Does using a computer make it a “computer crime?” There is nothing here that “requires” a computer. Surely there is precedent from the “dark ages before computers.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5162

2,000-Year-Old Scrolls, Internet-Era Crime

November 8, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Internet

Jim Dwyer reports:

Early one morning in March, the law banged on the door of an apartment on Thompson Street in Greenwich Village. Investigators had a warrant to arrest Raphael Haim Golb and seize his computer. He was caught red-handed.

Mr. Golb is, or was, a guerrilla fighter in a cyberbrawl over the Dead Sea Scrolls, a war about the origins of 2,000-year-old documents that has consumed the energy of academics around the globe.

Read more in the New York Times.

Jennifer Peltz of the Associated Press begins her coverage with a focus on the legal question and implications for trolling and spoofing on the Web:

Parodies, pranks and freewheeling Internet discussion are at risk in a criminal case against a man accused of using online aliases to discredit his father’s rivals in a debate over the Dead Sea Scrolls, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Such tactics may be irritating, but they’re not crimes, attorney Ronald Kuby argued in legal papers asking a court to throw out nearly all the criminal charges against Raphael Golb. The court hasn’t yet ruled.

In this case, however, the defendant is alleged to have sent out an e-mailed confession under someone else’s name in order to discredit him. Golb denies the allegations, but his attorney argues that whoever did do that was only engaging in an “intellectual prank” and engaged in protected free speech.

Sorry, Mr. Kuby, but this is not a parody situation and this blogger does not think that sending out an e-mail while posing as someone else and “confessing” to plagiarism or anything other discrediting is protected speech. Should it be considered a criminal act, though, or is it “just” a civil matter? If someone spoofs your e-mail address and uses it to send out hate e-mail or e-mail encouraging attacks on others, is that a civil matter or criminal one?

It will be interesting to see what the court does with this case.

(Related) Here's a much nastier tool.

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/2135245/Malware-Can-Download-Child-Porn-To-Your-Computer?from=rss

Malware Can Download Child Porn To Your Computer

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 08, @04:47PM from the where's-dexter-when-needed? dept.

2muchcoffeeman writes

"The Associated Press tells the story of Michael Fiola, a former Massachusetts government employee who was arrested in 2007 after child porn was found on his state-issued laptop computer. He was eventually cleared of all charges after some digging by the defense found that the laptop was infected with malware that was 'programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half. [Now will you encrypt your WiFi? Bob] Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.' The article also discusses the technical aspects of how it could happen and about similar cases in the United Kingdom in 2003."

[From the article:

Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else's computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

… But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

For my Disaster Recovery class.

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/09/0012226

Massive Power Outages In Brazil Caused By Hackers

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 08, @07:17PM from the mongering-engine-warming-up dept.

Hugh Pickens writes

"CBS reports on 60 minutes that a massive two-day power outage in Brazil's Espirito Santo State affecting more than three million people in 2007, and another, smaller event in three cities north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005, were perpetrated by hackers manipulating control systems. Former Chief of US National Intelligence Retired Adm. Mike McConnell says that the 'United States is not prepared for such an attack' and believes it could happen in America. 'If I were an attacker and wanted to do strategic damage to the United States, I would either take the cold of winter or the heat of summer,' says McConnell, 'I would probably sack electric power on the US East Coast, maybe the West Coast and attempt to cause a cascading effect.' Congressman Jim Langevin says that US power companies need to be forced to deal with the issue after they told Congress they would take steps to defend their operations but did not follow up. 'They admit that they misled Congress. The private sector has different priorities than we do in providing security. Their bottom line is about profits,' says Langevin. 'We need to change their motivation so that when see vulnerability like this, we can require them to fix it.' [That's a very Liberal, government-knows-best kinda statement. No doubt government (i.e. taxpayers) should pay for the fix, too. Bob] McConnell adds that a similar attack to the one in Brazil is poised to take place on US soil and that it may take some horrific event to get the country focused on shoring up cyber security. 'If the power grid was taken off line in the middle of winter and it caused people to suffer and die, that would galvanize the nation. I hope we don't get there.'"

Are we forcing users to store their identities the Cloud? Aside from providing a central target for all those user IDs, what exactly is the benefit? Risks include error in the central repository and the impact of downtime (think of it as a cyber war target).

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022752.html

November 08, 2009

CDT Highlights Policy Issues Related to New Identity Management Systems

"CDT released a whitepaper highlighting policy issues related to responsible user-centric identification systems. The paper comes as the U.S. Government begins launching a series of pilot programs that will use third party user credentials to authenticate users to federal Web sites and discusses possible challenges to be considered as these activities are expanded in order to provide a better user experience."

• Whitepaper on User-Centric Identity - November 02, 2009

Rupert Murdoch talks about taking “fair use” to court, suing the BBC and other ways to “protect” (require payment for) their content.

http://mumbrella.com.au/murdoch-well-probably-remove-our-sites-from-googles-index-11366

Murdoch: We’ll probably remove our sites from Google’s index

Rupert Murdoch has suggested that News Corporation is likely to make its content unfindable to users on Google when it launches its paid content strategy .

OMG Dood, Colorado Tech is offering a PhD in Social Media. Where have you been?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022753.html

November 08, 2009

2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study

2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study "was designed to assess current trends in the use of social media in North American businesses. Based on 2,948 valid responses to our online Business Social Media Benchmarking Survey during August and early September, 2009, the results provide a very useful benchmark for where businesses, and business people, are finding value in social media across different activities and sites. The study was focused on social media utilization – how people and companies are using social media in a work context today – and not on adoption. All study participants currently used social media in their day-to-day jobs as a resource for business-relevant information and/or worked for a company currently managing, developing or planning social media initiatives."

[From the Study:

This is clearly an area of particular interest to business-to-business (B2B) marketers but establishing clear benchmarks in this area has much larger ramifications at a time where, according to a recent study by Robert Half International2, 54% of companies ban two of the most popular social media sites for business, Facebook and Twitter and only 10% of the 1,400 CIOs surveyed indicated that they give employees full access to social networks at work. This knee-jerk concern about squandering work time on personal issues has been seen many times before (telephones, cell phones, Internet, e-mail, etc.) and establishing the business value in social media can help companies placing themselves in the position of attempting to understand and utilize this new communication channel without the ability to actually use it at work.

(Related) Playing catch-up to the technology. Squatting on a brand name is tricky, but can pay off big time.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=140377

GM, Kellogg, Nestle Beat to the Tweet as Squatters Take Over Twitter Names

Marketers That Have Not Registered Handles Fear Brand Reputation at Risk

by Rupal Parekh Published: November 09, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- On Twitter's @Hyundai page, there is a collection of 140-character blasts in English and Korean about oysters, cellphones and the Yankees. Clicking on a profile photo reveals a collage of scantily clad ladies bearing cleavage and more, and a caption saying, "Have a Lustful Day."

