Informed on Information

Canadian Internet Service Providers Ordered To Cough Up IP Addresses In Hurt Locker Copyright Lawsuits

2011-09-11T12:40:00.002-06:00

"Canadian Internet users are getting a taste of the P2P lawyering that had previously been confined to the US and UK, as Hurt Locker lawsuits have begun moving up to the Great White North. Three ISPs have already been ordered to disclose the identities of users accused of downloading the film, and if the ISPs decide to comply, there could be plenty more lawsuits.

As noted by University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, the producers behind Hurt Locker, Voltage Pictures, filed suit against a number of John and Jane Does in Quebec towards the end of August. The suit accuses the anonymous users of downloading, copying, and distributing the film via P2P networks—the users are only identified by IP address, and the Voltage Pictures maintains that the only way to proceed with the case is to obtain names and addresses from their ISPs.
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On August 29, the Federal Court in Montréal issued an order to the three ISPs in question—Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable, and Videotron—giving them two weeks to cough up the identities of the users associated with those IPs. Those two weeks expire next Monday, September 12, and the ISPs have yet to give any sort of signal that they won't comply."

"Among other things, the accused have argued that their routers—identified by a single IP address—are used by numerous guests or simply that they don't even know how to download illegal music or movies. Though the claims are difficult to vet, it's clear that using an IP address in an attempt to pinpoint a single individual is problematic to say the least."
ars technica - No, Canada! ISPs ordered to out users in Hurt Locker case

Is Washington Collecting Cell-Phone Data?

2011-06-27T13:27:00.003-06:00

"There seems to be a consensus among privacy advocates that the government is using the very latest technological advancements to sweep up, among other things, the locations of cell phones.

Your cell phone continuously pings your service providers' towers and base stations in order to maintain a signal for you to use. By recording the precise time and angle of a cell's data arriving at multiple base stations, providers can calculate the location of your phone about as accurately as a GPS unit — which means down to a single room in a building, at least in cities crowded with cell towers."

"Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, thinks the government is demanding that cell companies provide the location data as well as other call-data records in bulk form in order to mine the data. "My guess is these 215 orders are being used to collect massive amounts of communications data without any direct connection to terrorism targets," Bankston said."

New Patriot Act Controversy: Is Washington Collecting Your Cell-Phone Data?

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There is a very serious problem in our society. We have become a surveillance culture.

Police and governments (not to mention marketing agencies) are trying to get more and more access to personal information. Often under dubious "preventative" auspices.

As free people we need to be concerned as our freedom from being watched is stripped away.

"WHO agency warns cellphone use ‘possibly carcinogenic’ "

2011-06-01T11:00:00.001-06:00

Globe and Mail - "The world’s leading authority on cancer research has declared the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields emitted by devices such as cellphones are possibly carcinogenic, a major step that is raising new questions about cellphone safety.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, made the announcement on Tuesday after 31 leading experts from 14 countries met in France to review the existing evidence.

The panel concluded that radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are possibly carcinogenic “based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer, associated with wireless phone use.” Numerous other substances are considered “possibly carcinogenic,” including gasoline, some pesticides and occupational exposure from dry cleaning and firefighting.

Although there are many sources of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as near transmitters, cellphones are the highest source of exposure for most people because they are held directly to the head, allowing the body to absorb radiation.

But the group is also warning consumers not to panic because there is not enough scientific evidence to say that cellphones pose a serious health risk."
Globe and Mail - WHO agency warns cellphone use ‘possibly carcinogenic’

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "Urges People To Prepare For Zombie Apocalypse -- And Other Disasters Too"...

2011-05-20T14:15:00.003-06:00

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants citizens to use their brains lest they get eaten by packs of marauding zombies.

Well, sort of.

This week, the CDC launched a slick new media campaign that uses the tongue-in-cheek hypothetical scenario of a zombie apocalypse to teach the basics of emergency preparedness.

"There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example," reads a note on the CDC's website. "You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency."

Talking Points Memo - CDC Urges People To Prepare For Zombie Apocalypse -- And Other Disasters Too

Wired: Criminal-Profiling Trick Used to Combat Disease

2011-05-19T11:49:00.004-06:00

"A technique that helps crime fighters zoom in on a serial killer’s whereabouts may help scientists prevent deaths of a different sort — those caused by infectious diseases.

The widely used criminology technique, called geographic profiling, helps investigators narrow a search by pinpointing high-priority targets among thousands of potential locations. In an upcoming International Journal of Health Geographics, researchers demonstrated the technique’s usefulness by identifying the sources of a recent malaria outbreak in Cairo and reconstructing an infamous cholera outbreak in Victorian London. Applying the technique to infectious diseases could help focus interventions, perhaps preventing the spread of disease while saving time and money."

"The math behind geographic profiling also incorporates the idea that all distances are not created equal — highways are easier to traverse than a congested downtown. All these measures then generate a map of places the offender is likely to live, which is overlaid on a map of a search area. Unlike geospatial techniques that designate a central point from which a search radiates equally outward, geographic profiling pinpoints highly probable locations, even if they are at opposite ends of the search area.

Le Comber and his colleagues applied geographic profiling to a recent malaria outbreak in Cairo. Of 59 water bodies where mosquito larvae were found, only eight contained those species that are the most dangerous carriers of the disease. Knowing only the locations of the outbreak’s 139 malaria cases, geographic profiling correctly put six of these eight sites in the most infectious 2 percent of the 59."

Wired - Criminal-Profiling Trick Used to Combat Disease

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This is an example of the two edged sword that is data mining. The same kinds of data mining techniques that can make Project Gaydar a threat to privacy can also help save lives in a non-intrusive way.

As a society we need to think carefully about the rules surrounding how we allow data mining and their impact on privacy and, frankly, democracy and freedom. Universities have long understood that these lines exist. That is why they have ethics committees that review the ethical practices and questions surrounding research.

Our society needs to have a larger conversation, rather than simply allowing the quest for profit and power (often the same thing) to be the guiding for in an *anything goes* world.

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Just for the record - the above excerpt about malaria might be interesting if exteded to something like mosquito control in urban areas in Canada (like Winnipeg in the summer). These techniques might allow for less use of insecticides. It might also work for controlling rat populations and allow for less poisons to be used in that exercise.

It could also be used by those in power to stamp out demonstrations and resistance. Think about the use of techniques like this if you treated demonstrations like disease and modelled them. Think about Iran and its repression. Think about the G20 summit and how these kinds of techniques could be used to stop legitimate protest. Then apply these techniques to electoral strategy - especially governments that don't care about getting a mandate in a first-past-the-post electoral system - governments that only care about eking out a plurality based victory that gives them more than half the seats in the house...

Think about it.

Zombie Proof House Designed In Poland

2011-05-19T09:42:00.003-06:00

In keeping with my last off-topic post:

"A Polish architectural firm has designed the world’s first zombie-proof house called the “safe House”, reports said.

The house is not really inspired by the walking dead but has got plenty of interest as the world celebrates its fifth annual zombie awareness month in May.

The house features Rubik’s cube-type movable parts and folds in on itself completely at the end of the day to seal off outside dangers."

International Business Times - A zombie-proof ‘safe-house’ to survive the apocalypse

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Lots of pictures:

All That Is Interesting - The First Zombie Proof House

Navy Times - Detailed Description Of Bin Laden Raid - New Information

2011-05-17T09:58:00.002-06:00

"As three of the SEALs reached the top of the steps on the third floor, they saw bin Laden standing at the end of the hall. The Americans recognized him instantly, the officials said.

Bin Laden also saw them, dimly outlined in the dark house, and ducked into his room.

The three SEALs assumed he was going for a weapon, and one by one they rushed after him through the door, one official described.

Two women were in front of bin Laden, yelling and trying to protect him, two officials said. The first SEAL grabbed the two women and shoved them away, fearing they might be wearing suicide bomb vests, they said.

The SEAL behind him opened fire at bin Laden, putting one bullet in his chest, and one in his head.

It was over in a matter of seconds"

"As the SEALs began photographing the body for identification, the raiders found an AK-47 rifle and a Russian-made Makarov pistol on a shelf by the door they’d just run through. Bin Laden hadn’t touched them."

Navy Times - Sources: Raiders knew mission a one-shot deal

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Read the whole story - it is very interesting. The element that interests me the most (after the fact that Bin Laden is dead - a blessing for the world in my opinion) is the difference that a few degrees of temperature made in the outcome of the mission. That what a person would assume is a small factor loomed large over success or failure - and the lives of the soldiers who undertook the raid.

"USB stick-sized computer runs web, email, costs $25"

2011-05-06T13:43:00.003-06:00

"David Braben, British game developer and co-founder of Frontier Developments, has created an ultra-low cost computer the size of a USB stick called Raspberry Pi. The expected price would be a measly $25 for a fully-configured system. He says he’s developed the PC in order to encourage the pursuit of computer programming in children.

But what can you expect from a system that comes for less than the cost of a video game? The tiny PC sports an HDMI port at its head and a USB port at its tail, giving it the ability to be plugged into a TV, hooked up to a USB keyboard or combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The computer packs a 700MHz ARM11 processor with 128MB of SDRAM. As far as graphics go, it runs OpenGL ES 2.0 and has 1080p output."

Yahoo News - David Braben develops $25 PC for schoolchildren

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Glad someone is doing it - i would have built it myself if i had a whack of cash

Here is an open hardware version of the same kind of computer - the ben nanonote - a class of computer also called nanonotebooks, or palmtop...

http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_NanoNote

My son has a nanonote and i am intending to buy one soon. The ben nanonote is intended entirely for hardcore nerds - it's not a fun and configurable toy like a cellphone. The website says the following:

"本: běn. The Chinese character 本 signifies an origin or the beginning place; It signifies exactly what the first version of the NanoNote is: a beginning.

The 本 version of NanoNote is an ultra small form factor computing device. The device sports a 336 MHz processor, 2GB of flash memory, microSD slot, head phone jack, USB device and 850mAh Li-ion battery. It boots Linux out of the box and also boots over USB. It’s targeted squarely at developers who see the promise of open hardware and want to roll their own end user experience. It’s the perfect companion for open content; we envision developers turning the device into a music or video player for Ogg or an offline Wikipedia or MIT OpenCourseWare appliance. Or you can simply amaze your friends by creating an ultra small handheld notebook computer. You choose the distribution. The 本 Nanonote is the first in a line of products that will see the addition of other hardware capabilities"

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Order them online. My son got his in about 2 weeks from China.

https://sharism.cc/

CBC: "Sony data breach update reveals 'bad practices'"

2011-05-03T13:39:00.000-06:00

"Cybersecurity specialists are asking pointed questions about the way Sony manages customers' sensitive information, based on new details about its massive data breach.

Chester Wisniewski, a Vancouver-based senior security advisor with the computer security firm Sophos, said Wednesday that he was shocked when Sony disclosed Tuesday that an "outdated" 2007 database of credit and debit card data was among the information that may have been stolen from players of the EverQuest duology, Free Realms, and other massively multiplayer online games in the company's Sony Entertainment Online division."

