Interesting that the UK tax people would rely on data taken illegally. I wonder if they have any way to confirm the data?

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10654

UK To Acquire Stolen Private Banking Data Of HSBC In Switzerland

March 16, 2010 by admin

Tom Burroughes reports:

The UK government is to acquire the Swiss bank account details of up to 6,600 wealthy UK citizens suspected of evading tax after information was stolen from HSBC’s private bank in Switzerland by a software engineer, the Sunday Times (of London) reported.

The report comes shortly after it was reported that the Swiss authorities are to investigate the matter. HSBC’s private bank has apologised to clients about the theft, which affected a total of 24,000 accounts, of which 15,000 were in use at the time of the theft about three years ago.

HSBC told WealthBriefing that it has fewer than 6,000 UK clients of its Swiss private bank – a figure which is at odds with the newspaper’s report. The bank said it was unable to make further comment at this stage.

The UK tax authority declined to comment on the matter.

Read more on WealthBriefing.

Notice that the changes in volume or price were sufficient to bring these trades to the SEC's attention. Also notice that they never mention that they did notice it...

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/manipulated-stock-prices/

SEC: Hacker Manipulated Stock Prices

By David Kravets March 16, 2010 2:14 pm

U.S. regulators are moving to freeze the assets and trading accounts of a Russian accused of hacking into personal online portfolios and manipulating the price of dozens of stocks listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange.

A New York federal judge on Tuesday sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission and froze the assets of Broco Investments, believed to be a one-trader operation based in St. Petersburg, Russia. The SEC said Broco capitalized by artificially moving prices of more 38 thinly traded securities — enabling Broco to profit from up-or-down price swings.

“These transactions have created the appearance of legitimate trading activity and have artificially affected the prices of at least 38 issuers,”(.pdf) the Securities and Exchange Commission said in court filing.

… Broco would purchase these and other stocks in its own portfolio and immediately place unauthorized buy orders at inflated prices of the same securities in hacked Scottrade accounts, the SEC said.

“Immediately or shortly thereafter, the defendants capitalized on the artificially inflated share prices of the targeted securities by selling the shares previously acquired in their account,” the SEC alleged. “In other instances, the defendants profited by covering short positions previously established in their account while placing unauthorized sell orders through the compromised accounts at substantially lower prices.”

Along the way, victims lost $600,000 in market value the last few months alone, the SEC said. And Broco, believed to be a one-person company run by Valery Maltsev, reaped $255,000 in ill-gotten gains during the same time.

Daily trading volume in Pennsylvania-based financial services company AmeriServe Financial averaged about 11,300 shares in from Dec. 1 to Dec. 20, the SEC said. The next day, volume increased 20 times. At least 200,000 shares were bought and sold through Broco or hacked Scottrade accounts, allowing Broco to leverage the prices for its own profits.

“Broco grossed $141,500 in approximately 15 minutes,” the SEC said.

Not a problem if you are working on your desktop, but serious implications for “Cloud Computing.”

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/1939227/MS-Virtual-PC-Flaw-Defeats-Windows-Defenses?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

MS Virtual PC Flaw Defeats Windows Defenses

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 16, @06:01PM

Coop's Troops writes

"An exploit writer at Core Security Technologies has discovered a serious vulnerability that exposes users of Microsoft's Virtual PC virtualization software to malicious hacker attacks. The vulnerability, which is unpatched, essentially allows an attacker to bypass several major security mitigations — DEP, SafeSEH and ASLR — to exploit the Windows operating system. As a result, some applications with bugs that are not exploitable when running in a not-virtualized operating system are rendered exploitable if running within a guest OS in Virtual PC."

This is absolutely true, if you assign a very low value to “Trust” and “Reputation.” I hope senior management has more sense, but hope rarely wins in the face of bigger bonuses.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/1931214/Users-Rejecting-Security-Advice-Considered-Rational?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Users Rejecting Security Advice Considered Rational

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 16, @04:32PM

WeeBit writes

"Researchers have different ideas as to why people fail to use security measures. Some feel that regardless of what happens, users will only do the minimum required. Others believe security tasks are rejected because users consider them to be a pain. A third group maintains user education is not working. [Microsoft Research's Cormac] Herley offers a different viewpoint. He contends that user rejection of security advice is based entirely on the economics of the process."

Here is Dr. Herley's paper, So Long, And No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users (PDF).

File this in the “Lessons to be learned before we share electronic Health Records”

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2238

Caterers ‘had access to patient files’

By Dissent, March 17, 2010 8:07 am

Paul Melia reports in Ireland:

Catering staff were able to access confidential patient information held on a €60m HSE record system which is being rolled out across the country.

Workers in Kerry General Hospital were able to access information including the patient’s name, address, admission, discharge date and doctor information, an internal audit of the system last year found.

And the audit warned of five “high-level” security risks in the Integrated Patient Management System (IPMS) which is used by 10 acute hospitals and 20 HSE centres.

While no clinical data had been uploaded on to the system at the time of the breach, it also found there was no national security policy on how to protect patient records and that some hospitals were just using the new system to replace older technology. Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly last night said that unless doctors and patients were confident that information would remain confidential, they would not co-operate.

Read more in The Independent.

Is this really a “privacy” issue? Looks more like a fraud case to me.

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2236

Patient Loses Privacy Claim Against Doctor

By Dissent, March 16, 2010 7:52 pm

Jeff Gorman reports:

A doctor did not violate a patient’s privacy by telling her case workers that she needed to stop taking prescription drugs, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled.

Teresa Gard suffered a back injury on the job and sought treatment from Dr. Dennis Harris.

However, Harris stopped seeing Gard after watching a surveillance video of her activities, which was supplied to him by an insurance company. The video showed Gard riding in a boat, bending over in her front yard and entering a car without pain.

Read more on Courthouse News.

Related: Opinion in Gard v. Harris (pdf)

Aren't most new cars equipt with these devices? Individually, they might be somewhat useful, but if we had a “national database” what could we learn?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8370

Texas Congressman Proposes a Mandate for Automobile Recording Devices

March 16, 2010 by Dissent

Shelley Childers reports:

A Texas congressman is planning to introduce legislation that would mandate electronic data recorders, also known as black boxes, in all new cars and trucks.

[...]

And Congressman Gene Green from Texas says this legislation is especially relevant considering the massive Toyota recall saying, “As we witnessed in the Toyota hearing, there is a demonstrated need of detailed crash information.”

But many are concerned that mandating a recording device breaches privacy.

Read more on CBS.