… Among the multinational corporations whose Twitter accounts are being squatted upon: General Motors, General Electric, Diageo, Coty, Comcast, Eli Lilly, Kellogg Co., MasterCard, Nestle and Walt Disney (see chart above).

(Related) Looks like you won't stop talking if you start tweeting or texting or whatevering. (If you don't tweet are you anti-social?)

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140455/Got_friends_Now_you_can_thank_Facebook

Got friends? Now you can thank Facebook

Study finds that social networking actually improves face-to-face communication

By Sharon Gaudin November 6, 2009 02:25 PM ET

Computerworld - Despite a widespread belief that social networks like Facebook and Myspace are isolating people from other humans, a new study found that the social networks are more likely helping to expand social circles.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project's Social Isolation and New Technology study, released this week, shows that Americans aren't as isolated due to technology use as previously thought. In fact, the study found that technology is helping, not hindering, our social lives.

How to improve your surveillance. (Because you can't watch 24/7)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10392844-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Ex-Palm trio loads up on Vitamin D

by Ina Fried November 9, 2009 3:00 AM PST

Vitamin D, a start-up formed by three ex-Palm executives, is releasing a public beta of software that consumers can use to detect human motion in their security cameras and create rules on what to do when someone is spotted coming or going.

… Haitani gave a preview of the technology at this year's Demo conference. There's also a video of the technology in action on Vitamin D's Web site.

Another tool gets sharpened. (The Supremes aren't twittering, yet, so this will have to do.)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022754.html

November 08, 2009

Widely Cited Supreme Court Database Made More Accessible

News release: "The success of the highly regarded Supreme Court Database has been unparalleled. Information from the database is cited in the majority of peer-reviewed articles about the workings of the court. A team including Northwestern University School of Law's Lee Epstein, a specialist in the politics of the Supreme Court, has expanded the database -- with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the latest in today's technology -- to make the resource easily accessible to a wider audience. Now, a streamlined interface allows anyone to go online and pull up cases with ease... By modernizing the Supreme Court Database, Epstein and her team are expanding Michigan State University Law Professor Harold Spaeth's original invention and using technology that wasn't available at its inception. Currently, cases from 1953 to 2008 are available. New funding from NSF means the database can be expanded to include information dating back to the court's first decision in 1792. The Supreme Court Database began with Spaeth's work in the late 1980s. Spaeth was able to collect decades of data on the court and put it together in a comprehensive database available to the public."

• The Supreme Court Database is accessible here. The online version and a downloadable version are available. The database is updated every term.

Is this another valuable research tool? I'm just glad they don't clutter my coffee table any longer.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022755.html

November 08, 2009

List of all magazines now available in Google Books

Jeffrey Peng, Software Engineer, Google Books, a software engineer on Google Books: "One of my main projects is adding magazine content and features to the site. In September we were excited to announce the availability of over 1,860 issues of the iconic LIFE magazine on Google Books. One of the feature requests that I got from friends and family was to add a way to browse all the magazines available... I'm happy to announce that last week I coded up a page on Google Books that lets you browse the available magazine titles. You can view the page here."

For my website students

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/193209/Tired-of-Flash-HTML5-Viewer-For-YouTube?from=rss

Tired of Flash? HTML5 Viewer For YouTube

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 08, @02:32PM from the that-taste-great-together dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"Instead of spending the next 10 years trying to find a Flash implementation for Linux or OS X that doesn't drain CPU cycles like there's no tomorrow, NeoSmart Technologies has made an HTML5 viewer for YouTube videos. It loads YouTube videos in an HTML5 video container and streams (with skip/skim/pause/resume) against an MP4 resource, and an (optional) userscript file can update YouTube pages with the HTML5 viewer. The latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are supported. Personally, I can't wait until the major video sites default to HTML5 and we can finally say goodbye to Flash."

Who says New Yorkers aren't innovative? I've never seen this type of Data Breach before. We'll have to be careful if the Rockies go on another run...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=8154

Private paperwork found in Yankee parade confetti

November 7, 2009 by admin Filed under Business Sector, Exposure, Financial Sector, Government Sector, Healthcare Sector, Of Note, U.S.

Julia reports:

The half ton of recycled confetti provided to buildings lining the Canyon of Heroes in downtown Manhattan for the Yankees’ victory parade yesterday turned out not to be enough for some people to show their enthusiasm. Medical records, financial statements, pay stubs, law firm invoices and court records were found in the fifty tons of paper trash left behind.

Office workers from buildings lining the route got a little too enthusiastic and started throwing paperwork out of their windows. The records that were found included unshredded files from A.L. Sarroff, Goldman Sachs, and the Bronx Supreme Court, as well as medical test reports, some with identifying information and Social Security numbers which would make identity theft remarkably easy. Some of their more sensible colleagues threw toilet paper.

Read more in the Village Voice.

Here's one to give your CEO a heart attack (once you've explained it to him)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/181467/vendors_scrambling_to_fix_bug_in_nets_security.html

Vendors Scrambling to Fix Bug in Net's Security

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Nov 5, 2009 1:10 am

… The flaw lies in the SSL protocol, best known as the technology used for secure browsing on Web sites beginning with HTTPS, and lets attackers intercept secure SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) communications between computers using what's known as a man-in-the-middle attack.

… Although the flaw can only be exploited under certain circumstances, it could be used to hack into servers in shared hosting environments, mail servers, databases, and many other secure applications, according to Chris Paget, a security researcher who has studied the issue.

[From the Blog:

Assuming all the conditions are right (and we’ll get back to that) at best it allows an attacker to inject an arbitrary request into an SSL-protected stream. It does not allow you to decrypt data, it does not allow you to read any information back, it does not allow you to inject into the returning stream of data.

For your Security Manager NOTE: The PDF includes links to many free online removal tools

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/0233248/Test-of-16-Anti-Virus-Products-Says-None-Rates-Very-Good?from=rss

Test of 16 Anti-Virus Products Says None Rates "Very Good"

Posted by timothy on Saturday November 07, @10:20PM from the keeps-the-av-people-in-business-though dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"AV-Comparative recently released the results of a malware removal test in which they evaluated 16 anti-virus software solutions. The test focused only on the malware removal/cleaning capabilities, therefore all the samples used were ones that the tested anti-virus products were able to detect. The main question was if the products were able to successfully remove malware from an already infected/compromised system. None of the products performed at a level of 'very good' in malware removal or removal of leftovers, based on those 10 samples."

