Now do you see why we recommend encryption?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=16747

NYC: Health Records Stolen From Van, 1.7 Million People Affecte

February 12, 2011 by admin

Susanna Griffee reports on a breach involving backup tapes stolen from a vehicle that had been left unattended:

The personal information of 1.7 million patients, hospital staff and associated employees was recently stolen, and city officials are notifiying potential victims to warn them about the loss of the files.

The files were reported stolen in late December from a van operated by GRM Information Management Services, when the driver left the van unattended and unlocked.

The city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation says the files contain personal health records along with names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other private information.

The affected facilities are Jacobi Medical Center, North Central Bronx Hospital, Tremont Health Center and Gunhill Health Center.

Patients who have received care at North Bronx Healthcare Network hospitals since 1991 could have had their information stolen. Those who have worked at those centers also could be affected.

[...]

GRM did not respond to calls for comment.

According to HHC spokeswoman Pamela McDonnell, the data is not readily accessible without “highly specialized and technical expertise and certain tools.”

“The person who took them probably wouldn’t know what to do with them,” she said. “The files just look like cassette tapes in a box.”

Read more on NBC.

… A copy of the notification letter is also posted to the hospitals’ web sites. It lists the types of patient information on the backup tapes as name, address, telephone numbers, social security number, medical record number, health insurance information, diagnosis and treatment information, and birth, admission and discharge dates.

A video to start the discussion? How about Facebook has better “proof” of identity than most governments? If your employer won't buy you a tech tool (say, an iPhone) that you purchase an use to do your job, do they have any rights to access that tech?

http://www.cnet.com/8301-30976_1-20031603-10348864.html

Reporters' Roundtable: Who owns your online identity?

Today, we're talking about identity. You own your identity, right? That's why we talk about identity theft: Identity is clearly personal, and it can be stolen from us. But it can also, in some cases, be legally taken. If you work at a modern business and you create relationships with people during that employment, it can be argued that, if those relationships are work-related, your employer owns them. But if you create a rich social profile that supports your work, say on Facebook or Twitter, it can be unclear whose identity, persona, or reputation that is.

Meanwhile, Facebook, and to a lesser extent Google, are becoming de facto universal electronic identity providers. You can log in to many new Web sites with nothing but a Facebook ID. So does Facebook own our identity?

Do they mean 'oversight' as 'due process' or do they mean 'without their supervisor's knowledge?'

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20714

Justice Department assertion: FBI can get phone records without oversight

February 12, 2011 by Dissent

Marisa Taylor reports:

The Obama administration’s Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy Newspapers.

That assertion was revealed – perhaps inadvertently – by the department in its response to a McClatchy Newspapers request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo.

Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006.

Read more in the Miami Herald.

Old job or new jobs. (My job or your job.) If you want to make any process more efficient, you have to cut the dead wood.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2011021108493059

The White House Asks: What's Blocking Innovation in America? - My Answer: IP Laws

… Let's take some specific examples to show why that is so. When Napster first showed up, it was innovative. Heaven knows it changed the world. And instead of letting this creativity flourish, make money, and create jobs, the law was used to kill it. And kill it it did. The law is still trying to kill or at least marginalize peer-to-peer technology, and so it has never been used to the full.

(Related) An example of peer-to-peer that doesn't result in the RIAA or MPAA sending letters to downloaders – but maybe the Teachers Union will?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/11/1924237/BitTorrent-and-Khan-Academy-To-Distribute-Education?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

BitTorrent and Khan Academy To Distribute Education

"BitTorrent, Inc. announced this morning that they have launched a partnership with the Khan Academy to distribute open education videos. They launched with more than 2,000 videos, covering high school and college level curriculum, across science, math, history, finance and test prep. All of the videos are free to download and open licensed with Creative Commons."

It's public, but it's not really public?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20690

CMLP and Cyberlaw Clinic Urge First Circuit to Affirm First Amendment Right to Make Cellphone Recording of Police

February 11, 2011 by Dissent

David Ardia writes:

With the help of Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, the Citizen Media Law Project and a coalition of media and advocacy organizations submitted an amicus curiae brief last week to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a case involving a lawyer who was arrested for using his cellphone camera to record on-duty police officers. Joined by a broadamicus coalition that included Dow Jones & Company, Inc., GateHouse Media, Inc., Globe Newspaper Company, Inc., The Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, Metro Corp., NBC Universal, Inc., New England Newspaper and Press Association, Inc., The New York Times Company, Newspapers of New England, Inc., the Online News Association, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, CMLP urged the court to affirm the First Amendment right to gather news in public places.

Read more on Citizen Media Law Project (another terrific organization worthy of your donation dollars).

The case is Glik v. Cunniffe.

Food for thought. Something for my Intro to Technology class? (Some are obvious, others may need a brief explanation for us old-timers...

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111745/things-babies-born-in-2011-will-never-know?mod=family-kids_parents

Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know

Video tape

Travel agents

The separation of work and home

Books, magazines, and newspapers

Movie rental stores

Watches

Paper maps

Wired phones

Long distance

Newspaper classifieds

Dial-up Internet

Encyclopedias

Forgotten friends: The next generation will automatically be in touch with everyone they've ever known even slightly via Facebook.