It's sort of a “don't ask, don't tell” kind of logic. If we pretend nothing 'illegal, immoral, or fattening” is happening, then we don't need to spend time thinking about it.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/1857259/Federal-Agents-Quietly-Using-Social-Media?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Federal Agents Quietly Using Social Media

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 16, @03:45PM

SpuriousLogic passes along this excerpt from the ChiTrib:

"The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter, too. US law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting. ... The document... makes clear that US agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs, and video clips. Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree... can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries."

The FoIA lawsuit was filed by the EFF, which has posted two documents obtained from the action, from the DoJ and Internal Revenue (more will be coming later). The rights group praises the IRS for spelling out limitations and prohibitions on deceptive use of social media by its agents — unlike the DoJ. The US Marshalls and the BATFE could not find any documents related to the FoIA request, so presumably they have no guidelines or prohibitions in this area.

Maybe they are serious? Can they make China back down? (I kinda doubt it...)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35886780/ns/business-world_business

Google appears to drop censorship in China

Internet giant denies change, but famous ‘Tank Man’ picture now accessible

Having lots of data can be extremely useful but also extremely difficult to store and analyze. This is forcing small businesses into the Cloud.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/big-data-freedom/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Big Data Is Less About Size, And More About Freedom

by Guest Author on Mar 16, 2010

Editor’s note: Big Data has been around for a long time between credit card transactions, phone call records and financial markets. Companies like AT&T, Visa, Bank of America, Ebay, Google, Amazon and more have massive databases they mine for competitive advantage. But lately, Big Data is finding its way to the smallest startups. The Web and cloud computing brings Big Data everywhere. But what exactly is pushing Big Data forward?

To answer that we brought in an expert, Bradford Cross. Bradford is the Co-Founder and Head of Research at FlightCaster. [ … ] The company analyzes large data sets to predict flight delays. Bradford is chair of the Dealing with Big Data track at Cloud Connect this week.

(Related)

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/16/spotify-bigger-than-sweden/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Spotify Consumes More Internet Capacity Than All Of Sweden

(Related) It's not that Google lost visitors, it's that there are more visits per user...

http://consumerist.com/2010/03/report-facebook-beats-google-for-webs-most-visited-site.html

Report: Facebook Beats Google For Web's Most-Visited Site

If students don't know how to use tools on the Internet when they start researching, they will by the time they earn a passing grade!

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/2049229/How-Students-Use-Wikipedia?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

How Students Use Wikipedia

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 17, @07:09AM

crazybilly writes

"First Monday recently released a study about how college students actually use Wikipedia. Not surprisingly, they found, 'Overall, college students use Wikipedia. But, they do so knowing its limitation. They use Wikipedia just as most of us do — because it is a quick way to get started and it has some, but not deep, credibility.' The study offers some initial data to help settle the often heated controversy over Wikipedia's usefulness as a research tool and how it affects students' research."

In theory, you can clip a scene from any movie and download it. I'll get a copy of “We don't need no stinking badges!” (Not many movies online yet.)

http://anyclip.com/?utm_source=Wait-List&utm_campaign=4c40f9b739-SXSW_Launch3_15_2010&utm_medium=email

AnyClip

As Identity Theft migrates from personal credit cards to small business bank accounts, the dollar amounts go up – with apparently little additional effort!

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10643

Victim Asks Capital One, ‘Who’s in Your Wallet?’

March 15, 2010 by admin

Brian Krebs writes:

In December, I wrote about how a Louisiana electronics testing firm was suing its bank, Capital One, to recover the losses after cyber thieves broke in and stole nearly $100,000. It looks like another small firm in that state that was similarly victimized by organized crooks also is suing Capital One to recover their losses.

Joseph Mier and Associates Inc., a real estate appraisal company based in Hammond, L.a., lost more than $27,000 last year when four unauthorized automated clearing house (ACH) withdrawals were made from its accounts and sent to individuals around the United States.

Read more on KrebsonSecurity.com

Related: Complaint (pdf)

Something for those of us with both technical and business degrees? Since this would be a great source of “targeting” information for Computer Security, perhaps we should be the ones to set it up?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/15/1740214/The-Coming-Botnet-Stock-Exchange?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

The Coming Botnet Stock Exchange

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 15, @01:22PM

Trailrunner7 writes

"Robert Hansen, a security researcher and CEO of SecTheory, has been gleaning intelligence from professional attackers in recent months, having a series of off-the-record conversations with spammers and malicious hackers in an effort to gain insight into their tactics, mindset and motivation. 'He's not the type to hack randomly, he's only interested in targeted attacks with big payouts. Well, the more I thought about it the more I thought that this is a very solvable problem for bad guys. There are already other types of bad guys who do things like spam, steal credentials and DDoS. For that to work they need a botnet with thousands or millions of machines. The chances of a million machine botnet having compromised at least one machine within a target of interest is relatively high.' Hansen's solution to the hacker's problem provides a glimpse into a business model we might see in the not-too-distant future. It's an evolutionary version of the botnet-for-hire or malware-as-a-service model that's taken off in recent years. In Hansen's model, an attacker looking to infiltrate a specific network would not spend weeks throwing resources against machines in that network, looking for a weak spot and potentially raising the suspicion of the company's security team. Instead, he would contact a botmaster and give him a laundry list of the machines or IP addresses he's interested in compromising. If the botmaster already has his hooks into the network, the customer could then buy access directly into the network rather than spending his own time and resources trying to get in."

“We don't need no stinking warrant!” After delivery, a copy of your email sits in your “Sent” folder as well as the copy in my “Inbox” All that in addition to the “Hold for the government” folder. Perhaps we need to re-think e-mail?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/1235227/11th-Circuit-Eliminates-4th-Amend-In-E-mail?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

11th Circuit Eliminates 4th Amend. In E-mail

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 16, @08:34AM

Artefacto writes

"Last Thursday, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a Fourth Amendment case, Rehberg v. Paulk, that takes a very narrow view of how the Fourth Amendment applies to e-mail. The Eleventh Circuit held that constitutional protection in stored copies of e-mail held by third parties disappears as soon as any copy of the communication is delivered. Under this new decision, if the government wants get your e-mails, the Fourth Amendment lets the government go to your ISP, wait the seconds it normally takes for the e-mail to be delivered, and then run off copies of your messages."

