Not very encouraging...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=14896

FinCEN report: Identity Theft Trends, Patterns, and Typologies Reported in Suspicious Activity Reports Filed by Depository Institutions January 1, 2003 – December 31, 2009

October 25, 2010 by admin

From the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network report, Identity Theft Trends, Patterns, and Typologies Reported in Suspicious Activity Reports Filed by Depository Institutions January 1, 2003 – December 31, 2009, the Executive Summary:

Identity theft was the sixth most frequently reported characterization of suspicious activity within the period of the study, behind structuring/money laundering, check fraud, mortgage loan fraud, credit card fraud, and counterfeit check fraud. Based upon analysis of the study sample, the number of identity theft-related depository institution SAR filings submitted during calendar year (CY) 2009 was 123 percent higher than the number reported in CY 2004. This compares with an 89 percent increase in the numbers of all depository institution SAR filings made in CY 2004 versus CY 2009.

… Victims reportedly discovered identity theft through review of their own account activity in about 28 percent of filings in the sample. Filers credited routine financial institution account monitoring with uncovering identity theft in nearly another 21 percent of sample filings, [So they missed it 79% of the time? Shame on them! Bob] and checks of commercial databases at account set-up in 14.5 percent of sample filings. Credit reports, law enforcement investigations, collection agencies, and credit monitoring services were responsible for revealing identity theft in a decreasing percentage of sample filings.

Keep an eye on this one...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16376

White House Unveils Internet Privacy Committee

October 25, 2010 by Dissent

Elizabeth Montalbano reports:

The White House council on technology has formed a new subcommittee to develop principles that will attempt to balance the Internet’s economic opportunity with people’s right to privacy.

The National Science and Technology Council’s new Subcommittee on Privacy and Internet Policy also will aim to synchronize the practices of federal agencies with policy being considered and developed by lawmakers, according to a White House blog post unveiling the committee.

Read more on InformationWeek.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-unofficial-facebook-privacy-guide/

The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide [DOWNLOAD]

Like Facebook, but wish your information wasn’t so public? Time to lock your settings down. Facebook doesn’t make this easy, however; features are constantly added and the default for each new one seems to favor transparency instead of privacy.

The result: there are hundreds of little changes you need to make to truly control where your information goes.

Enter “The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Manual”. This handy guide outlines everything you could ever want to know about locking down your privacy on Facebook, and a few things you probably didn’t even know you wanted to know.

If you use Facebook you should read this guide, if only to understand how public most of your information is.

Download: The (Very) Unofficial Privacy Guide Or Read online at Scribd

Probably inevitable. They just haven't convinced a judge that “everyone is a terrorist” yet.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20020680-281.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Amazon wins fight to keep customer records private

In a victory for the free speech and privacy rights of Amazon.com customers, a federal judge ruled today that the company would not have to turn over detailed records on nearly 50 million purchases to North Carolina tax collectors.

The state had demanded sensitive information including names and addresses of North Carolina customers--and information about exactly what they had purchased between 2003 and 2010.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Washington state said that request went too far and "runs afoul of the First Amendment." She granted Amazon summary judgment.

The Tar Heel State's tax collectors have "no legitimate need" for details about the literary, music, and film habits of so many Amazon customers," Pechman wrote. "In spite of this, (North Carolina) refuses to give up the detailed information about Amazon's customers' purchases, while at the same time requesting the identities of the customers and, arguably, detailed records of their purchases, including the expressive content."

Amazon has provided the state tax collectors with anonymized information about which items were shipped to which ZIP codes. But North Carolina threatened to sue if the retailer did not agree to divulge the names and addresses linked to each order--in other words, by providing personally identifiable information that could be used to collect additional use taxes that might be owed by state residents.

Pechman's opinion did leave open the possibility of North Carolina tax collectors deleting the data they currently have and firing off a narrower request to the online retailer: "Issuing the declaratory relief as phrased does not prohibit (N.C. tax collectors) from issuing a new request for information as to only the names and addresses of Amazon's customers and general product information, assuming that (the state) destroys any detailed information that it currently possesses."

For my Ethical Hackers and Computer Forensic students

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/iphone-snoop/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

Secret Button Sequence Bypasses iPhone Security

A security flaw in the iPhone allows strangers to bypass the handset’s lock screen with a few button presses.

In the video below, a Brazilian iPhone customer demonstrates the quick method to circumvent an iPhone’s passcode-protected lock screen: tap the “Emergency call” button, then enter three pound signs, hit the green call button and immediately press the lock button. That simple procedure gives a snoop full access to the Phone app on the iPhone, which contains the address book, voicemail and call history.

Good surveillance?

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/26524/

Improving Phones through Surveillance

A cell-phone application that logs everything the phone's user does--from sending e-mail to playing games--may not sound so desirable. But researchers are deploying the software to see if they can determine the best ways to improve the battery life of phones and uncover network dead spots.

… "By studying how people use [the phones], we can find ways to match devices and networks to people."

For my Computer Security students

http://developers.slashdot.org/story/10/10/25/2134247/New-Programming-Language-Weaves-Security-Into-Code?from=rss

New Programming Language Weaves Security Into Code

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 25, @05:47PM

"Until now, computer security has been reactive. 'Our defenses improve only after they have been successfully penetrated,' says security expert Fred Schneider. But now Dr. Dobb's reports that researchers at Cornell are developing a programming platform called 'Fabric,' an extension to the Java language that builds security into a program as it is written. Fabric is designed to create secure systems for distributed computing, where many interconnected nodes — not all of them necessarily trustworthy — are involved, as in systems that move money around or maintain medical records. Everything in Fabric is an 'object' labeled with a set of policies on how and by whom data can be accessed and what operations can be performed on it. Even blocks of program code have built-in policies about when and where they can be run. The compiler enforces the security policies and will not allow the programmer to write insecure code (PDF). The initial release of Fabric is now available at the Cornell website."

One University in Denver has already done this. Student reaction is mixed. The next step would be to require students to find their own information on the Internet and ignore a structured textbook entirely.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/25/1838201/Colleges-May-Start-Forcing-Switch-To-eTextbooks?from=rss

Colleges May Start Forcing Switch To eTextbooks

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 25, @03:41PM

"Here's the new approach under consideration by college leaders and textbook manufacturers: 'Colleges require students to pay a course-materials fee, which would be used to buy e-books for all of them (whatever text the professor recommends, just as in the old model).' That may be 'the best way to control skyrocketing costs and may actually save the textbook industry from digital piracy,' proponents claim."