CBC - Sony data breach update reveals 'bad practices'

TPM: "iSpy Conspiracy: Your iPhone Is Secretly Tracking Everywhere You've Been"

2011-04-21T10:03:00.002-06:00

"It turns out that your iPhone is keeping a record of everywhere you've been since June. This data is stored on your phone (or iPad) and computer, easily available to anyone who gets their hands on it. Why? Apple won't say. We're creeped out.

The enormous privacy startle, apparently enabled by this summer's iOS 4 release, was discovered by two security researchers, one of whom claims he was an Apple employee for five years. They're equally puzzled and disturbed by the location collection: "By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements," they explain. All it would take to crack the information out of your iOS device is an easy jailbreak. On your computer, the information can be opened as easily as JPEG using the mapping software that the security experts have made for download"

TPM - iSpy Conspiracy: Your iPhone Is Secretly Tracking Everywhere You've Been

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It's well past 1984. And the government is tracking you less than marketing firms...

TPM: "Phone Sex Company Controls Nearly 25% Of 1-800 Numbers "

2011-04-19T14:48:00.003-06:00

"A Philadelphia company called PrimeTel Communications has, over the past 13 years, acquired nearly a quarter of all 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada, according to a report by the Associated Press. PrimeTel now controls 1.7 million 1-800 numbers, more than any other company, and, the AP says, many of those numbers redirect to a phone-sex service run by a company with close ties to PrimeTel."

TPMMuckraker - Phone Sex Company Controls Nearly 25% Of 1-800 Numbers
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"Records obtained by The Associated Press show that over the past 13 years, a little-known Philadelphia company called PrimeTel Communications has quietly gained control over nearly a quarter of all the 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada, often by grabbing them the moment they are relinquished by previous users. As of March, it administered more 800 numbers than any other company, including Verizon and AT&T.

And many, if not most, of those 1.7 million numbers appear to be used for one thing: redirecting callers to a phone-sex service.

Dial 1-800-Chicago and instead of reaching a tourism hotline for the Windy City, you will hear a woman offering "one-on-one talk with a nasty girl" for $2.99 per minute. A similar thing happens if you punch in the initial digits of 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship or 1-800-Whirlpool."

"PrimeTel appears to have benefited by grabbing numbers associated with famous names, like 1-800-Beatles, or numbers that have recently been canceled but are still advertised widely.

From the late 1980s until around 2005, teenagers who dialed the national hotline used by Teens Teaching AIDS Prevention would reach a call center in Kansas City, Mo., where other youths were waiting to answer questions about the disease. When that program ended, the number was soon routed to one of National A-1's sex lines. But the AIDS hotline number is still publicized by public health groups.

When New York City's Fire Department relinquished its toll-free fire safety hotline a few years ago because of an administrative slip-up, PrimeTel grabbed it the moment it became available. Soon enough, 1-800-FIRETIP was ringing into one of National A-1's phone-sex lines.

The same thing happened to the Cook County Jail in Chicago when it canceled its toll-free inmate information line, and to rape counseling hotlines in Maine and New Mexico.

The Republican National Committee once printed a fundraising mailer with a toll-free calling code and was publicly embarrassed when the calls began ringing in to one of National A-1's chat lines."

"Over the years, though, PrimeTel has been hit with lawsuits and complaints alleging that it is violating federal rules banning toll-free service providers from hoarding digits. Federal Communications Commission rules say that "routing multiple toll-free numbers to a single toll-free subscriber" is usually considered hoarding.

The FCC has never taken formal action against PrimeTel or National A-1, although federal authorities have expressed renewed interest lately in companies that handle toll-free numbers. In the fall, authorities sent subpoenas to several, including PrimeTel, asking for information on how they acquire numbers and why."

AP IMPACT: Porn Company Is Amassing 1-800 Numbers

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In an active regulation scenario (which I lean toward) this kind of behaviour would have been caught some time ago.

This is one more example of the ridiculous outcomes of the notion "business should regulate itself".

The FCC does as little to regulate in the U.S. as the CRTC does here in Canada. Most often when they do regulate it is on behalf of the interests of the companies they are regulating, not in the interests of the general public who really own the airwaves and communications policy.

Reuters/Talking Points Memo: "Japan finds plutonium in soil at stricken nuclear plant"

2011-03-29T16:39:00.000-06:00

"TOKYO (Reuters) - Plutonium found in soil at the Fukushima nuclear complex heightened alarm on Tuesday over Japan's battle to contain the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years, as pressure mounted on the prime minister to widen an evacuation zone around the plant."

"In the latest blow to hopes authorities were gradually getting the plant under control, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said plutonium was found at low-risk levels in soil samples at the facility.

A by-product of atomic reactions and also used in nuclear bombs, plutonium is highly carcinogenic and one of the most dangerous substances on the planet, experts say.

They believe some of the plutonium may have come from spent fuel rods at Fukushima or damage to reactor No. 3, the only one to use plutonium in its fuel mix.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said while the plutonium levels were not harmful to human health, the discovery could mean the reactor's containment mechanism had been breached.

"Plutonium is a substance that's emitted when the temperature is high, and it's also heavy and so does not leak out easily," agency deputy director Hidehiko Nishiyama told a news conference.

"So if plutonium has emerged from the reactor, that tells us something about the damage to the fuel. And if it has breached the original containment system, it underlines the gravity and seriousness of this accident.""

Reuters/Talking Points Memo: "Japan finds plutonium in soil at stricken nuclear plant"

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More of that nuclear safety in action...

Because remember - disasters only happen one at a time - it's inconceivable that an earthquake and a tsunami would happen at the same time... good thing there was no typhoon to go with it...

And the nuclear industry says that everything is still safe because no-one could have predicted this would have ever happened - therefore all the other plants are safe - because they are supposed to be safe from all other known disaster possibilities (of course the fact that over 40 plants in the U.S. haven't even met regulations published in 1975 related to fire safety after an earthquake might make a person sceptical [but i'll publish that one in a little while]).

I'm especially thrilled with all the charts that circulated in the days after this disaster showing that more people through history have died from coal fired power plants than nuclear accidents. I think it misses the point. Even if people have died from coal related issues - we won't be glowing green and growing a third eye for 50,000 years after the dust hits the ground.

The story cited above also says "Beyond the evacuation zone, traces of radiation have been found in tap water in Tokyo and as far away as Iceland."

Of course coal and hydrocarbons will have quite an interesting long term effect what with the climate of the entire planet being altered courtesy of emissions...

Christian Science Monitor: "Traces of Japanese radiation detected in 13 US states"

2011-03-28T17:11:00.002-06:00

"Radiation has been detected in the air or water in 13 states, but 'far below levels of public health concern.' Rainwater is called safe to drink. Massachusetts is monitoring milk supply."

"Elevated yet still very low levels of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis have now been detected in the air or water in more than a dozen US states and three territories, federal and local authorities say.

Higher than usual levels of radiation were detected by 12 monitoring stations in Alaska, Alabama, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, and Washington State over the past week and sent to Environmental Protection Agency scientists for detailed laboratory analysis, the agency said in a release Monday.

Unusual, yet still very low “trace amounts” of radiation, were also reported in Massachusetts rain water and by state officials and nuclear power plant radiation sensors in Colorado, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania, the Associated Press and Reuters reported."

"One key area being watched is the US milk supply. After the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, it was found that cows had eaten grass tainted by radioactive fallout from the reactor. Concentrated radioiodine in the milk was blamed later for causing health problems in humans who drank it."

Christian Science Monitor - Traces of Japanese radiation detected in 13 US states

Wired: How Much Money Do Spammers Make?

2011-03-25T16:55:00.001-06:00

"After deleting the 10,000th Viagra offer from your inbox, you might wonder, does anyone actually make money off this crap? Chris Kanich and his colleagues at UC San Diego and the International Computer Science Institute wondered too—so they hijacked a botnet to find out. Kanich’s team intentionally infected eight computers with a middleman virus, software they found in the wild that was relaying instructions between a botmaster computer and the network of computers it had secretly turned into spam-sending zombies. Then they changed the orders, effectively zombifying the botnet for their own research. Instead of sending hapless rubes to the botmaster’s website, spam ads would instead funnel them to a site built by Kanich’s team. It looked like an authentic Internet pharmacy, but instead of taking credit card numbers in return for a bottle of sugar pills (or worse), the site coughed up an error message and counted the clicks. Then the researchers calculated an estimate of how much money the spammer grossed per day: about $7,000."

Wired - Equation: How Much Money Do Spammers Rake In?

Christian Science Monitor: "Reports: Lax oversight, 'greed' preceded Japan nuclear crisis"

2011-03-16T11:19:00.003-06:00

"Reports are emerging that both the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency and the Japanese government failed to properly ensure the safety of country's nuclear power industry.

The reports are challenging the recent refrain that the world's No. 3 economy couldn't have done better and once again highlighting how poor government oversight of an industry that allegedly cut corners to turn higher profits can spawn an environmental disaster."

"Dr. Andreev said the sequence of events at Japan's Fukushima I suggested that the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), may have put profit before safety. The fire that broke out Tuesday in reactor No. 4's fuel storage pond may have been caused by a desire to conserve space and money, he suggested.

"The Japanese were very greedy and they used every square inch of the space. But when you have a dense placing of spent fuel in the basin you have a high possibility of fire if the water is removed from the basin," Andreev told Reuters.

TEPCO has come under fire in the past for falsifying safety records at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. In 2002, according to The Wall Street Journal, TEPCO admitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency that it had falsified the results of safety tests on the No. 1 reactor.

This was only one in a string of scandals and coverups to mar the Asia's biggest utility company. In 2007, the company initially said there was no release of radiation after an earthquake damaged its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, but later admitted that radioactive water spilled into the Sea of Japan.

And less than a year ago, on June 17, a reactor at Fukushima I lost electricity and saw a dangerous drop in cooling water, Bloomberg reported. TEPCO's president failed to adequately investigate to prevent the current crisis, said Iwaki City council member Kazuyoshi Sato."

Christian Science Monitor - Reports: Lax oversight, 'greed' preceded Japan nuclear crisis

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This is the same kind of cozy inspection relationship between the banks and regulators and inspectors that caused the world economy to melt down a few years ago, hey?

Unless there is a fierce independence between inspectors and the inspected these sorts of events will happen.

Self-regulation does not work.

Japan Nuclear: Spent Fuel Containment Pool May Be Open To Atmosphere; Sattellite Images Appear To Show Missing Roof

2011-03-15T11:48:00.000-06:00

"...the total amount of long-lived radioactivity in the pool is at least five times that in the reactor core..."

"The spent fuel produced by reactors has been a challenge since the dawn of the nuclear industry, with most reactor operators opting to store it in pools of cooling water on site. At the 40-year-old Fukushima plant, which was built by General Electric, the fuel rods are stored at a pool about three stories up, next to the reactor. Satellite photos raise concerns that the roof of the building housing the pool has been blown off, says Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a senior policy adviser to the secretary of energy and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999. He and other experts are now warning that any release of radioactivity from the spent-fuel pool could make the releases from the reactors themselves pale in comparison."