Until this bill is passed, there is absolutely, positively no way to tell a US citizen from one-a them non-English-speaking fur-in-ers. Soon all the good jobs will be stolen by illiterate immigrants – even Senators might be illegal. (Oh wait, that's redundant.)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8351

National Worker ID Proposed in Comprehensive Immigration Bill

March 16, 2010 by Dissent

I missed this story last week about newly proposed legislation that would create worker ID cards:

President Obama is scheduled to meet with Senators Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) later this week to discuss a Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill. At controversy is a proposed national worker ID which would be at the center of the Senators’ proposed immigration bill currently being worked on in the U.S. Senate.

To combat critics of CIR, who say that once it is passed more illegal immigrants will flood the United States, Senators Schumer and Graham will introduce a national worker ID. The new ID card would be embedded with information, such as fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card would be required for all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants. If implemented all new workers, including teenagers, would be phased in with an initial focus on industries that are known to employ illegal-immigrants.

Read more on MigrationExpert

(Related) Or maybe we could do it this way. After all, what fun is a national Health Care system for if you can't make your citizens prove they are “worthy” of care?

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2230

AU: Heath identifier function creep threatens data privacy says Coalition

By Dissent, March 15, 2010 11:48 am

Kareen Dearne reports:

The Senate Community Affairs committee has recommended passage of the controversial Healthcare Identifiers Bill, despite the minority Coalition members calling for amendments to ensure patient privacy and prevent personal identifiers being turned into a national identity regime.

Last night, the committee recommended developing a plan to introduce the scheme over the next two years, opening it to public comment before finalisation.

“The National E-Health Transition Authority in partnership with the Health Department and Medicare should more effectively engage all stakeholders in establishing the HI service,” it said.

Read more on Australian IT.

I suggest we start with his... All of it.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/15/1811224/Yale-Law-Student-Wants-Government-To-Have-Everybodys-DNA?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Yale Law Student Wants Government To Have Everybody's DNA

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 15, @02:06PM

An anonymous reader writes

"Michael Seringhaus, a Yale Law School student, writes in the NY Times, 'To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes.' In order to prevent discrimination [Gack! That's carrying PC way too far. By extension, we could execute everyone, not just serial killers – fair is fair. Bob] when it comes to collecting DNA samples from criminals (and even people who are simply arrested), he proposes that the government collect a DNA profile from everybody, perhaps at birth (yes, you heard that right)."

Regarding the obvious issue of genetic privacy, Seringhaus makes this argument: "Your sensitive genetic information would be safe. A DNA profile distills a person’s complex genomic information down to a set of 26 numerical values, each characterizing the length of a certain repeated sequence of 'junk' DNA that differs from person to person. Although these genetic differences are biologically meaningless — they don’t correlate with any observable characteristics — tabulating the number of repeats creates a unique identifier, a DNA 'fingerprint.' The genetic privacy risk from such profiling is virtually nil, because these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole."

Darn! Now I have to train my Hacker 101 class to bathe...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8334

Bacteria Trail Betrays Identity Of Computer Users

March 15, 2010 by Dissent

Thomas Claburn reports that now our bacteria can compromise our privacy:

Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that the bacteria trail left behind on objects like computer keyboards and mice can analyzed and used to help identify users of those devices.

“Your body is coated with bacteria inside and out,” says CU-Boulder assistant professor Noah Fierer in a video on YouTube. “You’re basically a walking microbial habitat. And we found that the diversity of bacteria just on the skin surface is really pretty incredible. You harbor hundreds of different bacteria species just on your palm, for example. We’ve also found that everybody is pretty unique. So of those let’s say hundred or so bacteria species, very few are of them are shared between individuals.”

What Fierer and his colleagues have demonstrated in a new study is that the distinctive combination of bacteria each of us carries and distributes can be used to help identify what we’ve touched.

Such work may one day help link individuals to malicious computer use or other crimes.

Read more on InformationWeek.

(For directions on knitting the bacteria [Huh? Bob] in the featured photo, click here.)

[Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4b7eqZAWuA&feature=player_embedded#

(Related) Tools for Hackers... I'd never suggest such things to my students because, as Dick Nixon said, “That would be wrong!”

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/try2stopme-bypass-restrictive-firewalls

Try2StopMe: Bypass Restrictive Firewalls at Work & School

… Try2StopMe is essentially a web-based proxy service, which means your web traffic is routed through another computer before being sent to you. This can bypass censorship because so far as the corporate or national firewall can tell all you’re doing is browsing Try2StopMe.

Check out Try2StopMe @ www.endscene.net/T2SM

Similar sites: AnonyMouse, CTunnel, Prime Proxies and Unblockall.

(Related) Now my Hackers will need some PhotoShop training. (Chapter 6 How to add Zeros)

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/16/0027217/Deposit-Checks-To-Your-Bank-By-Taking-a-Photo?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Deposit Checks To Your Bank By Taking a Photo

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 16, @07:50AM

Pickens writes

"The Mercury News reports that consumers will soon be able to deposit a check by snapping a photo of it with a cell phone and transmitting an encrypted copy to their bank. Although some critics contend paperless deposits are an attempt by the banking industry to eliminate 'float,' the standard one- or two-day waiting period between the time someone writes a check and the time the money is actually taken out of their account, actually remote-deposit capture started out as a way for big companies and financial institutions to process huge numbers of checks without having to ship them around the country. 'Our customers are becoming more and more tech-savvy,' said an SVP for mobile banking at Citibank. 'We're trying to support those people on the go.' Although the process adds a new wrinkle to concerns about fraud and the privacy of financial data, banks and the technology companies helping them say they have largely overcome these concerns. Another bank SVP said, 'For many institutions struggling to raise deposits and differentiate, this is an outstanding offering they can roll out inexpensively [note: interstitial]. It's a sticky product.'"

There have been (FBI) press releases before, but here's the whole report. Interesting that the leader in the “Perpetrators per 100,000 People” category is Washington DC.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023746.html

March 15, 2010

Internet Crime Complaint Center Annual Report

News release: "The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), released the 2009 Annual Report about fraudulent activity on the Internet today. Online crime complaints increased substantially once again last year, according to the report. The IC3 received a total of 336,655 complaints, a 22.3 percent increase from 2008. The total loss linked to online fraud was $559.7 million; this is up from $265 million in 2008."

Is this a model for RIAA fighters here?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8340

Pirate Bay legal action dropped in Norway

March 15, 2010 by Dissent

Mikael Ricknäs reports:

Copyright holders have given up legal efforts to force Norwegian ISP Telenor to block filesharing site The Pirate Bay, one of the parties to the case said.

The copyright holders, led by Norway’s performing rights society TONO and by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Norway (IFPI Norge) Norway have lost two rounds in the Norwegian court system, and have now decided against appealing the case to Norway’s supreme court, the organisations said.