For my Math students... One of my recommended sites just got easier to search.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/10/khan-instant-instant-search-for-khan.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Monday, October 25, 2010

Khan Instant - Instant Search for Khan Academy

Khan Academy is famous for the fantastic educational videos produced by Salman Khan. Khan's mathematics and science videos are available on YouTube, on iTunes, and on Khan Academy.org. This morning I discovered Khan Instant. Khan Instant is an instant search engine (like Google or YouTube instant) for Khan Academy videos. Just to clarify, Khan Instant was developed by Ben Jacobson not by Khan Academy.

Applications for Education

Khan Instant could be a good tool for quickly locating outstanding mathematics and science videos to supplement your classroom instructions. Searching with Khan Instant is much faster than trying to browse through the YouTube channel for the video that meets your needs.

For all my students.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/notes-annotate-pdfs-easy-jarnal-crossplatform/

Take Notes & Annotate PDFs The Easy Way With Jarnal [Cross-Platform]

I thought that college students get heavy discounts on commercial software but I just recently found out that students can get commercial software completely free (including Visual Studio, Expression Encoder, etc), which is a nice perk. However, the perks of being a student don’t end there as there are actually quite a few student-friendly applications, which may even be useful to wider audiences and not just students.

You can use Delicious to organize your student life, Evernote to help you reduce your paper clutter and more! Evernote, in particular, can definitely be considered a giant when it comes to the many platforms it has apps for and how versatile it is.

Jarnal is also a great note-taking application that can run in Windows, Mac and Linux and deserves a mention, without a doubt, for its extensive features.

Getting Jarnal

Jarnal is an open-source note-taking and sketching application that you can run without installing it [i.e. from your thumb drive Bob] (as the program is bundled in a zipped file), but there are also installable versions for Windows and Mac on the official wiki and SourceForge page.

A tool for serious researchers.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/touchgraph-visual-search-similar-results/

TouchGraph: Visual Search for “Similar” Results

We have already mentioned some tools and tricks to help you search without words: we have listed some Google search tricks that allow you to find something when you really don’t know what you are looking for. We have also seen some image search tools that search by color and / or similarity (instead of words).

Today we are looking at another alternative way to do a visual search – Touch Graph which is based on Google’s RELATED: search operator.

… How it really works is a mystery but the general (educated and proved by tests) theory is that it is based on two main factors:

1. Co-citation: if two pages have similar backlinks, they are related. It means that if several pages all cite and link to pages A and B, the latter are considered to be “similar”.

2. Thematic relevance: it seems like Google has also started to apply some thematic relevance when it comes to filtering pages with common backlinks.

As the bad guys adopt technology, what else would you expect?

http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/61422

Information Theft At Global Companies Surpasses All Other Forms of Fraud for First Time

Theft of information and electronic data at global companies has overtaken physical theft for the first time, according to the latest edition of the Kroll Annual Global Fraud Report. This year’s study shows that the amount lost by businesses to fraud rose from $1.4m to $1.7m per billion dollars of sales in the past 12 months – an increase of more than 20%. The findings are the result of a study commissioned by Kroll with the Economist Intelligence Unit of more than 800 senior executives worldwide.

… According to the 2010 survey, 88% of companies said they had been the victim of at least one type of fraud during the past year. Of the specific countries analyzed, China is the top market in which companies suffered fraud with 98% of businesses operating there affected. Colombia ranked second with a 94% incidence of fraud in 2010, followed by Brazil with 90%.

http://www.kroll.com/library/fraud/FraudReport_English-US_Oct10.pdf

Poor Google.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16358

Google Target of Misdirected Privacy Backlash

October 24, 2010 by Dissent

Tony Bradley follows up on the ICO’s announcement that it will be looking into the Google Wi-Fi situation again by pointing out that Google is being blamed for the security and privacy failures of individuals and businesses who fail to use even minimal security on their systems:

Many of the privacy concerns, however, are not really a function of Google. Google is simply the high-profile messenger making communities and users aware of just how exposed they are. It is part of a common and growing privacy backlash trend that misdirects blame at third-party organizations rather than taking personal responsibility.

Did Google collect Wi-Fi data–including sensitive information like usernames and passwords? Yes. It has admitted as much. But, Google didn’t do anything wrong to get that data. It’s more like someone gave Google a $20 bill, then turned around and accused Google of theft.

[...]

The issue isn’t that Google invaded anyone’s privacy by gathering and retaining the Wi-Fi data. The issue is that many businesses and homes are like the man in the park with his zipper down–operating insecure wireless networks that are constantly transmitting these types of sensitive data for anyone to intercept.

Even if the woman taking the pictures truly is a perverted stalker and had intent to capture the inappropriate photos, prosecuting her won’t change the fact that the guy is still walking around the park with his zipper down.

Read more on PC World.

Why not treat people as idiots? It usually works. (If you argue with Big Brother, you may get your own dedicated camera...)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16367

UK: ‘Spy’ camera police ‘treated people like idiots’

October 24, 2010 by Dissent

More on the surveillance controversy in Birmingham.

Caroline Gall reports:

West Midlands Police “treated people like idiots” over the way more than 200 surveillance cameras were installed in parts of Birmingham with large Muslim populations, an MP has said.

The cameras – covert and overt – were put up earlier this year and were paid for with £3m of government money put aside for tackling terrorism.

But the communities were in uproar after they were not consulted, prompting the force to apologise and instigate an independent review of what happened.

The findings were highly critical, saying the force paid little attention to “compliance with the legal or regulatory framework” and relations between the Muslim community and police had been set back 10 years.

[...]

Liberty has now threatened legal action against the force if it refuses to agree to remove all the cameras in the next two weeks.

West Midlands Police Chief Constable Chris Sims has said previously all the covert cameras have been removed and the remainder covered with bags until a final decision was made.

Read more on BBC. In related coverage, BBC reports that the West Midland police will be responding to the recent report at a meeting later.

[From the article:

"They made a conscious decision of 'we won't lie, we will put into the public domain what we want to and we will wait and see if people ask questions'."

I think I'll still have my Ethical Hackers write their own version...

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/24/firesheep-in-wolves-clothing-app-lets-you-hack-into-twitter-facebook-accounts-easily/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Firesheep In Wolves’ Clothing: Extension Lets You Hack Into Twitter, Facebook Accounts Easily

It seems like every time Facebook amends its privacy policy, the web is up in arms. The truth is, Facebook’s well publicized privacy fight is nothing compared to the vulnerability of all unsecured HTTP sites — that includes Facebook, Twitter and many of the web’s most popular destinations.

Developer Eric Butler has exposed the soft underbelly of the web with his new Firefox extension, Firesheep, which will let you essentially eavesdrop on any open Wi-Fi network and capture users’ cookies.

As Butler explains in his post, “As soon as anyone on the network visits an insecure website known to Firesheep, their name and photo will be displayed” in the window. All you have to do is double click on their name and open sesame, you will be able to log into that user’s site with their credentials.