"The pools “contain very large concentrations of radioactivity, can catch fire, and are in much more vulnerable buildings,” he warns. If the pools lose their inflow of circulating cooling water, the water in the pools will evaporate. If the level of water drops to five or six feet above the spent fuel, Alvarez calculates, the release of radioactivity “could be life-threatening near the reactor building.” Since the total amount of long-lived radioactivity in the pool is at least five times that in the reactor core, a catastrophic release would mean “all bets are off,” he says."

The Daily Beast - The Japan Nuke Problem No One's Talking About

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OK - my usual motif is to toss a story out and then editorialise on the story. So here's my editorialisation:

"So, how's that nuclear safety workin' for ya?"

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"Moreover, in the spent fuel pools usually situated next to nuclear power plants, there are large numbers of additional fuel rods, used ones, disposed of as waste. There must be constant water circulation in the spent fuel pools. In what is labeled a “loss-of-water’ accident in a spent fuel pool, the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods is projected as exploding—sending into the environment the lethal nuclear poisons in a spent fuel pool……."

nuclear-news
latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry
Technical information on the Fukushima nuclear loss of coolant

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Image Credit:

nuclear-news
latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry
Technical information on the Fukushima nuclear loss of coolant

U.S. Supreme Court: Corporations Do Not Have Personal Privacy Rights

2011-03-02T13:19:00.000-06:00

"“The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 12-page decision.

He added: “We trust that AT&T will not take it personally.”"

"Corporations do not enjoy a right to personal privacy that would prevent disclosure of certain embarrassing documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the US Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

The unanimous decision came in a case examining whether telecommunications giant AT&T could claim an exemption from required disclosure under FOIA because government release of its documents to competitors would cause the corporation to suffer an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Lawyers for AT&T argued that the company was a private corporate citizen with personal-privacy rights that protect it from government disclosure of embarrassing documents."

Christian Science Monitor: Supreme Court: Corporations do not enjoy personal privacy rights

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While I haven't been a fan (to say the least) of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding Corporate Rights ™, I am pleased that they got this one right.

Corporations are not persons. They should not have human rights. They should not be allowed to contribute to political campaigns (neither should unions in my mind).

Intelligent beings have "human rights" not the legal fiction we call corporations (this is where we veer into my personal feeling that a number of "higher animals" - thinking and self-aware species like dolphins, whales, and elephants [an example list, not a complete one] - should have essentially "human" rights).

Corporations are an economic and legal fiction created to allow people to pool resources in an ordered manner.

They have no more inherent rights than than a copy of valley of the dolls. They are a set of rules not a person, and should not be a vehicle to allow those who control them to use the benefits of asset pooling to further the narrow agenda of those very same people who control those corporations.

Christian Science Monitor: "Walking cactus discovered in China"

2011-02-25T14:50:00.000-06:00

"Walking cactus: Scientists have discovered what researchers are calling the missing link in China. The strange-looking walking cactus is thought to be the link between worm-like creatures and arthropods like spiders."

"Fossils of a 10-legged wormy creature that lived 520 million years ago may fill an important gap in the history of the evolution of insects, spiders and crustaceans.

The so-called walking cactus belongs to a group of extinct worm-like creatures called lobopodians that are thought to have given rise to arthropods. Spiders and other arthropods have segmented bodies and jointed limbs covered in a hardened shell.

Before the discovery of the walking cactus, Diania cactiformis, all lobopodian remains had soft bodies and soft limbs, said Jianni Liu, the lead researcher who is affiliated with Northwest University in China and Freie University in Germany."
Christian Science Monitor: "Walking cactus discovered in China"

TPMMuckraker: "Patriot Act Extension Passes On Simple Majority Vote"

2011-02-21T10:35:00.000-06:00

"An extension of several provisions of the PATRIOT Act, which failed to pass the House last week under a procedural motion which required a two-thirds super-majority, passed on Monday [Feb 14, 20011] night under a simple majority vote.

The vote to extend several key provisions of the Act which had been set to expire was 275 -144. There were 27 Republicans who voted against the bill and 65 Democrats who voted in favor. President Barack Obama supports the renewal of the provisions."

TPMMuckraker: "Patriot Act Extension Passes On Simple Majority Vote"

TPM: "Apple developing smaller, cheaper iPhones: report"

2011-02-20T09:33:00.000-06:00

"Apple is developing a new lines of smaller and cheaper iPhones and overhauling its software to facilitate users' access to entertainment, photos and video, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

The new device -- code-named "N97" -- will be about half the size of the iPhone 4 and cost about half as much as Apple's main line of iPhones, the Journal said, citing a person who saw a prototype of the new gadget several months ago."
TPM: "Apple developing smaller, cheaper iPhones: report"

Talking Points Memo: "Japan eclipsed by China as world's second economy"

2011-02-19T09:08:00.000-06:00

"Japan lost its 42-year ranking as the world's second-biggest economy to China in 2010, with data out Monday showing a contraction in the last quarter due to weak consumer spending and a strong yen.

While Japan was expected to fall behind a surging China in the year, the data underlined the weak state of a Japanese economy burdened by deflation, soft domestic demand and pressured by the industrialised world's biggest debt.

"It is difficult for the deflation-plagued Japanese economy to achieve self-sustained growth," said Naoki Murakami, chief economist at Monex Securities.

While China's leap forward reflects a shift in economic power as the country transforms itself from poverty-hit communist state to global heavyweight, it highlights the need for shrinking Japan to energise its economy, analysts said.

Japan's post-war "economic miracle" put it at number two behind the United States for more than four decades, but stagnation after the Japanese property bubble burst in the 1990s helped put booming China on course to supplant its neighbour.

However, Japan remains around 10 times richer on a per-capita basis, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Predictions vary as to when China may overtake the United States as number one economy, but it should happen by 2025, according to estimates by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others."

Talking Points Memo: "Japan eclipsed by China as world's second economy"

Ars Technica, Wired: "The Real Internet Censors: Unaccountable ISPs?"

2011-02-18T14:31:00.003-06:00

"...a new report suggests that nations are slowly turning ISPs into the off-duty information cops of the world. Eager to placate politicians in order to achieve their own goals (like the selective throttling of data), networks are cooperating with governments looking for easy, informal solutions to difficult problems like copyright infringement, dangerous speech, online vice, and child pornography.

Network and content providers are ostensibly engaging in “self-regulation,” but that’s a deceptive phrase, warns the European Digital Rights group. “It is not regulation — it is policing — and it is not ’self-’ because it is their consumers and not themselves that are being policed,” EDR says."

"...Bottom line: 70 percent of the providers in the experiment took down the content without scrutinizing either it or the complainant.

All this is central to the censorship ecosystem that European Digital Rights fears, and it worries that this sort of extrajudicial censorship could get much larger in the near future. The group wants more debate “to assess the scale of the policing measures being entrusted to Internet intermediaries, the cost for the rule of law and for fundamental rights, as well as the cost for effective investigation and prosecution of serious crimes in the digital environment.”"

Ars Technica, Wired - "The Real Internet Censors: Unaccountable ISPs?"

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Image credit: neweurasia.net - Internet censorship: Kyrgyzstan blocks independent web-sites

New Giant Planet Hidden In Our Solar System? We Might Need A New Kind Of Planet Classification To Describe It

2011-02-14T13:40:00.003-06:00

"There's a giant planet right here, hiding in our solar system. One that nobody has ever seen, even while it is four times larger than Jupiter and has rings and moons orbiting it. At least, that's what two astrophysicists say.

The name of the planet is Tyche. The scientists are John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. According to them, the giant planet is hiding in the Oort Cloud—the asteroid beehive that forms the outer shell of our solar system."

Gizmodo - The Mystery of the Giant Planet Hidden In Our Solar System

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"The fate of Tyche (and even if it will end up getting called Tyche) will be decided by the all powerful International Astronomical Union (IAU). They are the dudes who demoted our beloved Pluto.

The IAU will decide ‘officially’ if Tyche exists and what it will be called. There is even some conjecture that they may even make it a whole new classification of planet."

NewsWarped.com - New planet Tyche four times bigger than Jupiter

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"The first tranche of data is to be released in April, and astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette think it will reveal Tyche within two years. "If it does, John and I will be doing cartwheels," Professor Whitmire said. "And that's not easy at our age."

Once Tyche has been located, other telescopes could be pointed at it to confirm the discovery.

Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun's gravitational field. The IAU may choose to create a whole new category for Tyche, Professor Matese said.

The IAU would also have the final say about the gas giant's name. To the Greeks, Tyche was the goddess responsible for the destiny of cities. Her name was provisionally chosen in reference to an earlier hypothesis, now largely abandoned, that the Sun might be part of a binary star system with a dim companion, tentatively called Nemesis, that was thought responsible for mass extinctions on Earth. In myth, Tyche was the good sister of Nemesis. "

The Independent - Up telescope! Search begins for giant new planet

U.S. "House rejects measure that would extend key Patriot Act provisions through December" (for now...)

2011-02-09T10:37:00.000-06:00

"A measure to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act counterterrorism surveillance law through December failed the House Tuesday night, with more than two-dozen Republicans bucking their party to oppose the measure."

"The measure would have extended three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire on Monday, Feb. 28, unless Congress moves to reauthorize them. One of the provisions authorizes the FBI to continue using roving wiretaps on surveillance targets; the second allows the government to access "any tangible items," such as library records, in the course of surveillance; and the third is a "lone wolf" provision of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act that allows for the surveillance of targets who are not connected to an identified terrorist group"

"The House measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and required a two-thirds majority for passage, failed on a 277-to-148 vote. Twenty-six Republicans voted with 122 Democrats to oppose the measure, while 67 Democrats voted with 210 Republicans to back it. Ten members did not vote."

and yay Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich!

""The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution," Kucinich said. "Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization.""

Washington Post - House rejects measure that would extend key Patriot Act provisions through December

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"Only 26 Republicans voted against the bill, and there are 52 members of the Republican Tea Party Caucus, whose chairperson, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) voted for reauthorization along with most of the rest of her caucus. As Slate's Dave Weigel points out, only eight of the 26 were Republican freshmen elected last November. One hundred and twenty-two Democrats voted against reauthorization, I suspect most of them just because they could.

So how did the bill fail? Basically Republicans were trying to pass the bill under "suspension of the rules," which is considered the process for passing "noncontroversial" legislation. You need a two thirds majority of those present to pass bills that way. For one brief night, Republicans in the House learned what it was like to be a Democrat in the Senate.

Sadly, the revolt probably won't last, as there are more than the 218 votes needed to pass reauthorization under normal procedures. What's uncertain is whether the reauthorization will contain mild oversight provisions, and when the provisions will actually sunset."

Washington Poat - Newsflash: Tea Party didn't kill Patriot Act

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"Neither party could muster the votes needed to pass an extension of the Patriot Act, the country’s counterterrorism law. In a 277-148 vote, the House of Representatives fell a few votes short of the two-thirds majority necessary to extend several key provisions of the law.

The provisions of the act, which has been something of a legislative hot potato since it was first passed in the wake of Sept. 11, deal with roving wiretaps, granting authorities wider access to records and property during terrorism investigations, and so-called “lone wolf” provision, which approvesurveillance of suspected terrorists not linked to a specific terrorist organization.

