Not much data at all...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070921060929779

City: Stolen computers held personal information on 3,500 people

Friday, September 21 2007 @ 06:09 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Older News Stories

The city of Columbus (Ohio) is offering identity-theft protection services to more than 3,000 people whose Social Security numbers were on three computers stolen from a warehouse.

The theft affected people who had signed up for the city's Mobile Tool Library, which lends power tools, lawn mowers and supplies.

Source - WTOL

Blame. It's a wonderful thing.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185992,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Suit: Employee Fired for Reporting Breach

September 20, 2007 By Deborah Perelman

For one of the biggest healthcare data breaches in history, the lawsuits haven't stopped yet.

In December 2005, thieves broke into the parked van of an IT systems analyst for Providence Home Services, a Washington state health care company, stealing a computer bag with ten unencrypted tapes and disks holding information on what would turn out to be more than 365,000 hospice and home health care patients—everything from Social Security numbers and birth and death dates to diagnoses, prescriptions and insurance numbers. Data on doctors, including their Medicare and Medicaid and state license numbers, names, addresses and phone numbers were also missing.

Executives waited three weeks before informing patients about the stolen data, in what turned out to be the biggest data breach ever reported in Oregon. The state investigation and class-action lawsuit that followed ended in a $95,000 settlement payment by the healthcare provider to the state of Oregon to cover the cost of the investigation.

Now, in a lawsuit filed Aug. 28 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, near Portland, former Providence Home Services IT systems analyst Steven Shields is seeking $1 million in damages from his former employer for allegedly violating Oregon's whistleblower law.

Steven Shields, the employee who left the records inside the van, alleges in the lawsuit that he was fired for reporting the December 2005 incident to police. Whistleblower laws prevent companies from firing employees who make a good-faith report of wrongdoing. If employees are worried about losing their jobs, the law reasons, they may not do the right thing when a dangerous situation occurs.

... A contractor has since been hired to transport and store all sensitive data, instead of allowing employees to take it home.

Another rant against Ohio

http://www.privacydigest.com/2007/09/20/stolen+data+privacy+relevant+information

On stolen data with privacy-relevant information

September 20, 2007 - 10:43am — MacRonin

[Comments: On stolen data with privacy-relevant information: "

... Peter Murray Says: September 18th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

Oh, I think the story is much more interesting that you are letting on. It would appear that the theft of the backup tape was not a backup of the OAKS system [the State of Ohio’s ERP system] itself; instead, it was some intranet fileserver where various datasets were stored that were used by “database analysts who were running tests on large files containing sensitive data on the I: drive.” An extract from the Ohio inspector general’s report beginning at PDF page 16 (report page 10) is included below:

The Ohio data spill is full of interesting twists...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070920143514766

(update) Data company, being sued by state, blames security breach on 'human error'

Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 02:35 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Confidential data from Connecticut's computerized financial management network ended up on a backup tape stolen from a college intern's car in Ohio because of "human error," the company that implemented the problem-plagued system said Wednesday.

But an official in the union that represents state information technology employees said it believes the consulting company, Bermuda-based Accenture, transferred the Connecticut data to Ohio - where Accenture was the primary consultant on a similar system installed for the state government there - simply to save the firm time and money.

Moreover, she suggested that Accenture also might have used the Connecticut data to test similar projects elsewhere, because its consultants who worked on the state's $130 million CORE-CT project later were transferred not only to Ohio, but also "internationally."

Source - JournalInquirer.com

Perhaps we could require them to wear striped shirts (in the school colors) with student ID numbers?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070921063618109

'Hey you': Profs can't use names of students

Friday, September 21 2007 @ 06:36 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Minors & Students

These days, University of Iowa professors, whether they know it or not, are supposed to get permission before calling on a student by name in their class.

In a new regulation based on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, that some are calling "bizarre," UI officials say using a student's name could be a violation of privacy.

Source - Iowa City Press-Citizen

So, why do we need all those cameras? (“It is better to look techie than to be techie” Hernando)

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/2318220&from=rss

10,000 Cameras Ineffective At Deterring Crime

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday September 20, @09:31PM from the clearly-we-need-more-cameras dept. Privacy Security Politics

Mike writes "London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million but an analysis of the publicly funded spy network has cast serious doubt on its ability to help solve crime. In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average. The study found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any. Could this be an effective argument against the proliferation of cameras or will politicians simply ignore the facts and press ahead?"

Another reason to let your kids use those social web sites – you can sue people!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007092015542651

Family sues Virgin Mobile over teen's photo in ad

Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 03:54 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts

A Dallas family charges that Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.

The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing Web site.

Chang's family filed a lawsuit late Wednesday in state district court in Dallas against Virgin Mobile USA LLC, its Australian counterpart, and Creative Commons Corp., a Massachusetts nonprofit that licenses sharing of Flickr photos.

Source - Associated Press

Related - From the “sue-everyone-and-hope-someone-settles” department… (Commentary, blog)

Writing Science Fiction is one was to avoid Guantanamo...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/2325240&from=rss

Cory Doctorow's Fiction About An Evil Google

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday September 21, @12:23AM from the government-search-engines dept. Google Privacy

ahem writes "I saw a link on Valleywag to a story written by Cory Doctorow about what would happen if Google got in bed with the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chilling, well written, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic for my tastes."