Read more in Computerworld UK. TorrentFreak also provides coverage.

I wonder how many of these are in my cereal? (Of course, these are only the “non-confidential” chemicals – apparently Mother Nature holds patents...)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023756.html

March 15, 2010

EPA Makes Chemical Information More Accessible to Public For the first time

News release: "As part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s strong commitment to increase information on chemicals, for the first time, EPA is providing web access, free of charge, to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory. This inventory contains a consolidated list of thousands of industrial chemicals maintained by the agency. EPA is also making this information available on Data.Gov, a website developed by the Obama Administration to provide public access to important government information. This action represents another step to increase the transparency of chemical information while continuing to push for legislative reform of the 30 year old TSCA law."

Very focused search...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-7-underground-search-engines-knew/

Top 6 Underground Search Engines You Never Knew About

By Ryan Dube on Mar. 15th, 2010

Torrent Finder is one of the most impressive meta-search engines for Torrent files around.

… great bargain search engine FreshBargains. FreshBargains aggregates results from 15 top websites, which is excellent. However, another fantastic and barely known website to find freebies is called Prospector.

… Earlier, I wrote an article about the best websites to find foreclosed homes. Public government sources seemed to provide the most information without requiring a paid membership. However, somehow I missed AOL Foreclosures.

… Another very common sought-after search engine that isn’t always very easy to find are those that offer free public records information. Nine times out of ten, if you try to find such a search engine, you’ll end up with results from one of the major commercial companies trying to sell paid public records search results to you. However, the Public Record Center is different.

… Ever hear of a search engine that lets you dig up legal information from the web? Neither did I, until I discovered Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.

… Of course, if we want to go really underground, we’ve got to go paranormal. And there’s really no better underground paranormal search engine out there than UFO Seek. Don’t let the name fool you, this particular niche search engine isn’t just focused on UFOs and aliens.

If his autobiography is anything to go on, his papers and letters might be interesting to read as well. The political cartoons are very interesting – especially those dealing with the Wall Street bailout.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023750.html

March 15, 2010

Mississippi State University Libraries Posts Online Collection of Ulysses S. Grant's Papers

Newswise: "With the digitization process now complete, the 31 volumes of Ulysses S. Grant's collected papers now are available online through the Mississippi State University Libraries. The volumes contain thousands of letters written by and to the 18th U.S. president and former Civil War general and Union Army hero. Also including military documents, other materials and numerous photographs, the collection may be viewed free via the Ulysses S. Grant Association's Web site."

(Related) I think I've mentioned this before, but it never hurts to be redundant.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/avalon-project-hundreds-of-primary.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Avalon Project - Hundreds of Primary Documents from US History

… The Avalon Project is a good resource for students that need to find digital copies of original documents. For example, all of The Federalist Papers are available on the Avalon Project website.

I'll seriously suggest this type of tool to my students. I'd rather have them spend a reasonable amount of time every day than try to do all of their online assignments at one sitting.

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/xminutesat-avoid-wasting-time

xMinutesAt: Avoid wasting time by setting timer on any website

… xMinutesAt is a handy tool to helps avoid wasting time online. It is a small online timer that you can set before browsing any website, and it will remind you once the timer counts down to zero.

www.x.minutes.at

Similar tools: ToVisitOrNot, StayFocusd, MinutesPlease and KeepMeOut.

Beware the Ides of March...

Always interesting to have a new contender for the crown. But they are a long way from the top.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10635

S.Korea to probe huge online data leak

March 15, 2010 by admin

Another contender for a future Top 10 list:

South Korea said Friday it would launch a probe into security systems of major retailer Shinsegae and 24 other companies after private data on some 20 million customers was leaked.

The move came a day after police arrested three South Koreans for selling private information, including IDs, passwords and addresses, of more than 20 million compatriots online.

The three suspects bought the data from Chinese hackers who are still at large, police said.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security said in a statement that government agencies and police would investigate the 25 companies, to see whether they had protected the private data of customers with security codes.

The incident appears to be the country’s worst case of personal data leakage. In 2008 private information on some 10 million customers was leaked through hacking attacks on Internet Auction, now eBay’s South Korea unit.

Read more from AFP.

Interesting. A Privacy paper that talks about Cloud Computing! (and just in time for the Privacy Foundation's Seminar this Friday. http://privacyfoundation.org/)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8298

Privacy’s Trajectory

March 14, 2010 by Dissent

Tanya Forsheit writes:

As many of our readers know, the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) will celebrate 10 years this Tuesday, March 16. In connection with that anniversary, the IAPP is releasing a whitepaper, “A Call For Agility: The Next-Generation Privacy Professional,” tomorrow, March 15. Monday morning you can find the whitepaper here. I am honored that the IAPP has given me the opportunity to read and blog about the whitepaper in advance of its official release. Where exactly is privacy going in today’s environment? What is the role of the privacy professional over the next 10 years? And, a lot of people I know and love (you know who you are) would ask, what in the world is a privacy professional anyway?

Read more on InformationLawGroup.

It's not the pictures, it's making it easy for everyone to view them. If you can imagine an evil action facilitated by Google images, someone somewhere will attempt it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7430245/Google-Street-View-survey-raises-privacy-concerns.html

Google Street View: survey raises privacy concerns

Google Street View, which has now been expanded to cover more than 95 per cent of Britain’s roads, is being seen as a “service for burglars”, according to new research.

A little too much Privacy? Looks more like, “We have nothing to hide – take our word for it!”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8296

Privacy rules halted investigation of rogue scientists

March 14, 2010 by Dissent

Margaret Munro reports:

The federal government has been pushing Canada’s largest research council to release the names of scientists who fudge research results, plagiarize reports or misspend grant money, according to federal documents obtained by Canwest News Service.

But the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council has yet to change its rules, despite pointed recommendations from its political masters. The council, which distributes $1 billion in federal funding every year to thousands of researchers across the country, says federal privacy laws prevent it from identifying scientists involved in misconduct, or their universities.

Read more on Canada.com

(Related) A little too much fear of government? Looks more like, “We don't trust them either!”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8292

UCLU apologise for releasing ISoc and RUMS Isoc personal information

March 14, 2010 by Dissent

Andrew de Castro reports:

James Hodgson, UCLU [University College London Union] Student Activities Officer, admitted that “mistakes were made” when mobile phone numbers and email addresses of Islamic Society and Medical Islamic Society members were released to Anti-Terror Police, without a legal requirement to do so.

