Is
it worth it to China? Probably. On the other hand, Vietnam may not
be able to afford this fight – doesn't mean they won't fight
anyway. Reads a bit like European colonialism – see an asset,
claim it, dare anyone to argue. (Works in Russian too)
China
evacuates thousands of citizens from Vietnam after deadly attacks
China
has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam and is
sending ships to retrieve more of them after deadly anti-Chinese
violence erupted last week over a territorial dispute between the two
countries.
… Foreign
factories, particularly those run by companies from China and Taiwan,
were burned and looted by rioters outraged over Beijing's decision to
send an oil rig into waters of the South China Sea that both
countries claim as sovereign territory.
Lots
of individuals or a global organization? Not clear how many targeted
were users vs. dealers.
Danny Yadron and
Christopher Matthews report:
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation and foreign police agencies have
launched a series of raids around the world at the homes of people
linked to a type of hacking software called Blackshades, according to
posts on hacker forums and people familiar with the investigation.
The
software is what experts call a “rat”—remote access tool—that
allows people to control computers from a distance. The targets of
the raids are suspected of buying and selling Blackshades and were
subjected to searches and seizures in recent days, according to
people familiar with the case.
The
searches are part of a coordinated crackdown on an international ring
of suspected criminal hackers, according to the people familiar with
the probe. Federal prosecutors in New York plan to announce the
results of the raids as soon as Monday, said those familiar with the
situation.
Read more on WSJ.
[From
the article:
Blackshades
can be used for legitimate purposes, such as accessing a work
computer from home. When used for illegal means, however, it can
allow hackers to access files on a computer, track keyboard strokes
to learn passwords or even to take over a computer's camera.
Hackers
sometimes use the software to take over of a computer and then demand
a ransom to return control, said law-enforcement officials and
computer security experts.
… The
software is one of hundreds of hacking tools for sale in a "robust
arms bazaar," Mr. Kellerman said. "The elite hackers of
2014 have evolved to become developers of crime kits as there is an
economy of scale around the provision of cyberattack capabilities."
The
raids came in recent days and sometimes targeted students.
Worth
reading...
Rethink
The Right To Be Forgotten
There
are better ways to address discomfort with the truth than
government-mandated lying.
The
"right to be forgotten," recognized in Article 17 of the
European Union's revision of its 1995 data protection rules, is at
once admirable and asinine.
Forgetfulness
is often a prerequisite for forgiveness, and there are many instances
when an individual or an organization deserves forgiveness. It
wouldn't be particularly helpful if a search for "IBM," for
example, returned as its top result a link to a website about the
company's business with the Nazi regime. Forgetfulness is enshrined
in judicial practices like the sealing of court records for juvenile
offenders. It has real social value.
European
lawmakers are right to recognize this, but their attempt to force
forgetfulness on Internet companies is horribly misguided. The right
to be forgotten will cause real social harm, to say nothing of the
economic and moral cost.
… According to the
BBC,
Google has received information removal demands from: an
ex-politician seeking reelection who doesn't want people to read
about his behavior while in office; a man convicted of possessing
child abuse images who doesn't want people to read about his
conviction; and a doctor who doesn't want people reading negative
reviews of his practice.
These individuals may
not have claims supported by Article 17, which allows data to be
retained for a legitimate purpose and is ostensibly not about erasing
history or restricting the press. But this is only the beginning of
an inevitable flood of such requests. And
because the law allows fines that can reach up to 5% of annual
revenue, companies are going to err on the side of caution.
In a Facebook post, EU
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding celebrated the court decision,
noting that "The data belongs to the individual, not to the
company. And unless there is a good reason to retain this data, an
individual should be empowered – by law – to request erasure of
this data."
Reding is asserting a
dangerous new intellectual property right here.
How much is too much?
Is there a reasonable limit to what a search engine – or any other
Internet service can demand in exchange for free access?
Google
Will Use Your Profile Information In Their Ads – Unless You Opt Out
Google
has just updated their terms of service allowing them to use your
Google profile information in their ads. Which is worrying, because
who really reads terms and conditions?
… what
Google fails to realise is that perhaps you don’t want your
“friends” to know that you have +1′d a new song or album.
I
don't see much in the article, but apparently this guy was sharing
(copyrighted?) files so the court thought it okay to share them with
the police? Again, what you do publicly isn't private.
FourthAmendment.com
notes this opinion from the Northern District of Georgia:
Several
courts have rejected the application of Jones to the investigation of
file sharing programs,” United States v. Brashear, Criminal No.
4:11-CR-0062, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163865, 2013 WL 6065326, at *3
(M.D. Pa. Nov. 18, 2013) (citations omitted), and the Court finds the
reasoning of these cases persuasive. The government did not use a
tracking device, such as at issue in Jones; instead, it merely
obtained information
publicly available on shared files via a software program that
connected with defendant’s computer on which defendant had
installed a file-sharing program.” United States v.