A rather rare type of story... (More typical is the Dan Rather defense)

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/202201&from=rss

Daniel Lyons of Forbes Admits Being Snowed by SCO

Posted by Zonk on Thursday September 20, @06:01PM from the very-glad-this-is-over dept. Caldera The Courts The Media Linux

certain death writes "Daniel Lyons of Forbes Magazine has admitted to being snowed by SCO, regarding their lawsuit over Linux and SCO code. He specifically mentions Groklaw's role in the case, and regrets his early articles giving the company the benefit of the doubt. 'I still thought it would be foolish to predict how this lawsuit (or any lawsuit) would play out. I even wrote an article called "Revenge of the Nerds," which poked fun at the pack of amateur sleuths who were following the case on a Web site called Groklaw and who claimed to know for sure that SCO was going to lose. Turns out those amateur sleuths were right. Now some of them are writing to me asking how I'd like my crow cooked, and where I'd like it delivered. Others in that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them. The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.'" [and we'll never let you forget it! Bob]

This debate seems to be heating up...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070920/165947.shtml

Perhaps Up North 'Unlimited' Means Something Different Than It Does Here

from the haven't-we-been-through-this-before dept

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a connectivity provider limiting how people use their connectivity -- as long as it's clearly laid out in how they pitch the service. Unfortunately, too many of these services advertise "unlimited" service, but mean the exact opposite. In the US, Verizon Wireless used to do this. When confronted on it, they tried to doubletalk their way around the issue, claiming that it was "unlimited data for limited types of data" (read that phrase a few times). However, eventually, Verizon Wireless realized how ridiculous this was and started to back off the claims of unlimited data. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking hasn't reached the folks at Bell Canada, who are apparently advertising an unlimited service, while hiding an awful lot of "limits" within the terms of service. Again, there's nothing wrong with them deciding they need to limit the service -- but if they're going to do so, they shouldn't be advertising it as unlimited. It's amazing that no one's been charged with false advertising for these types of misleading ads. [Yet Bob]

Related

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070919-comcast-speaks-out-on-bandwidth-caps-says-they-only-affect-0-01-of-users.html

Comcast speaks out on bandwidth caps, says they only affect 0.01% of users

By Eric Bangeman | Published: September 19, 2007 - 11:40PM CT

Over the past several days, there have been a number of rumors and lots of discussion about the issue of bandwidth caps and Comcast. There have been a number of reports of users having reached some sort of bandwidth limit—reportedly 90GB—and having their service cut off by America's largest cable ISP. Ars spoke to Comcast today in an attempt to find out what's going on.

Read this!

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5780.html

How to be a Customer

Published: September 20, 2007 Author: John Quelch

99 percent of marketing focuses on how to sell to customers. Very little attention is paid to why and how customers should sell themselves to marketers. As a customer, do you ever think about how you can get a leg up on your competition—the other customers competing for the attention and goodwill of the seller?

Attention SiFi fans!

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/21/0227240&from=rss

Heinlein Archives Put Online

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday September 21, @05:09AM from the plenty-to-read dept. Sci-Fi Entertainment

RaymondRuptime writes "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlein, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, 'The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts.' You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."

Haven't I been saying the same thing?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070919/230654.shtml

No One Ever Said Free Is The Business Model -- But It Absolutely Should Be A Part Of The Business Model

from the a-little-bit-of-confusion dept

Following Rupert Murdoch's latest hints that he's going to take down the paywall at the Wall Street Journal, a bit of a debate has developed about whether or not it's a good idea. Dow Jones executives are apparently against the idea (ironically, published in a "free" article on their site). However, the WSJ's Kara Swisher is all for it. Watching the debate unravel, however, I keep seeing people arguing against the idea, using similar logic to what I saw in the comments earlier this year when I wrote about how "free" is an essential part of many business models (if you know how to leverage it). It's typified by Mark Potts, who declares: "Free is Not a Business Model," in dismissing the commentary in support of a freeing both the NY Times and the WSJ. Unfortunately, it seems like Potts is blinded by the word free and forgets to look past it. No one is saying that "free" is the business model. They're simply saying that free is a component of the business model -- just as it's been a component of business models for ages ("the free trial," "buy one, get one free" "buy now and we'll throw in a free toaster"). Arguing that free isn't a business model is missing the point. The argument is actually over how you use free as a part of your overall business model. In fact, that's exactly what Swisher is doing in her piece, where she suggests a number of related business models that are all helped if the WSJ makes its core content free. It's the same thing that we're saying when we suggest that musicians are better off making their content free. It's not that free is the business model. It's that the free stuff helps promote other business models that can make more money.

Convergence: Never miss an episode of the Lone Ranger again! (Next: TV on demand – they've been promising for 20 years!)

http://www.killerstartups.com/Mobile/cellecast--On-Demand-Radio-Thru-Your-Cell-Phone/

Cellecast.com - On Demand Radio Thru Your Cell Phone

CelleCast enables its users to listen to their favorite radio shows and audio entertainment directly from their cell phones. Dial CelleCast’s direct line to access their audio catalog. Select the programs you want to hear and listen on your own time. Programs can be fast forwarded, paused and rewound for your listening convenience. Listeners can manage their playlists online for later listening. There’s also a TalkBack feature which enables users to record and deliver messages to their favorite talk show hosts. For an ad free experience listeners can subscribe for $9.95 a month or a discounted $14.80 for five months.

One radio show you should listen to...

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13371

NPR’s long, hard look at the RIAA

Bill Clinton's stress reliever? (Watch to the end...)

http://hytaipan.home.comcast.net/media/serenity2.html

Still want to let ISPs handle your security?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/19/layered_technologies_breach_disclosure/

Web host breach may have exposed passwords for 6,000 clients

Names, addresses and phone numbers also at risk

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco Published Wednesday 19th September 2007 19:06 GMT

Layered Technologies has been targeted by malicious hackers who may have stolen passwords and other personal details on as many as 6,000 of its clients, the Texas-based web host provider warned. It is advising customers to change login credentials for all host details submitted in the past two years.

The Monday evening breach was executed by attacking an off-the-shelf application integrated into the company's support desk that manages help tickets submitted by customers, according to Layered Technologies President Todd Abrams. It remains unclear if the intruders actually took the information, but the attack had the potential to expose names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and server login details for five to 6,000 clients.