The data was released in connection with the alleged bomb attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was president of UCL’s ISoc [Islamic Society] between 2006-7. Hogdson apologised at UCL’s EGM [Extraordinary General Meeting] on Tuesday 9th March, adding; “It is now not a UCLU policy to release data, unless it is legally binding to do so.” The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) has been applying pressure on UCL for some time to determine who passed on unwarranted personal information.

Read more on London Student.

Anti-censorship or pro (we're the good guys) advertising? Is this a purely corporate decision or is there more (a US government trade experiment?) behind it?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8312

Google ‘99% certain’ to shut China engine

March 15, 2010 by Dissent

Richard Waters in San Francisco and Kathrin Hille in Beijing report:

Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.

In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also on Friday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving.

Read more on FT.com

Similarly,Loretta Chao and Ben Worthen report:

A person familiar with situation said on Saturday that Google is likely to take action within weeks. Separately, Chinese authorities on Friday told local news Web sites that Google’s Chinese site is likely to close and that, if it does, the news sites will be required to use only official accounts of the situation, rather than publish stories from anywhere else, according to a person familiar with the order.

Read more in the WSJ.

And Mark Lee and Brian Womack report:

Google Inc. advertisers in China are being advised to switch to rivals such as Baidu Inc. and business partners are exploring alternatives as speculation grows the U.S. company will shut its Web site in the country.

“When we talk to clients, we have been pushing them in the direction of Baidu more,” said Vincent Kobler, managing director at EmporioAsia Leo Burnett in Shanghai, which buys advertising on behalf of customers. “The Chinese government has taken a firm stance, and Google, they have their own principles, and are going to shut down.”

Read more on BusinessWeek.

For its part, China is also reportedly telling Google partners that they must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not, Sharon LaFraniere reports in the New York Times.

For your next Security Training (newsletter, seminar, etc.) Train your employees to recognize a scam.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/031210-layer8-fbi-internet-scams.html

FBI details most difficult Internet scams

FBI says fake anti-virus, hitman, economic stimulus scams are but a few of the really popular ways to be ripped off

By Michael Cooney, Network World March 12, 2010 02:37 PM ET

Online scams continue to be the scourge of the Internet and there seems to be no end to the “imagination” of these criminals. As part of its annual wide-ranging look at Internet crime, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took a look at the top Internet scams of 2009.

At last, the “Ronco Price-o-matic” has arrived! Buy anything you want for pennies on the dollar! (Also read and copy Passports and other RFID enabled documents)

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/03/14/1732235/How-To-Make-Your-Own-iPhone-RFID-Reader?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

How To Make Your Own iPhone RFID Reader

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 14, @01:52PM

andylim writes

"It's been rumoured for some time now that Apple will include RFID technology in a future iPhone. An RFID-packing iPhone could interact with various objects including opening doors and it could even be used in shops to register items at the checkout. Beating Apple to the RFID punch, last year a company called Wireless Dynamics announced an iPhone RFID accessory called the iCarte, but if you'd rather make your own reader then you'll be interested to know how a research assistant at University College London has managed to build his own RFID iPhone accessory."

I want to play with this. Looks useful! Also a great toy for my Spreadsheet class.

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/10/03/14/1317222/Google-Makes-Apps-Script-Available-To-All?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

Google Makes Apps Script Available To All

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 14, @09:49AM

theodp writes

"Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

Beyond Google, there is data for researchers...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-search-engines-explore-deep-invisible-web/

10 Search Engines to Explore the Deep End of the Invisible Web

By Saikat Basu on Mar. 14th, 2010

… The Invisible Web refers to the part of the WWW that’s not indexed by the search engines. Most of us think that that search powerhouses like Google and Bing are like the Great Oracle…they see everything. Unfortunately, they can’t because they aren’t divine at all; they are just web spiders who index pages by following one hyperlink after the other.

… To get a more precise idea of the nature of this ‘Dark Continent’ involving the invisible and web search engines, read what Wikipedia has to say about the Deep Web. The figures are attention grabbers – the size of the open web is 167 terabytes. The Invisible Web is estimated at 91,000 terabytes.

Possibly useful, but the Statistics videos could be improved by a little editing or a more carefully scripted talk.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/khan-academy-educating-world-via.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Monday, March 15, 2010

Khan Academy - Educating the World via YouTube

In the debate over whether or not schools should block access to YouTube, Khan Academy is an example of the good educational content available on YouTube.

Two articles discussing the consumers view of privacy, rather than the corporate view.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20000408-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Privacy is not dead, says SXSWi keynoter Boyd

by Daniel Terdiman March 13, 2010 5:06 PM PST

AUSTIN, Texas--Privacy is not dead in the era of online social networking. It just needs careful curation.

That was the message Saturday from Danah Boyd, a social-media expert who works for Microsoft Research and who was Saturday's keynote speaker at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here.

Boyd is one of the original social-media researchers, having spent years studying the dynamics of how systems like MySpace and Facebook impact teens and youth culture, and how that culture is impacting such services. But she also has demonstrated over the years a keen sense of how people across all age groups use social networks, and her talk touched on many different communities.

To begin with, she said, privacy is by no means dead. "People care very much about privacy, no matter how old they are," Boyd said. "The challenge is that what privacy means may not be what you think...Fundamentally, it's about having control over how information flows...When people feel they don't have control over their environment or their setting, they feel as though their privacy has been violated. And they cry foul."

To begin with, Boyd used the recent Google Buzz debacle as an example of how people of all stripes demonstrated that they care deeply about their privacy. She explained that while there was nothing technically wrong with the way Google's new social-networking system integrated with Gmail, it nonetheless resulted in a PR nightmare for the search giant because "they made nontechnical mistakes that ended up in social disruption."

First, Boyd said, Google failed by interfacing Buzz, a public-facing system, with Gmail, "one of the most private systems imaginable." The problem with that, she explained, is that "people genuinely believed that Google was exposing their private e-mails to the world."

And while that widely held perception was not technically true, Boyd said, Google's lack of understanding about how people would react to the forced opt-out provisions of Buzz caused an unnecessary panic. And, she said, Google is hardly alone in what is, in the best case, a basic misunderstanding of what users want or, in the worst case, a new corporate strategy of trying to get as many users locked in right away, regardless of the consequences.

(Related)

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/privacy-publicity-sxsw/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Danah Boyd: How Technology Makes A Mess Of Privacy and Publicity

… Boyd’s second case study was Facebook’s privacy changes in December, when Facebook changed ‘everyone’ to the default. We’ve written extensively on this fiasco, which may take years to really reveal the extent of the damage it has done.