… This is how it works. If a site is not secure, it keeps track of you through a cookie (more formally referenced as a session) which contains identifying information for that website. The tool effectively grabs these cookies and lets you masquerade as the user.

Apparently many social network sites are not secured, beyond the big two, Foursquare, Gowalla are also vulnerable. Moreover, to give you a sense of Firesheep’s scope, the extension is built to identify cookies from Amazon.com, Basecamp, bit.ly, Cisco, CNET, Dropbox, Enom, Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Github, Google, HackerNews, Harvest, Windows Live, NY Times, Pivotal Tracker, Slicehost, tumblr, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, Yelp. And that’s just the default setting— anyone can write their own plugins, according to the post.

(Related) Didn't everyone already know this?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/25/firesheep/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

How To Protect Your Login Information From Firesheep

… Firesheep banks on the fact that most social sites default to the HTTP protocol because it’s quicker. The already existing Firefox extension Force-TLS attempts to circumvent this by forcing those sites to use the HTTPS protocol, therefore making user cookies invisible to Firesheep.

Like the alternative option HTTP Everywhere, the Force-TLS Firefox extension allows your browser to change HTTP to HTTPS on sites that you indicate in the Firefox Add On “Preferences” menu, protecting your login information and ensuring a secure connection when you access social sites.

For my students – PLEASE!

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/read-able-readability-of-text/

Read-Able: Check Readability Of Text Online

The Readability Test Tool is a web based service that lets you quickly test the readability of an entire webpage, a part of it or a sample of text. You can conduct the test by entering the URL of the page, inputting text directly or by linking to the tool from your webpage. It scores the text on various readability indicators like Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease, Flesch Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog Score, Coleman Liau Index and Automated Readability Index (ARI).

www.read-able.com

Check out related article: 8 Readability Web Tools to Test Your Writing Quality.

GE provides this nifty online drawing tool...

http://imaginationcubed.com/

Strange that when they are the target, teachers sound remarkably like their students. I also hear, “Yes we know it's a public forum, but we still want privacy”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16340

Manatee teachers union fights website rules

October 24, 2010 by Dissent

I tend to think that having clearly stated employee policies concerning social media use is a good thing. But can such policies go too far and step on privacy or free speech rights? A teachers’ association in Florida is claiming that that’s one such policy does. Christopher O’Donnell reports:

A local teachers union is taking on the Manatee School District over its plan to restrict how teachers use the Internet and social networking sites like Facebook in their personal time.

Manatee Education Association leaders this week filed a complaint with the state asking it to rule against the proposed policy.

They are also threatening to sue the district in civil court if the policy is enacted, arguing that the rules violate a teacher’s right to privacy and free speech.

The proposed policy prohibits teachers from communicating with students through sites like Facebook or with personal e-mail without parental permission, and from using the school district’s name in online forums.

Union leaders object to a section that prohibits teachers from posting pictures or comments that cast the district, teachers or students in a negative light even if done on their own computer in their own time.

Read more in the Herald Tribune.

[From the article:

The new policy comes in the wake of a pair of cases in which teachers got in trouble for their use of the Internet.

Earlier this year, a teacher received a five-day unpaid suspension for posting on Facebook that he hated his job and hated the students he taught.

On Monday, the School Board is scheduled to vote on whether to move forward with firing Braden River High School teacher Charles Willis for inappropriate communication with more than 100 students on Facebook.

Technology provides the means... “We can, therefore we must”

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/23/privacy-scandal-social-feds-spying/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

The Real Privacy Scandal On Social Networks: The Feds Are Spying On Their “Friends”

All the hoopla over the Wall Street Journal’s so-called Facebook “privacy breach” article, it’s subsequent and curiously-timed MySpace followup, and also the New York Times’ take on the ability of Facebook advertisers to target ads for nursing schools to gay men is unwittingly creating cover for a social networking privacy issue that’s much bigger. It might be surprising to some, but it turns out that U.S. federal agents have been urged to “friend” people in order to spy on them.

The feds operate such social sting operations aided by the fact that there are very few individuals that actually know every single person in their “friend” list on Facebook. For instance, it is typical to connect to someone because one thinks they might have met them. Or, a connection might take place because two people share common interests and want to view each other’s news posts going forward. But that’s not how the government sees it.

In a memo obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) discovered that the Feds see Facebook as a psychological crutch for the needy. Here’s a direct quote from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo: “Narcissistic tendencies in many people fuels a need to have a large group of “friends” link to their pages and many of these people accept cyber-friends that they don’t even know.” And it gets worse.

The memo explains that these “tendencies” provide “an excellent vantage point for FDNS to observe the daily life of beneficiaries and petitioners who are suspected of fraudulent activities.” Translation: spy on unsuspecting people on Facebook and MySpace in order to catch the bad guys.

Such tactics are decidedly creepy (how many completely innocent people are they spying on), but the argument could be made that if you have nothing to hide, then why worry? Here’s why: many people post items to their profiles that they forget to update or that are not necessarily true, and which they certainly wouldn’t be saying if they knew they were under investigation. Indeed, a recent study initiated by UK insurance company Direct Line concluded that “people are more likely to be dishonest when chatting using technology, such as Twitter, than they would be face to face.”

(Related) Just because a particular technology isn't part of your IT plan (or budget) does not stop Senior Managers (or Officials) from using it.

http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/61416

Friends, Followers, and Feeds: A National Survey of Social Media Use in State Government

The survey examined adoption trends, current applications and expectations of social media technologies, the extent to which implementation is governed by formal policies or individual agency initiative, and perceptions of risk associated with social media tool use.

[From the report:

Just as in that earlier time when many state IT departments suddenly found they had rogue servers put up by agencies independent of any oversight or standards, state CIOs may recently have found themselves unblocking YouTube to allow greetings from public officials or Flickr to mount photos of a bridge opening or to document some other important announcement. CIOs may not have been immediately convinced of the business value of these tools as they entered the workplace, but the fact is that this is how effective governments are communicating now, and this is not just a fad.

… The results of the social media survey reflect the following key points:

social media adoption rates are broad across state governments, whether controlled by CIO offices or not

two-thirds of survey respondents lack enterprise policies addressing social media

one-third of the states responding do have enterprise policy frameworks, guidance, and standards, and a sizable number of states are in the process of developing these – models do exist

business drivers have most commonly been communications, citizen engagement, and outreach, along with low-cost of entry – 98% of use is of free social media tools

social media pose challenges to states in the areas of

security

legal issues associated with terms of service

privacy

records management

acceptable use

The views of a lawyer on the inside...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16324

Harvey Levin on media and privacy

October 23, 2010 by Dissent

I’ve occasionally blogged about celebrities, the media, and right to privacy. I came across an interesting talk that Harvey Levin of TMZ gave to students at the University of Chicago Law School this week on media and privacy. It’s a very human talk that deals with ethics of the media, the “yuck factor,” “zones of privacy,” and includes a number of cases the show’s been involved in and how they made particular decisions about what to reveal or not to reveal. He also talks about how in one case, a sheriff got warrants to search his cell phones after they revealed a report on Mel Gibson and how chilling that can be for journalists.