The evening news: The news is on 24/7.

CDs

Film cameras

Yellow and White Pages: Why in the world would you need a 10-pound book just to find someone?

Catalogs

Hand-written letters: For that matter, hand-written anything.

Mail (Snail mail, that is)

Hiding: Not long ago, if you didn't answer your home phone, that was that -- nobody knew if you were alive or dead, much less where you might be. Now your phone is not only in your pocket, it can potentially tell everyone -- including advertisers -- exactly where you are.

No pressure! Note that it still requires you to click on a bogus link....

http://www.techeye.net/security/internet-explorer-bug-puts-900-million-users-at-risk

Internet Explorer bug puts 900 million users at risk

Microsoft has announced that all current versions of Internet Explorer are currently at risk of being hacked due to a flaw in the programme.

It is now known that the web browser, used by 900 million people across the globe, requires a software patch in order to defend against attack while Microsoft prepares a longer term fix, a massive security slip up by the firm.

A security advisory announcement was made on Friday highlighting scripting vulnerabilities affecting all versions of Windows.

It is not however thought that there has been any breaches of security so far: “The main impact of the vulnerability is unintended information disclosure,” said Angela Gunn, a Microsoft representative.

… The fault lies in the MHTML protocol handler, which is used by applications to render certain kinds of document.

According to the statement an attacker could, for example, construct an HTML link designed to trigger a malicious script and then persuade the targeted user to click on it.

Once this happens the script would then be able to run on the machine for the rest of that IE browser session, potentially collecting information from emails, sending the user to fake sites and generally interfering with the browser usage.

Ethical Hackers: Here's how you do it...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/02/02/0217256/Egyptians-Turn-To-Tor-To-Organize-Dissent-Online?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Egyptians Turn To Tor To Organize Dissent Online

"Even as President Obama prepares to follow Mubarak with his own 'internet kill switch', Egyptians were turning to the Tor anonymiser to organise their protests online. The number of Egyptians connecting to the internet over Tor rose more than five-fold after protests broke out last week before crashing when the Government severed links to the global internet. Information security researcher, Tor coder and writer of the bridge that allowed Egypt's citizens to short-circuit government filters, Jacob Appelbaum, told SC Magazine Egyptians were 'concerned and some understand the risk of network traffic analysis.' Appelbaum has himself been the subject of attention from US security services who routinely snatch his electronics and search his belongings when he re-enters the country and who subpoenaed his private Twitter account last December."

Which helps explain why Appelbaum is helping to organize a small fundraiser to get more communications gear into Egypt.

(Related) “Yes, it gives the President Mubarak-like power, but its different! Or at least it will be on paper...”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20030332-281.html

Senators decry link between Egypt, 'kill switch' bill

Three U.S. senators who want to give the president emergency powers over the Internet are protesting comparisons with the "kill switch" highlighted by Egypt's Net disconnection.

In a statement yesterday, the politicians said their intent was to allow the president "to protect the U.S. from external cyber attacks," not to shut down the Internet, and announced that they would revise their legislation to explicitly prohibit that from happening.

(Related) “Hey, we're the government. You can trust us!”

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026401.html

February 01, 2011

EFF Releases Report Analyzing Surveillance of Americans During Intelligence Investigations Conducted Between 2001 and 2008

Patterns of Misconduct: FBI Intelligence Violations from 2001 - 2008, A Report Prepared by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 2011

• "In a review of nearly 2,500 pages of documents released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, EFF uncovered alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices. The documents consist of reports made by the FBI to the Intelligence Oversight Board of violations committed during intelligence investigations from 2001 to 2008. The documents suggest that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. In particular, EFF’s analysis provides new insight into the number of Violations Committed by the FBI..."

So much for net neutrality? Or have they just gone away from “unlimited Internet?”

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2011/02/02/ns-usage-based-billing.html

N.S. internet users mull over CRTC billing decision

The federal regulator gave Bell Canada the approval to implement so-called usage-based billing to wholesale customers — usually smaller internet service providers that rent portions of its network.

Customers of those service providers in Ontario and Quebec received notice this week that they would be able to stream or download only a fraction of the movies and data that they had previously been allowed under the same price plan.

"This is outrageous gouging," said Andrew Wright, who runs a non-profit internet provider in Halifax called Chebucto Community Net.

… "The sad point is that if people aren't careful of what they're doing online, they can rack up one serious bill and we've all heard stories about the cellular industry doing that," he said.

I wonder why no one in the US is doing this? We could easily “borrow” their criteria and evaluate state laws...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20207

European Commission Finds Israeli Data Protection Law Provides Adequate Protection

February 1, 2011 by Dissent

Reporting from Israel, legal consultant Dr. Omer Tene writes:

On January 31, 2011, the European Commission formally approved Israel’s status as a country providing “adequate protection” for personal data under the European Data Protection Directive. The decision is restricted to automated international data transfers from the EU, as well as to non-automated data transfers that are subject to further automated processing in Israel. It will allow unrestricted transfers of personal data from the EU to Israel, for example between corporate affiliates or from European companies to data centers in Israel.