• Facebook said 35% of users had read the new privacy documentation and changed something in the privacy settings. Facebook thinks this is a good thing, but it means 65% of population made their content public. Boyd has asked non-techie users to tell her what they thought their settings were. She has yet to find a single person whose actual privacy settings matched what they thought they were.

A business model for the US? Could we “own” the cellphone market?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/india%E2%80%99s-rural-cell-movement-can-you-hear-me-now/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

India’s Rural Cell Movement: Can You Hear Me Now?

by Sarah Lacy on Mar 13, 2010

Last time I was in India I wrote about the amazing business model innovation that had allowed telecom operators to make money on a paltry $6 a month per average user. That compares to a desired average monthly payment of $50 or more in the U.S.

The results have been phenomenal—550 million people in India have phones, and it has transformed the poorer service economy by giving them an affordable way to be reached and arrange jobs. Just last month, nearly 20 million new mobile accounts were opened. That’s more than double the people than have high speed Internet in the entire country.

It amazes me how frequently I find articles like this AT THE END OF THE QUARTER! Oh well, I can always save them for next time.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/quick-guide-tables-microsoft-access-2007/

A Quick Tutorial To Tables In Microsoft Access 2007

By Jim Henderson on Mar. 13th, 2010

Another tool that turns pictures into videos

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/flixtime-create-videos-from-photos

Flixtime: Create Videos From Photos In Seconds

www.flixtime.com

Similar Tools: Animoto, Masher, and PhotoFilmStrip.

For my more egotistical friends? If I printed this blog, I'd need (5 pages per day for 4 years) 7300 pages. Not only would I need to sacrifice whole forests for the paper, but I could kill readers from either sheer boredom or by crushing them if the printout fell on them.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/famebook/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Famebook: Because You’ve Always Wanted To Have Your Facebook Feed On Paper

by Robin Wauters on Mar 14, 2010

Remember that time when a marketing agency’s labs unit cooked up an application that allowed you to print your tweets in a custom notebook (aka, Tweetnotebook)?

Ok, fair chance you don’t – I sure do because I have one of those lying around here somewhere.

Anyway, it was only a matter of time before they did the same for Facebook – and lo and behold, here’s My Famebook.

… Once personalized with a custom lay-out, message selection and cover design, you can preview your Famebook and choose to order the 320-page paperback version for €14 ($19) or go for a 200-page hardcover edition at €18 ($25) – shipping costs not included.

And something to put my math students to sleep...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100314/tc_pcworld/abriefhistoryofpi

A Brief History of Pi

Our favorite School System inspires an overreaction? It's not the technology, it's the thoughtless, uncontrolled uses the technology is put to.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/13/0537200/PA-Laptop-Spying-Inspires-FSF-Crowdsourcing-Effort?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

PA Laptop Spying Inspires FSF Crowdsourcing Effort

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 13, @08:37AM

holmesfsf writes

"Creeped out by the Lower Merion School District's remote monitoring of students? Check out the Free Software Foundation's response to the laptop spying scandal and help build a wiki listing of school districts that provide students with laptops, so that the FSF can campaign against mandatory, proprietary laptops."

[From the article:

The case of administrators in the Lower Merion School District (LMSD) spying on students through mandatory, school-provided laptops struck a chord with bloggers (Boing Boing, Gizmodo) and traditional news outlets (NPR, Reuters). The most in-depth source on this so far has been Stryde's investigation. We have two reactions (one emotional and one more circumspect) and a plan to fight this trend, for which we'll need your help.

… Our second reaction--the more circumspect one--is that the real scandal here is the mandatory imposition of computers that students don't control. This may not be as lurid a violation of freedom as a remote-activated webcam in a teenager's bedroom, but it is the most central. Once people use computers they don't completely control, that provides both a technical basis and a social/political slippery slope for sleazy sysadmins leering at your kids--or any other violation you can imagine.

How Security is (mis-)managed by the UK's version of the NSA. Note how familiar these “Worst Practices” are...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/10/03/13/059241/UK-Intel-Agencys-Missing-Laptops-Might-Contain-Sensitive-Data?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

UK Intel Agency's Missing Laptops Might Contain Sensitive Data

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 13, @06:49AM

superapecommando writes

"GCHQ lost 35 laptops in one year, potentially containing highly sensitive data. The UK's electronic spy centre was today lambasted by MPs for having a 'cavalier' attitude to data security. The centre is responsible for tracking the electronic communications of terrorists. In a new report, the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee expressed concern that GCHQ appeared to be entirely unaware whether or not the computers, lost in 2008, contained top secret information on people posing an imminent security threat to the country."

[From the article:

The MPs said GCHQ’s “haphazard” monitoring system was the cause of its lack of awareness on what data was on the machines. GCHQ acknowledged “the state of the records” to the Guardian newspaper, but said there was so far no evidence the material had ended up in the wrong hands. [“...and we've been carefully examining the Times' classified ads because we're sure the terrorists will brag about this.” Bob]

With the move to put Health Records “in the Cloud,” we can expect this type of breach from anywhere in the world. Let's form NASCAL (National Association of Serious Class Action Lawyers)before someone else thinks of it! “Gentlemen, start your lawsuits!”

http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=2216

Security breach at Atlanta VA hospital under investigation

By Dissent, March 12, 2010 9:36 pm

Craig Schneider has some more information on the breach at the Atlanta VA Medical Center:

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General has launched a criminal investigation into a security breach of veterans’ medical information at the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center, according to an internal document obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

[...]

In late December, the physician assistant revealed to a VA nurse scientist that she had been recording clinical data from patient encounters on her personal laptop, the document said. The worker asked the nurse if she could use the data for “research purposes” not related to the VA.

The nurse replied that such work was not permitted and asked the worker to destroy the data.

“After multiple follow-up conversations and receiving no confirmation from the (physician’s assistant) that she had destroyed the data, the nurse scientist notified the … compliance officer of the issue on 2/8/10,” the document said.

The physician assistant, hired in October of 2009, resigned effective Feb. 28.

Read more in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

[From the article:

The document said there are reportedly two sets of patient information involved -- one that includes more than 18 years of data, and another that includes up to three years of data.

Fuel for conspiracy theorists? My concern is that reaction is building quietly but steadily, like pressure on a fault zone, and at some point we'll have a Major Quake...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8278

Where’s The Outrage Over The Gov’t Brushing Mass Privacy Violations Under The Rug?