"Based on the log entries I'd say it's very unlikely they took a copy of the database," Abrams said. "It's not like a two-second download." He said the company wanted to err on the side of caution by asking all customers to change all passwords.

... The perpetrators accessed the database by attacking an application known as Cerberus. According to this page on Secunia, at least 11 vulnerabilities have been documented in various Cerberus tools, only one of which carried a "highly critical" severity rating. It was unclear what version of Cerberus Layered Technologies Layered Technologies uses.

Why was this data connected to the Internet?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070919130032588

'Coordinated' Hackers Steal Internet Retailer Customer Credit Cards

Wednesday, September 19 2007 @ 01:00 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Despite running what he thought was a well-secured network, the president of a publishing company has disclosed that a "coordinated and sophisticated" group of hackers broke in and stole customers' credit card information.

Vertical Web Media said its network was breached in August and hackers made off with customers' names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, along with credit card numbers and expiration dates. Jack Love, president of the Chicago-based publisher of Internet Retailer magazine added that only a portion of the company's customers were compromised because the data was pulled offline as soon as the publisher was alerted by a customer that there was a problem. [I wonder if they know what was taken? NOTE: They didn't detect the hack, a customer did! Bob]

Source - InformationWeek

Another alert from an outsider, but they seem to have ignored it!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070919185548359

(update) Ameritrade leak looks to have started in late '05, much earlier than reported

Wednesday, September 19 2007 @ 06:55 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

E-mails obtained by Network World show that Ameritrade received explicit and repeated warnings from an IT security expert starting Jan. 9, 2006 that its customer data had apparently been compromised, placing the start of the breach much earlier than previously reported and likely pushing it into 2005. Nevertheless, the company insisted for the next 20 months that a flood of stock-related spam being received by numerous clients was not indicative of a more serious problem.

Source - NetworkWorld

I wonder what their contracts say?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070920075355813

(update) Affiliated Computer Services loses or destroys data on 32,000 Kraft employees

Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 08:04 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

In response to a request to Kraft to provide more details on a tape lost by Affiliated Computer Services (see original story), Elisabeth Wenner, Associate Director, Communications of Kraft Foods sent the following statement to PogoWasRight.org:

"I am following up on your inquiry to Kraft and wanted to provide you with some background. As you may know, in early August, Caremark, the company that administers Kraft’s prescription drug benefits program, let us know that a computer tape with the names and other personal information of approximately 32,000 current and former employees and a small number of fewer than 500 of their dependents, was missing. Kraft sent the tape to Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a company that processes data for Caremark. No prescription records were included and the information can only be opened with special hardware.

We do not think anyone will access the information and believe the tape was accidentally destroyed. Even so, out of an abundance of caution, we notified employees and through Caremark have arranged for two years of free credit monitoring from Trans Union.

We want to emphasize that we do not believe that the information has been accessed. However, we take our obligation to safeguard the personal information of our employees very seriously and we have improved our processes and systems.

I hope this has been helpful and please do not hesitate to reach out again."

The deliberate Data Spill...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2007/09/19/edwards_campaign_says_e_mail_violated_aide_resigns_for_messages/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News

Edwards campaign says e-mail violated; aide resigns for messages

By Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer | September 19, 2007

CONCORD, N.H. --John Edwards' presidential campaign is asking for a criminal investigation after an aide's internal e-mail messages were copied and mailed to some people he disparaged in them.

Matt Spence, Edwards' deputy New Hampshire political director, apologized and resigned after being confronted with the e-mails, campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said Wednesday.

... "We will not tolerate that kind of language on the Edwards campaign," Bedingfield said. "The campaign [“The campaign” is a person? Bob] has personally apologized to everyone referenced in the e-mails."

More Ohio related fallout

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070919125718603

(update) CT: State to sue company linked to lost data

Wednesday, September 19 2007 @ 12:57 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

State officials are planning to sue Accenture, the Bermuda-based company hired to implement Connecticut's controversial computerized financial accounting system, over its role in providing confidential state data to a similar system in Ohio.

The civil complaint is expected to charge Accenture with breach of contract and negligence, according to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who said it would be lodged after he confers with state Comptroller Nancy Wyman, who was to return to Connecticut this afternoon after spending several days in Florida handling the estate of her late mother.

Source - Journal Inquirer

Guideline for Data Spills?

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1807

Can't Run, Can't Hide: New Rules of Engagement for Crisis Management

Published: September 19, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton

The corporate apologies are piling up. Mattel CEO Robert Eckert apologized before a Senate subcommittee on September 12 for lead paint found in millions of the company's toys. On September 14, TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia apologized for a database breach that compromised customer addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Apple CEO Steve Jobs apologized on September 6 for cutting the price of the high-end iPhone to $399 just weeks after die-hard customers waited in long lines to pay $599. Dell executives apologized in August on the company's corporate blog for delayed deliveries of certain laptop and desktop models. And in February, JetBlue apologized for canceling 250 flights during an ice storm and leaving some passengers on the tarmac for as long as 11 hours.

The common thread linking these apologies: Executives were moving quickly to stem damage to their companies' reputations. And while not all corporate crises are created equal, there is a playbook to handle these events, according to professors at Wharton. First, a corporate response should take hours, not days. It should include a well-thought out apology delivered through multiple mediums and it should feature some remediation so that the event won't happen again.

The government view?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007091909114984

Combating Identity Theft: Implementing a Coordinated Plan

Wednesday, September 19 2007 @ 09:11 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Prepared statement of the FTC before the Maryland Task Force to Study Identity Theft, Sept. 18th.

Source - Statement (pdf)

(Props, Realtime IT Compliance)

To be expected. Bureaucracies move slowly (news?)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070919095521958

Study says veterans' data are at risk

Wednesday, September 19 2007 @ 09:55 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Veterans' personal data and health information remain at risk of identity theft because the Veterans Affairs Department has yet to implement several safety measures, government investigators say. The report by the Government Accountability Office, released Wednesday, comes more than one year after the VA pledged renewed security efforts after the loss of personal information for 26.5 million veterans and active-duty personnel. It found that the VA had not yet fully secured access to its computer network and department facilities nor worked to ensure that only authorized changes and updates to VA computer programs were made.