Israel joins a select group of countries, including Argentina, Canada, Switzerland, Andorra and several English Channel Islands, which have obtained similar status. A separate arrangement governs data transfers from the EU to the U.S. under the Safe Harbor framework.

Read more on Hunton & Williams Privacy and Information Security Law Blog.

“Hey, we got a good thing going here, why change?”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20221

New Study Shows Persistence Of ‘Flash Cookies’

February 1, 2011 by Dissent

Joe Mullin reports:

The tracking uses of so-called “Flash cookies,” the data packets stored in the computers of users of Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Flash Player, started getting a lot more attention last year, when they were the focus of an article about online privacy in the Wall Street Journal, as well as severallawsuits. They were also mentioned as a privacy problem last month by the Federal Trade Commission.

The results from a new study suggest that “re-spawning,” one of the more troublesome practices around Flash cookies, is declining. But the same study showed that about 10 percent of the most-popular web sites may still be using Flash cookies to track users—and none of the companies that run those web sites would discuss what they’re using the cookies for.

Read more on PaidContent.org

1) after ignoring complaints for months, TSA announced earlier this month that they would be changing the machines. 2) no government hardware has ever been designed, tested and implemented in one month. 3) a minor software tweak, changing only how the data is displayed (but keeping the real images in storage somewhere) is a much more probable answer.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20204

TSA debuts new full-body scanners

February 1, 2011 by Dissent

Ashley Halsey III reports:

New airport security scanners designed to be less intrusive than machines that captured near-naked images will debut at the Las Vegas airport Tuesday.

They’ll look just like the controversial scanners that were introduced last fall, but instead of sending a revealing image to be examined in a private security booth, new software will project a non-gender-specific silhouette on a small screen attached to the booth.

If the passenger is carrying any contraband items a red box will appear on the screen. Otherwise it will flash a green okay.

Read more in the Washington Post.

Ethical Hackers: What's taking you so long?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/01/ps3_hacked_again/

Newest PS3 firmware hacked in less than 24 hours

… Sony announced the release of Version 3.56 on Wednesday. That same day, game console hacker Youness Alaoui, aka KaKaRoToKS, tweeted that he had released the tools to unpack the files, allowing him to uncover the new version's signing keys.

Another resource discovered...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20198

Ca: Management Ethics: Privacy issues

February 1, 2011 by Dissent

The Fall/Winter 2010 issue of Management Ethics (pdf) from www.ethicscentre.ca has a nice collection of articles:

• Why Privacy Matters - Chris MacDonald, Ph.D.

• Privacy by Design: Achieving Consumer Trust and Freedom in the Information Age - Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D.

• Hiring in a Social Media Age - Avner Levin, SJD

• Privacy Law: Questions and Answers - Christine Lonsdale

...and we should be able to identify new/modified data instantly...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026407.html

February 01, 2011

Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law

Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law, Peter W. Martin, Cornell Law School, January 25, 2011, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 11-01

• "In 2009, Arkansas ended publication of the Arkansas Reports. Since 1837 this series of volumes, joined in the late twentieth century by the Arkansas Appellate Reports covering the state's intermediate court of appeals, had served as the official record of Arkansas's case law. For all decisions handed down after February 12, 2009, not books but a database of electronic documents “created, authenticated, secured, and maintained by the Reporter of Decisions” constitute the “official report” of all Arkansas appellate decisions. The article examines what distinguishes this Arkansas reform from the widespread cessation of public law report publication that occurred during the twentieth century and this new official database from the opinion archives now hosted at the judicial websites of most U.S. appellate courts. It proceeds to explore the distinctive alignment of factors that both led and enabled the Arkansas judiciary to take a step that courts in other jurisdictions, state and federal, have so far resisted. Speculation about which other states have the capability and incentive to follow Arkansas’s lead follows. That, in turn, requires a comparison of the full set of measures the Arkansas Supreme Court and its reporter of decisions have implemented with similar, less comprehensive, initiatives that have taken place elsewhere. Finally, the article considers important issues that have confronted those responsible for building Arkansas’s new system of case law dissemination and the degree to which principal components of this one state’s reform can provide a useful template for other jurisdictions."

The “software tool” claims to identify copyrighted material in your browser (only?) but you have to pay for the “universal license” first. Clearly the “universal license” isn't universal as the software will explain how to “purchase the rights” in real time and then records information to summarize violations (and perhaps phone that information home?)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026402.html

February 01, 2011

New on LLRX.com - The Risky Business of Information Sharing: Why You Need to Care About Copyright

The Risky Business of Information Sharing: Why You Need to Care About Copyright: Copyright is an essential tool in the spread of new ideas, and the workplace has become ground zero for infringement. Ask employees up and down the corporate hierarchy, and they'll tell you that whisking information electronically to co-workers is integral to their jobs. Their employers will emphatically agree. But unauthorized swaps of information also carry enormous potential risk: Ordinary office exchanges, so natural to the digital world, can easily violate the copyright rights of others and bring costly lawsuits or settlements. Now the same technology that has dramatically defined the Internet age is drawing a new roadmap to compliance, with software tools that simplify adherence to copyright requirements.