March 13, 2010 by Dissent

Mike Masnick comments:

I have to admit that I’ve been a bit in shock over Congress’s decision to simply renew the Patriot Act, recently, without a single safeguard to protect against abuse. That’s because just before all this happened, we wrote about how a report from the government found (not for the first time) that the FBI regularly abused its authority to get phone records it had no right to. This went well beyond earlier reports of abusing National Security Letters. In this case, the FBI didn’t even bother with NSLs. Instead, sometimes it would just use a post-it note. On top of that, reports came out noting that just weeks before this report was released, the Obama administration issued a ruling with a blanket absolution for the FBI’s activities — basically saying that if the President said it was okay, it was fine.

This is not how our government is supposed to work.

Julian Sanchez has a fantastic article that should be a must read, detailing how Obama went from being a candidate who insisted there would be “no more National Security Letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime” because “that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists,” to one who appears to have no problem regularly spying on citizens and covering it up. President Bush was really bad with warrantless wiretapping and retroactive immunity for telcos — and most people figured Obama would at least be marginally better on that issue. But it’s really scary how the entirety of the federal government doesn’t seem to care much about these blatant privacy abuses — and the public and the press has shrugged them off as well.

Read more on TechDirt.

Attention Finance Majors! Learn how the Big Boys do it!

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023726.html

March 12, 2010

Court Appointed Examiner Issues Extensive Report on Lehman Brothers Collapse

New York Times: "It is the Wall Street equivalent of a coroner’s report — a 2,200-page document that lays out, in new and startling detail, how Lehman Brothers used accounting sleight of hand to conceal the bad investments that led to its undoing. The report [divided into 9 volumes], compiled by an examiner for the bank, now bankrupt, hit Wall Street with a thud late Thursday. The 158-year-old company, it concluded, died from multiple causes. Among them were bad mortgage holdings and, less directly, demands by rivals like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, that the foundering bank post collateral against loans it desperately needed. But the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, also for the first time, laid out what the report characterized as “materially misleading” accounting gimmicks that Lehman used to mask the perilous state of its finances. The bank’s bankruptcy, the largest in American history, shook the financial world. Fears that other banks might topple in a cascade of failures eventually led Washington to arrange a sweeping rescue for the nation’s financial system."

• Related postings on financial system

For my website students and for grabbing videos on the topics I teach...

http://www.guidingtech.com/1643/youtube-guide/

YouTube Guide: Best YouTube Tips, Hacks & Resources

(Related) Short slide show listing free stuff for teachers (Lists of Free stuff? I'm there!)

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/wyandersen-270867-best-ed-tech-freebies-amatyc-2009-education-technology-math-ppt-powerpoint/

Best of the Ed Tech Freebies AMATYC 2009

For my Advanced website students, and a few talented beginners...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/13/an-ecosystem-is-born-animoto-opens-up-api/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

An Ecosystem Is Born: Animoto Opens Up API

by Leena Rao on Mar 13, 2010

We’re big fans of Animoto, a website that lets you easily create photo and video slideshows matched to music. The site is constantly innovating its nifty product, most recently adding an iPhone app and the ability to incorporate video. For those not familiar with Animoto, the startup basically allows you to take your images, video and your music and mash them together to create cool videos. What makes the videos cool is the company’s technology that renders the pictures so they’re in-step with the music you’ve chosen, adding nice transition effects. This morning, Animoto is opening up its API, allowing partners to now incorporate Animoto’s compelling technologies into independent sites

Cue the background music! Light the fuse! (Note the SIMPLE message encryption tool.)

http://www.killerstartups.com/Comm/thismessagewillselfdestruct-com-send-secure-messages

ThisMessageWillSelfDestruct.com - Send Secure Messages

https://www.thismessagewillselfdestruct.com/

Fans of the classic TV show “Mission: Impossible” will be able to relive one of its most-enduring pop culture elements through this service. Named “This Message Will Self Destruct”, this site will empower you to send out an e-mail message that will be deleted upon being delivered and read just once by the recipient.

For my Hackers and my Computer Security students (even if that sounds repetitious and redundant)

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/356254/the-dark-side-of-the-web

The dark side of the web

Posted on 13 Mar 2010 at 14:22

Google sees only a fraction of the content that appears on the internet. Stuart Andrews finds out what's lurking in the deep web

A prudent response? It could be a breach at their site, or the card processor's system or something completely unrelated. But “making sure” is both wise and unusual.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10603

Monoprice.com Shuttered After Fraud Complaints

March 11, 2010 by admin

Brian Krebs reports:

Audio visual cabling giant monoprice.com shut down its Web site – possibly for the next couple of weeks – while it investigates the possible compromise of its customer credit and debit card information.

Vincent Lim, monoprice.com’s operations manager, said the company took the site offline around midnight on Friday, Mar. 5, after it received e-mails and phone calls from several customers complaining about fraudulent charges on their cards that they had used on monoprice.com.

Read more on KrebsonSecurity.com

[From the article:

To date, he said, investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. The site is now allowing customers to browse products, but Monoprice won’t be taking any new orders until the investigation is completed, Lim said.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8263

Judge Rules DOJ Unlawfully Recorded Renzi’s Calls

March 12, 2010 by Dissent

Mike Scarcella writes:

The Justice Department unlawfully recorded privileged phone calls between former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) and his lawyers during an insurance fraud investigation, a federal magistrate judge in Arizona ruled Thursday in recommending the recordings be suppressed.

Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco found that prosecutors made false statements to the supervising judge regarding the status of one of the lawyers Renzi was talking with and regarding the government’s effort to minimize the intercept and recording of calls with other attorneys.

Still, Velasco is recommending that Renzi’s motion to dismiss the indictment be denied.

“While this court has concerns over the government’s conduct in this case, it does not rise to the level of outrageousness,” Velasco wrote in his 24-page ruling. U.S. District Judge David Bury will have a chance to review the magistrate’s report and recommendation. Velasco’s ruling is here.

Read more on the Blog of Legal Times.

[From the article:

No information from the calls appears in witness interviews or grand jury sessions, Velasco noted. [None? Bob]

High probability that this was not run by the Chief Privacy Officer...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=8267

Privacy flags raise concern for graduate students

March 12, 2010 by Dissent

Kate Perkowski reports:

Undergraduate students are not the only ones concerned with personal information available through UK’s [University of Kentucky's] online people search — now, graduate students are voicing their concern, too.

Members of UK’s graduate school have recently voiced concern about their information like home address and home telephone number being available on the UK Web site without their knowledge, said English teaching assistant Jesslyn Collins-Frohlich.

“We’ve been talking in my office because there are at least two or three people who’ve had students … call them late at night,” Collins-Frohlich said. “As a TA and as a student instructor, you just don’t really want that relationship and that access to you.”