Source - Associated Press

Who do you believe?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070919/123308.shtml

Think Tank Bashes Paper Trails For E-Voting

from the missing-the-point dept

A think tank has released a report bashing the idea of requiring paper trails for e-voting systems. The logic behind this uses some sleight of hand and some misdirection to make such a statement actually try to sound sensible. The key argument the group makes is that a paper trail would not increase security while increasing cost. That's actually true -- but that's not the point. People aren't asking for a paper trail to increase security. They're asking for a paper trail to make the machines auditable so the machine's ability to count accurately can be checked. In response to this, the think tank notes that the paper trail might not be perfect, so it's a waste. They point out that printers jam and the hand counts of paper trails may not be accurate either. That's nice, but again it's missing the point. Without those things, there's simply no way of knowing whether or not the computer count was accurate or whether the votes were tampered with. No one has suggested that a paper trail is the perfect solution to all of e-voting's problems. No one denies that paper trails potentially add other problems to the process. But the concern here is not in making e-voting cheaper -- but in making it better. Adding additional mechanisms to make the machines more reliable and more trustworthy seems like a reasonable step, though certainly not the only one that should be taken.

Related

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9781576-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Report: E-voting woes could stall S.F. election tally

Posted by Anne Broache September 19, 2007 2:33 PM PDT

Glitches in touch-screen electronic voting machines without paper trails tend to rack up the most attention these days. But an irregularity over ballots marked by hand and scanned by a computer like standardized tests--known as the "optical-scan" approach--is poised to create a snafu in upcoming mayoral elections in San Francisco.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report on Wednesday, there's concern among state officials that "less-sensitive" scanning machines at polling places across the California city won't be able to pick up ballots marked with anything other than a No. 2 pencil or a special pen provided by the voting machine manufacturer, Election Systems & Software (ES&S).

Soon at a cell phone company near you?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/19/1858209&from=rss

Massive Canadian Class-Action Cellphone Suit Is Approved

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday September 19, @05:01PM from the war-on-big-business dept. Communications The Courts

BeanBunny writes "A Saskatchewan, Canada court has ruled that a $12 billion class-action suit can proceed. The suit alleges that 'system access fees' that the cellphone companies have charged ($7-9 per month) are unfair and constitute price gouging. 'It is described as the largest class-action in Canadian history, potentially affecting every cellphone user in the country. Currently, there are 7,500 complainants signed onto the suit.'"

How to gain competitive advantage?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/19/2233234&from=rss

TransUnion to Offer Credit Freezes Nationwide

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 19, @09:50PM from the invisible-credit-score dept. Security

An anonymous reader writes "In a little-noticed press release issued Tuesday, credit reporting bureau TransUnion said it would begin offering credit freezes to all Americans, a change the belies the credit industry's oft-uttered claim that doing so would be too expensive and burdensome. The program takes effect Oct. 15, 2007, will cost $10 each to place and to remove, and request and must be filed by certified mail. As The Washington Post reports, the move comes as some 39 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws entitling their residents to credit freeze rights. The new right may have little benefit unless the other two major credit reporting bureaus follow suit, and both companies are staying mum about any plans to do so. In May, Slashdot examined a related story on the credit bureaus' traditional resistance to freeze laws."

Someone at Harvard needs an education.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070919/102717.shtml

Harvard Bookstore Claims Book Prices Are Copyrighted

from the you-can-claim-it,-doesn't-mean-it's-true dept

A few years ago, we had a story about a store that was kicking people out if they caught them comparison shopping via a mobile device. Obviously, a store can kick out anyone they want to, but perhaps a better approach is to actually focus on better serving the customer so that when they're done comparison shopping, they still want to buy from you (either because you have the best price, or you offer some additional convenience or service they can't get elsewhere). This issue seems to be coming up again, but with a new twist. alex writes in to let us know that the bookstore at Harvard is kicking people out for taking too many notes about pricing (via Boing Boing). When confronted about this, the store's president actually claimed that book prices were the store's "intellectual property." Of course, just because you say something is your intellectual property, it doesn't mean it is. Unfortunately for the bookstore, the law is pretty clear that you can't copyright facts -- and whether the bookstore likes it or not, prices are facts. The store certainly has the right to refuse service to anyone, but that doesn't mean that it's smart for business or that copying down prices infringes on any kind of intellectual property.

Gartner speaks, CIOs listen – do CEOs?

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185384,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Commercial Software Will Include Open Source, Gartner Says

By Peter Galli September 19, 2007

IT organizations will have to manage open-source software along with commercial software, Gartner says.

LAS VEGAS—At least 80 percent of all commercial software products will include elements of open-source code by 2010, according to Mark Driver, vice president of research at Gartner.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185432,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Five Forces that Can Make Your Business Sink or Swim

September 19, 2007 By Clint Boulton

LAS VEGAS—Web 2.0, SAAS (software as a service), global class, consumerization and open source are facilitating disruptions in the high-tech market even as they are becoming vital forces that help businesses compete for new revenue opportunities.

Such was the position taken by three analysts in the opening keynote of the Gartner Web Innovations conference here Sept. 19.

This could be interesting... Now let's make an open source application for citations.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016033.html

September 19, 2007

Transcripts of Federal Court Proceedings Nationwide To Be Available Online

U.S. Courts release: "The Judicial Conference of the United States today voted to make transcripts of federal district and bankruptcy court proceedings available online through the Judiciary's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system. Under the new policy, transcripts created by court reporters or transcribers will be available for inspection and copying in a clerk of court’s office and for download from PACER 90 days after they are delivered to the clerk. Individuals will be able to view, download, or print a copy of a transcript from PACER for eight cents per page."