Ethical Hackers: Is this enough to automate forgery?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020106442.html

National Treasures: Google Art Project unlocks riches of world's galleries

Google is bringing its "street view" technology indoors. With the announcement Tuesday in London of the Google Art Project, the Internet giant jumps into the online art arena with tools that will allow Web surfers to move through 17 of the most prominent art galleries in the world, with the option to look more closely at individual artworks, including some that will be digitized so exhaustively that individual paint strokes and hairline cracks in the surface will be visible.

http://www.googleartproject.com/

Bypassing the government shut-down of the Internet.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-weekend-work-that-will-hopefully.html

Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

… We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

Too scary to report when it happened?

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/0458231/London-Stock-Exchange-Was-Under-Major-Cyberattack-During-Linux-Switch?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

London Stock Exchange Was 'Under Major Cyberattack' During Linux Switch

"The London Stock Exchange's new open source trading system may have been hacked last year, according to a report. The alleged attack came as the LSE began the switch over to the Linux-based systems, according to the dates referred to in the Times newspaper. The continued threat of cyber attack has resulted in the LSE keeping a close dialogue with British security services, which this year branded cyber attacks as one of the biggest threats to the country. There were major problems on the exchange on 24 August, when stock prices of five large companies collapsed."

Remember the magazine that put your house (via Google Earth) on the cover?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20168

Behind the scenes of Wired magazine’s personalized covers

January 31, 2011 by Dissent

David Rowan writes:

A few selected readers have received an ultra-personalised cover on their issue of Wired this month. We wanted to see how much personal data we could easily find about them from publicly available sources — as a means of emphasising some of the points made in our cover story by Andrew Keen, Jeff Jarvis and Steven Johnson on “what the end of privacy means for you”.

Wary of scaring off our entire readership, we sent the personalised copies of Wired to some randomly selected subscribers rather than all of them, as well as to a few people we know with some media influence. Well, the media can take a little scaring.

Read more on Wired.co.uk.

[From the article:

We used sources such as the edited electoral register, Companies House, the Land Registry and the social networks. We cross-matched data from one source against others -- and so found some fascinating truths about, for instance, what readers are buying and selling on eBay (does the taxman know?), what revealing videos their children are posting online (you would be shocked), and what their exes have lately been saying about them. The level of detail we found -- from children's school reports to property profits -- may worry some recipients, but that was the point.

Privacy we agree on, or Privacy as an inalienable right?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20141

Numerous Groups Submit Comments to Commerce Department on Privacy

January 31, 2011 by Dissent

Melissa Ngo writes:

Numerous groups have filed comments in response to the Commerce Department’s December release of and request for comments on a green paper (Commerce pdf here; archive pdf here) on privacy, “Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework.” In it, the agency included a proposal for a Privacy Protection Office that would reside within the Commerce Department. I have excerpted a few comments from groups below, but all comments can be viewed here.

Read more on Privacy Lives.

(Related) Why must I be mentally or physically ill before my rights kick in?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20149

Cal.6th: There is a federal constitutional right of privacy in medical and psychiatric records

January 31, 2011 by Dissent

From FourthAmendment.com:

There is a Griswold constitutional right of privacy in medical and psychiatric records which can only be disclosed when there is a compelling state interest, which the court finds here in a SVP [Sexually Violent Predator] case. People v. Gonzales, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 91 (6th Dist. January 27, 2011)

Read more on FourthAmendment.com.

From the opinion’s Statement of the Case:

In 2007, the Santa Clara County District Attorney filed a petition to commit defendant Ramiro Gonzales as a sexually violent predator (SVP) under the SVP Act. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) A jury found the defendant qualified as an SVP, and the court ordered defendant committed to the custody of the Department of Mental Health (DMH) for an indeterminate term.

On appeal from the commitment order, defendant claims the trial court erred in releasing psychological records to the prosecution and admitting the testimony of a former therapist. He claims there is insufficient evidence that his circumstances had materially changed since a previous determination that he did not qualify as an SVP. He claims the court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that mental retardation could not be considered a mental disorder in determining whether he qualified as an SVP. He claims the indeterminate commitment violates his constitutional rights to equal protection and due process and also the constitutional protections against ex post facto legislation and double jeopardy. Finally, he claims the SVP law, as amended, violates his First Amendment rights.

We conclude that the court committed reversible error in releasing privileged psychotherapeutic records and admitting testimony concerning privileged information. Accordingly, we reverse the commitment order.

Is the basis for the suit that Apple violated it's policy? Would violation of any policy (which can be changed unilaterally at any time) be grounds for a lawsuit?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20157

Lawsuit filed against Apple over apps collecting personal information

January 31, 2011 by Dissent

From Courthouse News, word of a lawsuit filed by Anthony Chiu in federal court for the Northern District of California against Apple for violations of the Stored Communications Act, invasion of privacy, and other claims.

The lawsuit seems to be based on an Wall Street Journal “What They Know” article and research by Eric Smith of Bucknell and emphasizes the combination of the unique ID (UDID) with browsing history to create a profile. Chiu argues that Apple has violated its own privacy policy.

(Related) “That's our policy and we're sticking to it – unless you threaten to sue...”