I’m not a regular viewer of TMZ at all, but found the talk both entertaining and also thought-provoking. See what you think:

[Or watch on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKv52hnXXFQ&feature=player_embedded#!

So Saddam wasn't lying, just exaggerating?

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

Eventually, an online “Library of the Internet?”

http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/neotake-com-a-quick-way-to-find-ebooks

Neotake.com - A Quick Way To Find eBooks

Neotake is a search engine for eBooks. The site will let you look up books in any language, and in formats as different as PDF, Mobipocket, ePUB and Kindle. And once you have found what you are looking for, you will be able to get it right away.

One of the most solid aspects of the site is that users are not anonymous. Far from it - they make up a true community. Each user has got his own profile, complete with his own avatar. They can see what each other has searched, and they can even begin following each other and be notified about the latest activity of those who are always finding good (and unusual) titles.

In any case, the site includes a series of “Top 100 eBooks” that will let you know what has been in more demand in the last week, the last month and even the day before. Not knowing what to download is a situation you are not facing if you use this site, and that’s a fact.

http://www.neotake.com/

Collaboration tools

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/livedocuments-free-office-suite-online/

Live-Documents: Free Office Suite Online

Live Documents is a free office suite online that provides online document editing collaboration features. After you have created an account on the site you can start creating presentations, spreadsheets, and text documents.

The interface for each type of document all loads up within the web browser. You will find that the most commonly used and most popular features are available in all the interfaces. The text document interface, for instance, includes languages, different fonts, formats and styles, text alignment, and paragraph properties. When you are done with your document you can save it and share it using the buttons located in the top right.

Sharing is possible either with specific Live Documents members or with everyone on the web by sharing the document’s URL. You can specify whether others will be able to edit the document or only view it.

Users of Live Documents get 100 MB of storage space and access to their documents in a wonderfully organized web interface that resembles an operating system.

www.live-documents.com

Related articles:

6 Free Office Suites That Are NOT Microsoft

Top 3 FREE web-based Office Suites (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)

An interesting summary of the “facts” obtainable on the Internet. How would those using this data direct their Behavioral Advertising? Clink on the image for the full report (PDF)

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/forget-privacy-what-the-internet-knows-about-you.html

What the Internet Knows About You

Imagine that a company could use the Web to rate your health, your employability—even your dating appeal. Welcome to the credit score of the future.

Imagine you’re an employer, looking to hire me for a job. You subscribe to a Web site that gives you background information, and this is what you find. Jessica Rose Bennett, 29, spends 30 hours a week on social-networking sites—while at work. She is an excessive drinker, a drug user, and sexually promiscuous. She swears a lot, and spends way beyond her means shopping online. Her writing ability? Superior. Cost to hire? Cheap.

In reality, only part of this is true: yes, I like a good bourbon. But drugs? That comes from my reporting projects—and one in particular that took me to a pot farm in California. The promiscuity? My boyfriend of five years (that’s him above) would beg to differ on that, but I did once write a story about polyamory. I do spend hours on social-networking sites, but it’s part of my job. And I’m not nearly as cheap to hire as the Web would have you believe. (Take note, future employers!)

It will be interesting to see where this goes...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16275

Google Appoints Privacy Director & Adds New Privacy Measures

October 22, 2010 by Dissent

Barry Schwartz writes:

Google has announced they have increased their privacy controls within Google to better secure user privacy. Google has done this in response to them collecting data over wifi via their street view cars.

Google has added three broad changes to help secure private data going forward:

(1) They appointed a director of privacy, Alma Whitten to work on the engineering and product side. She will build controls to ensure privacy within Googles products and internal daily routines.

(2) Google will train all of their employees on Google’s privacy principles and add additional privacy training and security programs.

(3) Google will be ramping up their compliance procedures. Each project leader will have to maintain a privacy design document for each project they manage. The privacy design document will show how people within and outside Google have access to private data and will be reviewed by managers at Google and independent internal audit team.

Read more on SearchEngineLand.

(Related)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/22/1937243/Google-Admits-To-Collecting-Emails-and-Passwords?from=rss

Google Admits To Collecting Emails and Passwords

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 22, @04:30PM

"Alan Eustace, Google's Senior VP of Engineering & Research, just put up an interesting blog post on how Google will be creating stronger privacy controls. Right at the end is an interesting admission: that after Streetview WiFi Payload data was analyzed by regulators, their investigations revealed that some incredibly private information was harvested in some cases. Eustace noted that 'It's clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords.'"

Turnabout is fair play. Some of you Intellectual Property lawyers have asked me technical questions, now I have a legal question for you. This smells like a scam site, yet I have found MakeUseOf to be a valuable resource. I've got to do some more research here. These are movies that are still in theaters – “The Social Network” and “Red” for example. How can I watch (stream) “The Hurt Locker” for free and/or download it for free when their lawyers are suing (extorting money from?) thousands of people for downloading it?

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/freemoviestheater-download-complete-movies/

FreeMoviesTheatre: Watch & Download Complete Movies For Free

FreeMoviesTheatre is an excellent resource for watching movies online without all the hassle.

Firstly, the video files indexed by FreeMoviesTheatrer all include complete movies so you don’t have to jump from one part to another after every few minutes. The home page showcases many new and featured movies along with high-quality thumbnails, number of views, rating and the year movie was released. Movies can also be browsed by descending order of their release date and searched using movie titles or keywords.

Once you click on a movie thumbnail, FreeMoviesTheater displays up to 8 different versions of the movie indexed from different sites such as MegaVideo, StageVu, VidReel, WDivx and more. Each movie page also includes a teaser clip embedded from YouTube, HTML code to link and embed the movie on a web page, option to bookmark the movie, send it to a friend, read and post reviews and ultimately a link to download the complete movie for free.

… The website also offers link to download complete movies in HD quality.

Well surprise, surprise!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20020461-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Report: China hijacked U.S. Internet data

A Chinese state-run telecom provider was the source of the redirection of U.S. military and corporate data that occurred this past April, according to excerpts of a draft report sent to CNET by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The current draft of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC's) 2010 annual report, which is close to final but has not yet been officially approved, finds that malicious computer activity tied to China continues to persist following reports early this year of attacks against Google and other companies from within the country.

The Supremes are mortal? How depressing...