[Test results (PDF):

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/removal/avc_removal_2009.pdf

Well, as long as everyone agrees...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/0010243/WIPO-Committee-Presentations-Show-Nuanced-View-of-Copyright?from=rss

WIPO Committee Presentations Show Nuanced View of Copyright

Posted by timothy on Saturday November 07, @07:14PM from the at-least-given-the-context dept.

AtomicJake writes

"As the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is known for a very rigid course combating counterfeiting and piracy in general, it comes as a surprise that during a meeting of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement, several presenters have shown nuanced views on the economics of enforcing intellectual property rights. Combating clothing piracy might not be beneficial for the welfare of a developing country. Most surprising is the presentation of WIPO Chief Economist (PDF) Carsten Fink, which says that illegal copies of software may actually be beneficial even for consumers of the original goods. Also the piracy of audio-visual goods creates not only losses but also benefits for e.g. hardware manufacturers. Maybe this is because Mr. Fink wrote the presentation before joining WIPO?"

A good side-by-side. I wish I could say a good plan, but that might be asking too much.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022749.html

November 07, 2009

WSJ - Health-Care Reform Proposals Comparison Chart

Follow up on previous postings on health care reform, from WSJ.com - Health-Care Reform Proposals - "Compare health-care legislation taking shape in the House and Senate as President Barack Obama pushes to overhaul the system. Details are still being negotiated and any final health care bill would have to meld proposals from the House and Senate."

Completely unrelated? More about a learning curve than technological breakthroughs.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10392954-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

How much would you pay to see your future?

by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore November 7, 2009 1:38 PM PST

My dad used to say technology is advancing so quickly that, by the time a product reaches market, it is already obsolete. [Nonsense. Bob] Moreover, if you wait just a little longer, you can pay a lot less. The sequencing of the human genome takes the advancement of technology, and its fast reduction in cost, to an entirely new level.

The Human Genome Project, which officially completed the mind-boggling achievement of sequencing Jim Watson's genome in 2006, carried the equally mind-boggling price tag of $3 billion. If I may be so bold as to use that word thrice in one paragraph, even more mind-boggling is that a company called Complete Genomics has just sequenced three human genomes for $4,400 in materials, with an error rate of less than one base in 100,000.

I don't have much of a SPAM problem (except through my University emails) but I hear other do. Perhaps this will help?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-to-protect-hide-your-email-to-stop-receiving-spam/

5 Ways to Protect & Hide Your Email to Stop Receiving Spam

Nov. 7th, 2009 By Tina

For my Computer Forensics students. It may be better to make our own version.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/1340208/Microsoft-COFEE-Leaked?from=rss

Microsoft COFEE Leaked

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday November 08, @09:05AM from the not-so-hot-cofee-incident dept.

54mc writes

"Crunchgear reports that Microsoft's long-searched-for forensics tool, COFEE, has been leaked. The tool started on a small, private tracker, but has since worked its way to The Pirate Bay. Not all those who have gotten hold of it are enthused, and reviews have ranged from 'disappointing' to 'useless.' From the article: 'You have absolutely no use for the program. It's not something like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, an expensive application that you download for the hell of it on the off-chance you need to put Dave Meltzer's face on Brett Hart's body as part of a message board thread. No, COFEE is 100 percent useless to you.'"

“Ignorance is the only excuse we've got!” and they are teaching the next generation... Sad.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=8142

Chaminade posted Social Security numbers of thousands of students online

November 7, 2009 by admin Filed under Breach Incidents, Education Sector, Exposure, U.S.

Chaminade University inadvertently posted confidential information, including Social Security numbers, of thousands of students, on its Web site for months, school officials said today.

The posting of a report with the information was discovered Wednesday [“No one, least of all management, knows what's on our website.” Bob] and the report was taken off the Web site and links disabled.

An investigation determined the report was placed on obscure — though publicly accessible — Web pages because of human error, according to a university news release. The information was accessible for about eight months, although there is no evidence of its use, [“We don't log activity.” Bob] officials said. The university estimates that personally identifiable data for 4,500 students were in the report. Those affected include undergraduate students who attended the university from 1997 to 2006.

Read more in the Star Bulletin.

[From the article:

Chaminade officials are putting in place procedures [“Yes, we should have done this years ago, but we were ignorant.” Bob]designed to prevent a recurrence and will provide additional training to staff regarding the protection of personal information, the university said.

The university is contacting the people whose information was put online. Those affected are being asked to monitor and review their credit report. [“No, we will not do what everyone else does.” Bob]

It would seem that the ability to surveil is addictive and causes otherwise rational(?) people to exceed all reasonable limits – or not consider them in the first place.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5123

UK: CCTV of PE kids seized

November 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Non-U.S., Surveillance, Youth

Video footage of primary pupils changing for PE [physical education] lessons has been seized by police after a protest by furious parents. Police were called to diffuse the row at the gates after mums and dads found pupils were filmed round the clock.

There was no suggestion it was used inappropriately [suggesting that it is okay to video as long as your motives are pure? Bob] but police seized the footage after talks at Charlestown primary.

Salford council is reviewing use in its 82 schools. A parent said: “It is a breach of privacy.”

Source: The Mirror.

(Related) “Why would anyone find this objectionable?”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5130

UK: Only a ‘minimal’ invasion of privacy: Snooping council spied on family 21 times in 3 weeks

November 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Govt, Non-U.S., Surveillance

A council which used controversial laws to spy on a mother and her family 21 times in three weeks insisted today that its actions only ‘minimally’ invaded their privacy.

Poole Borough Council had also used Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) legislation on two other occasions to determine whether families were living in the right school catchment areas, a landmark hearing was told.

Mother-of-three Jenny Paton had applied for a school in Poole which was ‘educational gold dust’, Ben Hooper, counsel for the district’s borough council, said.

Read more in the Daily Mail.

(Related) This will allow us to monitor children in wholesale lots! It will be ever so much more efficient.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5142

ContactPoint database of 11 million children’s details to go ahead despite security fears

November 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Featured Headlines, Non-U.S., Youth

Martin Beckford and Graeme Paton report:

Ministers are pressing ahead with the introduction of ContactPoint to every local authority in the country after claiming that a pilot project has proved a success.

They say the long-delayed £224 project will make England’s 11million young people safer by providing a single register that can be used by all child protection professionals.

But there are concerns that the sensitive data could fall into the wrong hands, after an official review concluded that it could never be completely secure. [“A minor concern.” Bob]

It is also feared that police or council workers will use it to search for evidence of crime or pry into family arrangements, rather than safeguarding children.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are both committed to scrapping ContactPoint, should they win the general election.

Read more in the Telegraph.

