Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Could this be the old double think, written in Chinese?
Man in Black: All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right... and who is dead.
Vizzini: But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You've made your decision then?
Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini: Wait till I get going! Now, where was I?
Cyberattack aims at government agencies in Asia, Europe
Officials at agencies across Europe and Asia have been receiving an e-mail that lists the Chinese Ministry of National Defense as the source, Trend Micro revealed on Monday. But in fact, the message seems to comes from a Gmail account and uses no Chinese name.
The e-mail itself is packed with a malicious attachment designed to exploit a weakness in all versions of Microsoft Office from 2003 through 2010. Microsoft actually patched this specific hole more than a year ago, so users with updated security should be safe.


Why do these need to be mobile rather than at fixed locations in each classroom?
Carroll ISD is Outfitting Teachers With GPS Tracking Devices
San Antonio's Northside ISD, which became the focus of national controversy when an intensely evangelical high school sophomore refused to wear her RFID-equipped student ID because it was the Mark of the Beast, is not the first school district to track students' whereabouts using geolocation technology, nor will it be the last. Despite the inevitable outcry, it's seen as a relatively effective way to boost attendance and, as a result, state funding.
… Southlake's Carroll ISD which, as CBS 11 reports, is buying 100 wearable tracking devices from a Dallas company, eTrak, as part of a pilot program aimed at improving safety.
The idea is that teachers and others can use the devices -- small black boxes that attach to a lanyard or key chain -- to call for help in an emergency. [Help! I've fallen and I can't get up! Bob]
… It does more than that, of course. It constantly tracks the user's location using GPS and Wi-Fi signals, whether they're in the classroom or sitting on a toilet. That Carroll ISD is testing the program on adult teachers, not students, makes the endeavor a bit less unsettling, but it's still raises difficult questions about privacy and the relationship between employer and employee. A position paper signed by the ACLU, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, and more than a dozen other civil liberties groups, worries that using tracking devices in schools violates civil liberties and dehumanizes wearers, pointing out that the same technology is used to track livestock.


NOT for my Ethical Hackers... Learn the value of the “Dark Side”
Brian Prince reports on what your health insurance plan numbers are worth when packaged with other details about you. Medical ID theft is a growing – and lucrative – market.


I could support metadata as a tripwire, but it seems this program was designed to be more intrusive.
Orin Kerr writes:
In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, my co-blogger Randy Barnett argues that massive-scale collection of communications metadata by the NSA violates the Fourth Amendment because it is an unreasonable seizure. Randy’s colleague Laura K. Donohue recently argued in the Washington Post that such collection violates the Fourth Amendment as an unreasonable search. Jennifer Granick and Chris Sprigman made a similar argument in the New York Times.
Are they right? Does obtaining all telephony metadata under Section 215 — and then querying the database — violate the Fourth Amendment?
In this post, I’ll start with current law, and I’ll explain why current law supports the conclusion that massive-scale collection of communications meta-data by the NSA does not violate the Fourth Amendment rights of its customers. I’ll then consider alternate views of the Fourth Amendment and explain the prospects and challenges of using the mosaic theory to get to a contrary result.
Read more on The Volokh Conspiracy.


“Here's what I should have said, if I wasn't afraid you'd send me to Guantanimo.”
Microsoft: U.S. Constitution is 'suffering' from NSA secrecy
Microsoft on Tuesday asked the Obama administration to allow it to reveal details about how it responds to orders from the U.S. government for user account data.
Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, sent a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric Holder this afternoon saying there is "no longer a compelling government interest" in preventing companies "from sharing more information" about how they respond. That's especially true, the letter said, when this information is likely to help "allay public concerns" about warrantless surveillance.


If I do it myself, no problem. If I contract with Aereo to do it for me, Aereo is the scum of the earth?
In another Aereo win, court refuses to rehear New York case
In another victory for Aereo, the controversial TV-over-the-Web startup, a federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to rehear an earlier decision allowing the service to continue in the New York City area.
The result was widely expected, as success in these kinds of petitions is rare, legal experts and industry watchers told CNET. Attention now turns to the main trial in this case to determine whether Aereo's service oversteps copyright law, as well as other suits elsewhere that the media industry is pitting against Aereo and Aereo-like services.
Aereo, which is backed by IAC Chairman Barry Diller, uses antenna/DVR technology to let consumers watch live, local, over-the-air television broadcasts on some Internet-connected devices, including the iPad and iPhone. That capability provoked a lawsuit from TV broadcast giants including NBC, ABC, Fox, and CBS (the parent of CNET), which allege that the service violates their copyrights and that Aereo must pay them retransmission fees.


No more, “I left my homework on my desktop at home.”
xCloud is an app that lets you sync your files (docs, music, videos etc) between your home PC and your mobile device (iPhone, iPad or Android device) and then access them anywhere anytime. You simply register for an account, install the app on your mobile device (it is available for iPhone and Android), install the server version on your PC, and then log in to the app at the same time.
… It is not necessary to keep your PC open all the time. You simply log in to xCloud from your smartphone and activate the “Wake over Internet” function, which wakes your PC when needed.
The app is available for Windows on the desktop and for iOS and Android platforms on the mobile.
Similar tools – Synx, Syncbox.

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