[...]

T. Lynn Williamson, senior associate in legal services, said …. if a student got a privacy flag, UK would not be able to confirm them as a student because of the law, and that student would find his or her name missing at commencement ceremonies as well.

Williamson said creating a system that allows students to choose what information is made available is possible, but not at UK. Williamson said it would take thousands of dollars to let students choose what information they wanted available. [But the solution would work for ALL students, so it's not “thousands of dollars” each. Bob]

“Is it possible at the University of Kentucky with the technologies, the computer systems that we have? No, it’s not possible,” he said.

Read more on Kentucky Kernel.

So what is UK saying? That student privacy and safety not worth thousands of dollars? I hope UK takes a harder look at the issue and resolves to figure out a way to address the students’ concerns.

...because we're too curious to allow people to remain anonymous?

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/chatroulettemap-com-mapping-people-on-chatroulette

ChatrouletteMap.com - Mapping People On ChatRoulette

http://www.chatroulettemap.com/

What is the obvious reaction to a site like ChatRoulette - a service that gives exhibitionists and people who know that they can do whatever they fancy and get away with it? The answer is something like this new website. Entitled Chatroulette Map, it will let you pinpoint the location of users of the increasingly popular face-to-face chatroom. In that way, the “get away with it” bit disappears altogether, and people would think twice before posting any old thing.

Hoist on our own petard? Nope. When we say “everybody” we don't include countries we like.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/12/0722225/A-Sad-Day-For-the-New-Zealand-Internet?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

A Sad Day For the New Zealand Internet

Posted by timothy on Friday March 12, @03:36AM

An anonymous reader writes

"Another one bites the dust, as New Zealand's Internet filter stealthily goes live with two smaller ISPs, and three of the largest already rumoured to have signed up to do the same. However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is apparently 'committed to helping people to circumvent government internet filtering,' so perhaps the USA will launch an invasion to free the poor downtrodden Kiwis from their own evil government?"

Clever of one of the acquiescing ISPs to have named itself "Watchdog."

How to control your image? Your best asset is a loyal customer base.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-03-06/news/fl-slcol-seth-social-media-crisis-managem20100307_1_social-media-seaworld-park-s-blog

SeaWorld uses social media to react quickly to a major crisis

March 06, 2010|Seth Liss

The recent killer whale attack at SeaWorld could have been the end of the theme park. It was that bad.

… SeaWorld's social media reaction started quickly with a tweet and a Facebook post acknowledging the attack and the tragic loss of its trainer. A few hours later, SeaWorld Orlando CEO Jim Atchison announced an investigation on the park's blog and left the post open for comments. The next morning, the company sensibly suspended its playful " Shamu" Twitter account, redirecting visitors to the park's main Twitter account, which included updates on its investigation and plans. It also responded to some of their supportive fans. Videos about the loss of Brancheau, referred to as a member of their family, were posted to YouTube and a press conference with Atchison was streamed live on the park's blog.

The most interesting conversation was taking place on their Facebook fan page, where people left comments such as, "Stop making money off of exploiting animals!! Free the whales!!." SeaWorld wasn't answering most of the questions and comments, but some of their 100,000 plus Facebook fans did. Those fans showed a deep loyalty to the park and were able to answer questions — and defend SeaWorld. It's exactly the best of what a company can expect from social media: building customer relationships and earning brand loyalty.

For us non-lawyers...

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1400

10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer

I wonder if this will encourage other artists to force the music labels to serve them? Perhaps there is a business opportunity here for a mere facilitator?

http://www.billboard.com/news/pink-floyd-wins-court-battle-with-emi-label-1004074467.story?tag=hpfeed#/news/pink-floyd-wins-court-battle-with-emi-label-1004074467.story?tag=hpfeed

Pink Floyd Wins Court Battle With EMI Label

Rock band Pink Floyd on Thursday won a court battle with EMI in a ruling that prevents the record company from selling single downloads on the Internet from the group's concept albums.

The outcome of the other element of the legal tussle in London's High Court -- concerning the level of royalties paid to the band by the label -- was unclear, as that part of the judgement was held in secret, the Press Association reported.

The ruling is the latest blow to EMI, the smallest of the four major record companies which is seeking new funds to avoid breaching debt covenants.

(Related) Apparently it will. For these guys, it's not just music.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1578965/ok-go-ditches-record-label-after-very-public-tussles-over-youtube-embedding-rights?partner=rss

OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights

BY Dan Nosowitz

How many times does a band have to take the music video world by storm before its record label gets that its members might know a little something about music videos? We may never find out, because OK Go, the band in question, has just ditched EMI, the record label in question, largely due to that very problem.

OK Go rocketed up through the indie rock world in large measure due to the band's brilliant, lo-fi music videos, which have spread like wildfire on YouTube. But EMI, in a misguided attempt to wring every penny out of the band's success, decided to block embedding on the YouTube videos--meaning the videos were unable to disseminate out through music and pop culture blogs, news sites, and personal blogs the way they did before the restriction. And that's not a minor detail: the band saw a 90% drop in views when that restriction went into effect. As in, 100,000 views one day, 10,000 views the next.

[Watch their video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w&feature=player_embedded

'cause everyone needs multiple operating systems, right?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/virtualboxs-seamless-mode-combine-operating-systems-desktop/

VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode: Combine Two Operating Systems Into One Desktop

By Justin Pot on Mar. 11th, 2010

Installing two operating systems at the same time isn’t just possible; it can also be downright slick. Whether you’re a Mac user looking to occasionally use a given Windows application or someone looking for a risk-free way to try out different Linux versions, VirtualBox is the go-to freeware platform for virtualization. This program allows you to run any operating system in a contained, emulated environment.

Could make for some interesting class projects...

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/nine-tools-for-collaboratively-creating.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Nine Tools for Collaboratively Creating Mind Maps

I'm sure this tells us something (insightful?), but I have no idea what that might be...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/11/wikipedia-trending-topics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Perseids, John Hughes, And G.I. Joe Are Trending Topics On Wikipedia

by Erick Schonfeld on Mar 11, 2010

Google has Google Trends, Twitter has trending topics, and now so does Wikipedia. Pete Skomoroch, a Senior Research Scientist at LinkedIn and blogger at Data Wrangling, built a trending topics page for Wikipedia. The homepage ranks the top-25 Wikipedia articles with the most pageviews over the past 30 days, as well as the fastest rising articles in the past 24 hours.

… You can search for any topic, and the you will get a chart showing pageview trends, along with the actual article placed in an iFrame below the chart.