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/01/31/2144228/Apple-Changes-Stance-On-Water-Damage-Policy?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Apple Changes Stance On Water Damage Policy

"It appears Apple has changed its stance on whether an iOS device is actually water damaged. If you remember when the 13-year-old girl sued Apple in December, it was because her iPhone's moisture sensors had gone off and Apple voided her warranty. Those sensors have also been triggered by simply exposing the phone to low temperatures. Now Apple says that if the moisture sensors are red but the customer disputes and says no liquid has come into contact with the device, the warranty may still apply."

(Related) Is this a “billing policy?”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20030151-94.html

Lawsuit claims AT&T overbills for iPhone data use

… Now, AT&T finds itself at the center of a class action lawsuit that alleges that the provider's bills "systematically overstate the amount of data used on each data transaction." Granted, the overstatement that's being alleged is small--somewhere in the range of 7-14 percent monthly, [“It depends on what your definition of “small” is...” Bob] according to a post on the Electronista blog.

What's especially telling is how a consulting firm that was hired by the lawyers of the plaintiff conducted its own test of the data billing. Instead of using data and trying to measure it independently for comparison against the bill, the consultant did the exact opposite. The firm bought a new iPhone and immediately turned off all push notifications and location services, made sure that no apps or e-mail accounts were active and then left the iPhone idle for 10 days.

AT&T billed the account for 2,292 kilobytes of data over 35 transactions.

Read more of "Lawsuit: AT&T 'systematically overstates' data usage on iPhone bills" at ZDNet.

Would any other types of organizations benefit from following this model?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026395.html

January 31, 2011

Report - An Open Government Implementation Model: Moving to Increased Public Engagement

An Open Government Implementation Model: Moving to Increased Public Engagement, IBM Center for the Business of Government, January 2011

• "This report presents an Open Government Implementation Model (OGIM) for guiding government agencies towards open government. Our model defines four implementation stages and describes the focuses, deliverables, benefits, challenges, best practices, and metrics for each stage. A key tenet of the Implementation Model is that government agencies should advance their open government initiatives incrementally, focusing on one implementation stage at a time. Starting from increasing data transparency (Stage One), the process moves on to improving open participation (Stage Two), enhancing open collaboration (Stage Three), and realizing ubiquitous engagement (Stage Four). We argue that by following this sequence, agencies can minimize risk and effectively harness the power of social media in order to engage the public."

Green Nukes?

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/047232/China-Starts-Molten-Salt-Nuclear-Reactor-Project?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

China Starts Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor Project

"The Energy From Thorium blog reports, 'The People's Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. It was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences annual conference on Tuesday, January 25.' The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is an alternative reactor design that 1) burns existing nuclear waste, 2) uses abundant thorium as a base fuel, 3) produces far less toxic, shorter-lived waste than existing designs, and 4) can be mass produced, run unattended for years, and installed underground for safety."

For my students taking Computer Archeology – primitive Internets site of the late 20^th century...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026397.html

January 31, 2011

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine New Beta Version

"Surf the web as it was - BETA version! The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine puts the history of the World Wide Web at your fingertips. We invite you to explore this new, BETA version of the Wayback Machine and contact us with any feedback. The classic version of the Wayback Machine is still available at web.archive.org/."

For those of us who don't have a Kindle...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/borrow-kindle-ebooks-kindle-lending-club/

Borrow Kindle eBooks From The Kindle Lending Club

When Amazon made the amazing move allowing people to lend their Kindle eBooks to each other, it was only a matter of time before a service popped up making it easy to find the exact book that you’re dying to read but don’t necessarily want to buy.

… The Kindle Lending Club started out as a Facebook page, growing to over 8,000 members in less than a month. The best part is that you don’t even have to own a Kindle to get in on the action. You can use the free Kindle apps op your Mac, PC, iOS, Blackberry or Android devices.

For my website students who can never find the right video...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/search-youtube-pro-google-advanced-operators/

How to Search YouTube Like a PRO with Google Advanced Operators

Big, confusing and makes you wonder what goes on (or is turned off) in the mind of an e-Commerce entrepreneur...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=16595

28 million Plenty of Fish users’ personal details hacked – report

January 31, 2011 by admin

The founder and CEO of dating site Plenty of Fish reports that the site has been hacked and users’ names, email addresses, and passwords may have been acquired. Whether PayPal account information and other personal details were also acquired is uncertain and depends on whose version of the hack you read. It’s also uncertain whether other large dating sites have also been hacked. The whole thing that seems certain right now is that this is already turning out to be a somewhat bizarre story.

In a blog post that is quite different than the usual breach disclosure, Markus Frind writes on his personal blog about the incident and the extortion attempt that allegedly accompanied it. He even names names. The blog post reads something like a thriller, although I cannot imagine anyone suspecting Brian Krebs of anything other than simply being a reporter who’s attempting to verify a story that came to him.

One of those Frind names, Chris Russo, provides a different version of what happened and his role. In a statement posted on Grumo Media, Russo writes:

Hi, I’m a security researcher from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Last Friday 21 of Januray, we discovered a vulnerability in www.plentyoffish.com exposing users details, including usernames, addresses, phone numbers, real names, email addresses, passwords in plain text, and in most of cases, paypal accounts, of more than 28,000,000 (twenty eight million users). This vulnerability was under active explotation by hackers.