Why you should ed-u-ma-kate your children

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/052223&from=rss

12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 20, @05:39AM from the that's-a-lot-of-candy dept. Businesses Games

Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."

Free is good – and IBM agrees!

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/18.html

Strategy Letter VI

This item ran on the Joel on Software homepage on Tuesday, September 18, 2007

IBM just released an open-source office suite called IBM Lotus Symphony. Sounds like Yet Another StarOffice distribution. But I suspect they’re probably trying to wipe out the memory of the original Lotus Symphony, which had been hyped as the Second Coming and which fell totally flat. It was the software equivalent of Gigli.

Does this seem right to you?

http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/18/mint-the-easiest-way-to-manage-your-personal-finances/

Mint: The easiest way to manage your personal finances

By Eric Eldon 09.18.07

[Update: Mint has won the TechCrunch 40 conference’s competition, which goes to the most impressive presenting company from among the 40 participants. Mint will receive a $50,000 cash award and other services and awards from corporate sponsors.]

Mint, a long-awaited online tool for managing your personal finances, has launched today.

For those who have used Quicken or other traditional personal accounting software to manage your checking, savings and credit card accounts, Mint will be a relief.

Once you sign up, you provide Mint with access to all of your accounts. Mint automatically categorizes each paycheck and each expenditure, then provides visual graphs and pie charts showing exactly how you’re spending your money. The entire process takes a matter of minutes.

I'm gonna start recording my classes... What kind of ads should I put on “College Algebra?”

http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/plugadplay--Insert-Ads-Into-Your-Videos-Make-Cash/

PlugAdPlay.com - Insert Ads Into Your Videos, Make Cash

PlugAdPlay is a video advertising site which gives any video producer the chance to earn money with video clips. Users can ad PlugAdPlay adverts to the beginning and end of their videos, or they can opt for a streaming banner. There are three different ways to actually earn money once the PlugAdPlay ads have been appended. First, you’ve got to upload your video on any site like Youtube, or Google Video; you’ll automatically earn up to a dollar for each video uploaded. Plug will pay you an extra bonus for each person watching your video wherever you’ve uploaded it. If your video becomes the most viewed on any video sharing site, you’ll reap in an extra extra bonus. PluAdPlay also pays for clicks and impressions generated by your video. Additionally, you can publish the site’s video player on your blog or website to generate even more money (each time someone watches, of course, means you’re making revenue). The potential profits are high (Plug estimates as much as $960 a month). To receive your money, you’ll need to have earned a minimum of $50.

http://www.plugadplay.com/

Statistics. How much is security worth?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070918180943683

CompTIA: Data breaches growing in severity

Tuesday, September 18 2007 @ 06:09 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Data leakage events continue to become more serious, with the types of information that companies are losing or having stolen becoming increasingly strategic and valuable, according to the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

Based on the latest data breach study published by the consortium of IT companies -- which currently claims over 22,000 corporate members in over 100 countries around the world -- the businesses it polled regarding their information leakage incidents rated the value of the lost content a 4.8 on a 1-to-10 scale, compared to 2.3 in 2006 and 2.6 in 2005.

...According to the research, the average cost of a security breach across all companies was $369,388, a figure that the group said was skewed by a handful of companies who indicated leakage-related expenses over $10 million.

For roughly 50 percent of respondents, the cost of security breaches in the last 12 months was $10,000 or less, the report said.

Source - InfoWorld

A contractual solution to identity theft risk?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070918083551567

Ca: Consumers fail to meet banks' online security demands: study

Tuesday, September 18 2007 @ 09:35 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News

Many consumers who manage their money through online banking services may be unaware of their financial institution's strict security requirements, thereby jeopardizing their eligibility for fraud reimbursement, according to a study out of Ottawa's Carleton University.

Source - CBC

Interesting because the latter is signed by a “Chief Privacy Council”

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070918171223954

(update) Ameritrade Notification Letter

Tuesday, September 18 2007 @ 05:12 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A copy of Ameritrade's notification letter to customers is available online.

Source - NH Dept. of Justice

Is this deliberate disclosure? It doesn't look like hacking to me.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070914/023532.shtml

No Wonder The Feds Hate Limewire; Terrorist Threat Assessment Leaked Via Limewire

from the so-that-explains-it dept

A few months back, we were a bit surprised at the misplaced anger directed by some Congressional representatives towards file sharing software provider Limewire. There were some outrageous claims about how Limewire represented a threat to national security and how it was all Limewire's fault that stupid government employees had leaked sensitive information. Of course, this was misplaced because it wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees were too stupid to configure the software properly. It wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees didn't follow rules that forbid them from installing unapproved apps on their machines -- or on transferring sensitive material to personal computers. Instead, it was all blamed on Limewire. It also wasn't entirely clear what sensitive reports had been leaked... but now we know of at least one. Apparently a national security terrorist threat assessment for the city of Chicago was recently available via Limewire. Though, again, the questions shouldn't be about Limewire, but what gov't employee would (a) have Limewire and classified info on the same computer and (b) configure Limewire to allow that classified info to be shared.

Tie this to the Virtual Machines, and you can have a system that only runs one application. Good security!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/19/0436203&from=rss

Internet Security Moving Toward 'White List'

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday September 19, @03:08AM from the instead-of-the-other-way-around dept. Security IT

ehud42 writes "According to Symantec, 'Internet security is headed toward a major reversal in philosophy, where a 'white list' which allows only benevolent programs to run on a computer will replace the current 'black list' system' as described an article on the CBC's site. The piece mentions some issues with fairness to whose program is 'safe' including a comment that judges need to be impartial to open source programs which can change quite rapidly. Would this work? The effort to maintain black lists is becoming so daunting that white lists may be an effective solution."

