None of the possible
fixes look permanent. I wonder if clients could force a “Product
Recall?”
Richard Chirgwin
reports:
The
new year begins as the old year ended: with yet more vulnerabilities
turning up in consumer-grade DSL modems.
A
broad hint for any broadband user would be, it seems, to never,
ever enable any kind of remote access to the device that connects you
to the Internet. However, the hack published by
Eloi Vanderbeken at github, here,
resets devices to factory default, enabling a remote attack without
the password.
Vanderbeken
says the backdoor is confirmed in devices from Cisco (under both
Cisco and Linksys brands, the latter since offloaded to Belkin),
Netgear, Diamond, LevelOne and OpenWAG. According to a post
on HackerNews, the common link between the vulnerable devices is
that they were manufactured under contract by Sercomm.
Read more on The
Register.
Interesting way to
dodge the “Privacy Issue.”
In
late December, 2013 the Department of Defense released a database on
the military’s controversial Student Testing Program in 11,700 high
schools across the country. An examination of the complex and
contradictory dataset raises serious issues regarding student privacy
and the integrity of the Student Testing Program in America’s
schools.
The
data was released after a protracted Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request.
Pat Elder reports, in
part:
53%
of all students taking the ASVAB across the country did so under
Release Option 1. Students and parents may not determine which
release option is used; therefore they cannot opt out of releasing
the information individually. Just 15% of students taking the
ASVAB had Option 8 selected by school officials.
DoD
officials wash their hands of the privacy issue. “Whether or not a
school official seeks students’ or parents’ or guardians’
permission is entirely up to that school, and we don’t have
anything to say about that at all,” said Curtis Gilroy, the
Pentagon’s prior Director of Accession Policy during an NPR
Interview in 2010.
Read more on Global
Research.
The “victims” are
tainted. If there is a mug shot, you must be an ax murder! But
seriously, why can't they charge whatever they want to remove your
photo? If their business is based on the number (completeness) of
mugshots, removing any would harm their reputation. On the other
hand, if they act like extortionists, perhaps that's their business
model.
John Caniglia reports
that there’s been a settlement in one of the lawsuits filed over
online mug shots sites that require payment for removal of the mug
shot:
An
Ohio lawsuit that gained national attention over Internet sites that
make money off jail booking photos has been settled, though a
plaintiff’s attorney says he continues to seek out the owner of a
key player in the industry.
Three
residents sued companies in U.S. District Court in Toledo,
claiming the web sites, including BustedMugshots.com and
mugshots.com, post the photos and then charge people — in some
cases hundreds of dollars — to take them down.
The
lawsuit was one of several filed across the country involving the web
sites and their use of the photos. Others have been filed in
Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
The
notice of the settlement, filed Dec. 27, was signed by U.S. District
Judge Jack Zouhary but does not go into any detail.
Joseph
Centrich, an attorney for Citizens Information Associates LLC, said
the agreement called for his client to pay $7,500 and agree to stop
charging for the removal of the photos, something he said the company
already had done.
Read more on
Cleveland.com.
While I’m sure this
is good news for the plaintiffs, their suit was not able to address
the biggest web site involved, mugshots.com, as they are registered
in Belize could not be served in Ohio. And since this is a
settlement, we’re still without any precedent as to whether the
sites’ conduct was lawful or not – although that might not be a
bad thing should it turn out that the First Amendment might protect
their offensive behavior.
“There's an App for
fat!” Okay, not really an App, but this could be amusing. (From
MakeUseOf.com)
– allows you to find,
track and hopefully eat at the restaurants you see on your favorite
Food Network and travel shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Man
v. Food, Best Thing I Ever Ate, No Reservations, Top Chef and more.
With 30 shows and over 2,900 restaurants TV Food Maps is the most
comprehensive list of restaurants seen on TV you can find in a single
app.
It's what my students
do while I'm “flapping my lips.” (From MakeUseOf.com)
Console
Living Room Now Online
The Internet Archive
has added
a new section to its Historical Software Collection, with the
Console
Living Room making hundreds of retro games available to play
online directly in a Web browser. The line-up of games includes
Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Mario Bros, with more due to be added in
the future. This will hopefully include some of the classic
games that changed the world, but only time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment