Monday, November 05, 2012

I finally connected with my brother back in New Jersey. He is estimating that electricity should be back on by the end of the week – maybe...
His house in Cape May was undamaged and all city services there are working, and the house on the Delaware River (clear across the state) is undamaged but was inaccessible for a few days due to downed trees.
A cousin is still trying to reach his house at the shore. He was turned back because of two houses (not just random debris) on the highway.
On the “silver lining” side, another homeowner asked my cousin to check his house. After reporting that the house looked largely undamaged except for the deck in front which seemed to have become detached, a tool shed that was tilted at a bit of an angle and a jet ski on it's side, he commented that it looked like the homeowner was lucky. “Real lucky,” was the reply. “Before the hurricane, I didn't have any of that stuff!”


It's good to know nerds in high places... “Where does it say we have to be fair?”
Google has customized results for Obama, but not Romney
Google isn't treating searches related to Presidential candidates fairly, a new report charges.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that it commissioned a study on the way in which search results related to President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are displayed on Google. The study found that when users search for "Obama" or "Romney," Google displays standard results. Future searches, however, are treated differently.
For example, the Journal tried search for topics ranging from Iran to Medicare. Those folks that had already searched for "Obama" found that their results were customized to relate in some way to the president. Searches on those topics yielded no such customizations for Romney seekers.


Is this a mere upgrade from DRM (Digital Rights Management) or are we looking at the birth of URM (Ubiquitous Rights Management)?
"Just when you think the cable TV viewing experience couldn't get any worse, GeekWire reports on the Microsoft Xbox Incubation team's patent-pending Consumer Detector, which uses cameras and sensors like those in the Xbox 360 Kinect controller to monitor, count and in some cases identify the people in a room watching television, movies and other content. Should the number of viewers detected exceed the limits of a particular content license, the system would halt playback unless additional viewing rights were purchased."
[“No tickee, no TV!” Bob]


“It's less work for us.”
Twitter has prompted user confusion by implementing a new copyright policy that censors contentious tweets rather than deleting them altogether, a shift that the microblogging service argues is more transparent. According to Twitter’s legal policy chief, Jeremy Kessel, the change offers “more transparency by processing copyright reports by withholding Tweets, not removing,” though some users have still criticized the approach for potentially censoring first and investigating second.
According to Twitter’s official DMCA policy, the company reserves the right to restrict access to a contentious tweet before a final decision on whether copyright infringement has actually taken place...
… A Twitter spokesperson claims that the blocking system is preferable to the old approach, which saw the company manually recreating tweets that had been deleted but then deemed not to infringe...


So far, only Federal legislation, but that's better than nothing. Perhaps they could add a section for seminars like those of the Privacy Foundation, where we debate the pros and cons of issues impacting Privacy.
TechCrunch’s tech policy platform, CrunchGov
Welcome to TechCrunch’s tech policy platform, CrunchGov, a portal for sourcing the most thoughtful people and ideas to facilitate more informed policymaking. Currently, it consists of three areas: a congressional report card, a database of technology legislation, and a crowdsourced legislative utility for contributing ideas to pending bills.
In the wake of mass online protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), officials were eager to learn more about the concerns of those who work in technology and find ways to craft more informed policy. CrunchGov is our attempt at helping policymakers become better listeners, and technologists to be more effective citizens.
To learn more about our CrunchGov, read our launch blog post, or our methodology FAQ page.


“de l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace” George C, Scott in Patton quoting Napoleon(?)
"So it turns out that Me.ga is only part of Kim Dotcom's resolution for 2013. Even though he's still facing extradition to the U.S. for alleged piracy, Dotcom has plans to resurrect Pacific Fibre's failed project to construct a fiber optic cable across the Pacific to the U.S. The new line will bring free high-speed broadband to New Zealanders and double the nation's Internet bandwidth, setting Dotcom back about $400m."
Some of that funding is based on optimism: "Dotcom plans on getting the majority of his funds by suing Hollywood studios and the US government for their 'unlawful and political destruction of [Megaupload].'"


Click on a word and hear it pronounced. Might be useful for lawyers who deliberately confuse chauffeur with shofar – you know who you are.
November 03, 2012
Pronouncing Dictionary of the Supreme Court of the United States
Pronouncing Dictionary of the Supreme Court of the United States: "Although the United States is famously a nation of immigrants, Americans often struggle with the pronunciation of foreign words and names. Mispronunciation of even common foreign words is ubiquitous (Eye-rack and Eye-ran spring to mind). Foreign names in legal matters present a particular challenge for legal professionals. The purpose of the Pronouncing Dictionary of United States Supreme Court cases, compiled by YLS students Usha Chilukuri, Megan Corrarino, Brigid Davis, Kate Hadley, Daniel Jang, Sally Pei, and Yale University Linguistics Department students Diallo Spears and Jason Zentz, working with Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer in Law Eugene Fidell, is to help conscientious lawyers, judges, teachers, students, and journalists correctly pronounce often-perplexing case names. Drawing on textbooks, recordings, accounts by litigants or counsel, pronunciation guides, journalism, and surveys, we identified those Supreme Court cases that are most susceptible of mispronunciation and determined the proper pronunciation. To be sure, several factors—including the passage of time, idiosyncratic pronunciation, and Anglicization—make this an inexact process. Where possible, we have ascertained and followed the litigant’s preferred pronunciation. Failing this information, we employed two methods. Where possible, we discerned the etymology of the name, consulted a native speaker of the pertinent language, and Anglicized the pronunciation during the process of transcribing the name. Otherwise, we surveyed five individuals with the surname in question and, where at least four used the same pronunciation, that pronunciation was controlling. The Dictionary is, inevitably, incomplete, but we hope it will be a useful tool for those seeking accuracy and authenticity. Special thanks go to Jason Eiseman of the Lillian Goldman Law Library for technical assistance and advice."