Dennis, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65694 (N.D. Ga. April 7, 2014).*
Perhaps
a really, really detailed outline of all possible approaches to
privacy regulation... Then we could say, “This law is a 2,7, 29b,
and a 34! and have some idea what it requires. (I would want to do
something like that if I was going to write a “lawyer replacement”
App.
From Hogan Lovells
Chronicle of Data Protection:
Internet
service providers, social media websites, search engines, and other
online companies hosting user-generated content that do business in
Brazil or collect information online from Brazilian consumers should
be aware of the “Marco Civil da Internet,” or Brazilian Internet
Law, that takes effect 23 June 2014. As detailed
in an alert published by attorneys from the Hogan Lovells Washington,
D.C., São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro offices, while Brazil still
does not have a comprehensive privacy law, the Brazilian Internet Law
contains privacy requirements that broadly restrict these companies
from the sharing of users’ personal information, their
communications, and certain online logging data. Covered companies
will, however, be required to retain Web logs for a period of time
and protect the user-related information they hold.
Read more on Chronicle
of Data Protection.
“It's for the
children!” No, wait I mean..
“There are some
things man was not meant to know!” No, that's not it either...
“Governments have
valid reasons for keeping military capabilities secret.” There, I
like that one. What do you mean, “Citizens aren't the enemy”
How do we know that until we surveil them for a few lifetimes?
Trevor Timm writes:
If
you blinked this week, you might have missed the news: two Senators
accused
the Justice Department of lying about NSA warrantless
surveillance to the US supreme court last year, and those falsehoods
all but ensured that mass spying on Americans would continue. But
hardly anyone seems to care – least of all those who lied and who
should have already come forward with the truth.
Read more on The
Guardian.
Is this what got the
Executive Editor fired? If so, perhaps every CEO and Board member
should read it and consider where they are...
Commentary
on the impact of the leaked New York Times Innovation Report
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on May 17, 2014
Joshua
Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab, May 15, 2014:
“There are few things that can galvanize the news world’s
attention like a change in leadership atop The New York Times. Jill
Abramson’s ouster yesterday afternoon probably reduced
American newsroom productivity enough to skew this quarter’s GDP
numbers. We don’t typically write about intra-newsroom politics at
Nieman Lab, leaving that to Manhattan’s very capable cadre of media
reporters. But Abramson’s removal and Dean Baquet’s ascent has
apparently inspired someone inside the Times to leak one of the most
remarkable documents I’ve seen in my years running the Lab, to
Myles
Tanzer at BuzzFeed. It’s the full
report of the newsroom innovation team that was given
six full months to ask big questions about the Times’ digital
strategy. (A summary version of it was leaked
last week, but this is the big kahuna.)
[From
BuzzFeed:
“They are ahead of us
in building impressive support systems for digital journalists, and
that gap will grow unless we quickly improve our capabilities,” the
report warns. “Meanwhile, our journalism advantage is shrinking as
more of these upstarts expand their newsrooms.”
“We are not moving
with enough urgency,” it says.
Perspective.
(Infographic)
How
Do You Internet?
Did you know that 93%
of all Internet users begin their session with a Web search? Do you
do the same? Two thirds of
all search engine users believe that search engines are unbiased,
but do you really know how
search engines work? Worst of all, this infographic indicates
that Internet Explorer is still being used by 57.88% of online users
– shocking, but somehow
correlates with our poll results.
For
my students.
Everything
You Need To Know About Unlocking iPhones
If you bought your
iPhone direct from Apple, you’ve
got an unlocked phone that’s good for use with any carrier.
But what if
you bought it second-hand, through a network provider or on a
contract?
There’s a good chance
your carrier wants to limit what you can do with the hardware they
have supplied you, and that means keeping you as a customer by simply
denying access to other networks. Don’t stand for this telco
nonsense – take the power back.
My weekly shot of
education humor!
… The Obama
Administration has unveiled a new $75
million fund to “spur innovation in higher education.”
[Can I get my students a
grant? TBD Bob]
… “MOOCs:
Expectations and Reality” (PDF):
“To date, there has been little evidence collected that would
allow an assessment of whether MOOCs do indeed provide a
cost-effective mechanism for producing desirable educational outcomes
at scale. It is not even clear that these are the goals of those
institutions offering MOOCs.”
… Oops. “Emory
University server accidentally sends reformat request to all
Windows PCs, including itself.” [One
way to hide the evidence... Bob]
… The Kansas
Board of Regents has finalized
its new social media policy restricting what public employees,
including university professors, can say, including anything
“contrary to the best interests of the university.”
… Google
chairman Eric Schmidt has been appointed to a
three-person commission to advise
New York on the use of technology in schools. God, I’m so glad
that there’s no insidery bullshit in ed-tech.
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