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16282

Supreme Court Chief Justice Admits He Doesn’t Read Online EULAs Or Other ‘Fine Print’

October 22, 2010 by Dissent

We just recently wrote about how circuit court judge Richard Posner had admitted to not reading the boilerplate legalese on his mortgage agreement, and wondered why such things were then considered binding. Taking it up a notch, now Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has admitted that he doesn’t read the fine print on websites or medicines and that this “is a problem.”

Read more from TechDirt.

Very similar to the reaction Baen Publishing had to the first books they put up on their website for free. “There's no such thing as 'bad publicity?'”

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/22/174206/Comic-Sales-Soar-After-Artist-Engages-4chan-Pirates?from=rss

Comic Sales Soar After Artist Engages 4chan Pirates

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 22, @03:02PM

"Steve Lieber, the artist behind the graphic novel Underground, discovered that someone on 4chan had scanned and posted the entire comic. Rather than complaining, he joined the conversation, chatting with the 4channers about the comic... and the next day he saw his sales jump to unheard-of levels, much higher than he'd seen even when the comic book was reviewed on popular sites like Boing Boing."

Are “celebrities” a class more worthy of protection than an average schmo like me?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101020/03475811495/the-rise-of-a-new-intellectual-property-category-ripe-for-trolling-publicity-rights.shtml

The Rise Of A New Intellectual Property Category, Ripe For Trolling: Publicity Rights

Recently, we've been highlighting more and more publicity rights lawsuits, because they're becoming quite popular these days. Eriq Gardner has an excellent, long and detailed article all about publicity rights, going over the history of it: which involved some common law/case law rulings, and now (more and more) is being driven by state laws (which are often pushed and passed by the industries who are cashing in on these claims). Basically, these are a form of "intellectual property rights" on almost any aspect of a person -- their likeness, appearance, voice, mannerisms, gestures, etc. -- used for "commercial use," (which we've noted recently is such an ambiguous term these days).

Has anyone registered “Holy Mackerel?” What would the reaction have been to Torah.com or Quran.com

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/10/22/1440231/Biblecom-Investor-Sues-Company-For-Lack-Of-Profit?from=rss

Bible.com Investor Sues Company For Lack Of Profit

Posted by samzenpus on Friday October 22, @12:31PM

The board of Bible.com claims that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than to make money on the domain name, but an angry shareholder disagrees. From the article: "James Solakian filed the lawsuit in Delaware's Chancery Court against the board of Bible.com for breaching their duty by refusing to sell the site or run the company in a profitable way. The lawsuit cites a valuation done by a potential purchaser that estimated bible.com could be worth more than dictionary.com, which recently sold for more than $100 million."

Demographics for my Statistics students and targets for my Ethical Hacking students (Accounts of the Rich but Idle)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20020475-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Rich people don't like Facebook?

The poll, conducted by SEI Wealth Network, a company that advises the wealthy on how to survive their troubles, revealed that 70 percent of the moneyed had signed up for Facebook and other online homes of social interaction.

This compares very favorably with Pew research that revealed that a mere 61 percent of the great and barely washed were present in the social media sphere.

However, a piffling 17 percent go to these sites daily. This does not reflect social norms, which are reflected in the uplifting Pew statistic that 38 percent of people do, in fact, visit their online social world every single day.

A useful tool?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/sync-files-access-pcs-remotely-windows-live-mesh-2011/

Sync Files and Access Your PC Remotely with Windows Live Mesh 2011

Formerly in Beta, Live Mesh has now been released to the world under the name of Windows Live Mesh 2011 as part of Microsoft’s ongoing attempt to prove to the world that it can produce useful software application that aren’t overly complicated or part of the Office suite.

… All you have to do to sync a folder with Live Mesh 2011 is click on the “Sync a folder” text near the top of the window on the Status tab. You can then browse your computer for the folder that you’d like to sync. Once you’ve chosen the folder, Live Mesh 2011 will ask you what devices you’d like to sync with. All the PCs that on which you have Live Mesh installed will appear as options, and you’ll also be given the chance to sync the folder with Microsoft SkyDrive.

Access Your Computers Remotely

A new feature added to Windows Live Mesh 2011 is the ability to access any computer you’ve installed the program on remotely from any other computer you own. Remote access has been possible in Windows previously under the name Remote Desktop Services or Terminal Services, but is only enabled in certain versions of Windows and is targeted towards IT professionals and computer enthusiasts rather than the average user.

[from the Wikipedia article:

Windows Live SkyDrive is a file storage and sharing service that allows users to upload files to the computing cloud, then access them from a web browser. It uses Windows Live ID to control access to the user's files, allowing them to keep the files private, share with contacts, or make the files public. Publicly-shared files do not require a Windows Live ID to access.

The service currently offers 25 GB of free personal storage, with individual files limited to 50 MB.

One must evaluate Strategy based on Actions, not Propaganda. Does anyone seriously doubt this is true?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/1445230/Why-Facebook-Wont-Stop-Invading-Your-Privacy?from=rss

Why Facebook Won't Stop Invading Your Privacy

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday October 21, @11:35AM

"Every few weeks, it seems, Facebook is caught again violating users' privacy. A code error there, rogue business partners there. The truth, as InfoWorld's Bill Snyder explains, is that Facebook will keep on violating your privacy, no matter what its policies say, what promises it makes, or how shocked it claims to be at the latest incident. The reason is simple: Selling personal information on its users is how it makes money, and Facebook is above all a business."

(Related)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16230

FTC Offers Legal Assistance Guide to Help Identity Theft Victims

October 21, 2010 by Dissent

The Federal Trade Commission has created a guide to help attorneys and victim advocates provide legal assistance to identity theft victims.

Geared toward resolving issues out of court, the Guide for Assisting Identity Theft Victims (www.idtheft.gov/probono) describes how advocates can intervene with creditors, credit reporting agencies, debt collectors, and others, as well as self-help measures that victims can take. Victims may need an advocate’s help in a variety of situations: their age, health, language skills, or income prevents them from making effective disputes; they’re being pursued for someone else’s debt; they face uncooperative creditors or credit reporting agencies; or their case is complex.

… The guide also addresses recovery from less common forms of identity theft, such as when a thief commits tax fraud, or obtains a federal student loan or medical services using stolen information.

Is this a “tenure” argument?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16250

Judge Blocks DOE from Releasing Teachers’ Names With Evaluation Data

October 21, 2010 by Dissent

Shayna Jacobs reports:

The city cannot release the names of thousands of city teachers whose performances were rated in a Department of Education assessment until the matter is argued in court next month, a Manhattan judge ordered Thursday.

The ruling came after an emergency lawsuit was filed by the teachers union in an attempt to block the DOE from releasing “Teacher Data Reports” evaluating individual teacher performance.