Was it the business model or the managers?
"In a surprising blow to the movement to create free textbooks online, an upstart company called Flat World Knowledge is dumping its freemium model. The upstart publisher had made its textbooks free online and charged for print versions or related study guides, but company officials now say that isn't bringing in enough money to work long-term."

(Related) Perhaps they should have considered...
Should Your Startup Go Freemium?
Over the last several months, there has been an intense debate about the viability of freemium business models. For some, freemium is a costly trap, a business model that sacrifices revenues and forces a startup to support freeloaders who will never become paying customers. For others, freemium is the future of business, the logical conclusion of a world in which the cost of bandwidth, storage, and information processing approaches zero. Both sides agree that the model is extremely powerful. As Rob Walling of HitTail notes in a recent Wall Street Journal article, freemium is like a Samurai sword: “unless you’re a master at using it, you can cut your arm off.”
… we’ve put together the following six lessons for freemium software businesses. Use them wisely!


More from the guy whose motto is “Too much is not enough!”
November 04, 2012
New on LLRX - Employment Resources on the Internet
Via LLRX.com, Employment Resources on the Internet - Web research guru Marcus P. Zillman's guide is a comprehensive listing of employment resources available on the Internet. Zillman identifies links, search engines and resume writing sources from across many professional sectors which will help you discover, review, leverage and incorporate actionable information into a successful job search strategy.


Dilbert suggest a use for 3D Printers that I had never considered!

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Sunday, November 04, 2012

I'm of the opinion that trying to keep this quiet was a bad decision... Now they have to explain how they failed to notice that the tax information for 600,000 business was also taken.
South Carolina: 'The mother of all data breaches'
In a nation where hackers steal personal data from computer systems on a near-daily basis, the cyberattack on the South Carolina Department of Revenue stands out as the largest breach against a state tax agency in the nation.
“From a state point of view, this is kind of the mother of all data breaches thus far,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman of The Ponemon Institute, which researches privacy and data protection.
… State officials have repeatedly said such a theft of data could have happened to anyone, and there's little that could have been done, but experts said South Carolina was apparently a soft target.
… Ponemon believes other states are just as vulnerable, because most states have poor data security.
“It shouldn't be viewed that the folks in South Carolina really messed up, because they are not worse than others,” Ponemon said. “My belief is that this could happen in almost any state in the United States today.” [And my view is they are all “really messed up” Bob]
… “I think the big problem was that the data was not encrypted,” he said. “Certainly, it is the responsible thing to do if you want to protect data.”


Is this another “stealth breach?”
Possible MasterCard security breach
First Niagara Bank is warning customers about a possible breach in MasterCard's security system.
First Niagara tells News10NBC it uses MasterCard to service the debit cards.
A bank spokesperson says MasterCard alerted them and to be safe.
… First Niagara is not releasing the number of customers who could be affected or how the system might have been breached.
Anyone with a MasterCard could potentially be impacted by the breach, according to a First Niagara spokesperson.


Who says you can't buy an election?
Your vote costs Obama and Romney about $22
If you're an average online American, you're worth about $22 to the U.S. presidential campaigns, at least in terms of ad cost per vote. That's according to a new vote calculator produced by online privacy startup Abine, which asks seven multiple choice questions to gauge what you cost per ad.
The Obama and Romney campaigns have spent about $5 billion on online advertising so far but people are no longer receptive to traditional text or banner ads, says Abine privacy attorney and privacy advocate Sarah Downey. "A recent Anneberg study said that people dislike the idea that they're being targeted with political ads," she said in a phone conversation today. "86 percent of them disliked it, so instead of just going through Facebook ads, they're also doing apps, and recruiting your friends to do the work for them."

(Related) Remember Ethical Hackers, “Vote early! Vote often!” (I'm sure this plan they put together in a few days is every bit as safe and secure as any other...)
New Jersey to Allow Voting by Email (and Fax) for Residents Displaced by Superstorm Sandy
Less than a week after the storm -- and just three days before Election Day -- New Jersey officials have announced that they will allow those displaced from their homes and first responders to submit their votes by email or fax. A directive issued by Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno officially designated displaced New Jersey residents as "overseas voters," thus giving them the electronic voting option already available to New Jersey residents serving in the military. In addition, displaced voters and first responders may also vote by provisional ballot at any New Jersey polling location.


Why would anyone have 'naked pictures' of themselve on the phone? For ease of sharing? Auditioning for a PETA ad?
"El Reg reports that two employees at a Verizon store in Florida are facing charges after making copies of a woman's naked pictures while helping her transfer data from an old phone to a new one. The two employees later offered to show the pictures to another customer, but the customer happened to be the woman's friend. The woman and her friend filed a police report. The police quickly got a warrant to search the store and found copies of the pictures on multiple devices there. One of the employees, Gregory Lampert, was arrested and charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor. The other employee, Joshua Stuart, is no longer in Florida, but will face charges if he comes back."