Ah! Rethinking time!

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1190106164117

Circuits Split on Web Download as Interstate Commerce

Pamela A. MacLean The National Law Journal 09-18-2007

It may be called the World Wide Web, but the government cannot automatically equate Internet use with movement of photos of child pornography across state lines, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held.

The Sept. 5 decision breaks with two other circuits, the 3rd and 5th, which simply assumed that the interstate character of the Internet means a connection to a Web site server invariably involves data moving in interstate commerce.

Judge Jerome A. Holmes ordered the reversal of the conviction of William Schaefer for receipt and possession of images of the sexual exploitation of children.

Holmes, joined by Judges David M. Ebel and Timothy M. Tymkovich, wanted more than proof that Schaefer used the Internet.

The government failed to offer any evidence to establish the requisite jurisdictional nexus of a movement across state lines to show interstate commerce. Schaefer's use of the Internet alone is not sufficient, the court said. The government must show the images moved between states.

"Simply stated, we decline to assume that Internet use automatically equates with a movement across state lines. With respect to such interstate movement, the government must introduce sufficient evidence to satisfy its burden of proof," wrote Holmes in U.S. v. Schaefer, No. 06-3080.

The government maintained that the evidence was sufficient because the compact disks containing child porn found in Schaefer's Topeka, Kan., home were re-writable, thus able to accept downloaded images from the Internet. They contained foreign-language movie clips of child porn and an image of one girl was familiar to police as having been on the Internet in other investigations.

Here's my business model: “Hey! Wake up!” “Dude! Eat Breakfast” “Yo! The school bus is waiting!” “Dude! Hillary promises a chicken in every pot!”

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9781006-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Study: Texting boosts young voter turnout

Posted by Stefanie Olsen September 18, 2007 5:00 PM PDT

Text-message spam may go up this November for voter-age youth.

Turns out that young people are more likely to vote when they receive a text-message reminder, according to a new study published this month by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

The researchers ran their test in the November 2006 election, with text reminders sent to roughly 4,000 young voters. Researchers pulled data and cell phone numbers from voter registration records at the Student PIRG's New Voters Project and Working Assets Wireless; and following the election, they matched the files to find out which registrants had voted.

The study showed that voter turnout rates rose by 4 percent in the sample group of young people who had received a text message to vote. According to the study, short, to-the-point reminders were most effective, with a rise of nearly 5 percentage points.

But in a follow-up survey, nearly a quarter of the respondents said the messages were annoying just like you might expect from unsolicited messages. About 59 percent said the texts were helpful. That percentage could be hopeful news for campaigners this fall, especially considering that the study pegged the added cost per vote at $1.56, compared with about $30 for door-to-door canvassing.

Humor?

http://www.bbspot.com/News/2007/09/microsoft-reveals-windows-vista-sp1-will-install-xp.html

Microsoft Reveals Windows Vista SP1 Will Install XP

By Brian Briggs Monday, September 17 12:00 AM ET

Say it isn't so! Could this be true? Could any organization be so... so... STUPID?!?!

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070914/175349.shtml

Ameritrade Knew About Data Leak Long Before It Told Customers

from the quite-some-time,-it-seems dept

Late Friday, the news broke that TD Ameritrade is the latest in a long, long, long, long, long list of companies who have leaked data of its customers. In this case (as in many others) it was apparently due to their computers getting hacked. Considering how many similar stories we see, it almost didn't seem worth writing about. However, it appears that Ameritrade was well aware of the hacking long before they disclosed it. According to a lawsuit that was filed months ago, Ameritrade users had been receiving stock spam to unique email addresses provided only to Ameritrade as far back as October of 2006 -- and some of those users had reported this to Ameritrade. Then, back in May, Slashdot ran a detailed piece on the apparent leaking of Ameritrade email addresses, and even questioned why Ameritrade had not disclosed this breach, as is required under California law. The lawsuit, filed at the end of May, questions this as well. Yet, Ameritrade waited until now to disclose that their systems had been hacked, making email addresses available to people. Amusingly, Slashdot's report on this fails to note Slashdot's earlier story that helped spur the lawsuit and apparently pushed Ameritrade to finally investigate the claims. [Suggesting that Ameritrade's security didn't notice the hacker? Bob] Either way, it raises questions about why Ameritrade waited this long to inform its customers that their emails had been leaked, despite pretty clear evidence of a leak from quite some time ago.

More on the Ohio tapes: Perhaps because Ohio can easily be mis-spelled as Connecticut?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070914154942432

(update) Connecticut data on stolen Ohio computer tape, comptroller says

Friday, September 14 2007 @ 03:49 PM CDT
Contributed by: PrivacyNews

News Section: Older News Stories

State Comptroller Nancy Wyman says names and Social Security numbers of 57 Connecticut residents were improperly listed on a computer backup tape stolen in Ohio.

Connecticut will offer free credit protection to affected residents. Accenture, a consultant that worked on both states' computer systems, will pay for the service.

Source - Newsday

All the news that wouldn't fit...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070917070030450

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, September 17 2007 @ 07:12 AM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.

Source - Chronicles of Dissent

No doubt this will lead to mandatory “server overload” protection... Right?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070917/001053.shtml

What An Online Bank Run Looks Like

from the 404-page-not-found dept

In the bad old days (or in countries with questionable financial situations) when there were concerns a bank might run out of money, there would be an old-fashioned "bank run," with tons of customers all trying to withdraw their money at once. That could cause all sorts of problems, since most banks work on the theory that such runs won't happen. Thanks to the FDIC, you don't see bank runs in the US these days, but apparently that's not the case in the UK, where concerns over the financial status of the bank Northern Rock led to what certainly looks like an old-fashioned bank run. However, in this modern age, not everyone is lining up on the street to get into their nearest Northern Rock branch. Apparently, the bank's website has experienced the equivalent of a bank run on its servers -- meaning that they've been pretty much unable to handle the traffic, frustrating a number of online account holders who say the terms of service say the only way they can retrieve money is via the online interface. Of course, the fact that many of those account holders can't even reach the site is leading to increased panic among those who fear that the site is down permanently. Apparently, even if the interface is different, an online bank run pretty much mimics the offline one.