So far, it seems reasonable, but the statement gets downright weird when Russo talks about how POF was going to hire him:

While we were creating the legal documents in order to proceed, Markus Frind got progressively more aggressive and unresposive with us, and told us to speak with their employees, Kate and Jay, because there was a serial killer, murdering people from the website.

The story also involves a mysterious request for POF user data, posted yesterday on Freelancer.com by “akshay3471,” whose profile lists him as being in Moradabad, India.

I’ll let you all follow the links and read for yourselves. I expect we’ll see a lot more coverage on this one. In the meantime, best to err on the side of caution and assume that the site was compromised and that any information you provided may have been acquired.

“Let's declare victory and go home...”

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/30/149232/Connecticut-AG-Opts-For-Street-View-Settlement-Without-Seeing-the-Data?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Connecticut AG Opts For Street View Settlement, Without Seeing the Data

"Verifying Google's data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat,' said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last December in response to Google's 'accidental' collection of payload data from WiFi networks. 'We will fight to compel Google to come clean-granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.' That was then. Luckily for Google, there's a new AG in town, and Blumenthal successor George Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. 'This is a good result for the people of Connecticut,' Jepsen said in a statement. A separate Jepsen press release suggested some of the blame for the privacy offenses laid with Google's victims, who were advised to 'turn off your wireless network when you know you won't use it' to thwart those who 'may be watching your Internet activity without your knowledge."

[From the press release:

Manufacturers often deliver wireless routers with the encryption feature turned off, Jepsen said. Consumers should consult the instructions for their wireless router or obtain additional information from the manufacturer’s website to enhance the security of their home networks.

OnGuard Online, a consortium of federal government agencies and technology industry experts recommends additional precautionary steps to secure wireless networks. Details are available at http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/wireless-security.aspx.

The consortium recommends:

1. Use anti-virus and anti-spyware and a firewall.

2. Turn off identifier broadcasting.

3. Change the identifier on your router from the default.

4. Change your router’s pre-set password for administration.

5. Turn off your wireless network when you know you won’t use it.

6. Don’t assume that public “hot spots” are secure.

7. Be careful about the information you access or send from a public wireless network.

“All that is not forbidden is mandatory. All that is not mandatory is forbidden.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20129

The Ugly Persistence of Internet Celebrity – and Our Failure to Address It

January 31, 2011 by Dissent

In a blog post titled, “The Ugly Persistence of Internet Celebrity,” Danielle Citron writes:

Many desperately try to garner online celebrity. They host You Tube channels devoted to themselves. They share their thoughts in blog postings and on social network sites. They post revealing pictures of themselves on Flickr. To their dismay though, no one pays much attention. But for others, the Internet spotlight finds them and mercilessly refuses to yield ground. For instance, in 2007, a sports blogger obtained a picture of a high-school pole vaulter, Allison Stokke, at a track meet and posted it online. Within days, her picture spread across the Internet, from message boards and sport sites to porn sites and social network profiles. Impostors created fake profiles of Ms. Stokke on social network sites, and Ms. Stokke was inundated with emails from interested suitors and journalists. At the time, Ms. Stokke told the Washington Post that the attention felt “demeaning” because the pictures dominated how others saw her rather than her pole-vaulting accomplishments.

Time’s passage has not helped Stokke shake her online notoriety.

Read more on Concurring Opinions.

Do we need reform that includes another kind of harm so that people can get relief from the courts? Those who dread and abhor the idea of the government regulating the Internet may shrug and say that we just have to accept that these things happen. But if you “walk a mile in their shoes,” it’s easy to see how life-changing in a negative way these types of things can be.

When kids commit suicide over the damage to their lives from the Internet, everyone runs around saying we need more laws and we see proposed laws that may make matters worse in other ways. When are we going to take the issue seriously and get everyone together to figure out what to do? The status quo may be acceptable to some – or even many – but how many lives are getting ruined so that others can enjoy the “freedom of the Internet?”

Isn't this “apathy voting?” “We don't need the best candidate – any of these guys are Okay...”

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/01/30/1911232/New-Hampshire-Bill-Could-Lead-To-Adoption-of-Approval-Voting?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

New Hampshire Bill Could Lead To Adoption of Approval Voting

"The people at FreeKeene report: 'Four Republican state representatives have sponsored a bill that would replace first-past-the-post voting with approval voting for all state offices and presidential primaries. Under this system, voters would select every candidate they approve of (regardless of party), and the candidate with the highest overall vote total wins. This reduces strategic voting, and would often make elections easier for moderate and libertarian candidates. The bill, HB240, will have a public hearing Tuesday, February 1st, with the House Election Law committee.'"

Is it my patriotic duty to mention this to my students?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/the-white-house-partners-with-steve-case-facebook-intel-ibm-and-others-to-jumpstart-entrepreneurship/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

The White House Partners With Steve Case, Facebook, Intel, And Others To Jumpstart Entrepreneurship

As part of a White House effort to promote job creation, entrepreneurship and private-sector investment in startups, President Obama is announcing a new initiative today, called Startup America Partnership, to foster growth in the startup world and jumpstart job creation. The Partnership will be chaired by AOL co-founder Steve Case and will be partly funded by the Kauffman Foundation and the Case Foundation.