This is totally petty, but probably part of the Steve Jobs culture...
"Apple today posted its second Samsung apology to its UK website, complying with requests [Perhaps that's the problem. It was an order not a request. Bob] by the UK Court of Appeal to say its original apology was inaccurate and link to a new statement. As users on Hacker News and Reddit point out, however, Apple modified its website recently to ensure the message is never displayed without visitors having to scroll down to the bottom first."


Some interesting findings... And a new (to innocent me) term: E-whoring But remember, this is only what hackers talk about, not the really good stuff...
November 03, 2012
Hacker Intelligence Initiative, Monthly Trend Report #13
Monitoring Hacker Forums ADC Monthly Web Attacks Analysis, October 2012: "Imperva analyzed one of the largest-known hacker forums with roughly 250,000 members, as well as other smaller forums. Using search capabilities, we analyzed conversations by topic using specific keywords. We found:


Could be a useful summary...
November 03, 2012
Juniper Research - Exposing Your Personal Information – There’s An App for That
"Mobile devices and applications are no longer an accessory – they’re central to our daily lives. Gartner predicts the number of mobile apps downloaded will double to 45 billion this year – and they’re only getting smarter. Today’s apps are increasingly essential to accessing critical business applications, connecting with friends on the go and even adopting digital wallets. While these apps make our lives easier, they also give a wider group of application developers and advertising networks the ability to collect information about our activities and leverage the functionality of our devices. At the same time, the companies, consumers and government employees who install these apps often do not understand with who and how they are sharing personal information. Even though a list of permissions is presented when installing an app, most people don’t understand what they are agreeing to or have the proper information needed to make educated decisions about which apps to trust. More concerning is that many apps collect information or require permissions unnecessary for the described functionality of the apps. This is not the first time this issue has surfaced – reports of popular apps collecting irrelevant information or transmitting data when devices are turned off has led to significant backlash. However, less is known about the state of privacy across the entire application ecosystem. To get a sense of the state of application privacy today, Juniper Networks’ Mobile Threat Center (MTC) analyzed over 1.7 million apps on the Google Play market from March 2011 to September 2012."


Not really “Best Practices,” but lots of 'bumper sticker' quotes that might be memorable..
November 03, 2012
nCircle Security Tips eBook
"As part of nCircle's commitment to improving Internet security, we asked some of the brightest minds in security to help us compile a list of security tips and tricks for a wide range of readers. The resulting eBook includes a wide range of topics — from passwords and public Wi-Fi to Java configuration and sandboxing — and includes tips from security experts like Richard Stiennon, Adam Shostack, John Banghart, Brandon Williams and many others. The eBook is formatted to make it easy to share on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Help us make the Internet a safer place. Download the eBook and chime in with a security tip of your own. Get the free eBook by downloading either the eBook version or the PDF version."


I know, it's hard to believe...
"Security firm Kaspersky has released its latest IT Threat Evolution report. There were some interesting findings in the report, as always, but the most interesting thing that stuck out was all the way at the bottom: 'Microsoft products no longer feature among the Top 10 products with vulnerabilities. This is because the automatic updates mechanism has now been well developed in recent versions of Windows OS.'"


For anyone who thinks encryption is too hard.
… ImmediateCrypt Web Demo is a free to use web service that can encrypt pieces of text with a password. You can type in your original text in the first field of the site. Next you type in a password which will act as your encryption key. You will need to remember your password. Copy the encrypted text and send it to the recipient and communicate the encryption key to them. They can then visit the website and repeat the process only to decrypt the text; the bottom field will then show the original text.

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Saturday, November 03, 2012

I don't hold out much hope...
Feds Ordered to Disclose Data About Wiretap Backdoors
A federal judge is ordering the Justice Department to disclose more information about its so-called “Going Dark” program, an initiative to extend its ability to wiretap virtually all forms of electronic communications.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg of San Francisco concerns the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Passed in 1994, the law initially ordered phone companies to make their systems conform to a wiretap standard for real-time surveillance. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2005 to apply to broadband providers like ISPs and colleges, but services like Google Talk, Skype or Facebook and encrypted enterprise Blackberry communications are not covered.
The FBI has long clamored that these other communication services would become havens for criminals and that the feds would be left unable to surveil them, even though documents acquired by Wired shows that the FBI’s wiretapping system is robust and advanced.
Little is known about the “Going Dark” program, though the FBI’s 2011 proposal to require backdoors in encryption found no backers in the White House. The FBI has never publicly reported a single instance in the last five years where encryption has prevented them from getting at the plaintext of messages.


Interesting. What else could we crowdsource? Perhaps how to make voting machines tamper proof? (But not until after my election) What would Judges like to know more about?
EFF: Calling All Geeks – Help Explain To Judges Hearing Oracle v. Google Appeal Why Copyrighting APIs Is Such A Bad Idea
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is asking for help in explaining to the federal circuit why copyrighting APIs is such a bad idea.
The EFF’s request comes after a victory earlier this year when U.S.District Court Judge William Alsup ruled in the Oracle v. Google case that an API cannot be copyrighted. The ruling drew a sigh of relief from the tech community, but the victory was short-lived. Oracle has since appealed and now a three-judge panel will decide if Alsup’s ruling should stand.
Alsup was that rare judge who actually learned how to do computer programming. It’s doubtful that the three judges will share such a deep knowledge of how applications work and integrate with APIs.