Smart or Not Smart: “We're not only going to stop using iTunes, we're going to make sure those customers never use our products again!”

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/17/1927212&from=rss

Universal Offers iPod-Resistant Music

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 17, @03:41PM from the that-wont-last-long dept. Music The Internet

dprovine writes "Universal is now offering music through Spiral Frog as free downloads supported by advertising revenue. But according to Daily Tech, the files being offered won't work on iPods. 'The move to not allow its content to be played on iPod's appears to be a clear snub by the Universal Music Group, similar to NBC's recent move of its television content from iTunes to Amazon.com. Apple has not commented on this development. For many, though, SpiralFrog.com presents an intriguing new business model that may present a legal alternative to file sharing or spending large amounts of money on CDs or paid download services, such as iTunes.'"

Smart or Not Smart: Eventually, someone will do the math.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?ei=5090&en=880b1ab05717fa9d&ex=1347768000&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1190077416-8TeJR427Z/2PL6EV57w6Qw

Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA Published: September 18, 2007

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

Yes, it's public information, but not, you know like public!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/218200&from=rss

City Fights Blogger On Display of Public Information

Posted by Zonk on Friday September 14, @06:33PM from the security-through-obscurity-right dept. Censorship The Media The Internet Politics

rokkaku writes "When the gadfly blogger Claremont Insider went searching for information about employee compensation on the city of Claremont web site, they never expected to find scans of pay stubs for all the employees. Nor did they expect the city attorney to demand that they remove copies of those pay stubs from their web site. They found it especially odd since, according to California law, the compensation of public employees is public information."

Hey guys! Even better, lets add this to a trojan so we can turn cameras on without the owner knowing!

http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/homecamera--Your-Webcam-Surveillance-System/

HomeCamera.com - Your Webcam Surveillance System

HomeCamera is a downloadable program which turns your webcam into a free surveillance system. Great for keeping tabs on the kids, the dog, the spouse. Once you download the app you can hook up up to four cameras and find out what’s going down in your house or office. Camera footage can be accessed from any computer, mobile phone, or PDA with an internet browser. Additionally, you can share your footage with friends and family. If you’re using it for security, you can set up the motion detection feature; images can be sent to your email address or cellular. Store photos and videos on their servers for up to a month at no extra charge. While the service is currently in beta, everything’s free; however, once the service goes commercial, beta trialists will receive a free Lite version along with special offers on subscription and mobile access.

http://www.homecamera.com/web/Home.do

Downside of 'Ubiquitous Surveillance?'

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070917194101251

Caught Snooping, Husband Sues Spy Software Vendor - UPDATED

Monday, September 17 2007 @ 07:41 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts

An Ohio man facing a lawsuit from his wife's friend for intercepting her emails using spyware on a household computer filed suit Friday against the spyware maker, arguing the company's ads failed to warn him that using it to monitor his family, including his wife, would violate state and federal laws.

Relying on a federal wiretap law that allows victims of spying to sue for damages, Jeffrey Havlicek argues that Deep Software, the Canadian company that sold him the key logger, should pay him thousands of dollars in damages and pay any claim from the lawsuit filed against him for spying illegally.

Source - Threat Level (blog)

Microsoft and the death of 1000 cuts!

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070917/230811.shtml

Microsoft's Tough Night: Google And IBM Both Launch Free Office Products

from the on-your-toes... dept

Just about 24 hours after continued to insist that Microsoft is a monopoly that needs to be restricted, three major tech companies demonstrated why that might not be the case. First up, Google rolled out their long awaited presentations capabilities to Google Docs. Google continues to insist that this is merely a "feature" added to the Google Docs offering, but obviously, this is a light version of PowerPoint. Still, Google seems to recognize that this isn't a full featured offering just yet, and the announcement plays up the biggest strength of Google Docs that can't be matched by Microsoft's Office Suite: the real-time collaboration ability. That's what made the original Writely so useful, and Google seems to recognize that and know to focus on it. My quick test of the software suggests that it works pretty much exactly as you'd expect it to -- which means it's quite simple to pick up and use.

While the Google announcement may be more important long-term, it's also worth noting IBM's decision to offer a free downloadable office suite. Way back when, IBM bought Lotus and tried to compete with Microsoft in the online collaboration, email and office suite arena -- and pretty much failed miserably. Sure, there were an awful lot of legacy customers (especially on things like Notes) who kept sending cash to feed the cash cow, but it was clear many years ago that the offering was losing to Microsoft. In recent years, there's been a new interest in office suite applications with the various online offerings from the likes of ThinkFree, Zoho and Google -- as well as via the open source desktop office suite client OpenOffice (and Sun's StarOffice variant). Last week, IBM threw its support behind OpenOffice, and the new free "Lotus Symphony" suite is going to be based on that platform. This could lead to two important things. First, if IBM dedicates increased resources to improving OpenOffice, it can become an even stronger competitor to Microsoft's office suite (and it's already pretty strong) -- similar to the way that IBM added some heft to Linux. However, more importantly, the IBM brand name is likely to go a lot further in enterprises than OpenOffice (or even Sun's StarOffice).

Finally, as we've already discussed, Yahoo's Zimbra purchase gives it a path into enterprise collaboration software as well. If you're Microsoft right now, it would seem you have pretty good evidence that a strong market position is no guarantee of keeping competitors out of the market.