Republican leaders said they plan to hold another vote on the measure before the end of the month."

ABC News - The Note: Patriot Games: Congressional Leaders Blindsided By Failed Vote

My personal objections to the so-called "Patriot Act" is that it allows government agents to do almost anything they want without oversight.

For example, the U.S. authorities have been given power under the act to subpoena business records that are "relevant" to a terrorism investigation, without seeking a court warrant. I would far rather have to have them persuade a judge than to just act on their own.

No oversight, no reports, no transparency, no accountability.

Remember what happened to Stacy Bonds in that Ottawa jail cell when she theoretically had rights? When the officers knew there were cameras?

How about those school officials remotely activating webcams on kids computers while they were at home?

Or the "...nationwide database of so-called “suspicious activity reports” that describe possible evidence of terrorist attack planning. Reports will be submitted not just by state and local police and agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, but also private corporations that control economic and infrastructure assets considered high-profile targets for terrorists."

Remember Sean Bruyea? "Sean Bruyea told CTV’s Question Period that two months after he first testified against a controversial change to veterans’ disability payments, Veterans Affairs Canada attempted to discredit him by hospitalizing him and making his advocacy a psychological issue."

And in Bruyea's case that was bureacrats trying to have him bundled off to a metal hospital - think about what national security types do - the about "extraordinary rendition" - that's what they call kidnapping someone...

We all know what humans are capable of when acting without restraints.

Ars Technica: "Sorry about that! Canada reverses metered Internet decision"

2011-02-03T11:12:00.002-06:00

"Oops! Terrified by a critical mass of enraged broadband consumers, Canada's government is telling its telecom regulator to rescind its approval of metered or "usage based" billing, or else. Industry Minister Tony Clement is now insisting that Canada's Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has to undo the ruling.

Most Canadian newspapers are getting the same message from the top. The CRTC "should be under no illusion—the Prime Minister and Minister of Industry will reverse this decision unless the CRTC does it itself," a member of Canada's conservative government told the Toronto Star on Wednesday.

"Frankly, a decision like this is clearly not in the best interest of consumers," the unnamed senior official added. "This is a bread-and-butter issue.""

Ars Technica - Sorry about that! Canada reverses metered Internet decision

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"OTTAWA—A controversial CRTC decision that effectively imposed usage-based Internet billing on small service providers will be reversed, the Toronto Star has learned.

“The CRTC should be under no illusion — the Prime Minister and minister of Industry will reverse this decision unless the CRTC does it itself,” a senior Conservative government official said Wednesday.

“If they don’t reconsider we will reverse their decision.”

The promise to reverse the ruling comes as CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein is scheduled to explain the decision Thursday before the House of Commons industry committee.

While the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is an independent agency, its decision can be overturned by cabinet. The Star was told that could happen as early as next week. "

the Star - Ottawa to reverse CRTC Internet billing decision

Egypt Internet Back Online

2011-02-03T09:43:00.010-06:00

"“All major Egyptian ISPs appear to have readvertised routes to their domestic customer networks in the global routing table…The rebooted Egyptian table is smaller than it was a week ago, but that’s mostly because of a normal process called “reaggregation” (the deletion of very small, specific customer routes that are partially or totally redundant with existing announcements, generally for purposes of traffic engineering). That’s to be expected: the Egyptian table had gotten pretty dense with redundancy in the week leading up to the takedown, and it’s been cleaned up in the process of being brought back.

“It wasn’t totally smooth; a few larger network blocks belonging to the Egyptian Universities Network (AS2561) were still missing. Unfortunately, these included the address space that hosts the .eg top level domain servers. The routes have since recovered.”"

Egypt Internet Restored; Cairo Protests Turn Violent

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"To restore the country's connections, Egyptian Internet service providers (ISPs) re-configured their core routers so that they once again announced their presence, letting upstream providers and other networks reestablish data pathways.

"It was pretty much similar, except reversed, to what happened last week," said Andree Toonk, the founder and lead developer of BGPmon, an open-source tool for monitoring BGP, or "border gateway protocol."

BGP is the protocol at the heart of the Internet's routing mechanism, and is used by routers to share information about the paths data traffic uses to "hop" from one network to another as it moves from a source to its destination.

The speed with which the networks reconnected was evidence that rather than physically plugging in cables, Egypt's ISPs simply began advertising their availability to other networks' routers using BGP, said Toonk.

"That, and the fact that it all happened at the same time shows the disconnect was probably not physical," said Toonk. Nor was the restoration today. "Everything was restored in about half an hour," he said.

According to Toonk's monitoring, the first BGP announcements for Egypt began at 9:30 a.m. UTC, or 11:30 a.m. local time. The start time Toonk cited was 4:30 a.m. ET and 1:30 a.m. PT in the U.S.

Internet monitoring company Renesys also pegged the reconnect time for the bulk of Egypt's networks at around 30 minutes."

ComputerWorld - Egypt reverses 'kill switch' to restore Internet access

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A good rundown with links to a number of stories around the internet restoration:

ComputerWorld - Egypt Internet returns; violent protests continue

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"It appears Internet service is making a comeback in the embattled nation of Egypt, according to posts which lit up social networks such as Twitter today.

Early this morning, Google tweeted, "Good news: Internet access being restored in Egypt." The search giant also linked to its Transparency Report, a web tool which allows anyone to view Google's traffic on platforms such as Google Search, Blogger, and YouTube.

Egypt Google traffic has risen dramatically today, after days of little Egyptian web activity registering on Google platforms.

Top and rising search terms in Egypt during the past 7 days - including days the Internet was blocked and today, when Internet access was re-established - include "demonstrations", "constitution", "Al Jazeera", "news", "photos", and "Facebook"."

New York Times - Egypt Internet back; info-hungry Egyptians Google Al Jazeera and Facebook, report chaos on Twitter

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"...today, the Internet crackled to life in Egypt for the first time in more than four days. "No traffic blocks are in place, DNS answers are clean, IP addresses match, no funny business," reported Renesys, the Internet tracking firm that had first reported last week that Egypt had largely been disconnected from the Internet.

What gives? That concurrent tightening of the political scene and rediscovered Internet openness in Egypt is indeed a little puzzling. Does the Mubarak regime have some sort of savvy master plan to harness the Internet to their benefit, giving them a way to sell their version of events to the world? Or perhaps use it to track protesters? Or is the Mubarak administration that might be in its last throes just flailing about wildly here? What's going on here?"

techPresident - Why'd a Battle-Ready Mubarak Turn Egypt's Internet Back On?

China Censoring Egypt News; Visuals Might Be Too Close To Tiananmen ?

2011-02-01T11:02:00.005-06:00

Global Voices Advocacy - China: Bridging news on Egypt (Author - Oiwan Lam)

"The filtering of search result and the blocking of search term “Egypt” in social media websites is to prevent certain interpretation of the political situation in Egypt. The scenes of Tanks moving into the city center, the confrontation between the people and the soldiers are very likely to recall Chinese people's memory of the June 4 incident back in 1989 and the criticism of the authoritarian government in Egypt can easily turn into a political allegory in China. The propaganda department certainly has to issue censorship alert to web-portal and social media websites, where opinions can spread rapidly and become mainstream public discourses in a few hour time."

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"BEIJING (Dow Jones)--Chinese authorities have blocked the word "Egypt" from searches on Twitter-like microblogging sites in an indication of concern among Communist Party leaders that the unrest there could encourage similar calls for political reform in China.

Internet censors also appeared Sunday to have deleted almost all of the comments posted beneath the few limited reports on the unrest - mostly from the state-run Xinhua news agency - that have been published on Chinese news sites in the past few days.

The strict online controls illustrate the party's concern that the Internet is providing China's citizens with a new means of information and organization that could challenge its monopoly on power, as has happened with other authoritarian governments in recent years.

Chinese authorities also stepped up their efforts to control the Internet after the "color revolutions" in the former Soviet Union in 2003-05, and the pro-democracy protests in Iran in 2009. They completely shut down Internet access in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang for several months after riots there in 2009.

China now appears to be tightening media and Internet restrictions in the run-up to once-a-decade leadership succession next year, when President Hu Jintao and six other top leaders are expected to retire from their party posts."

NIKKEI.com - China Blocks Egypt Protest Reports

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"The widespread use of the Internet is a relatively new development in China, but Goldkorn says the government has moved to limit access to information about other recent global events.

"There was a similar type of censorship when there were the so-called color revolutions going on in Eastern Europe, and I think that the reasons are fairly obvious - that the government would prefer that the people don’t draw parallels to what is going on in Egypt with anything that could go on in China," Goldkorn added.

Renmin University international relations professor Shi Yinhong echoes that thinking.

"Above all, their (the Chinese government’s) first priority is to maintain social and political stability," Shi said.

Shi says the government has been concerned with public unrest since it cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations around the country in 1989. He describes this kind of nervousness as China’s current political culture.

"This kind of political culture will shape China for a long time. So, within China, everyone knows that our government is extremely concerned about weiwang," Shi added.

"Weiwang" means maintaining social stability.

Peking University International relations professor Zhu Feng describes efforts to control Web access to information about Egypt as a "preventative countermeasure.""

VOA - China Blocks Some Internet Reports on Egypt Protests

UPDATE: Noor Networks The Last Egyptian ISP Online Has Been Shut Down

2011-01-31T16:35:00.003-06:00

"2226 GMT: The government has cut off the last Egyptian ISP providing internet to citizens - Noor. With Noor's disconnection which follows the disconnection of all the other ISPs in the country, Egypt becomes the first country to be completely shut off from the rest the web by its regime in the history of internet."

"2145 GMT: Multiple sources are reporting that Egyptian authorities have closed the last Internet "window", Noor Online, in Egypt.

Noor was kept open during the shutdown of Web services on Friday, possibly because the provider was used by vital financial and corporate interests, including the Egyptian Stock Market."

Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: So What is an "Orderly Transition"?

How The Egyptian Regime Cut Off Internet Access

2011-01-31T10:20:00.005-06:00

Picture Credit: TechWorld - Egypt cut off from Internet as government cracks down on protest

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"The Egyptian government has been able to cut off most of the country's internet access simply by shutting down the various DNS servers used by Egyptian internet service providers. As such, any requests for web pages initiated from inside Egypt have been unsuccessful since there aren't any available DNS servers to facilitate the hand-offs, and any requests for websites located inside Egypt coming from computers anywhere else in the world haven't worked either.

While this has affected most of Egypt's internet traffic, some people are able to work around the issue by manually using DNS servers that haven't been taken offline—similar to the method I used when Comcast's DNS server went down. BGPmon.com is reporting that 88% of Egypt's internet traffic has been knocked offline, which seems to indicate that 12% of those who are still able to access the internet there are either using alternative DNS servers or haven't had their DNS servers taken offline yet (apparently some dial-up internet connections are still able to get through, for instance)."

"While images of a big red button housed inside a Plexiglass case that can only be unlocked by two simultaneous key twists of top government officials seem to fit the idea of how such an internet kill switch would work, the reality is far more mundane. In Egypt's case, the internet service providers that operate within the country agree to let the government shut down the commonly-used DNS servers if they see fit to do so.