Internet Economics... How would you stucture these payments? So much per “click through?”
The Skirmish That Could Threaten Google News
What if Google had to start paying for each link that shows up when you do a search? It would totally wreck the company's business model, right? And maybe change the nature of search engines too?
An insurrection may be coming, and it is starting with Google News. Here's the timeline. A couple of weeks ago, a group of 154 Brazilian news websites comprising 90% of the country's market share made a pact to jump out of Google News. The websites, which are part of Brazil's National Association of Newspapers (Associação Nacional do Jornais, or ANJ), had been negotiating with the search engine. They wanted it to pay a fee for linking to their content.
… So far, maybe not a big deal. Brazil is an important emerging market, but it's only one country. Here's what's really a problem for Google: This week, it has been reported that news sites in France, Germany, and Italy are close to pulling the plug on Google News too. They're asking for the same kind of "Google tax," and -- like their Brazilian counterparts -- threatening to ban Google News if the search giant won't comply. The latest reports come after a tense-sounding meeting between French prime minister Francois Hollande and Google executive Eric Schmidt. Google has denied reports that the French government also slapped it with a one billion dollar tax claim.
… The consequence: If enough countries' media opt out of Google News, they will either destroy the service or leave the search giant with no choice but to acquiesce to their demands for a "Google tax." In other words, this time, it looks like it could be serious.


To my Ethical Hackers. Something in Facebook worth hacking at last? Of course we will never use our own names. I know a Professor at the DU Law School whose name I already use for other loyalty programs...
Why Facebook Might Get Into the Free Wi-Fi Racket
For all its success as a broad-based social network, Facebook has struggled to get mobile users to register their locations, as tens of millions of people gleefully do throughout the day on rival Foursquare. Now Facebook is testing a new incentive: Free Wi-Fi for users who “check in” with their location.
Facebook confirms it is running a test in which it supplies free Wi-Fi routers to local businesses and the businesses, in turn, offer their customers free wireless internet to users who check in on Facebook from the business location. After checking in, the user is shown the business’ Facebook page. (Business owners also have the option of giving passcodes to certain customers who they want to exempt from the Facebook check-in requirement, according to Inside Facebook.)


Do I read this correctly?
As of today, new Facebook members will now be offered a virtual privacy education tour, which offers step-by-step instructions on Facebook’s various security settings and tools. This move comes after a variety of criticism over Facebook’s constantly changing settings, some of which are difficult to locate. Also contributing was an audit by the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office.


I'm sure there will be problems going both ways, but as Napoleon said, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"
More Electronic Voting Machines Changing Romney Votes to Obama: We Looked Into It and Here’s What a Vendor Told Us
Last week, TheBlaze brought you a story from a North Carolina voting precinct using electronic voting machines that was already experiencing issues where votes for GOP candidate Mitt Romney were being changed to Democratic candidate Barack Obama. Now, it’s allegedly happening again, this time in both Kansas and Ohio — and we talked to a vendor supporting the machines about the issue.
… Nancy explained that while her husband was casting a vote for Romney, the touchscreen highlighted Obama.
“He played around with the field a little and realized that in order to vote for Romney, his finger had to be exactly on the mark,” Nancy wrote in an email. She said “the invisible Obama field came down about 1/4 [of an inch]” into what should technically have been the Romney area. In a phone interview with TheBlaze, she explained further that her husband said he felt the area on the touchscreen that could be pushed to vote for Obama was larger than that for Romney.


Could be an interesting resource...
November 02, 2012
EFF Launches New Transparency Project
News release: "From cell phone location tracking to the use of surveillance drones, from secret interpretations of electronic surveillance law to the expanding use of biometrics, EFF has long been at the forefront of the push for greater transparency on the government’s increasingly secretive use of new technologies. With the launch of our new Transparency Project, we’ve made the information we’ve received easier to access and added new tools to help you learn about the government and file your own requests for information. The new name—Transparency Project—reflects the fact that EFF’s work has expanded far beyond filing and litigating federal Freedom of Information Act requests. While that work still makes up a solid core of what our Transparency Team does, we also seek information from state and local governments, regularly report on transparency issue more broadly, and provide tools to help you find out more about our government and what it’s up to."


Now I have a new fear. It's not bad enough that I fear people texting while driving, now I have to worry about texting while orbiting!
When the International Space Station Passes Over Your House, NASA Will Send You a Text Message


I teach all my classes in “computer labs” (classrooms with a computer on every desktop) This article should allow students to find software that works for them...
Have you ever just wanted to jot something down real quick, but couldn’t find a pen? Or maybe you could, but later lost the note with a bunch of other notes which were used for the same purpose. It would be nice to just quickly get something from your head to a place in front of your eyes without a whole lot of effort.
I want to emphasize the word quickly. There are a lot of excellent note-taking applications out there, many of them mentioned on here on MakeUseOf as being “quick” to use. And I use many of them such as Evernote and Google Docs (Drive). However, there is something to be said for being able to use a note-taking service, without signing in (or up), having to learn how the service works or needing or install a browser extension. That, to me, is quick note-taking.