The DOE apparently planned to provide the New York Post and other publications with the full reports on Thursday, but the city instead consented to delaying the release of the records after a private conference between city and UFT lawyers with Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern on Thursday afternoon.

Read more on DNAinfo.com

[From the article:

The UFT adamantly opposes the release of the names, claiming the data has proven to be "misleading" and "unreliable." [No indication why that is so. Bob]

(Related)

http://web.docuticker.com/go/docubase/61392

Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: How Teacher Performance Assessments Can Measure and Improve Teaching

Does this raise the punishment to the “Cruel and Unusual” level? (Does the punishment fit the crime?)

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/1724202/Bicycle-Thief-Barred-From-Using-Encryption?from=rss

Bicycle Thief Barred From Using Encryption

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 21, @01:40PM

"A teenager found in possession of a stolen bicycle was given probation, with a whole bunch of computer-related restrictions. He wasn't allowed to use social networks or instant messaging. He wasn't allowed to use a computer that had 'encryption, hacking, cracking, scanning, keystroke monitoring, security testing, steganography, Trojan or virus software.' The kid appealed, noting that the restrictions on social networking seemed overly broad, and restricting him from using a computer with a virus was difficult since viruses and trojans and the like tend to try to stay hidden, so he might not know. While the court overturned the restrictions on social networking, and changed the terms of computer restrictions to include the word 'knowingly,' it did keep the restriction on against using any computer with encryption software. Remember, this isn't someone convicted of malicious computer crimes, but of receiving a stolen bicycle. So why is perfectly reasonable encryption software not allowed? And what computer these days doesn't have encryption software?"

Just think of it as another flavor of convergence... The Internet goes Orbital. Computer Law and Space Law merge?

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/133247/Pirate-Parties-Plan-To-Shoot-Site-Into-Orbit?from=rss

Pirate Parties Plan To Shoot Site Into Orbit

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 21, @10:56AM

"It is almost four years ago that The Pirate Bay announced they wanted to buy the micronation of Sealand, so they could host their site without having to bother about copyright law — an ambitious plan that turned out to be unaffordable. This week, Pirate Parties worldwide started brainstorming about a similarly ambitious plan. Instead of founding their own nation, they want to shoot a torrent site into orbit."

An old industry learning new tricks? Pay attention USPS and RIAA This combines demographic and geographic data and uses the mail as a delivery vehicle.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/10/22/0528224/Google-Is-Going-Postal-In-Sweden?from=rss

Google Is Going Postal In Sweden

Posted by timothy on Friday October 22, @05:00AM

"Google will start to collaborate with the Swedish Postal Service (Swedish original) to sell direct marketing to small businesses, both in the form of fliers (delivered by the Swedish Postal Service) and keyword advertising in Google Search. The area of distribution for the fliers is selected in Google Maps. Google will also will provide templates for the design of the fliers. The idea was concieved within the Swedish Postal Service."

What will the RIAA do to keep this out of the US?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/22/googles-music-india/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Google’s Piracy-Fighting Music Search Engine For Indian Users Now Live

Yesterday, the WSJ reported that Google was planning to launch a music service in India to help users search for legal online streams and downloads and fight digital piracy, which reportedly runs rampant in the nation.

We’ve just gotten word that the service is now available at Google.co.in/music.

Update: official Google India blog post is up.

Currently only covering songs in Hindi, the music search engine promises that users can search for and instantly listen to thousands of full songs, which are delivered by Google’s partners in India (in.com, saavn and saregama).

For my geeks. We can beat this in the lab, but are we ready to test it campus-wide?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/1931241/Google-Testing-High-Speed-Fiber-Network-At-Stanford-Res-Halls?from=rss

Google Testing High-Speed Fiber Network At Stanford Res Halls

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 21, @05:18PM

"Google has reached an agreement to build its first ultra-high speed broadband network near Stanford University, the search giant announced on Thursday. The agreement with Stanford means the university's residential subdivision will be the first place to test Internet speeds up to one gigabit per second, more than 100 times faster than the typical broadband connection in the US. The plan is to break ground early next year."

That might just be worth $50,576 per year to have.

This is still a relatively small breach, but the inclusion of the “we know exactly where we lost it” double talk rates inclusion.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=14822

Health insurers say data on 280,000 Pennsylvania clients may be compromised

October 20, 2010 by admin

Jane M. Von Bergen reports:

Keystone Mercy Health Plan and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan said Tuesday that a portable computer drive containing the names, addresses, and health information of 280,000 Medicaid members in Pennsylvania has been lost.

The affiliated companies together insure 400,000 people on medical assistance in Pennsylvania.

The companies said the portable computer hard drive, used at community health fairs, was lost within the companies’ corporate offices. [Wishful thinking or pure speculation. If you knew where it was, it wouldn't be lost. Bob] Keystone’s headquarters is in Southwest Philadelphia and AmeriHealth Mercy’s is in Harrisburg.

The computer drive included members’ health plan identification numbers and some of their health information, the insurers said.

Also stored on the drive were the last four digits of 801 members’ Social Security numbers, plus complete Social Security numbers for seven others.

Read more on Philly.com

(UPDATE) Turns out they may have said the data was “missing from the corporate offices” not “missing in the corporate offices”

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20101021_Medical-data_breach_said_to_be_major.html?viewAll=y

Medical-data breach said to be major

… The insurers said the drive was missing from the corporate offices on Stevens Drive in Southwest Philadelphia. It noted that the same flash drive was used at community health fairs.

"That seems grossly irresponsible," said Dr. Deborah Peel, a Texas psychiatrist who heads Patient Privacy Rights, an advocacy group.

"Why would you be hauling around private patient information to a health fair," she said. "I can't imagine what they were thinking, taking this data out of a locked room at company headquarters.

… The companies said that as of Tuesday, there had been no reports of anyone trying to use the information stored on the drive. [Typical PR spin. “Up to the time we announced the breach, no one has contacted us to complain about the breach they didn't know had occurred.” Bob]

… The affiliated companies have been tight-lipped about the breach, which they said occurred Sept. 20.

Until The Inquirer asked for information, the company had not disclosed the data breach to affected members, most of whom live in Philadelphia and nearby counties.

Did privacy concerns keep this from happening before? Wouldn't that greatly increase liability? Another reason for “open journals?”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16215

Researchers who fake results should be named, academic panel urges

October 21, 2010 by Dissent

Margaret Munro reports:

A blue-ribbon panel says Canadian academics found to have faked data, plagiarized and engaged in serious misconduct should be named publicly. In a report to be released Thursday, the panel said action is needed to fill serious gaps in how Canada deals with misconduct involving research and studies paid for by taxpayers.

It calls for creation of a Canadian Council for Research Integrity to foster more honesty and accountability and said the research community needs to be more open and transparent about bad behaviour that does occur.