[From the article:

"Every IT system the Government touches turns into a disaster – we cannot afford to let them mismanage the personal details of 11 million children. [Don't you love the calm, comradely discussions of UK politicians? Bob]

Is this “good government” as opposed to the “bad government” above?

http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/11/05/govhack/

GovHack: govt data + hackers + caffeine == good times

2009 November 5 by John Allsopp

… In all there were around 20 projects presented at the end of the 24 hours, almost all of which were conceived and built at the event itself. Many were geo/mapping focussed, but others focussed on data visualisation and exploration, the next wave of web applications in many people’s opinion.

… Projects that you can actually use right now included (keep in mind their alpha state)

• The overall winners LobbyClue, by a team comprising members many of whom had never met before the event. LobbyClue is an in-depth visualisation of lobbying groups’ relations to government agencies, including tenders awarded, links between the various agencies, and physical office locations

• Know where you live, a stylish presentation of ABS data (along with Flickr Geocoded photos), pulling in relevant information for a particular postcode: rental rates, average income, crime rates, and more. Built by a team of developers who work at News Digital Media.

• What the Federal Government Does, an enormous tag cloud of the different functions of government, combined with visualisations of government functions shared between departments.

• Rate A Loo demonstrates a community engagement idea, seeded with government provided data. Allows users to locate and then rate the condition of public toilets.

• It’s buggered, mate, In true Australian style, allows you to report buggered toilets, roads, etc, with an easy-to-use graphical interface overlayed on a map. Their idea was to combine this with local government services to fix issues in the community. Built by a team of developers from Lonely Planet.

• Many more fantastic projects can be found at the GovHack site.

Blog free or die!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/07/1345211/NH-Supreme-Court-Hears-Case-On-Protections-For-Anonymous-Sources-Online?from=rss

NH Supreme Court Hears Case On Protections For Anonymous Sources Online

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 07, @09:16AM from the in-a-statement-provided-by-xsephirothx dept.

fulldecent writes

"The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that calls into question the legal protections available to independent Web sites that cover news. The case involves mortgage lender Implode-Explode, a Las Vegas-based site launched in 2007 that publishes stories about the meltdown of the mortgage industry. Associate Justice Carol Ann Conboy pressed the point with [defense lawyer Jeremy Eggleton], questioning, 'Can anyone who posts a blog be considered a reporter,' for the purposes of claiming protection of anonymous sources? Eggleton answered yes, within limits: 'The test is whether the person has an intention to gather, analyze and disseminate.'"

For my website students

http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/gifsoup-com-effective-video-transformations

GifSoup.com - Effective Video Transformations

http://www.gifsoup.com/

When it comes to transforming images and videos into GIFs this is a totally uncomplicated way to do it, with the right seasoning of additional features. GifSoup.com will help you to capture videos in order to convert them into animated GIFs straightforwardly enough. In essence, this is a free web-based tool you can use simply by pasting the YouTube URL of the video you want to transform into a GIF file and then setting the time you want it to start and end. After that, you just need to hit the “publish” button and that will be it.

The system is then going to capture the corresponding frames and make the necessary changes to convert it into a single animated GIF. One of the best things about this system is the fact that you are not required to be skilled in editing at all.

This will be a good way to save time and energy by letting the system do all the hard work for you.

...and they make great targets for my hacking students.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5128

New ’smart’ electrical meters raise fresh privacy issues for consumers

November 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Other, Surveillance

Daniel Silva reports:

The new “smart meters” utilities are installing in homes around the world to reduce energy use raise fresh privacy issues because of the wealth of information about consumer habits they reveal, experts said Friday.

The devices send data on household energy consumption directly to utilities on a regular basis, allowing the firms to manage demand more efficiently and advise households when it is cheaper to turn on appliances.

But privacy experts gathered in Madrid for a three-day conference which wraps up Friday warned that the meters can also reveal intimate details about customers’ habits such as when they eat, what time they go to sleep or how much television they watch.

Read more on MB.com.ph

Talking about Privacy...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5136

ACS Panel: Living Online – Privacy and Security Issues in a Digital Age

November 7, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Other

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) hosted an event exploring challenges to privacy in a growing digital age. The event featured a keynote address by Christopher N. Olsen, the Assistant Director in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, which was followed by a diverse panel of experts who discussed the myriad issues surrounding the availability of information in cyberspace, including privacy concerns such as potential government dissemination of financial and health
records.

You can view the 2-hour presentation and discussion on their site.

Implications beyond GPS. What does this say about the “black boxes” everyone wants to install in our cars? Will they provide data with multiple “interpretations” and if so, who gets to do the interpreting? Lots of entertaining comments, but they argue without the facts. I can't find this in online court records, traffic court must not be available.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/07/037216/Radar-Beats-GPS-In-Court-mdash-Or-Does-It?from=rss

Radar Beats GPS In Court — Or Does It?

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 07, @05:14AM from the technology-deathmatch dept.

TechnologyResource writes

"More than two years ago in California, a police officer wrote Shaun Malone a ticket for going 62mph in a 45-mph zone. Malone was ordered to pay a $190 fine, but his parents appealed the decision, saying data from a GPS tracking system they installed in his car to monitor his driving proved he was not speeding. What ensued was the longest court battle over a speeding ticket in Sonoma county history. The case also represented the first time anyone locally had tried to beat a ticket using GPS. The teen's GPS pegged the car at 45 mph in virtually the same location. At issue was the distance from the stoplight — site of the first GPS 'ping' that showed Malone stopped — to the second ping 30 seconds later, [Between these pings, the car reached Light Speed and decelerated again. Bob] when he was going 45 mph. Last week, Commissioner Carla Bonilla ruled the GPS data confirmed the prosecution's contention that Malone had to have exceeded the speed limit and would have to pay the $190 fine. 'This case ensures that other law enforcement agencies throughout the state aren't going to have to fight a case like this [Care to wager? Bob] where GPS is used to cast doubt on radar,' said Sgt. Ken Savano, who oversees the traffic division. However, Commissioner Bonilla noted the accuracy of the GPS system was not challenged by either side in the dispute, but rather they had different interpretations of the data. Bonilla ruled the GPS data confirmed the prosecution's contention that Malone had to have exceeded the speed limit."

“I'm right, the rest of the world is wrong,” used to get you a padded room. Now it gets you an MBA?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1639252/Cable-Exec-Suggests-Changing-Consumer-Behavior-Not-Business-Model?from=rss

Cable Exec Suggests Changing Consumer Behavior, Not Business Model

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday November 06, @01:58PM from the customers-should-like-what-we-want-them-to-like dept.

Techdirt has pointed out yet another cable exec that just doesn't quite get it. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand.