For my Math students...
Friday, November 2, 2012
Useful New Features Added to Desmos Online Graphing Calculator
Desmos, the free online graphing calculator, recently announced some useful new features that mathematics teachers will like. Under the surface Desmos updated their infrastructure to make the calculator run up to fifteen times faster than before. On the exterior Desmos now has a share button that allows you to email your graphs and or embed them into blog posts. Desmos has added a textbox option in your graphs to help you explain what is happening in your graph. Learn more about the Desmos updates in the video below.
Applications for Education
The option to embed your graphs into a blog post could be useful when you're writing explanatory blog posts for your class. The sharing option could be used by students to send homework responses to their teachers. Students could also use the share option to ask for help from teachers, tutors, and peers when they get stuck on a problem.


Free and paid (cheap) Apps and websites
Friday, November 2, 2012
Surfing for Substance - 50 No-nonsense Tools for Teachers
Later this month I am running a public webinar (registration details coming next week) with Marygrove College. One of the things that we'll be discussing during the webinar is sourcing and evaluating apps and websites for classroom use. As a something of a primer on that topic Marygrove College has published Surfing for Substance.
Surfing for Substance is a free PDF that provides an overview of fifty apps and websites for teachers. The overview includes some tools for the logistical aspects of teaching (they recommend Fax Zero for faxing without a fax machine) as well as for instructional purposes. You can download the guide here or here (this link will start a PDF download).


Videos worth stealing sharing with students...
Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) videos are being increasingly shared online as friends share their positive messages with one another. Here to help download the TED videos directly to your hard drive is a desktop application called The TEDinator.


You know, I think I'm beginning to consider teaching a professions rather than a hobby...
Coursera and Antioch University have struck a deal — the first of its kind, says Inside Higher Ed — in which the university would license courses from Coursera and offer them for credit. “Antioch will pay Coursera an undisclosed amount for permission to use several courses, including ones from Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania. The company will share that revenue with the universities, which own intellectual property rights for their courses as part of their contracts with Coursera.” [The “money” waits for anyone who can grant real college credit for online courses... Bob]
… Fast Company’s Anya Kamenetz reports on a study by researchers at the University of Toronto and Yale that found that Internet-based sex education was effective for teens in Colombia. “While the lack of personal contact is often seen as a drawback in online education,” writes Kamenetz “in the case of awkward topics like sex ed, it could actually be a benefit. The researchers noted teens can experience the computer as an anonymous, private, and nonjudgmental place to get information.”
… According to Business Insider, Google’s biggest advertiser is the University of Phoenix, which spent $155,000 a day on ads in the third quarter of 2012. Wow, the Web is totally revolutionizing education, huh. [You have to find “customers” if you are a “for profit” Bob]

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Friday, November 02, 2012

How to you avoid (not evade) taxes in France? Apparently, Googling that question isn't the best way to find out...
Google France Faces Fine Of $1.3 Billion For Tax Noncompliance. Google Denies The Accusation.
Google France could be ordered to pay $1.3 billion to France’s equivalent of the IRS (Direction générale des finances) due to tax noncompliance in 2011. The agency has been investigating Google’s revenue in France for months. With only 138 million euros of revenue in France in 2011, the company has used tax-optimization strategies, but has always stated that they comply with the law. It denies the accusation.


A new record? Perhaps because there was actual evidence?
A federal court in Illinois has handed down the largest fine ever levied against a file sharer in a BitTorrent piracy case. The judgment was placed against defendant Kywan Fisher and orders the man to pay $1.5 million to an adult film company called Flava Works. The man was found guilty of sharing 10 of the company’s films via BitTorrent.
The massive fine was reached through a penalty of $150,000 per movie, which is the maximum amount of damages possible under current US copyright law. Movie studios are expected to use this case as the stick to coax other alleged file sharers to settle out-of-court. Fisher and several other defendants were sued by Flava Works for sharing the company’s films.
All defendants in the case had paid accounts with the Flava Works website. The movie company was able to prove that the people shared movies from their accounts because each film the defendants viewed and shared was tagged with a specific piece of code linking the movie to their account. Flava Works was able to prove that movies directly downloaded and shared by Fisher were shared thousands of times.


“We don't need no stinking Privacy Lawyers!”
… TermsFeed is extremely simple to you. All you have to do is enter your site’s name, your company’s name, and your email address. You are then shown an HTML template of the policy you chose. This template has self-explanatory fields that you can easily modify to fit your website. When you are done editing, you can copy the HTML and embed it on your site to share the policies with your site visitors.


If you gave (money or time) once, you'll probably do it again and we will spend a billion dollars this year alone...
"Stanford privacy researcher Jonathan Mayer has published new research showing that websites of both the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns, which are used to communicate with and coordinate their volunteers, leak large amounts of private information to third-party online tracking firms. The Obama campaign site leaked names, usernames, zip codes and street addresses to up to ten companies. The Romney campaign site leaked names, zip codes and partial email addresses to up to thirteen firms."


In your face, privacy lovers!
"People seem to be okay with constant corporate or government video surveillance in public. Let a lone individual point a video camera their way, however, and tempers flare. GeekWire takes a look at the antics and videos of Seattle's mysterious Surveillance Camera Man, who walks up to people and records them for no apparent reason other than to make a point: How is what he's doing different than those stationary surveillance cameras tucked away in buildings and public places?"
At least with Surveillance Camera Man, you specifically know that he's watching you — not always the case. (Not even when there's no warrant, on private property in the U.S.)