The report deals with the privacy and reputation concerns:

Although the panel recognizes the importance of maintaining the privacy of individuals during an investigation, investigative findings should be reported and made public if an individual or institution is found guilty of research misconduct,” reports the panel, made up of 14 academics and researchers brought together by the Council of Canadian Academies, a non-profit corporation that assesses public policy issues.

“Similarly, the fact that an allegation is under investigation should be reported if an individual who is subject to an allegation resigns (either by mutual or unilateral decision) before the end of the investigation,” the panel says. “Even if an individual resigns, any investigation initiated prior to the resignation should be completed and the findings reported.”

Read more in the Edmonton Journal.

I agree that those found guilty of research misconduct should be named publicly. If doctors are to rely on research, then it’s important for us to know when research is untrustworthy and also when we might want to rethink any other studies published by a particular investigator.

Here in the U.S., many states have publicly available web sites where you can find out if a particular professional has ever had disciplinary action taken against them in their licensed or registered capacity as a provider. Those lists might not include research misconduct, though, because the state board in charge of professional misconduct may not be the board conducting the investigation on research misconduct.

A recent article in The Atlantic by David H. Freedman highlights the growing problem with untrustworthiness in published research and journals. If you think this doesn’t apply to you, think again, as the medications you are prescribed or the treatment options you have depend, in part, on what’s in the journals and what doctors are being told in what are often BigPharma-funded talks.

For my Ethical Hackers (and stalkers?)

http://www.qwerly.com/

Qwerly

Qwerly is a whois for Twitter. For every Twitter user that is looked up on our site, we generate a simple profile with links to that person's other profiles on sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Last.fm, Delicious and many, many more. This way, you can discover where your friends and other interesting people hang out online.

Interesting that elected officials can not talk the bureaucracies out of their techno-spying – in the UK or the US. (Who is in charge?)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=16163

Every email and website to be stored

October 20, 2010 by Dissent

Tom Whitehead reports:

Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.

It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.

Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.

Read more in the Telegraph.

[From the article:

The plans were shelved by the Labour Government last December but the Home Office is now ready to revive them.

It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason".

… The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages.

The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review,

I sure this will work...

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/10/20/1410215/Australian-Visitors-Must-Declare-Illegal-Porn-To-Customs-Officers?from=rss

Australian Visitors Must Declare Illegal Porn To Customs Officers

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 20, @03:57PM

Australian Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor has advised visitors to take a better safe than sorry policy when it comes to their porn stashes, and declare all porn that they think might be illegal with customs officers. From the article: "The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travellers about what pornography to declare. 'People have a right to privacy and while some pornography is legal and does not need to be disclosed, all travellers should be aware that certain types of pornography are illegal and must be declared to customs,' Mr O'Connor said."

You would think that somewhere before the ninety ninth time this is reported, someone in charge would notice...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102006740.html

Report criticizes FBI on computer project

The FBI's effort to move from paper to electronic files took another hit Wednesday when Justice Department auditors issued their latest, and perhaps most critical, report to date on the long-troubled Sentinel project.

"Sentinel is approximately $100 million over budget and 2 years behind schedule," the report from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said, and still lacks common features of personal computers and ordinary word-processing software, such as search functions, spell-checking and automatic document saves.

Worse, the IG said, the FBI had spent almost 90 percent of the $451 million currently budgeted for the entire program, "but it will have delivered only two of the program's four phases to its agents and analysts."

The project could cost $350 million more and take six years to complete, the auditors said. [Any IT project planned to take more then six months would get you tossed out of most MBA programs. Bob]

"We found that while Sentinel has delivered some improvements to the FBI's case management system, it has not delivered much of what it originally intended," the report said.

… Because the system lacked an auto-save capability, "several users lost partially completed forms and hours of work while using Sentinel," the IG said.

"Users also found the lack of an integrated spell checker unacceptable because most current word processing software includes this feature." On Sept. 16, FBI technology officials had briefed the auditors, telling them how the bureau had mended its ways, throwing out approaches that hadn't worked and instituting new ways to get the mission accomplished.

… But the auditors did not sound impressed. It may be too late, the inspector general said, to keep refining Sentinel.

"Regardless of the new development approach, it is important to note that Sentinel's technical requirements are now 6 years old, and there have been significant advances in technology and changes to the FBI's work processes during that time."

(Related) Maybe governments can't manage IT

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=14815

Open slather for hackers on official databases

October 20, 2010 by admin

Brian Robins follows up on the NSW Auditor-General’s report, released yesterday:

Computer hackers could gain access to personal information held in government databases as state departments routinely ignore government edicts that tighter security be imposed.

The government rarely discloses when its computer security systems have been breached, although in a report yesterday, the NSW Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, confirmed the Jobs NSW website was hacked last year, with email addresses of job applicants stolen and the applicants spammed by the hackers.

Similarly, RailCorp’s computer networks were infected with the Conficker virus last year. This disabled security services in its network, with data vulnerable to theft or modification by hackers

Read more in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Another IT project doomed to failure?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/20/1549227/US-Elections-Dominated-By-Closed-Source-Again?from=rss

US Elections Dominated By Closed Source. Again.

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 20, @12:28PM

"Another American election is almost here, and while electronic voting is commonplace, it is still overwhelmingly run by closed source, proprietary systems. It has been shown that many of these systems can be compromised (and because they are closed, there may be holes we simply cannot know about). Plus they are vulnerable to software bugs and are often based on unstable, closed-source operating systems. By the inherent nature of closed software, when systems are (optionally!) certified by registrars, there is no proof that they will behave the same on election day as in tests. The opportunities for fraud, tampering and malfunction are rampant. But nonetheless, there is very little political will for open source voting, let alone simple measures like end-to-end auditable voting systems or more radical approaches like open source governance. Why do we remain in the virtual dark ages, when clearly we have better alternatives readily available?"

Maybe the only place you can be found is on Facebook...

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/10/20/1222210/Man-Served-Restraining-Order-Via-Facebook?from=rss

Man Served Restraining Order Via Facebook

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 20, @10:10AM

"An Australian man has been served a restraining order via Facebook, after unsuccessful attempts by police to reach him by phone and in person. The man was a 'prolific Facebook user' who had allegedly threatened, bullied and harassed a former partner online. He was served both interim and final intervention orders by Facebook, after a local magistrate upheld the interim order indefinitely."

If you are smart enough to know technology can help, you should be smart enough to know your should be watching the people who use it in your name. Especially if you are running on your skills as a manager!