"'An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting.' How many consumers, in any market, are focused on 'respecting' vendors' revenue streams? How, exactly, does he propose to effect this sea change? And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"

(Related) It's not the world you grew up in, and it's changing as you measure it.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1616208/ATampTs-City-By-City-Plan-To-Up-Wireless-Coverage?from=rss

AT&T's City-By-City Plan To Up Wireless Coverage

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 06, @12:23PM from the hockey-stick-gone-vertical dept.

alphadogg writes

"AT&T has created different mobile calling models for every major city in America as it tries to improve a network that has come under fire for poor performance as the data-friendly iPhone has proliferated, an executive said Thursday. Other carriers just use one nationwide calling model to plan for all cities, claimed CTO John Donovan, speaking at the Open Mobile Summit conference in San Francisco. The nation's second-largest mobile operator has had a hard time planning for bandwidth needs in the rapidly changing mobile world, Donovan said. AT&T has seen rapidly growing mobile data usage — and much criticism over its 3G coverage — as the exclusive iPhone carrier in the US. 'If a network is not fully loaded, it's hard to know exactly how much demand is out there,' Donovan said. 'You put all you can in the ground, and they eat it all up, and then you put more in there, and they eat it all up.'"

The story notes that mobile data at AT&T has grown 4,932% over the last 3 years.

(Related) Giving customers what they ask for... Pay attention to this one. Youtube (Google) might want to buy it, academics might want to emulate it. Imagine having students research and perform a bunch of short videos telling their peers how to solve linear equations or create a web page or research a legal issue. They get an “A,” professors get a pay raise!

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_demandmedia

The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model

By Daniel Roth October 19, 2009 3:00 pm Wired Nov 2009

… Plenty of other companies — About.com, Mahalo, Answers.com — have tried to corner the market in arcane online advice. But none has gone about it as aggressively, scientifically, and single-mindedly as Demand. Pieces are not dreamed up by trained editors nor commissioned based on submitted questions. Instead they are assigned by an algorithm, which mines nearly a terabyte of search data, Internet traffic patterns, and keyword rates to determine what users want to know and how much advertisers will pay to appear next to the answers.

… By next summer, according to founder and CEO Richard Rosenblatt, Demand will be publishing 1 million items a month, the equivalent of four English-language Wikipedias a year. Demand is already one of the largest suppliers of content to YouTube, where its 170,000 videos make up more than twice the content of CBS, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera English, Universal Music Group, CollegeHumor, and Soulja Boy combined. Demand also posts its material to its network of 45 B-list sites — ranging from eHow and Livestrong.com to the little-known doggy-photo site TheDailyPuppy.com — that manage to pull in more traffic than ESPN, NBC Universal, and Time Warner’s online properties (excluding AOL) put together.

… The result is a factory stamping out moneymaking content. […] This year, the privately held Demand is expected to bring in about $200 million in revenue; its most recent round of financing by blue-chip investors valued the company at $1 billion.

… because pay for individual stories is so lousy, only a high-speed, high-volume approach will work. The average writer earns $15 per article for pieces that top out at a few hundred words, and the average filmmaker about $20 per clip, paid weekly via PayPal. Demand also offers revenue sharing on some articles, though it can take months to reach even $15 in such payments. Other freelancers sign up for the chance to copyedit ($2.50 an article), fact-check ($1 an article), approve the quality of a film (25 to 50 cents a video), transcribe ($1 to $2 per video), or offer up their expertise to be quoted or filmed (free). Title proofers get 8 cents a headline. Coming soon: photographers and photo editors. So far, the company has paid out more than $17 million to Demand Studios workers; if the enterprise reaches Rosenblatt’s goal of producing 1 million pieces of content a month, the payouts could easily hit $200 million a year, less than a third of what The New York Times shells out in wages and benefits to produce its roughly 5,000 articles a month.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/acta/

Here’s That Leaked Copyright Treaty Document

By David Kravets November 6, 2009 4:11 pm

The secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement document we wrote about on Wednesday appeared on Wikileaks today, and our source has cleared us to publish it here as well.

We wrote that the document, (.pdf) if true, amounted to policy laundering at its finest -– that the United States was pushing the world to require ISPs to adopt “graduated response” policies that amounted to terminating internet service of repeat, copyright offenders.

Maybe the Pirates were right?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/07/0256257/Norwegian-Court-Rules-ISP-Doesnt-Have-To-Block-The-Pirate-Bay?from=rss

Norwegian Court Rules ISP Doesn't Have To Block The Pirate Bay

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 07, @12:09AM from the arrr-me-hearties dept.

C4st13v4n14 writes

"In a sudden outbreak of uncommon sense yesterday, a Norwegian District Court handed down the decision that Telenor, Norway's largest ISP, will not have to block access to The Pirate Bay. Telenor was sued earlier this year by the IFPI after being threatened and not backing down. 'The court ruled that Telenor is not contributing to any infringements of copyright law when its subscribers use The Pirate Bay, and therefore there is no legal basis for forcing the ISP to block access to the site. ... In making its decision, the court also had to examine the repercussions if it ruled that Telenor and other ISPs had to block access to certain websites.'"

[From the article:

“This would be the same as demanding that the postal service should open all letters, and decide which ones should be delivered,” said Telenor boss Ragnar Kårhus.

… “At the same time it is important for us to emphasize that this case is not about being in favor of or opposed to copyright, but about whether or not it is reasonable to saddle Internet service providers with a censorship role in respect of content on the Internet,” he added.

Kårhus went on to say that the most important way for IFPI and other rights holders to maintain healthy revenue streams, is to develop business models and services that render the use of sites like The Pirate Bay less attractive to Internet users. [A recurrent theme... Bob]

I remember magazines! Great articles about what happened last month. Now I read about what's happening today (this minute)

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/read-650-magazines-online-for-free-with-maggwire/

Read 650 Magazines Online for Free With Maggwire

Nov. 6th, 2009 By Saikat Basu

… Maggwire (beta) is an online destination for those who are interested in free online magazines.

Free is good

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/CAINE-1.0-Forensic-Distribution-from-Italy

CAINE 1.0: Forensic Distribution from Italy

Nov 03, 2009

CAINE, an Ubuntu live CD with forensic tools, is now available in version 1.0.

… CD and USB images for CAINE 1.0 are available for download on the project webpage.

Forward this to your Mac buddies

http://smokingapples.com/asides/macheist-offers-nanobundle-worth-154-for-free/

MacHeist offers nanoBundle worth $154, for free!

The biggest Mac software bundle makers are offering a what appears to be prelude to their christmas bundle, for free. The list includes:

* Shovebox * Twitterrific * Writeroom * TinyGrab * Hordes of Orcs * MarinerWrite

… It’ll be gone in 6 days.