How not to screw up e-Discovery

http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/sedonas-new-commentary-on-search-and-the-myth-of-the-pharaohs-curse/

Sedona’s New Commentary on Search, and the Myth of the Pharaoh’s Curse

The Sedona Conference has just released its Best Practices Commentary on the Use of Search and Information Retrieval Methods in E-Discovery (August 2007) for public comments. A copy may be downloaded for personal use.

So TJX earned the hacker between $23.5 and $235 Million. ...and I bet we could find lots more 'low hanging fruit' if we were so inclined.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/17/Symantec-says-stolen-bank-account-details-fetch-$400_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/17/Symantec-says-stolen-bank-account-details-fetch-$400_1.html

Symantec: Stolen bank account details fetch $400 online

The rise in threats to Internet security is driven by well-funded international gangs of criminals, Symantec says

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service September 17, 2007

Stolen bank account numbers are commanding the highest price in an underground trade of personal details stolen by hackers, according to a survey released Monday by security vendor Symantec.

Bank account details command prices of up to $400, while credit card details sell for between $0.50 and $5, e-mail passwords from $1 to $350 each, and e-mail addresses from $2 to $4 per megabyte, according to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report, which covers the first half of the year.

Let's be absolutely clear. The State of Ohio created this tape, but our friends at Interhack had to tell them what was on it? Does this sound like good management to you?

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=19&articleId=302856&intsrc=hm_topic

Experts Say More Personal Data Is on Stolen Ohio Tape

Brian Fonseca Today’s Top Stories or Other Storage Stories

September 17, 2007 (Computerworld) -- An Ohio state government backup tape stolen in June contained far more personal data than was first believed, according to a computer forensics firm hired by the state.

When the incident was discovered, state officials said the device contained data on all 64,467 Ohio state employees and tens of thousands of other people, including Ohio teachers.

Two reports released last week by Columbus, Ohio-based Interhack Corp. said an examination of a copy of the missing tape revealed that it also held the names and Social Security numbers of 47,245 Ohio taxpayers and 19,388 former state employees.

Ron Sylvester, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, said that Interhack investigators also uncovered banking information on 100 state businesses and the federal employee ID numbers from 40,088 businesses.

The incident is expected to cost the state almost $3 million, including $2.3 million to provide affected individuals with credit protection services from Debix Inc., Sylvester said.

It occurred to us the other day that virtual machines could greatly enhance security. Think of a user working on a project he wants to keep secret. He can define a machine with no network connections, no floppy or USB drives... no way for anyone else to access the files.

http://www.news.com/Virtualization+homes+in+on+desktops/2100-7339_3-6208181.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Virtualization homes in on desktops

By Stephen Shankland Story last modified Mon Sep 17 04:00:03 PDT 2007

When Parallels Desktop was released in June 2006, it opened the door for hundreds of thousands of Apple users to run Windows at the same time as they ran the Mac operating system.

It also introduced the masses to the notion of desktop virtualization.

Virtualization, until recently, has focused largely on the server, where the idea of enabling one server to act as many has clear cost benefits.

While Windows-on-a-Mac is still the most widely known use for the technology, there are reasons why desktop virtualization may soon expand into new areas.

So far, many of those areas are in the corporate arena, where businesses are aiming to offer more secure environments or perhaps run older in-house software that only works with older operating systems, while at the same time having desktops running modern operating systems. It also has benefits in terms of disaster recovery, provided the virtual machines are well backed-up.

... VMware offers technology for both desktop virtualization approaches. Its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure takes the server-based approach, while two other options handle things directly on the desktop, one for power users and the other for standard cubicle dwellers.

... Virtualization means that people don't have to switch entirely to a different operating system. If people find even one Linux application that they really want to run, desktop virtualization can make that feasible.

You have to be careful not to hand customers the rope to hang you with....

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/16/2116248&from=rss

Comcast Slightly Clarifies High Speed Extreme Use Policy

Journal written by Alien54 (180860) and posted by Zonk on Sunday September 16, @06:35PM

from the that's-some-customer-service-right-there dept.

The Internet Businesses Networking Games

Alien54 writes "Comcast has finally clarified what 'excessive use' is when it comes to their cable internet service. A customer is exceeding their use limit if they: download the equivalent of 30,000 songs, 250,000 pictures or 13 million emails in a month. '[A Comcast spokesperson] said that Comcast's actions to cut ties with excessive users is a "great benefit to games and helps protect gamers and their game experience" due to their overuse of the network and thus "degrading the experience."'" Maybe they could put that limit in terms other than 'email' or 'songs'?

Can't wait!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/17/0110219&from=rss

Big Brother Really Is Watching Us All

Posted by Zonk on Sunday September 16, @09:06PM from the hi-guys dept. Security Privacy Science

siddesu writes "The BBC has a nice high-level overview of some technologies for surveillance developed in the US and the UK. 'The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game ... But it [a through-the wall sensing device in development] will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking.'"

Research?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/015999.html

September 16, 2007

NTIS Search Engine Provides Archive Access Back to 1964

"Search the NTIS [National Technical Information Service] collection of 3 million products back to 1964 at no charge to you."

For all you Mac lovers...

http://digg.com/apple/The_Free_Mac_Classroom_Over_200_apps

The Free Mac Classroom (Over 200 apps!)

Absolutely the biggest list of free educational applications for the Mac! Over 200 free apps listed and categorized.

http://web.mac.com/simon_elliott/iWeb/simon_elliott%40mac.com/Software.html

To me, this reads like the tool kit for a small business.

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/59317.html

Organizing a Personal Media Library, Part 1: Getting It

By Chris Maxcer MacNewsWorld Part of the ECT News Network 09/14/07 4:00 AM PT

The first step is to get all of your media converted to easily playable digital formats. While it seems as if that should be simple enough in the year 2007, pesky issues like copyright and DRM schemes can bog you down. While Apple's particular flavor of DRM, FairPlay, lets you play the songs on a handful of computers, once you have multiple Macs in your household, it's easy to run into issues.