The BBC reports that one of Egypt's big internet service providers, Vodafone, issued an e-mail statement simply stating that the company was instructed to shut down its DNS servers. "Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such and order and we are obliged to comply with it," said the statement.

The same order was almost certainly issued to all the other internet service providers operating inside Egypt and, just like that, the internet went down."

Time Online (Techland) - How Egypt Cut Off the Internet (and How a U.S. 'Kill Switch' Might Work)

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"Renesys found that: "At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the internet's global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP [Border Gateway Protocol] routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange internet traffic with Egypt's service providers. Virtually all of Egypt's internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.""

"An analysis by Renesys, which provides real-time monitoring of internet access, says that "every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, internet cafe, website, school, embassy and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air."

That has caused concern among observers who believe that internet access – which the Egyptian government limited earlier this week by cutting off social networks – is essential to ensure that government acts responsibly towards its citizens. Tim Bray, an engineer at Google, tweeted: "I feel that as soon as the world can't use the net to watch, awful things will start happening.""

guardian.co.uk - Egypt cuts off internet access
Most of the major internet service providers in Egypt are offline following week-long protests

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"Our new observation is that this was not an instantaneous event on the front end; each service provider approached the task of shutting down its part of the Egyptian Internet separately.

* Telecom Egypt (AS8452), the national incumbent, starts the process at 22:12:43.
* Raya joins in a minute later, at 22:13:26.
* Link Egypt (AS24863) begins taking themselves down 4 minutes later, at 22:17:10.
* Etisalat Misr (AS32992) goes two minutes later, at 22:19:02
* Internet Egypt (AS5536) goes six minutes later, at 22:25:10.

First impressions: this sequencing looks like people getting phone calls, one at a time, telling them to take themselves off the air. Not an automated system that takes all providers down at once; instead, the incumbent leads and other providers follow meekly one by one until Egypt is silenced."

Renesys - Egypt Leaves the Internet

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"The cut-off happened just after midnight, local time, according to Internet monitoring firm Renesys, when the largest Internet Service Providers operating out of the country stopped providing the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing information used to connect the rest of the world with computers in the Egypt."

"Similar widespread outages have been blamed on cuts to undersea fibre optic cables, but that doesn't seem to be what happened this time around, said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with security firm Trend Micro. An outage on a cable would not just effect Egypt, it would cut off all of sub-Saharan Africa." he said. "This is apparently a deliberate blackout.""

"But Egypt's Internet isolation is not complete. One service provider, Noor Data Networks, the provider used by the Egyptian Stock Exchange, is unaffected."
TechWorld - Egypt cut off from Internet as government cracks down on protest

Phone Menu Hell Re-created For Phone Company In TV Prank (Very Funny Video)

2011-01-27T13:30:00.003-06:00

"Belgium's much-reviled phone company Mobistar was elaborately pranked by a program on VRT Belgium; the pranksters hid themselves in a steel container, which they had dropped directly in front of the gates of a large Mobistar office at 5AM. The container had a prominent customer service number printed on the side of it -- a number which rang the pranksters inside the container -- that was promptly called by a series of Mobistar employees who wanted to get the container moved off before 2,000 Mobistar employees reported for work and found the parking lot blocked off.

The pranksters proceed to put the Mobistar employees through a high-art comedic phone hell, disconnecting them, subjecting them to terrible hold music (performed live from within the container on a little synthesizer), gradually ratcheting the misery up in a Dante-worthy re-enactment of every terrible, awful mobile phone company experience.

The program was a huge hit in Belgium (be sure to watch it all the way through for the a killer punchline), and has been captioned in English for those of us in the anglosphere to enjoy."

"Elaborate televised prank on Belgium's terrible phone company"

This post stolen in entirety from BoingBoing - give them a click through for the advertising revenue, please - and more importantly - go there to watch the video

Video Cameras Proposed For Wyoming Classrooms To FIlm Teachers For "Evaluation" Purposes

2011-01-25T09:01:00.002-06:00

Big Brother at Wyoming schools? Legislature considers filming teachers.

Wyoming lawmakers propose installing video cameras to help evaluate teachers' performance. But educators are concerned about privacy issues, among other things."

"Teachers in Wyoming might someday have to add an extra step to their lesson plans: Smile for the camera.

State lawmakers have proposed installing video cameras and taping lessons to help evaluate teachers’ performance.

The occasional videotaped class has long been a tool for training and self-reflection. But the notion of tying recorded lessons to high-stakes evaluations raises a host of thorny issues.

Schools would have to consider who would be evaluating the taped lessons, what criteria they’d use, and how student and teacher privacy would be respected."

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A camera in every classroom, a camera in every cubicle, what more could we ask for?

In our surveillance society.

How long until those cameras are used to harass staff? Harass students? Or whatever else?

Remember my post on what happened with those remotely activated webcams on student computers?

Read it again:

School District Remotely Activated Webcams On Students Computers While They Were At Home; Some Partially Dressed; Lawsuit Settled For $610K

Man Goes Through TSA Security, Boards Plane At Houston International (IAH) With Loaded Pistol (unintentional - reports incident - upset with security)

2010-12-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

"HOUSTON (KTRK) -- TSA checkpoints at airports are at the front lines of preventing terrorism. When you go through security, you expect to be scanned and searched. And you expect TSA to prevent contraband from getting on planes, but as we've learned, that doesn't always happen.

Houston businessman Farid Seif says it was a startling discovery. He didn't intend to bring a loaded gun on a flight out of Houston and can't understand how TSA screeners didn't catch it.

Nearing the height of last year's Christmas travel season, TSA screeners at Bush Intercontinental Airport somehow missed a loaded pistol, one that was tucked away inside a carry-on computer bag.

"I mean, this is not a small gun," Seif said. "It's a .40 caliber gun."

Seif says it was an accident which he didn't realize until he arrived at his destination. He says he carries the glock for protection but forgot to remove it from his bag. He reported the incident as soon as he landed, shocked at the security lapse.

"There's nothing else in there. How can you miss it? You cannot miss it," Seif said."

ABC Affiliate KTRK - Man boards plane at IAH with loaded gun in carry-on

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Conor Friedersdorf at the Daily Dish writes pretty much exactly what I'm thinking:

"As the guardians of America's airports put travelers through naked body scans and invasive patdowns, ponder [the story above]"

"Two thoughts. 1) Perhaps if this sort of thing wasn't covered up, and we heard about it everytime TSA staffers failed to catch weapons, the resulting embarassment would improve their performance more than whatever method now being used. 2) I've got to submit to naked scanners and pat downs when they can't even catch weapons going through the x-ray scanners they've already got?

My faith in the ability of government to decide what should be kept secret and what shouldn't is now even closer to nil."

Andrew Sullivan - Daily Dish - The Secrets TSA Keeps

Flash Cookies - Do You Know They Exist And That They Are Being Used To Track You? Even If Your Other Privacy Settings Are Set To Paranoid?

2010-12-20T12:02:00.003-06:00

It occured to me that I should probably tell you about flash cookies. Most people who spend a lot of time on the web know that sites can track you using browser/web page cookies - a serial number that identifies your browser if you return to a site - or a site that pulls in ad content from an external server. Except there are other cookies - flash cookies (as in your flash media player - e.g. youtube videos, all those annoying animated ads). I am including a link to the Adobe Flash Website Storage Settings panel so you can look at your flash cookies. Feel free to hit "delete all" like i do every week or so.

Wired and ghacks do a good job of explaining flash cookies:

Wired Mag - You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again

"More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers reported Monday.

Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have not.

What’s even sneakier?

Several services even use the surreptitious data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called ‘re-spawning’ in homage to video games where zombies come back to life even after being “killed,” the report found. So even if a user gets rid of a website’s tracking cookie, that cookie’s unique ID will be assigned back to a new cookie again using the Flash data as the “backup.”"

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"Flash cookies are a new way of tracing your movement and storing a lot more information about you than with normal cookies. One major disadvantage of flash cookies is that you can’t locate them in your browser. They are not shown in the list of cookies that you can see when you take a look at the cookies that are currently saved in your web browser. Normal HTTP cookies can’t save more than 4 Kilobyte of data while Flash cookies can save up to 100 Kilobyte. If you want to try out how they work you could do the following.

Go to Youtube, increase or decrease the volume of the videos and delete all cookies afterwards. You will notice that the volume level is still at the same level when you close your browser and open it again. This is done with so called Local Shared Objects, better known as Flash cookies. The main question is of course how a computer can be checked for Flash cookies and how it would be possible to delete those cookies again."
ghacks.net - Flash Cookies explained

Firefox And MicroSoft Adding More Privacy Features To Web Browsers

2010-12-20T11:52:00.004-06:00

"As concern about online privacy grows, Mozilla is promising to let people cloak Internet activity in free Firefox Web browsing software being released early next year.

"Technology that supports something like a 'Do Not Track' button is needed and we will deliver in the first part of next year," Mozilla chief executive Gary Kovacs said while providing a glimpse at Firefox 4 at the Mozilla's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

"The user needs to be in control," he added.

There is a disturbing imbalance between what websites need to know about visitors to personalize advertisements or services and the amount of data collected, according to Kovacs.

"It is not that ads are bad," he said. "It is what they do with my tracked behavior.

"Where I go on the Internet is how I live my life; that is a lot of data to hold just for someone to serve me ads."

Microsoft this month unveiled increased privacy options for the upcoming version of its popular Web browser Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) including a feature "to help keep third-party websites from tracking your Web behavior."

Microsoft said "Tracking Protection" will be built into a test version of IE9 being released early next year."

AFP - Firefox backs "Do Not Track" with online stealth

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Seems like a see-saw back and forth between consumers who vaguely know they want more privacy, and advertisers willing to spend a lot to get at your information.

Big brother works for an advertising firm as well as the western national security apparatus....

Facebook Launches Facial Recognition; How long Until Police Want To Have Access To "Find Terrorists" (or G20 protestors)

2010-12-16T10:05:00.004-06:00

"Facebook this week made the process of tagging multiple photos a bit easier by adding facial recognition technology.

Going forward, Facebook will examine newly uploaded photos and compare them to other photos in which you or your friends are tagged in order to make tagging suggestions.

"When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you're tagged in," Facebook said in a blog post. "We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos.""

PC Mag - Facebook Adds Facial Recognition to Photo Tagging

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And the official word from facebook:

The Facebook Blog - Making Photo Tagging Easier

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I will refer you to my article:

Toronto Police Using Facial Recognition Software To Find G20 "Most Wanted" for some commentary.

This is handy, but problematic from a privacy standpoint. How long until someone does a mash-up of this software and begins applying it to other picture databases? Really - I have tech guy friends that have already built systems that will monitor cameras at public events like football games or trade shows and tell the sponsors about the demographics of the crowd. They are already using it to look for known troublemakers at concert venues.

Because facebook is all about giving advertisers access to your preferences and social networks, how long will it be before people can buy access to facial recognition routines, run them against an event database, and come up with your name and contact information? And then sell that contact info to those advertisers for affinity marketing and such?