All those Science Fiction writers were right?

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/07/047249/Antimatter-In-Lightning?from=rss

Antimatter In Lightning

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 07, @08:15AM from the doc-brown-can-now-power-his-warp-drive dept.

AMESN writes

"The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, launched last year, detects gamma rays from light years away, but recently it detected gamma rays from lightning on Earth. And the energy of the gamma rays is specific to the decay of positrons, which are the antimatter flavor of electrons. Finding antimatter in lightning surprised researchers and suggests the electric field of the lightning somehow got reversed."

Thank God congress is finally asking questions. In just a few days, we can look forward to detailed non-answers to inane questions! What a country!

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=8117

Archives officials grilled on the Hill over missing data drives

November 6, 2009 by admin Filed under Commentaries and Analyses, Government Sector

Max Cacas reports:

So, why can’t the National Archives hang on to its computer hard drives?

That’s the question that the House Information Policy, Census and National Archives wants answered.

Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Missouri), is chairman of the panel, a part of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The theft or loss of the Clinton hard drive was very disturbing, and we look forward to hearing a status report on the agency’s efforts to notify and identify individuals whose personal information may have been compromised.

It is more troubling, however, to hear of new instances of data breaches or losses.

The circumstances, and the agency’s handling of them cast doubt on the National Archives ability to understand existing and emerging risk in order to properly safeguard the nation’s electronic record.

Previous coverage here and here.

Read more on Federal News Radio.

More government breaches?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=8123

Government accused of ‘cover up’ over lost farmer tapes

November 6, 2009 by admin Filed under Government Sector, Lost or Missing, Non-U.S., Of Note, Subcontractor

The Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been accused of a “cover up” after two back-up tapes went missing containing the banking details of around 100,000 farmers.

The tapes are said to have gone missing this spring, with Defra officials having been informed in July. The tapes were lost by contractor IBM, after sending them from a site in Reading to Newcastle. The information on the missing tapes related to cash top-up payments to farmers through the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), a Defra body.

The RPA itself was only informed about the loss in September. It is reported a meeting between Defra officials in early October concluded there was “little risk” to farmers as a result of the tapes going missing. It was therefore decided not to report the matter publicly.

Read more on Document Management News.

I thought this was sure to stimulate discussion, and here it is.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5108

Podcast: The Fourth Amendment and Email

November 6, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, Featured Headlines, Internet, Other

From LegalTalkNetwork:

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution gives us protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. But what about a search of your email – is it afforded the same protection? Co-hosts and attorneys J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Orin S. Kerr , Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School and Jason Paroff Esq. , Director of Computer Forensics Operations with the ESI Consulting practice at Kroll Ontrack to look at the recent opinion handed down by U.S. District Judge Mosman with respect to the Fourth Amendment and email along with our experts’ look at what can be retrieved and used in court when it comes to email.

You can listen to the 34-minute podcast on their site or download it for later listening.

An interesting vision of the future? This suggests much larger networks of health records than I recall being discussed at the Privacy Foundation's recent seminar.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/1217203/CDC-Adopts-Near-Real-Time-Flu-Tracking-System?from=rss

CDC Adopts Near Real-Time Flu Tracking System

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 06, @09:03AM from the you've-got-the-flu-swine dept.

CWmike writes

"The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an effort this week to better and more easily track for H1N1 and other seasonal influenza activity throughout the US. The CDC said it is now tracking data on 14 million patients from physician practices and hospitals stored on a database hosted by GE Healthcare. The data is submitted daily from physician's offices and hospitals that use GE's electronic medical record system. The data is then uploaded to GE Healthcare's Medical Quality Improvement Consortium , a database repository designed with HIPAA-compliance parameters of patient anonymity and best practices, where it can be the subject of medical data queries. The CDC can perform queries to look for flu-like symptoms being reported by physicians, and then disseminate the data for health care providers and local government officials throughout the country, who can alert businesses and others about flu outbreak hot spots. The CDC also hopes its analysis of the data helps it better understand the characteristics of H1N1 outbreaks and to determine who is most at risk for developing complications from the virus. Prior to implementing the new system, the CDC relied heavily on tracking insurance claims data, which could take days or weeks to make its way to the agency's medical staff for analysis. The medical data is normalized so that fir example reports of hypertension, HTN, and high blood pressure all mean the same thing when a researcher enters a query against the data."

Possibly useful summary.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5103

Microsoft Expresses Cloud Privacy Commitment, Concerns

November 6, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Internet

Thomas Claburn reports:

Cloud computing continues evoke privacy concerns, so Microsoft has published a position paper that attempts to address the questions it’s been hearing.

The paper’s publication coincides with the 31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, which is taking place this week in Madrid, Spain.

“We know that cloud computing is getting a lot of attention these days and we’ve heard from customers and external stakeholders that they’d like to hear what we’re thinking about it,” said Brendon Lynch, senior director of privacy strategy for Microsoft’s trustworthy computing group. “Privacy and security are the number one concern of organizations that are thinking about going into the cloud space.”

Read more on InformationWeek.

[Direct link to the paper: Privacy in the Cloud Computing Era: A Microsoft Perspective.

You don't need hackers when you can shoot yourself in the foot. NOTE: A 1970s era computer would not be a microcomputer. It probably cost more to maintain it each year than replacing it with several (redundant backup) PCs would have cost.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/05/1632204/Computer-Failure-Causes-Gridlock-In-MD-County?from=rss

Computer Failure Causes Gridlock In MD County

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 05, @12:49PM from the single-point-of-roadrage dept.

Uncle Rummy writes

"A central traffic control computer in Montgomery County, Maryland failed early Wednesday morning, leading to widespread gridlock across the entire county. The computer, which dates to the 1970s, is the single point of unified control for all traffic signals in the county, which comprises a number of major Washington DC-area suburban communities. When the system failed, it caused all signals to default to stand-alone operation, rather than the highly-tuned synchronization that usually serves to facilitate traffic flow during rush hours. The resulting chaos is a yet another stark reminder of how much modern civilization relies on behind-the-scenes automation to deliver and control basic services and infrastructure. The system remains down Thursday, with no ETA in sight."

(Related) Some more details..

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=598&sid=1803146

Near-normal commute expected in Montgomery Co.

November 6, 2009 - 5:25am

… In a statement released Thursday evening, Leggett said engineers re-established a connection between the county's 800 traffic lights and the computer that controls them, so lights are now responding to commands from the computer.

… "This is a rather old computer. It's probably 25 to 30 years old," says Emil Wolanin, chief traffic engineer for Montgomery County. "It's a 1980s-vintage Data General main frame computer. Parts are not really available."