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/10/20/2147222/Meg-Whitman-Campaign-Shows-How-Not-To-Use-Twitter?from=rss

Meg Whitman Campaign Shows How Not To Use Twitter

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 20, @07:36PM

"California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's campaign team attempted to share with her Twitter followers an endorsement from a police association. Unfortunately, the campaign press secretary entered an incorrect or incomplete Bit.ly URL in the Tweet, which took clickers to a YouTube video featuring a bespectacled, long-haired Japanese man in a tutu and leggings rocking out on a bass guitar. And for whatever reason, the Tweet, which went out on the 18th, has remained active through today."

Good news! We can take pictures of public places! (We're not all terrorists!)

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/025540.html

October 20, 2010

NYCLU Settlement Ends Restriction on Photography Outside Federal Courthouses

News release: "In settling a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the federal government [October 18, 2010] recognized the public’s right to take photographs and record videos in public spaces outside federal courthouses throughout the nation. The settlement comes after the NYCLU sued the federal government in April on behalf of a Libertarian activist who was unlawfully arrested by federal officers after exercising his First Amendment right to record digital video outside of a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan."

(Related) Bad news! Not everyone agrees.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/0019257/All-Your-Stonehenge-Photos-Are-Belong-To-England?from=rss

All Your Stonehenge Photos Are Belong To England

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 21, @12:32AM

"English Heritage, the organization that runs and manages various historical sites in the UK, such as Stonehenge, has apparently sent letters to various photo sharing and stock photo sites claiming that any photo of Stonehenge that is being sold violates its rights, and only English Heritage can get commercial benefit from such photos. In fact, they're asking for all money made from such photos, stating: 'all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.' As one recipient noted, this seems odd, given that English Heritage has only managed Stonehenge 'for 27 of the monument's 4,500 year old history.'"

More for the “Why lawyers are loved” file? An interesting and profitable model!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20020260-261.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Accused pirates to indie filmmakers: Sue us

The independent film studios suing thousands of alleged file sharers for copyright violations may soon face their own version of Jammie Thomas-Rasset.

Attorneys representing some of the people accused of illegal file sharing told CNET yesterday that several have refused to settle with the indie studios--which is what Thomas-Rasset did when she was accused of illegal file sharing by the music industry. By taking this stance, the accused film pirates are challenging the filmmakers to take them to court.

So, that is what the studios will do, according to their attorney, Thomas Dunlap.

Dunlap is one of the founders of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, a Washington, D.C. law firm that has made news this year by overseeing the litigation campaign on behalf of the indie studios, a group that includes the makers of the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker." [I haven't seen that one yet, perhaps I'll have my Ethical Hackers download it for me... Bob]

… The way Dunlap goes after alleged file sharers is by first filing complaints against unnamed "Doe defendants." He subpoenas the Internet service providers of each person to obtain their name. Dunlap then withdraws the suits against the Doe defendants and refiles the claims against those who decline to settle--only this time he names them. [Anything new here? Bob]

… In the next few weeks, at a minimum, you will see three or four individuals taken to court in different states."

These cases could be pivotal to copyright owners and file sharers alike. Ever since Dunlap began filing the suits, critics wondered whether the law firm could afford to bankroll potentially drawn out and costly litigation against someone who refused to settle. [How many checks have they received from those too intimidated to risk a law suit? Bob]

Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, predicted this week that serious legal challenges would drain all the profit out of litigating against individual file sharers and could discourage copyright owners from pursing lawsuits as an antipiracy strategy. [But they get to choose how many suits they file. Bob]

In the case of Thomas, considered by some to be the Joan of Arc of file sharing, her case has dragged on for nearly five years. The Recording Industry Association of America has won favorable decisions, but the cost of trying it dwarfs whatever amount the music labels will get out of Thomas, who works on an Indian reservation in Minnesota. [If he had downloaded the films on the Reservation, would their copyright laws apply? Perhaps this is a new revenue source beyond casinos and cigarettes... Bob]

Dunlap said the cases against those who refuse to settle likely won't cost much. He plans to farm out the litigation to other law firms.

(Related) News organizations to join together for copyright protection?

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/21/1257252/AP-Proposes-ASCAP-Like-Fees-For-the-News?from=rss

AP Proposes ASCAP-Like Fees For the News

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday October 21, @09:27AM

"Techdirt directed my attention to an article where the AP discussed pressure from new devices and mediums today giving them cause to create a clearinghouse for news — much like the music industry's ASCAP — to 'establish an enforcement and payment system.' You'll notice that the story I am linking to and quoting is an AP story ... would Slashdot then be required to pay these fees? We have seen DMCA take down notices and fee discussions before from the AP."

(Related) In my mind anyway... How will the copyright cops distinguish between a download and a one-time stream (since I can capture the stream using software on my computer) I see this model as a trend, by the way.

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/musiclink-listen-to-complete-albums/

MusicLink: Listen To Complete Albums Before Buying

There are sites that let you preview all the songs in an album for 20-30 seconds but thats hardly enough to make a buying decision. Meet MusicLink, a tool that lets you listen to complete albums before you make a decision to buy it.

www.musiclink.fm

Moating the ivory tower? Dis will makes edjucasion gooder!

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/20/virginia-school-ap-h.html

Virginia school AP History class bans curiousity, independent study, Internet

Cory Doctorow at 10:00 PM Wednesday, Oct 20, 2010

Fairfax County, VA's Westfield High has a curious set of requirements in three of its AP History class:

"You are only allowed to use your OWN knowledge, your OWN class notes, class handouts, your OWN class homework, or The Earth and Its Peoples textbook to complete assignments and assessments UNLESS specifically informed otherwise by your instructor.''

That was not all. Students could not use anything they found on the Internet. They were not permitted even to discuss their assignments with friends, classmates, neighbors, parents, relatives or siblings.

What about complete strangers? The teachers had thought of that. "You may not discuss/mention/chat/hand signal/smoke signal/Facebook/IM/text/email to a complete stranger ANY answers/ideas/questions/thoughts/opinions/hints/instructions." The words were playful, but the teachers were serious. Any violations, they said, would mean a zero on the assignment and an honor code referral.

Fundamentally, these teachers have prohibited doing any kind of outside work, having any productive discussion with your friends and family that might connect the history you're learning with the world you're living in. They have reduced education to absorbing and regurgitating a specific set of facts, divorcing it from any kind of critical thinking, synthesis, or intellectual rigor.

Parents have complained to the principal, who "will decide soon whether these rules are okay."

I wonder if this will be available to smaller customers? I also wonder what it took to get Microsoft to do this?

http://slashdot.org/story/10/10/20/2145244/Microsoft-Unbundles-Software-For-NY-City?from=rss

Microsoft Unbundles Software For NY City

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 20, @07:02PM

"Microsoft has agreed to sell individual pieces of software to NY City workers, rather than forcing each seat to buy a full suite of software. The city has created three classes of users based on which pieces of software they need to perform their job, and Microsoft will sell software packages tailored to each class at a reduced price."