Then there are the applications for a big brother state rooting out terrorists, or even more heinous, political protesters (like at the G20) who might dare to challenge the oligarchs. Funny how the police can manage to use facial recognition software to find protesters, but are having such a hard time finding out which officers beat protesters so severely their face bones were broken...

Then there is the application of facial recognition software to all those amateur nudie pics and bar flash pics floating around on the intertubes...

It's a whole new ball game.

And it's coming quickly.

----

At least this answers the question of why, the last time I updated my facebook profile picture, it automatically selected my face for photo cropping and not my girlfriend's face from the picture I used. I tried it a couple of times and concluded it must be doing some kind of facial recognition. Now I know.

WikiLeaks, VISA, Mastercard, Backscratching, And Favours Granted

2010-12-15T11:04:00.003-06:00

The Guardian - US embassy cables: Revealed: US secret operation to help Visa and Mastercard

"Summary: The cable from February 2010 reveals how the US tried to lobby the Russians on behalf of Visa and Mastercard. Washington wanted to amend a draft law that would have damaged firms' commercial interests."

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The Guardian - WikiLeaks cables: US 'lobbied Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard'

"US diplomats intervened to try to amend draft law so that it would not 'disadvantage' US credit card firms, cable says

A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's duma, or lower house of parliament. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US companies, the cable states.

The revelation comes a day after Visa – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. Visa was following MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder, Julian Assange, in the past few days."

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Quid pro quo...?

Plutocracy...

Oligarchs?

I think that one of the most positive outcomes of the WikiLeaks events, and even 9/11, is that it has become pretty clear that we do not really live in democracies. Perhaps we will have an opportunity to change that.

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: Cyberfizzle...? Cyberintifada?

2010-12-13T13:46:00.001-06:00

"Some historians like to talk about the "Long War" of the 20th century, a conflict spanning both world wars and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. They stress that this Long War was a single struggle over what kind of political system would rule the world - democracy, communism or fascism - and that what a war is fought over is often more important than the specifics of individual armies and nations.

The Internet, too, is embroiled in a Long War.

The latest fighters on one side are Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, and the media-dubbed "hacker army" that has risen in his defense in the past week, staging coordinated attacks on government and corporate institutions that have stood in his way. They come from a long tradition of Internet expansionists, who hold that the Web should remake the rest of the world in its own image. They believe that decentralized, transparent and radically open networks should be the organizing principle for all things in society, big and small. "

"The battle between "Anonymous" and the establishment isn't the first in the Long War between media-dubbed "hackers" and institutions, and considering the conflict's progression is key to understanding where it will lead.

In the early 1980s, Richard Stallman, then an employee at MIT's artificial-intelligence lab, was denied permission to access and edit computer code for the lab's laser printer. Frustrated, he kicked off what he calls GNU, a massively collaborative project to create a free and sharable operating system. His efforts sparked a widespread movement challenging the restriction of access to software through patents. Supporters asserted that they had a right to control the code in their own computers.

The battle reached far beyond Stallman, eventually pitting corporations and patent-holders against this early generation of free-software advocates. The bulk of most software is still private, though open-source projects have gained popularity and even dominance in some arenas. Stallman continues to advocate for free software."

Washington Post - WikiLeaks and the Internet's Long War

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"It all started with a carnival atmosphere, as tens of thousands of students and sixth formers took to the streets to protest about the state of higher education and inequality in society.

Students carried placards with witty and sometimes obscure slogans such as “Be realistic, ask the impossible” and “Under the paving stones, the beach”. But it turned violent as groups of anarchists seized buildings and confronted the police. Pretty soon, there was an atmosphere of revolution.

No, that wasn’t a report from last week’s student demonstrations in London. It was from Paris, May 1968, when students seized the city in the spirit of the Paris Commune. The 1968 students fought running battles with the police, threw cobble stones, wrecked cars. Their actions struck a chord with the trades unions, and within days 10 million French workers went out on strike. “Les evenements” nearly toppled the French government and Charles De Gaulle, the president, put the military on alert for a violent revolution then scurried off to Germany. His government was forced to concede an early general election."

"The current student intifada in Britain against tuition fees may not be quite in the same revolutionary league; there’s no sign yet of any general strike following the Battle of Westminster. But it is important nevertheless, if only because of the timing. As in 1968, 2010 has been a year of protest throughout Europe. We saw general strikes in Spain and France, riots in Greece, mass demonstrations in Ireland as EU governments sought to deal with the financial crisis by driving down living standards and cutting public services. Students have invariably been in the thick of the action. There has been an increase also in less orthodox, internet- based protest, such as the hackers of “Anonymous” who have attacked firms like Amazon and Paypal in defence of the WikiLeaks leader, Julian Assange. Protest has gone digital."

"...Protest does have an impact, though sometimes it isn’t obvious. The campaign against the Criminal Justice Bill in 1994 did not “kill the bill” but it did moderate it. The anti-war marchers who said “not in my name” in 2003 made clear to history that the war was illegitimate in the eyes of many millions of ordinary people, and destroyed Tony Blair’s credibility. The poll tax demonstrations really did succeed in getting the community charge scrapped, though it took a couple of years and the removal of its architect, Margaret Thatcher. She was forced from office a matter of months after the London poll tax riots, by Tory ministers who realised that she had become a vote loser. In Scotland, the poll tax protests fuelled demands for a Scottish parliament as the only certain means of protecting the country from future Tory legislation. The urban race riots in 1981 in areas like Toxteth, Southall and Brixton led to the Scarman Report, police reform and multicultural policies in local government

It’s also true that the student demos are not Paris, May 1968. But the truth is that 1968 didn’t directly achieve all that much either. Europe’s greatest popular uprising since the Second World War was a political failure. The student unrest and the strikes evaporated almost as quickly as they had emerged, and in the subsequent general election, the right-wing Gaullists were returned with an increased majority. But les evenements, while a failure electorally, were immensely significant culturally, and historians agree that 1968 was a watershed year in Europe and the world. The rebellion wasn’t really a revolution in the traditional sense and was led as much by hedonism as Marxism. The revolt captured the imaginations of young people all over Europe, and marked the end of the authoritarian, sexually repressed and socially conservative post-war era. Feminism, environmentalism and gay liberation all trace their origins to the “spirit of ’68”." [bold mine - James]

Herald Scotland - The new revolutionaries

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"Hacking has been around as long as the Internet, but has generally been the province of vandals, organized criminals or programmers simply flaunting their technical prowess, said Marc Cooper, a professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

"This is the first time we're really seeing a mass movement of cyber-sabotage with political overtones," he said.

"Whatever the legality and morality, I think it has an undeniable Robin Hood type of resonance with lots of people."

As is true of WikiLeaks, the members of Anonymous come from many countries, work in secret and often set their own rules, haranguing adversaries by barraging websites, breaking into email accounts and posting targets' personal information on the Web."

"Law enforcement authorities say these attacks, which can cause severe disruption to businesses, can easily cross the line from demonstration to criminal action."

Montreal Gazzette - WikiLeaks 'hacktivists': Freedom defenders or nerd supremacists?

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"People using a tool to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against other websites in support of WikiLeaks can easily be traced, according to computer security researchers.

Thousands of people have downloaded the "Low Orbit Ion Cannon," a tool that bombards a targeted website with garbled traffic in an attempt to knock it offline. The tool has been promoted by Anonymous, a loose-knit group of online campaigners that has attacked companies that cut off support for WikiLeaks since it began releasing secret U.S. diplomatic cables in late November.

But researchers at the University of Twente in Enschede, Holland, say it is easy for ISPs to identify those using the tool, as it takes no measures to protect the identity of its users, according to their paper.

There are several versions of the Low Orbit Ion Cannon: one is a client application that is downloaded by a user and can be remotely controlled via an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) or be manually configured. The other is a JavaScript-based Web site.

With the client application, the targeted Web site can see the real IP (Internet Protocol) address of the computer conducting the attack, the researchers wrote. The IP address can be linked to the ISP providing the service, which can then investigate which subscriber the address corresponds too. The same condition happens when someone uses the Web-based tool."

PC World - Website Attackers Could Be Easily Traced, Researchers Say

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"But in modern times, the rules were blurred. The ‘enemy’ stopped wearing uniforms. Civilians became accepted targets. The line between right and wrong grew scuffed, and it appears, is in imminent danger of disappearing altogether.

And that’s where we sit today. Currently, those on the side of WikiLeaks - and thus attacking various corporate and government websites - are mostly operating under the tag Anonymous, clubbing together to organise and undertake Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

For the luddites, think of it this way. The governments and corporations are what they are - strong, heavily armed and well-defended. Anonymous are like the rabble of Palestinian kids we see throwing rocks at soldiers, occasionally getting accurate and giving a man in a uniform a bit of a boo-boo. DDoS attacks are, at their most effective, a nuisance. Cyber sabre rattling, and nothing more.

The point is that they are fighting, and with every weapon at their admittedly quite meagre disposal. [bold mine - James]

It should really come as no surprise that a war can be fought in this manner. The ongoing and inexorable creep from state-to-state warfare to the more nebulous, unidentified non-government enemies - as we’ve seen in the War on Terror - was merely a foreshadowing of events to come.

We have entered a time when single, small entities carry as much agency in a battle as a nation of more than 200 million, with the single most powerful military on the planet behind it."

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Welcome to Infowar, version 1.0

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Oh, well. No cyberwar. Maybe cyber skirmishes. The folks in anonymous that I spoke to/messaged with told a different story of being organised.

Guess not.

I've been part of enough student protests that I should have anticipated this. But they seemed to have their shit together.

Maybe next time.

What i think this does mean is a wake-up call for major corporations about their internet vulnerability.

and, as Tim Hwang says in the Washington Post:

"In his recent book "The Master Switch," Columbia law professor Tim Wu makes the case that the Internet, on its most basic level, is just like any other communications medium. As such, we shouldn't be surprised to see consolidation and government control over the Web. It's true that most other media - movies, radio and television - have gone through phases of wild growth and experimentation, eventually settling into a pattern of consolidation and control.

Why should we expect any different of the Web? Is the arc of the Internet's Long War predetermined?

One key factor is embedded in the history of the Web and the many iterations of the Long War itself: The Internet has cultivated a public vested in its freedom. Each round of conflict draws in additional supporters, from hackers to the growing numbers of open-government activists and everyday users who believe, more and more, that the radical openness of the Web should set the pattern for everything.

As the battlefield has become more vast - from laser printer code to transparency in global diplomacy - the Internet's standing army continues to grow, and is spoiling for a fight."
Washington Post - WikiLeaks and the Internet's Long War

"WikiLeaks: Julian Assange 'could face spying charges' "

2010-12-10T16:33:00.003-06:00

"Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, could soon face spying charges in the US, according to his lawyer."

"Jennifer Robinson, Mr Assange's lawyer, said that she believes US prosecutors are finalising their case and charges could be "imminent".

Were he to be charged, it is likely to be under the Espionage Act, which makes prosecutes the gathering of national defence information if it is known to have been obtained illegally and could be used to the detriment of the US. It is also illegal to fail to return information to the US government.

Speaking to ABC News, Miss Robinson said she had heard a number of rumours from "several different US lawyers", but added that she did not believe the Espionage Act applied to Assange, who is she added is currently in solitary confinement in Wandsworth prison in London."