(Related) At what point does a software vendor become liable for damages? We better figure this out, since the alternative is, “everyone gets a free shot at hacking your computer.” The scale makes me think Al Gore could “Invent” yet another global crisis. (There's a Nobel for that!)

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/05/1853242/Shockwave-Vulnerabilities-Affect-More-Than-450-Million-Systems?from=rss

Shockwave Vulnerabilities Affect More Than 450 Million Systems

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 05, @02:14PM from the drug-resistant-infections dept.

Trinity writes

"Researchers from VUPEN have discovered critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Shockwave, a technology installed on over 450 million Internet-enabled desktops. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution by tricking a user into visiting a web page [Human error? Let's eliminate the humans! HAL (I mean, Bob)] using Internet Explorer or even Mozilla Firefox. Version 11.5.1.601 as well as earlier ones are affected. The vendor recommends upgrading to version 11.5.1.602."

Especially sobering when you consider Adobe's current push to be essentially required as an intermediary player for anyone who wants to see certain government data.

I can't help laughing at his one. But I like the concept of using lawyers as facilitators. Q: “How do I get past this silly law?” A: “Create a new work.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10391592-27.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Beatles copyright case down a legal rabbit hole

by Matt Rosoff November 5, 2009 2:07 PM PST

Last week, a music site called BlueBeat made headlines by offering Beatles songs as free streams and 25 cent downloads. The Beatles are known for not making their songs legally available on iTunes or any other online forum, so observers rightly asked "how are they doing this legally?"

… According to the report, MRT claims that it didn't post the exact Beatles recordings. Instead, it posted "psychoacoustic simulations," then added simple video content to them. This constitutes a new audiovisual work, and isn't covered by the existing copyrights, MRT argues. In fact, MRT even went so far as to apply for copyrights on the "new" works!

Perhaps this is all some kind of metacommentary on the frustrating inconsistency of U.S. copyright law, but I predict that MRT is going to be laughed out of court. In the meantime, if you want your Beatles music online, it's still available on BlueBeat as of the time I posted this. I didn't want to give the company a credit card to test the whether the downloads work, but the streams sound pretty close to perfect...especially considering that they're only psychoacoustic simulations.

Should we be defending Intel?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10391464-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

One charge hard to level at Intel: Raising prices

by Brooke Crothers November 6, 2009 4:00 AM PST

Experts say Intel has been instrumental in driving down PC prices, one of the key indicators of competition and one charge New York's Attorney General cannot easily level against Intel in its antitrust lawsuit.

… "Once you strip away the charged but meaningless phrases like 'bullying,' it boils down to accusing Intel of offering steep price rebates in order to retain business--i.e., the essence of competition," according to a note released Thursday by Richard Brosnick, who practices in the area of antitrust at the law firm Butzel Long.

"One of the purposes of antitrust is to get companies to compete on price. To tell a company like Intel that you can't drop price in response to competition is taking antitrust laws to a place they're not intended to be," he said in an interview.

(Related) If not anti-trust, what legal tool addresses the industry's collaboration to restrict how music is sold? (Can “failure to adapt” be “restraint of trade?”)

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/record-labels-keep-blaming-p2p-but-its-a-hard-sell.ars

Record labels keep blaming P2P, but it's a hard sell

The IFPI is blasting a recent study showing that P2P users buy more music, but an EU Commissioner and a UK Parliamentary body both blame music labels for "much of the problem" with current P2P usage levels. The major labels couldn't disagree more.

By Nate Anderson Last updated November 4, 2009 7:15 PM CT

In response to a new survey suggesting that P2P file-swapping might not be harming music sales, music's international trade group IFPI today put out a statement. "The net effect of illegal file-sharing in the UK and elsewhere has been to reduce legitimate sales," IFPI asserts. "This is why spending on recorded music has fallen every year since illegal file-sharing began to become widespread."

In other words, P2P file-sharing is the main cause of the revenue decline and the (very real) job losses in the recorded music business. It's a strong assertion, but it's not necessarily accepted outside the music industry. And we're not talking about the usual copyrighters, or groups like EFF, or Pirate Party backers; complaints about P2P have failed to convince even people like the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding.

Back in June 2009, Reding made a speech in which she put equal blame for the problem on Big Content, so terrified of piracy and lack of control that many companies refuse to give customers what they want.

Interesting. I toss this in because the comments turned into a (long) list of reasons why landlines (and the phone companies) are outdated. Reads like a business opportunity to me.

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/11/05/2021254/Home-Phone-System-That-Syncs-To-Computer?from=rss

Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer?

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 05, @03:40PM from the not-where-the-action-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes

'In comparison to the advanced technology in today's smart phones, the standard home phone is painfully backwards. My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station. Setting the time on one phone changes the time on all the phones; however, this is not the case for the phone book. Each entry must be manually copied (pushed) to each handset. Is this as far as home phone technology has come? What I would like is a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units (if not sync with Address Book or Outlook), keep a log of caller IDs, or even forward me new voicemail notifications. Does anyone know if such a system exists?'

[From the comments:

http://www.openpeak.com/

For my website students

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/09/11/05/2311241/Google-Releases-Open-Source-JavaScript-Tools?from=rss

Google Releases Open Source JavaScript Tools

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 05, @06:24PM from the see-not-evil dept.

Dan Jones writes

"Google has open sourced several of its key JavaScript application development tools, hoping that they will prove useful for external programmers to build faster Web applications. According to Google, by enabling and allowing developers to use the same tools that Google uses, they can not only build rich applications but also make the Web really fast. The Closure JavaScript compiler and library are used as the standard Javascript library for pretty much any large, public Web application that Google is serving today, including some of its most popular Web applications, including Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps. Google has also released Closure Templates which are designed to automate the dynamic creation of HTML. The announcement comes a few months after Google released and open sourced the NX server."

Yet another indication that the courts are becoming aware/serious.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5065

Judge spanks lawyer for leaking personal details in brief

November 4, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Court

Dan Goodin reports:

A judge has chastised a lawyer for including the social security numbers and birthdays of 179 individuals in an electronic court brief, ordering him to pay a $5,000 sanction and provide credit monitoring.

US District Judge Michael J. Davis said he was meting out the penalty under his “inherent power,” meaning no one in the court case had filed a motion requesting he do so. In an order issued late last month, he said the move was designed to prevent attorney Vincent J. Moccio from repeating the carelessness again.

Read more in The Register.

More interesting: How come no one else cares? I suspect there are many thousands (millions?) of Facebook/Blockbuster users who don't even notice this connection.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5054

Texas Woman Sues Facebook for Privacy Violations (Updated)

November 4, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Businesses, Court

Worried about your privacy online? So is a woman from Texas, who’s suing Facebook and Blockbuster for posting too much information about her online.