For my Disaster Recovery students... If your generators are on the 18th floor, and the elevators aren't working...
"Who knew that the most critical element of operating a data center in New York City was ensuring a steady supply of diesel fuel? In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the challenges facing data center operators in the affected zones include pumping water from basements, waiting for utility power to be restored, and managing fuel-truck deliveries. And it's become increasingly clear which companies had the resources and foresight to plan for a disaster like Sandy, and which are simply reacting. Here's the latest on providers around the New York area."
And remember, having fuel for machines sometimes only means it's time to start the manual labor.


Entirely too logical.
"Voting machine designs and data formats are a free-for-all. The result is poor validation and hence opportunity for fraud. An IEEE standards group wants all election computer systems to speak the same language. From the article:'IEEE Standards Project 1622 is working on electronic data interchange for voting systems. The plan is to create a common format, based on the Election Markup Language (EML) already recommended for use in Europe. This is a subset of the popular XML (eXtensible Markup Language) that specifies particular fields and data structures for use in voting.'"


Perspective? Are there similar rules for Privacy?
Why We Freak Out About Some Technologies but Not Others
As anyone who reads the news knows, there’s often a side effect to new technologies: moral panic. Facebook causes narcissism! Texting is making us illiterate! But the funny thing is, other technologies don’t provoke such alarm. Take Square, a tool that lets everyday folks accept credit card payments. It’s tipping into mainstream usage, changing how small businesses operate and how friends split a bar bill, but it hasn’t provoked any doomsaying.
What’s the difference? Why do we freak out at some technologies and shrug at others?
Genevieve Bell believes she’s cracked this puzzle. Bell, director of interaction and experience research at Intel, has long studied how everyday people incorporate new tech into their lives. In a 2011 interview with The Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Europe blog, she outlined an interesting argument: To provoke moral panic, a technology must satisfy three rules.
First, it has to change our relationship to time. Then it has to change our relationship to space. And, crucially, it has to change our relationship to one another. Individually, each of these transformations can be unsettling, but if you hit all three? Panic!
… This cycle is very old. Indeed, it probably began almost 2,500 years ago, when the written word was on its way to unmooring knowledge from space and time and letting new combinations of people “speak” to one another. This satisfied all three rules—and it panicked Socrates, who warned that writing would destroy human memory and destroy the art of argument.


Or you could wait for me to do it...
PlagTracker is a web tool designed to help people run plagiarism checks on their academic papers and other types of texts. While it may not be the first such web service, PlagTracker is convenient to use with its quick and simple checking process


We need to get the word out...
Thursday, November 1, 2012
College Students Can Learn to Code for Free
Treehouse is a service that offers online service that offers web design and coding lessons on a subscription basis. Right now they're accepting applications from college students for free lessons. Treehouse plans to give away subscriptions to 5,000 randomly selected college students. To enter to win a subscription students do need to complete the short form at the end of Treehouse's announcement. Entries are being accepted through November 9, 2012.


I wonder if the vets in my Computer Security program know about this?
"Just three weeks after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told an audience at the Sea, Air and Space Museum that the U.S. is on the brink of a 'cyber Pearl Harbor,' the government has decided it needs to beef up the ranks of its digital defenses. It's assembling a league of extraordinary computer geeks for what will be known as the 'Cyber Reserve.'" [...and every member gets a secret decoder ring! Bob]

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Thursday, November 01, 2012

Is this a real threat or a “Give me a bigger budget to waste” plea? Since she compares hurricane Sandy to terrorsts, I strogly suspect the latter...
Homeland Security chief: Banks 'under attack' by hackers
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said today that hackers are "actively" attacking some of the country's largest financial institutions.
According to a report in The Hill, America's top security official issued the warning at a Washington Post event today, but didn't specify the nature of the attacks.
"Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack," The Hill quoted Napolitano as saying. "We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information... I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our stock exchanges attacked over the last [few] years, so we know... there are vulnerabilities."
Napolitano also said that the hackers have been successfully pilfering funds from the banks, but wouldn't elaborate.


For the “How NOT to do it” folder: “We don't need no stinking (secure) logs! If we have logs then we have detailed records of what happened.”
"The final report that was handed to the Dutch government today indicates that all 8 certificate servers of the Dutch company DigiNotar were fully hacked. (Report PDF in English.) Because the access log files were stored on the same servers, they cannot be used to find any evidence for or against intrusion. In fact, blatant falsification has been found in those log files. A series of so-far unused certificates has also been found. It is unknown if and where these certificates have been used."


For the “How NOT to do it” folder: ToS shouldn't be an after-thought.
"In January, hackers got hold of 24 million Zappos customers' email addresses and other personal information. Some of those customers have been suing Zappos, an online shoes and clothing retailer that's owned by Amazon.com. Zappos wants the matter to go into arbitration, citing its terms of service. The problem: A federal court just ruled that agreement completely invalid. So Zappos will have to go to court—or more likely settle to avoid those legal costs. Here's how Zappos screwed up, according to Eric Goldman, a law professor and director of Santa Clara University's High Tech Law Institute: It put a link to its terms of service on its website, but didn't force customers to click through to it."