(Related) ...and remember students, I get 1% of your pre-IPO stock...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-free-tools-plan-visualise-startup-business/

3 Free Tools to Plan and Visualise Your Start-Up Business

Might be useful for communicating with my foreign students?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026384.html

January 30, 2011

Google Transliteration

"Google Transliteration allows you to type phonetically using Roman characters. Simply type a word the way it sounds in English and Google Transliteration will convert it to its local script. We currently support 24 languages: Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Tigrinya and Urdu."

If Shakespeare was writing today, he would have said, “The first thing we do, let's kill all the Internet providers.”

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/egypt-isp-shutdown/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Egypt Shut Down Its Net With a Series of Phone Calls

… While the world has seen net filtering and disruption in places like Burma and Iran following social and political unrests, Egypt’s decision to shutter it is different, according to Craig Labovitz, the chief scientist at Arbor Networks, a computer security firm that has nearly unequaled real data on international internet traffic.

“What’s different with Egypt is the scale,” Labovitz told Wired.com. “By that I mean that Egypt has fairly significant internet infrastructure with a diversity of paths — satellite, microwave and fiber links — a number of large providers and hundreds of smaller providers. It is one of the more significant internet infrastructures in the Middle East and certainly within Africa. Egypt has a very well-developed economy with a significant reliance on the internet, this is very different from Burma.”

(Related) Think it couldn't happen here?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/kill-switch-legislation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Internet ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Back in Play

Legislation granting the president internet-killing powers is to be re-introduced soon to a Senate committee, the proposal’s chief sponsor told Wired.com on Friday.

The resurgence of the so-called “kill switch” legislation came the same day Egyptians faced an internet blackout designed to counter massive demonstrations in that country.

The bill, which has bipartisan support, is being floated by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposed legislation, which Collins said would not give the president the same power Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is exercising to quell dissent, sailed through the Homeland Security Committee in December but expired with the new Congress weeks later.

The bill is designed to protect against “significant” cyber threats before they cause damage, Collins said.

(Related) Maybe it is too good?

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/does-obamas-internet-freedom-agenda-hurt-the-u-s-without-helping-dissidents/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Does Obama’s ‘Net Freedom Agenda’ Hurt The U.S.?

On Thursday, President Obama declared access to social networks to be a “universal” value, right alongside freedom of speech. But when those networks helped weaken Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, one of the U.S.’ strongest allies in the Middle East, the Obama team demanded Mubarak turn the Egyptian Internet back on — but didn’t abandon support for him, either. Maybe this “Internet Freedom Agenda” wasn’t so well thought out?

For more than a year, the White House has been pushing the idea that online connections are a good thing — no matter what’s said using those tools. It’s a way of signaling to wired people, not just governments, that the U.S. is on their side. The Obama administration called for Twitter to stay online during 2009 protests in Iran, and U.S. cash for new social networks like Pakistan’s Humari Awaz and SMS relief webs for Haitian earthquake victims. “The very existence of social networks,” State Department tech adviser Alec Ross said, “is a net good.”

(Related) What was different in Tunisia? They didn't understand that they could shut it down...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/as-egypt-tightens-its-internet-grip-tunisia-seeks-to-open-up/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Exclusive: Tunisia Internet Chief Gives Inside Look at Cyber Uprising

(Related)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/0025210/Egypt-Cuts-the-Net-Net-Fights-Back?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Egypt Cuts the Net, Net Fights Back

GMGruman writes

"Egypt's cutoff of the Net enrages the Netizenry, who are finding a bunch of ways — high tech and low tech — to fight back, from dial-up to ham radio, from mesh networks to Twitter. Robert X. Cringely shows how the Net war is being waged, and asks, Could it happen at home, too?"

Sure, it could. On the same topic, reader dermiste writes

"In reaction to the Egyptian government crackdown on the Internet, the French non-profit ISP French Data Network set up a dial-up Internet access. This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network using the following number: +33 1 72 89 01 50 (login: toto, password: toto)."

Just in time for Privacy Day?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20089

Data retention push confirms DOJ hypocrisy

January 29, 2011 by Dissent

Chris Soghoian writes:

As I described in a lengthy blog post a couple days ago, the US law enforcement community is yet again pushing for mandatory data retention laws, which would require internet service providers to keep records detailing the IP addresses issued to their customers.

At the hearing last Tuesday, Jason Weinstein of the Department of Justice argued that the government needed this data to be able to effectively investigate serious crimes, such as terrorism and child exploitation.

In what truly is a bit of Orwellian doublespeak Mr. Weinstein told the Congressional committee that retaining this data would actually protect privacy….

Read more on slight paranoia.

[From the argument:

Imposing greater retention requirements would raise legitimate concerns about privacy, and these concerns should be considered. However, the absence of strong data retention requirements introduces different privacy risks, as the government may be less effective at targeting malicious activities that threaten citizens’ private data. [Sounds remarkably like, “In order to save the village, it was necessary to destroy it.” Bob]

Not as easy as “do not call” because the technology is based on a network intended to route around roadblocks?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=20083

Is True Do-Not-Track a Pie in the Sky?