Cathryn Harris found out after the fact that Facebook added a note every time she rented a movie from Blockbuster — a note that contained her full name and the name of the movie she was renting.

[...]

The 25-year-old homemaker from Dallas County, Texas, said she made the discovery last year when she rented the 1985 adventure film “The Jewel of the Nile,” starring Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito. She said an alert appeared on her Facebook profile detailing the transaction.

As a result, Harris filed two lawsuits — one last year against Blockbuster and one against Facebook last month. The suits claim a partnership between the two companies allowed Blockbuster to send Harris’ movie-renting habits to Facebook without fair opportunity to opt out.

Read more on Fox News

Update: EPIC filed a friend of the court brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, urging the Court to enforce federal privacy protections in the Video Privacy Protection Act for Facebook users who rented videos from Blockbuster, Facebook’s business partner.

(Related) Are you in a similar situation? Start by checking your Google profile. (An exercise for my Intro to Computer Security class)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10390941-265.html

Google Dashboard lifts curtain on stored data

by Tom Krazit November 4, 2009 1:12 PM PST

Google is proving to be well aware of the uneasiness among the public over the increasing amount of data it stores from users of its services.

Google is launching Google Dashboard, a service that lets you log into a console and see all the personal data that the company maintains on a Google Account user across all its products, from Gmail and YouTube to Blogger and Picasa. It allows users to log into the settings page of their Google account and review links to the personal data stored by Google across many of its products from a single Web page.

Users can delete data, change privacy settings, and read the privacy policies from various accounts on that page, which is scheduled to go live Thursday. Google had been prebriefing news outlets on the announcement, but a YouTube video outlining the service was somehow published on Google's Privacy Channel on YouTube and spotted by the Google Operating System blog.

One of the overarching themes with regards to Google this year has been the increasing discomfort among both the public and the government with the degree to which Google has grown to dominate the Internet. With nearly two-thirds of all Internet searches passing through its servers and growing numbers of people using its Google Docs, Gmail, and YouTube services, Google is a vital gateway to information for Internet users.

Google has tried to placate critics, recently emphasizing that it tries very hard to let users export any data they enter into one of Google's products through the work of the Data Liberation Front. Dashboard is another step in that direction as Google tries to emphasize that users have control over the data it stores on them.

[From the Blog:

More information about the new service in a YouTube video that was supposed to be "embargoed until 2am PT, November 5th".

Update: Google Dashboard is now available at http://www.google.com/dashboard.

Ever new uses for the DNA sample. They could do this if they had fingerprints, right?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=5062

Calif. Justices Seem OK With DNA-Based Warrant

November 4, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Court, U.S.

Mike McKee reports:

…..At issue in People v. Robinson , S158528, is whether an unknown suspect’s DNA profile — as opposed to a physical description — can satisfy the so-called particularity requirement for issuing a “John Doe” warrant, and whether such warrants toll the statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges.

A third issue is whether the unlawful collection of a blood sample violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

DeVito represented Paul Robinson, an alleged serial rapist found guilty of an August 1994 assault on a Sacramento woman who wasn’t sure of his race and had only a vague physical description.

Four days before the six-year statute of limitations for filing charges expired on Aug. 25, 2000, prosecutors filed a “John Doe” complaint describing the then-unknown defendant from a DNA profile developed from semen at the assault site. The next day, an arrest warrant was issued, tied to the DNA profile.

Read more on Law.com.

Another round of “We block you from actually getting what you pay for.”

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/04/2026206/Comcasts-New-Throttling-Plan-Uses-Trigger-Conditions-Not-Silent-Blocking?from=rss

Comcast's New Throttling Plan Uses Trigger Conditions, Not Silent Blocking

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 04, @03:38PM from the sir-there's-some-whining-on-lines-1-through-57 dept.

clang_jangle writes with this excerpt from The Inquirer outlining Comcast's new traffic-throttling scheme, based on information from Comcast's latest FCC filing.

"Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions. Comcast's first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes. Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem Termination System you're hooked-up to – along with up to 15,000 other Comcast subscribers – gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible. [In other words, you aren't using 70% of what you paid for, but you are responsible for reducing the volume available to 15.000 users? Was the system ever able to handle that volume? Bob] Tripping either of Comcast's high bandwidth usage rate triggers results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average [How is this calculated? Bob] bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes."

(Related) It's not always the user's fault.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10391092-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

T-Mobile says software error behind outage

by Ina Fried November 4, 2009 3:53 PM PST

T-Mobile said on Wednesday that a software glitch was to blame for a massive outage on Tuesday that left many customers unable to send or receive calls or text messages.

"After investigating the cause, we have determined that a back-end system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network," T-Mobile said in a statement. "T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future."

Looks like the price of processors is going up again. Couldn't we just execute a few executives and keep everything else “as is?” (Nothing like documenting your crimes to make the prosecutors job easier...)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022731.html

November 04, 2009

NY AG Cuomo Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel, World’s Largest Maker of Microprocessors

News release: "Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corporation, the world’s largest maker of computer microprocessors. The suit charges that Intel violated state and federal anti-monopoly laws by engaging in a worldwide, systematic campaign of illegal conduct - revealed in e-mails - in order to maintain its monopoly power and prices in the market for microprocessors. Over the last several years, Intel has extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers in which they agreed to use Intel’s microprocessors in exchange for payments totaling billions of dollars. [If they had been listed as “volume discounts” would there still be a case? Bob] Intel also threatened to and did in fact punish computer makers that they perceived to be working too closely with Intel’s competitors. Retaliatory threats included cutting off payments the computer maker was receiving from Intel, directly funding a computer maker’s competitors, and ending joint development ventures."

• Intel Complaint

At first I thought, “No way!” But then I realized I was giving lots of take-home exams anyway, so why not?

http://thenextweb.com/europe/2009/11/05/students-denmark-allowed-full-access-internet-exams/

Students in Denmark Allowed Full Access to the Internet During Exams

By Zee on November 5, 2009

… The country’s latest move see’s the Danish government preach that the Internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations.

… They can access any site they like, including Facebook, but they cannot message each other or email anyone outside the classroom. How that is prevented I’m not quite sure, but government advisors say pupils are disciplined enough not to cheat and that they can rely on the integrity of the pupil and the threat of expulsion if they are caught.

For my Security (Hacker) classes

http://sixrevisions.com/tools/10-free-server-network-monitoring-tools-that-kick-ass/

10 Free Server & Network Monitoring Tools that Kick Ass

November 4th, 2009 by Ben Dowling