The Telegraph - WikiLeaks: Julian Assange 'could face spying charges'

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"A lawyer for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says any prosecution of the whistleblowing website in the United States for espionage would be unconstitutional.

But Jennifer Robinson denied reports that Assange's legal team believe a US indictment over WikiLeaks' release of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables is imminent.

"Our position is that any prosecution under the espionage act would be unconstitutional and call into question First Amendment protections for all media organisations," Robinson told AFP on Friday.
Advertisement: Story continues below

She added: "We are taking legal advice on the possibility of prosecution in light of high profile public officials calling for his prosecution and rumours circulating in the US that a sealed indictment is being prepared, or may have already been prepared.

"But we do not think there are grounds for prosecution, nor have w

e seen any sensible explanation of which provisions would be relied upon.""
AFP/Sydney Morning Herald - US Assange indictment `unconstitutional'

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I wonder if media giants will be pulled into this case as intervenors? The New York Times published the documents.

This will make fascinating new law. I just hope the ideological balance on the U.S. Supreme Court has changed by the time this case makes it there.

Straight Up Pointer To A Great Blog Post On "Another Point Of View"

2010-12-10T14:47:00.003-06:00

Another Point Of View (another Progressive Blogger) has an awesome post on the security accord that the federal government is secretly negotiating with the United States - READ IT:

""The population is naïve, if not ignorant, of the (shriek!) threats from that big bad rest of the world out there."

In other words: those of us that do give a fuck about stopping the ever increasing erosions of our rights as constitutionally defined are nothing but a bunch of stupid, insouciant, utopian, fringe agitators.

Hence, that is why they lie and use fear politics to scare the majority of us into not only accepting these increasing erosions of our civil rights, this time even accepting the "new reality" that our privacy has to be surrendered to another country (who could've predicted that?), but furthermore to submit without question to their "wise" measures meant to "keep us safe"."

Another Point Of View - Welcome To Your Authoritarian Corporatocratic Security Surveillance State Of North America

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Some of my favourite outtakes from the Globe and Mail article:

"The Harper government is bracing for a backlash over a border security agreement it is negotiating with the United States, anticipating it will spark worries about eroding sovereignty and privacy rights, a document obtained by The Globe and Mail shows."

"It also provides a rare insight into how the government regards Canadians: as a nation ignorant of the true scale of the security threat it faces and more concerned with privacy rights."

"The communications strategy for the perimeter security declaration – which the document says will be unveiled in January, 2011 – predicts one of the biggest potential critics will be the federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart. That’s because the deal is expected to increase the amount of data exchanged between law enforcement and other government authorities in both countries."

"The communication strategy labels Ms. Stoddart as a “high risk” stakeholder who will “raise concerns re: information sharing and protecting private information.”"[bold mine - James]

The Globe and Mail - Ottawa crafts plan to ward off criticism over U.S. border deal

Cyberwar: "The Stuxnet Computer Worm: Harbinger of an Emerging Warfare Capability" - Congressional Research Service

2010-12-10T14:27:00.003-06:00

"The experts at the Congressional Research Service have just issued a chilling report entitled The Stuxnet Computer Worm: Harbinger of an Emerging Warfare Capability. Unfortunately, the title is a statement; there's no question mark at the end. The Stuxnet's initial target was apparently Iran's nuclear program, and it's obvious that someone, somewhere is developing insidious computer programs that could change life as we know it:

"From the perspective of many national security and technology observers, the emergence of the Stuxnet worm is the type of risk that threatens to cause harm to many activities deemed critical to the basic functioning of modern society...Depending on the severity of the attack, the interconnected nature of the affected critical infrastructure facilities, and government preparation and response plans, entities and individuals relying on these facilities could be without life sustaining or comforting services for a long period of time. The resulting damage to the nation's critical infrastructure could threaten many aspects of life, including the government's ability to safeguard national security interests.""

Time: Swampland blog - If You Think WikiLeaks Is Significant...

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"Summary

In September 2010, media reports emerged about a new form of cyber attack that appeared to target Iran, although the actual target, if any, is unknown. Through the use of thumb drives in computers that were not connected to the Internet, a malicious software program known as Stuxnet infected computer systems that were used to control the functioning of a nuclear power plant. Once inside the system, Stuxnet had the ability to degrade or destroy the software on which it operated. Although early reports focused on the impact on facilities in Iran, researchers discovered that the program had spread throughout multiple countries worldwide.

From the perspective of many national security and technology observers, the emergence of the Stuxnet worm is the type of risk that threatens to cause harm to many activities deemed critical to the basic functioning of modern society. The Stuxnet worm covertly attempts to identify and exploit equipment that controls a nation’s critical infrastructure. A successful attack by a software application such as the Stuxnet worm could result in manipulation of control system code to the point of inoperability or long-term damage. Should such an incident occur, recovery from the damage to the computer systems programmed to monitor and manage a facility and the physical equipment producing goods or services could be significantly delayed. Depending on the severity of the attack, the interconnected nature of the affected critical infrastructure facilities, and government preparation and response plans, entities and individuals relying on these facilities could be without life sustaining or comforting services for a long period of time. The resulting damage to the nation’s critical infrastructure could threaten many aspects of life, including the government’s ability to safeguard national security interests.

Iranian officials have claimed that Stuxnet caused only minor damage to its nuclear program, yet the potential impact of this type of malicious software could be far-reaching. The discovery of the Stuxnet worm has raised several issues for Congress, including the effect on national security, what the government’s response should be, whether an international treaty to curb the use of malicious software is necessary, and how such a treaty could be implemented. Congress may also consider the government’s role in protecting critical infrastructure and whether new authorities may be required for oversight.

This report will be updated as events warrant."

Congressional Research Service - The Stuxnet Computer Worm: Harbinger of an Emerging Warfare Capability (.pdf file)

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Funny how computer attacks and cyber warfare have moved up the media food chain...

Here's some more of the text of the actual report:

"ICS Vulnerabilities and Critical Infrastructure

Vulnerabilities in industrial control systems have long been an issue of concern to both the security and technology communities.36 Modern critical infrastructure facilities rely on computer hardware and software continuously to monitor and control equipment that supports numerous industrial processes, including nuclear plant management, electrical power generation, water distribution and waste control, oil and gas refinement, chemical production, and transportation management. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) categorizes 18 critical infrastructure sectors as “essential to the nation’s security, public health and safety, economic vitality, and way of life.”37 The advent of the Stuxnet virus has raised questions on the vulnerabilities of national critical infrastructure. In the absence of specific information on the full impact of Stuxnet, one can speculate that all these sectors may be at risk.

Many observers fear that a successful infiltration and attack could degrade or stop the operation of a critical infrastructure facility that delivers water, gas, or other essential utility, or affect multiple facilities due to the interdependent nature of the nation’s infrastructure sectors responsible for providing essential services. Sean McGurk, the Department of Homeland Security’s Acting Director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center stated during a November 2010 hearing, “We have not seen this coordinated effort of information technology vulnerabilities and industrial control exploitation completely wrapped up in one unique package. To use a very overused term, it is a game-changer.”38 Unclassified reports suggest that the Stuxnet worm was specifically developed to seek out and exploit vulnerabilities in software that manages ICSs found in most critical infrastructure facilities. One type of ICS, a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system,39 is a computer that controls industrial processes and infrastructures. SCADA systems can be accessed and managed directly at computer terminals, either from remote locations that are connected to the control system, or through the emerging trend of controlling these systems from mobile wireless devices.

In 2009, DHS conducted an experiment that revealed some of the vulnerabilities to cyber attack inherent in the SCADA systems that control power generators and grids. The experiment, known as the Aurora Project, simulated a computer-based attack on a power generator’s control system that caused operations to cease.40 The same vulnerabilities are said to exist in other critical infrastructure, which, if disabled, could both cripple the economy and have physical consequences; an electrical blackout for a prolonged period of time could potentially lead to loss of life if essential services were not restored."

Does everyone remember that "smart grid" technology that is ever so green and energy saving? Looks like I will have to dust off some of my articles about the security and privacy vulnerabilities of the "smart grid".

(I still support the implementation of the "smart grid" even with the potential problems)

How about the "smart home"? You know, the one where you can turn on your oven from a web page at work? Remember those ads?

Just sayin'...

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: Looks Like It Was Just A Skirmish; Attacks Being Wound Down?; My Inner Anarchist Is Sad...

2010-12-10T12:11:00.002-06:00

"A young British hacker behind the online vigilante Operation: Payback says they’ve made their point and have called off their disruption of MasterCard, Visa and Amazon sites.

Jamming MasterCard.com and threatening to shut down Amazon.com “brought notoriety to the case,” the anonymous hacker who uses the name Coldblood told the BBC. “It makes it less easy for the government to do this to future sites.”

Meanwhile, the “Internet gathering” called Anonymous that is behind Operation: Payback will keep slowing down the online payment system PayPal and is considering a new tactic, the group said in a news release on Friday."

TheStar - WikiLeaks says it would be ‘in bad taste’ to take down Amazon

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ANON OPS: A Press Release December 10, 2010

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"Web attacks carried out in support of Wikileaks are being wound down as activists consider changing tactics."

"At the same time one wing of the activist group suggested ditching the attacks and doing more to publicise what is in the leaked cables."

"The attacks have been carried out using a tool, called LOIC, that allows people to bombard a site of their choosing with data or let the target be chosen by those running the Anonymous campaign.

The tool launches what is known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack which tries to knock a website offline by bombarding it with so much data that it cannot respond.

The LOIC tool has been downloaded more than 46,000 times but, said Anonymous activists in a tweet, this did not translate into enough people using it to knock the retail giant off the web.

Instead, the attack was re-directed towards Paypal and its computer systems which, according to a status page, has intermittently suffered "performance issues" ever since."

"The chances of success could be boosted by a new version of LOIC written in web programming language Javascript that allows anyone with a browser, including on a mobile phone, to launch attacks.

However, defences against the attacks were being drawn up as security firms scrutinise the code behind LOIC to work out how attacks happen. Some suggest that well-written firewall rules would be able to filter out most of the harmful traffic."

BBC - Anonymous Wikileaks supporters mull change in tactics

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Long rambling personal ideological statement warning (you may desire to not read this section):

Having spent a decade wandering around the social sciences at university, I can point to plenty of historical precedence for short lived uprisings that presaged a larger event.

And while I am in no way advocating illegal activity (c.f. job [real world], CSIS visits, police watch lists), mass protest is a time honoured tradition when normal avenues to effect change fail. At this, the attacks by anonymous appear to have made a point. There are also a whole lot of people who have been made aware that they can join in, and new tools to make it easier have been developed.

I think we can point to LOIC as a cyber version of the Molotov cocktail, though likely without its staying power...

My general support of transparency and accountability is still present. My suspicion of the oligarchs that run our planet is still deep and abiding. It is my belief that over the last 30 years (starting with the Thatcher/Reagan/Mulroney era) our liberty and freedom has been eroded - political and economic freedom. The changes wrought on the world - led by the war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - after the World Trade Centre attacks (9/11) have been tilted strongly toward authoritarian control. The pseudo-religious/theocratic right wing has used the opportunity to reshape the world and strengthen the hold of the oligarchs/plutocrats by exploiting fear.