January 28, 2011 by Dissent

Richard Adhikari writes about recent browser developments addressing “do not track.” Of particular interest to me, this part of his discussion:

Further, the requirements of do-not-track guidelines might create problems, Greenhouse told TechNewsWorld.

“An ad that is well-targeted based on other factors that don’t fall under do-not-track could be misinterpreted by the consumer as a violation,” Greenhouse explained. “I would anticipate that anyone responsible for enforcement will have to wade through mountains of false positives.”

[...]

“Ultimately, someone who’s very technology-savvy will have to draft a very clear, detailed set of guidelines that are mindful of the realities of Web application architecture,” Greenhouse said.

Those guidelines will still depend on implementation by websites and ad networks, Greenhouse remarked. “It’s just not something that a Web browser can accomplish on its own,” he added.

Read more on TechNewsWorld.

Will this be banned in the US?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/29/0417208/UK-ISPs-Consider-VPN-To-Avoid-Piracy-Crackdown?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

UK ISPs Consider VPN To Avoid Piracy Crackdown

"Broadband internet providers in the UK are considering whether or not to follow the example of a Swedish ISP, Bahnhof, which recently put all of its customers behind a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to circumvent new European Data Retention and Internet Copyright Infringement laws. By doing this is makes their logs less useful to outside forces (e.g. rights holders) and allows customers to use the internet anonymously. However several UK ISPs, including business provider AAISP (Andrews and Arnold), have suggested that there may be better solutions than sticking everybody behind a costly VPN. AAISP's boss, Adrian Kennard, claims, 'something ISPs will be doing anyway, carrier grade NAT, will create a similar anonymity as there is no requirement to log NAT sessions.' Meanwhile, Timico's CTO, Trefor Davies, warns, 'It would be a pretty costly project for all ISPs to implement such a system. It would also bring with it risks – suddenly it becomes a lot easier for governments to start monitoring all your traffic because it all goes through a single point (or at least a few points) on the network.'"

I wonder how much will reach Facebook users?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/28/1758259/Facebook-Spammer-Fined-360-Million?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Facebook Spammer Fined $360 Million

"Facebook has been awarded $360,500,000 in damages against spammer Philip Porembski, who phished the login details of at least 116,000 Facebook users and sent more than 7.2 million spam messages to victims' online friends. Facebook claimed it received more than 8,000 complaints from users as a result of the spam campaign, and more than 4,500 users had deactivated their accounts."

(That's Wharton) Interesting, but nothing earth shattering.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/026368.html

January 27, 2011

Whaton Knowledge: On the Move: Adapting to a New Global Economy

The Lauder Global Business Insight Report 2011 - On the Move: Adapting to a New Global Economy:

• "In this special report, students from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies analyze some of the more far-reaching changes affecting people, industries and regions around the world. The articles offer new perspectives on trends that will shape the coming year, including the emergence of a high-tech sector in Russia, the growth of private equity in Brazil and China, and the rise of social investing in France. Industries undergoing significant change are analyzed in articles about new media-driven ventures in the Middle East, improvements in educational opportunities for lower- and middle-class Mexican students, the rise of solar power in France, China's push to speed up the manufacture of electric cars and Mexico's initiatives to promote sustainable housing. Other articles look at the production of unique regional products in Japan, and an innovative French company that offers clients opportunities to become wine experts. The sports business is explored by examining new forces shaping China's approach to promoting basketball, and the ways in which Brazil may, or may not, benefit from the 2014 World Cup. The rise of German patriotism, the economic impact of the drug wars in Mexico, and how new urban prosperity in parts of China is affecting the strategy of multinational retailers are also analyzed."

You only need to backup the things you can't do without... Translations: Personal – backup anything you don't want to re-create or re-purchase. Business – backup anything your manager would fire you for losing, delete everything else.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easeus-free-backup-software-review/

Backup Your PC With Ease For Free Using Easeus Todo Backup [Windows]

Backing up your data is one of those things in life that you really won’t understand until disaster strikes, by which time it’s too late. For most people who haven’t experienced data-loss, the task of backing up just seems like such a good idea in theory, but so much effort in reality.

But take my advice, use this incredible free Easeus Todo Backup software and it’ll be so easy you won’t even have to think about it.

… There are also full guides on the site for every type of backup operation you could want.

For my students...

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/01/quicklyst-quick-way-to-create-outlines.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Friday, January 28, 2011

Quicklyst - A Quick Way to Create Outlines

Quicklyst is a nice tool for taking notes and creating outlines. Quicklyst provides a simple outline template that you can use to take notes. There are two neat features of Quicklyst that really stand out. First, you can do basic web searches within the framework of taking notes. To do a search just type a question mark (?) before a word then press enter. Quicklyst will then fill-in that line with some basic information about that word. For example, when I typed ?egypt that line on my outline was filled with some basic information about Egypt. The other useful feature offered by Quicklyst is the option to search within your notes. If you've created a lot of outlines in your Quicklyst account you can use the search function to quickly locate your notes about a particular topic.

Quicklyst can be accessed from your computer, your Kindle, your iOS device, or your Android device. You can also download and print your notes from Quicklyst.