated to testify in the highly publicized murder trial, a new report has revealed.

Dr Janeen Demarte told police that the computer contained notes that pertained to the murder trial.

Read more on Daily Mail

The notes were not encrypted, nor even password-protected according to the report. Even more disturbingly, this sounds like it might have been a targeted theft, as jewelry and cash were not taken.

Art, pornography, terrorism. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

"Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail

"A Methusen, Mass. high schooler, who goes by the rapper name 'Cammy Dee' has been arrested after posting lyrics that police felt were 'communicating terrorist threats.' This wouldn't be the first time rap lyrics were investigated, but if formally charged for 'communicating terrorist threats' this would a set a chilling low bar for terrorist investigations."

[From the article:

He faces up to 20 years in state prison if convicted on one count of making a bomb threat. [and he is being held without bail. Bob]

Everyone is curious. End of story.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his right to privacy

Shirie Leng, M.D., writes:

I am affiliated with the institution where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is currently hospitalized. I am friends with people who have treated him. I’m trying to stay away from those people; I would be unable to help asking them about him. They might be unable to help talking about him.

There has been a flurry of emails and red-letter warnings cautioning people here not to talk about Mr. Tsarnaev or look him up on the EMR (electronic medical record) system. Despite this, there have been leaks of information and photos from various sources. It is virtually impossible to keep people from asking about him and talking about him. Curiosity is human nature. When human nature comes up against morals and laws, human nature will win a good percentage of the time.

Read more on KevinMD.

Why we will never, ever be able to ban drones.

Duuude, Finally: Drones That Deliver Beer

This August, drones will drop payloads all over South Africa's OppiKoppi music festival, and there's a good chance no one will mind. Probably because the payload is beer.

Customers thirsty for beer will order beer with their phones, then someone will attach a parachute to a beer, load that beer into an octorotor, and the octorotor will fly overhead, release the beer, and the beer parachutes to the person who ordered it (hopefully).

For test flights, the drone is remotely piloted, but the goal is to make the process far more autonomous, with drones flying themselves to coordinates on a GPS delivery grid.

(Related) No doubt we'll need a new law.

http://www.kirotv.com/ap/ap/defense/9-inch-helicopter-stuck-in-ohio-courthouse-statue/nXgsJ/

9-inch helicopter retrieved from Ohio statue

… After a week of back-and-forth about who was responsible for retrieving the device, how it could be done and how much it would cost, it took nothing more than a man hanging out of a window with a long pole to fetch the 2-pound, 9-inch device, which is equipped with a camera and cost $1,500.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that the device was recovered Saturday, a week after it flew into the Lady Justice statue on top of the courthouse, coming to rest on the hilt of her sword more than 100 feet off the ground.

… "Look," the sheriff told The Columbus Dispatch. "Let's put this in perspective. He ran a helicopter into county property. It's no different than if someone hit the courthouse with their car. We took a report. We're done."

The ultimate threat? I bug you daily with my blog, but the dose is small. Imagine a whole book of “Bob quotes” – perhaps in time to be a stocking stuffer at Christmas?

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/05/three-ways-to-your-blog-into-book.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Three Ways to Your Blog Into a Book

The end of the school year is quickly approaching. If your students have been blogging all year one way to show them, their parents, and others how much they've written is to turn the blog into a book. Here are a few methods for turning a blog into a book.

1. If you have a relatively small number of posts (25 or so) you could just copy and paste the text into a Word, Pages, or Google Drive document. Then you can export it as a PDF and or print it.

2. BlogBooker is a free service that allows you to turn your the contents of your Blogger blog into a PDF. Using BlogBooker is a fairly straight-forward process. BlogBooker walks you through each step of the process except for the very first step which might sound a little too "techy" for some Blogger users, but it's actually quite easy. The first step in using BlogBooker is to export the contents of your blog as an XML file. This is actually easy to do in Blogger. Step one is to open the "settings" menu of your Blogger blog. Step two is to select "export blog" under "basic" menu. Step three is to click "download." Don't worry, exporting the contents of your blog will not remove any content from your blog. After you've completed the export process, jump over to BlogBooker and follow their directions for completing the transition from XML file to PDF.

3. Anthologize is a free WordPress plug-in that allows you to take your posts and arrange them into an ebook. Anthologize features a drag and drop interface for arranging the layout of your ebook. Anthologize will only work for self-hosted blogs not on WordPress.com blogs.