For the April First folder: “Hello, I'm Mitt Romney and my cellphone was just stolen. Would you please cancel ###”
"U.S. cellphone carriers took a major step on Wednesday toward curbing the rising number of smartphone thefts with the introduction of databases that will block stolen phones from being used on domestic networks. The initiative got its start earlier this year when the FCC and police chiefs from major cities asked the cellular carriers for assistance in battling the surging number of smartphone thefts. In New York, more than 40 percent of all robberies involve cellphones and in Washington, D.C., cellphone thefts accounted for 38 percent of all robberies in 2011."


If it's this easy, why don't we do it in the US? Encrypt the files by default and you have full (not just plausible) deniability?
MegaUpload will be reborn as Me.ga in January
Kim DotCom is once again making news and thumbing his nose at authorities.
DotCom told Reuters today that he will launch Mega, the son of MegaUpload, near the first anniversary of the police raid on his home and the shutting shut down of MegaUpload, a storage service accused of hosting millions of pirated movies, music and other digital media.
… The new cloud storage service will differ from MegaUpload in an important ways, according to DotCom. First, instead of using the .Com domain name, it will operate on the Gabon-based domain Me.ga.
The service will also not make use of any U.S. hosting companies. Me.ga will also enable copyright owners will be able to get "direct delete access" of pirated content provided they agree not to hold Me.ga's operators responsible for the infringement, DotCom told Reuters.


The future of education? Somehow, I doubt it.
Not content with being the young upstart in the LMS industry taking on the aging giants of Blackboard and Desire2Learn, Instructure has now decided to enter another market and take on some of the upstarts there, namely Coursera and edX. That is, tonight it launches the Canvas Network, which in the words of CEO Josh Coates, is “our answer to the whole MOOC hype.”
It’s an answer that Instructure’s current clients have helped devise, too, Coates says, noting that many of the schools that run its LMS Canvas are pondering that hype and weighing whether they should join the Coursera or edX platform (or fear being left out of the MOOC race entirely). In many cases, these schools already offer online classes to their own students, but simply don’t have the reach — the marketing reach or the instructional reach — that the xMOOCs promise.
The Canvas Network
So with the new Canvas Network, Instructure has compiled a catalog of free, open online classes run on the Canvas LMS by Canvas customers. The network launches with participation from a dozen institutions, including Brown, the University of Washington, and the University of Central Florida. There are 2 dozen courses, including “Introduction to Openness in Education” taught by BYU’s David Wiley and “Gender Through Comic Books” with lectures voiced by Stan Lee. (Yes, that Stan Lee.)
Registration opens now, with the first classes beginning in January.
… But Instructure does have some experience on the MOOC front, having been the platform used for the MOOC MOOC run by the Hybrid Pedagogy folks back in August. Coates said that the company was able to learn a lot during this week-long MOOC about how it would have to tweak the LMS features to account for open participation at a massive scale.
[For me to “borrow” ideas from?


For my lawyer friends who are planning that 6,000 square foot wine cellar...
There are a lot of CAD applications we’ve covered here at MUO, including Angela’s review of LibreCAD, which I used for a little bit of interior design as well. Then, in Directory we’ve covered apps like BabyCAD and DesignYourRoom. However, I think the absolute best application to “sketch up” a room design like this is obviously SketchUp!


A couple of FONT tools for my website class...
WhatFont is a simple tool that you can use to find out what a type of font is.
The most direct way to acquire it is through the website, especially for the bookmarklet. I would also recommend this method for downloading the Safari extension. For Chrome, you can head right to the Chrome Web Store and get it that way.

(Related) Now that you have a few thousand favorite fonts, you need to organize them.
NexusFont gives Windows users the ability to effectively organize and manage the fonts installed on their computers. Once installed and started, NexusFont runs a scan and locates all the fonts installed on your computer system. The software allows you to view each font as a sample text, giving you a clearer idea of what your text will look like.
The sample text used can be modified by the users. You can then easily browse through these fonts and select the one you want to use.


Perspective
How Teens Do Research in the Digital World
… According to this survey of teachers, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project in collaboration with the College Board and the National Writing Project, the internet has opened up a vast world of information for today’s students, yet students’ digital literacy skills have yet to catch up:
  • Virtually all (99%) AP and NWP teachers in this study agree with the notion that “the internet enables students to access a wider range of resources than would otherwise be available,” and 65% agree that “the internet makes today’s students more self-sufficient researchers.”
  • At the same time, 76% of teachers surveyed “strongly agree” with the assertion that internet search engines have conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily.
Read Full Report


Tools for geeks...
Get Windows 8 for Dummies: Pocket Edition e-book for free

Tools for literate geeks... Not free, but perhaps my students would program a free App for that...
Romeo:
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Juliet:
Relax Romeo. Tis but my iPad, glowing as I read.
Shakespeare has been brought kicking and screaming up into the iPad generation, with the launch of a new set of apps intended to leverage the tablet’s multimedia flexibility with a splash of Leonardo DiCaprio. The Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth apps, the handiwork of developers Agant and Cambridge University Press, match the classic texts with audio recordings featuring actors such as Michael Sheen and Kate Beckinsale, interactive timelines showing key themes, and glossaries to better understand arcane English.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What type/target/'volume of hacking rises to this level?
"In one of the photos, the dark-haired, bearded hacker is peering into his computer's screen, perhaps puzzled at what's happening. Minutes later, he cuts his computer's connection, realizing he has been discovered. In an unprecedented move, the country of Georgia — irritated by persistent cyber-spying attacks — has published two photos of a Russia-based hacker who, the Georgians allege, waged a persistent, months-long campaign that stole confidential information from Georgian government ministries, parliament, banks and NGOs."


For my Disaster Recovery students. This isn't a bad weather issue, this is a bad design issue! (Were you planning to rely on your cell phone in the next emergency?
Telecom companies have reported that 25% of cell towers have been knocked out in 10 states in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. In addition, 25% of cable services have also been lost in those states, although landline outages are reported to be “far fewer.” Emergency calls are currently being rerouted to different call centers, according to the FCC.


In an increasingly connected world, laws have an increasing global impact? If I offer a free “Guide to Tokyo” App on a Tokyo website, I'm still subject to California laws because someone in Ferndale downloaded the App? Perhaps I should make it free except in California, where it is $2500?
The state of California has warned OpenTable, United Continental, and Delta Air Lines over their inaccessible privacy policies for mobile users, according to a source familiar with the issue. Reportedly, the companies were notified via a letter from the California Attorney General that they have 30 days to make their privacy policies “readily accessible.” The source declined being named because the happenings aren’t public.
… According to Conley, California is the only state that requires privacy policies for apps in addition to websites. Failure to adhere to the privacy policy laws could result in a $2,500 fine per app download.


...and when Lawyers enter the Bar, they must pass beneath this inscription: "Abandon all logic, ye who enter here" At least, that's how it appears to this non-lawyer.
MPAA: Don't let MegaUpload users access their data
Hollywood's lobbyists are a bit alarmed at the possibility that MegaUpload users may be getting their data back.
The Motion Picture Association of America told a federal judge in Virginia today that any decision to allow users of the embattled file locker to access their own files could "compound the massive infringing conduct already at issue in this criminal litigation." MegaUpload's servers with approximately 25 petabytes of data are currently unplugged, offline, and in storage at Dulles, Va.-based Carpathia Hosting.
When an FBI raid took down MegaUpload's U.S.-based servers early this year, federal agents also seized electronic property belonging to Americans who used the file locker to store perfectly legal backups of their own data. One user, Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio-based sports videographer, has been trying since May to get his copyrighted video files back, and to allow other users in the same predicament to do the same.
… CNET previously reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is opposing Goodwin's request to access his own files, saying it would mean "releasing assets of the defendants which are subject to mandatory forfeiture." [Except he's not a defendant – or am I missing something? Bob]


More “my brain hurts” articles about patents...
Let’s Go Back to Patenting the ‘Solution,’ Not the ‘Problem’
We already know the patent system is broken. And it desperately needs to be fixed: Patents affect and will continue to affect nearly every technology business or product we use. So for the next few weeks, Wired is running a special series of expert opinions – representing perspectives from academia to corporations to other organizations — proposing specific solutions to the patent problem.


Interesting. Not only shows me where I can vote early, it lists all 16 candidates for president (alphabetically by first name)
October 30, 2012
Google Launches new Voter Information Tool
Google Official Blog: "Every four years in the United States, people prepare to head to the polls and increasingly search for information about how to register to vote, where to vote and who is on their ballot. Even though it is 2012, important voting information is disorganized and hard to find on the Internet. To help voters research candidates and successfully cast their ballot on Election Day, we’ve launched our new Voter Information Tool. You can enter your address to find information on your polling place, early vote locations, ballot information with links to candidates’ social media sites and voting rules and requirements."


Pimp your mouse! (For people who actually do stuff with their computer...)
The Windows right-click menu is a feature that we may often take for granted, but it can really make our lives easier. Advanced users probably don’t use it that much, having learned all the necessary keyboard shortcuts to do whatever they want in the blink of an eye, but what if you could spice up that right-click menu? What if it could do a bunch of awesome tasks that you couldn’t replicate with the keyboard?
That’s one of the drawbacks to the menu, I think. A lot of the menu options are either rarely used so we don’t remember to use them, or they’re easily replaced by a simple key combination like in the case of copy-pasting. But thanks to a few awesome programmers, we can boost the usefulness of our right-click menus by adding more features to it.


Limited free diagrams, but then why buy Visio if you don't need it?
A Platform Play – Gliffy Moves Its Online Diagram Service To HTML 5 And Says Goodbye To Flash
Gliffy is moving to an all HTML 5 platform, showing the change in developer and business users needs to collaborate online across any platform and within third-party application environments.


Maybe you can't just copy everything...
Step by Step Guide to Upgrading to Windows 8
Microsoft Windows 8 is finally out and can now be upgraded to or downloaded. Windows 7, XP and Vista users can simply upgrade to Windows 8 for only $39.99. But this is a limited time offer, from October 26th to Jan 31st 2013.
If you wish to upgrade to Windows 8 and want to know how you can do it, then you are at the right place as today we are presenting a step by step guide to upgrading to Windows 8. So check these easy steps out and start with the upgrading procedure!
1. Download Windows Upgrade Assistant from HERE. After you are done downloading, launch it from your existing Windows install.
… Windows 7 users are provided with the option to keep files and apps, but unfortunately XP and Vista users do not have any such option.

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