While I am not part of the attacks, and won't be (at minimum prudence [and a lot of knowledge about tracking people who attack my servers {i've been on the receiving end of Denial Of Service attacks}] prevents me from participation, as well as moral and ethical questions about "attacking"), I am well informed of and have observed the culture of anonymous for some time. I have supported and provided moderating advice over the years to some elements of (the often quite young and overenthusiastic/simplistic) anonymous (no, i don't know their identities... they're f*ing anonymous...) on how to safeguard, expose, and distribute information on some of their targets - paedophiles, white supremacists, other large aggressive entities (that won't be named because they target critics).

I disagree with much of the tasteless "wilding" and internet pranks and vandalism of anonymous - why I described them as "relatively vile" in past posts. I have watched anonymous mature as many of their leading voices have left their teen years behind.

These young people ("oh, how i wish i could be in their number...") are harbingers of a new way of thinking and a new way of organising our society. Since my early involvement with the early internet (and the species it killed - "online services") starting over 20 years ago and with free software and open source projects, I have observed the changes that the culture of the internet has infused into our society. The internet is the largest and longest lived functioning (sort of) political anarchy in human history. The methods of organisation that have grown organically from the non-hierarchical structure of the internet have found their way into the real world. Marshall McLuhan's phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village" have certainly come to life in the internet. The medium, technology, and structure of the internet - with few central controls - has shaped how it allows organisation. That structure is anarchy. Because humans are naturally industrious, we find ways to work with pretty much anything. And so people found ways to use and build within the context of the structure of the internet. Organic growth from the nutrient medium of information and free sharing.

As a non-doctrinaire anarcho-collectivist with strong Rochdalian cooperativist leanings, I am well disposed to some of the principles advocated by anonymous.

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of meat and mineral, we are from the Internet. The new home of social consciousness. On behalf of the future of this culture, I ask you of the obsolete past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we ever likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks; anonymity [I do not agree that liberty speaks with greatest authority when anonymous - far from it - liberty is exercised by the anonymous when those with power seek to suppress liberty and freedom - liberty by definition should allow open, not anonymous, voices - James]. I declare the global social space we are building together to be naturally independent of the tyrannies and injustices you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any real methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their judicial powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. The rapid growth of government censorship of the Web has not escaped our notice. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim to further impose unjust restrictions on our civil freedoms and rights. We cannot allow this. We consider this your formal warning, that if you continue to impose unjust control on us, you will meet with disaster." [anonymous]

As a tech and science fiction weenie, i am also well disposed toward the "borg" like/derived end statements (but for humour reasons):

"We are anonymous, we are legion,

We do not forgive, and we do not forget.

Expect us."

As a former Dungeons and Dragons weenie, I am also tickled by news reports of their self-description of being "chaotic good", but these two instances (among others), I think may just reflect a high degree of nerdishness in myself...

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Appendix comments:

Anarchy:

"Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that inherent human nature would allow people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behaviour. The rise of anarchism as a philosophical movement occurred in the mid 19th century, with its idea of freedom as being based upon political and economic self-rule. This occurred alongside the rise of the nation-state and large-scale industrial state capitalism or state-sponsored corporatism, and the political corruption that came with their successes.

Although anarchists share a rejection of the state, they differ about economic arrangements and possible rules that would prevail in a stateless society, ranging from no ownership, to complete common ownership, to supporters of private property and capitalist free market competition. For example, some forms of anarchism, such as that of anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism not only seek rejection of the state, but also other systems which they perceive as authoritarian, which include capitalism, capitalist markets, and title-based property ownership. In opposition, a political philosophy known as free-market anarchism, contemporary individualist anarchism or anarcho-capitalism, argues that a society without a state is a free market capitalist system that is voluntarist in nature.

The word "anarchy" is often used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. However, anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply nihilism, anomie, or the total absence of rules, but rather an anti-statist society that is based on the spontaneous order of free individuals in autonomous communities." - [wikipedia]

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Rochdale Principles:

Original version (adopted 1937)

1. Open membership.
2. Democratic control (one person, one vote).
3. Distribution of surplus in proportion to trade.
4. Payment of limited interest on capital.
5. Political and religious neutrality.
6. Cash trading (no credit extended).
7. Promotion of education.

ICA revision (1966)

1. Open, voluntary membership.
2. Democratic governance.
3. Limited return on equity.
4. Surplus belongs to members.
5. Education of members and public in cooperative principles.
6. Cooperation between cooperatives.
7. Concern for community

[Wikipedia]

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Collectivist anarchism:

"Collectivist anarchism (also known as anarcho-collectivism) is a revolutionary[1] doctrine that advocates the abolition of the state and private ownership of the means of production. Instead, it envisions the means of production being owned collectively and controlled and managed by the producers themselves.

For the collectivization of the means of production, it was originally envisaged that workers will revolt and forcibly collectivize the means of production[1] Once collectivization takes place, workers' salaries would be determined in democratic organizations based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase goods in a communal market.[2] This contrasts with anarcho-communism where wages would be abolished, and where individuals would take freely from a storehouse of goods "to each according to his need." Thus, Bakunin's "Collectivist Anarchism," notwithstanding the title, is seen as a blend of individualism and collectivism.[3]

Collectivist anarchism is most commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin, the anti-authoritarian sections of the First International, and the early Spanish anarchist movement." [wikipedia]

For the record, I am not in favour of the total abolition of private ownership. I firmly believe that owner operated/controlled activity is essential to the functioning of even a utopian anarcho-collectivist society - you can't change human nature - people want to secure themselves and their families. The question is: Do you allow people to transmit so much wealth and power that it permanently skews power to those families?

I also believe that personal reward and "ownership" is a substantial and good reward to those who work harder and better. Just as their are differing levels of ability and differing levels of motivation to work - so there should also be a differential set of rewards. But those rewards should not just automatically accrue to the progeny of those who work hard - additional reward should go to those who actually produce more. I consider the ability of collectives to set their own internal reward structure based on their own independent organisational structure to be consistent with principles of anarco-collectivism.

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End of ramble

The revolution may be aborted for now, but the developments of this time will send shockwaves through the world for some time.

Hope is not dead.

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: "Pro-WikiLeaks cyber army gains strength; thousands join DDoS attacks"

2010-12-09T17:08:00.003-06:00

"Volunteers download attack tool, organizers recruit hacker botnets, say researchers"

"Computerworld - The retaliatory attacks by pro-WikiLeaks activists are growing in strength as hackers add botnets and thousands of people download an open-source attack tool, security researchers said today.

In recent days, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have been launched against several sites, including those belonging to Amazon, MasterCard, PayPal and the Swiss payment transaction firm PostFinance, after each terminated WikiLeaks accounts or pulled the plug on services."

"Most of those participating in the attacks are using the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) DDoS tool, said researchers with Imperva and Sophos.

The open-source tool, which is sometimes classified as a legitimate network- and firewall-stress testing utility, is being downloaded at the rate of about 1,000 copies per hour, said Tal Be'ery, the Web research team lead at Imperva's Application Defense Center.

"Downloads have soared in the last two days," said Be'ery in an interview. As of 4 p.m. ET, more than 44,000 copies of LOIC had been downloaded from GitHub.

LOIC has become the DDoS tool of choice in the pro-WikiLeaks attacks because users can synchronize their copies with a master command-and-control server, which then coordinates and amplifies the attacks.

"If I download [LOIC] and voluntarily set the server information, the command-and-control server can control my copy of LOIC," said Be'ery. "The command-and-control server can then sync the attack, which makes it much more powerful because the DDoS attacks are occurring at the same time and hitting the same target."

"In a new step in the campaigns, botnets -- armies of already-compromised computers that hackers control remotely -- are now being recruited for the DDoS attacks, said Beth Jones, a senior threat researcher with Sophos. "Until now, the attacks have been done by volunteers who download LOIC," said Jones. "But now more groups are joining in with their botnets."

Be'ery said that Imperva had seen IRC chatter of at least one 100,000-PC botnet being thrown into the attacks.

"Operators of these attacks have repeatedly asked on IRC if someone can donate botnets," said Be'ery. "It looks like they feel the need for some more horsepower."

The fact that the organizers of Operation Payback are soliciting more firepower is a clue that they're not able to match the defenses erected by the sites they've targeted, said Be'ery. "They're having a bit of a problem. PayPal and others are doing good work to keep their sites alive, so they're after more machines and telling people [participating in the DDoS attacks] to do what they're told and focus on the targeted sites.""

""What's really surprising is that so many people are willing to put themselves on the line legally," she said, pointing out that using a tool like LOIC to attack a site is illegal in most jurisdictions, including the United States.

"A more firm legal response may be helpful," Be'ery agreed. "I'm not even sure that everyone understands that what they're doing is illegal."

On Wednesday, Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old in The Hague for allegedly participating in the attacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. The teen is to be arraigned in Rotterdam on Friday.

"The penny will drop when some of these guys are arrested," predicted Be'ery." [blod mine - James]

ComputerWorld - Pro-WikiLeaks cyber army gains strength; thousands join DDoS attacks

Please do a click through on the above link to give them an ad hit - I have excerpted a large chunk of their article

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"IDG News Service - Dutch authorities arrested a 16-year-old boy on Wednesday in relation to the cyberattacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, which were aimed at punishing those companies for cutting off services to WikiLeaks.

The boy was arrested in The Hague, and he will be arraigned before a judge on Friday in Rotterdam, according to a press release from the Netherlands' Public Prosecution Service. The boy, whose computer equipment was seized, has allegedly confessed to taking part in the attacks.

The Public Prosecution Service said he is likely part of a larger group of hackers.

The arrest follows a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks aimed at websites that have been critical of WikiLeaks, which has been releasing portions of 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables since late last month. The attacks seek to overwhelm websites and services by sending streams of meaningless traffic.

Part of the attacks originated in the Netherlands and the main site coordinating the attacks, anonops.net, was hosted in a Dutch data center in Haarlem. The site is down since police actions Wednesday."

ComputerWorld - Dutch arrest 16-year-old related to WikiLeaks attacks

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Is this what a revolution feels like? Is this a revolution?

Is this the founding of a semi-independent online nation?

That's what anonymous wants. I wonder if the monarchies of France and England felt like the oligarchs that run the world right now when faced with the French Revolution and the American Revolution?

Were they as disdainful of the "peons" rising up? Were they just as sure that they could just crack down and everyone would fall back into line?

The internet is the largest and longest lived political anarchy in the history of humankind.

It has already changed our political and corporate governance structures in "meatspace". But is this rebellion the beginning of "self-awareness" of an online nation?

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: Corporate Censorship

2010-12-09T14:09:00.003-06:00

""The private sector can do things and get away with things that would be unconstitutional if done by the government," said Lawrence Soley, a Marquette University professor of communications. "I believe that corporate censorship is as much, if not more, of a danger to free speech than the government," he said."

""None of those companies want to be singled out for helping undermine American national security," said Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington, an organization that aims to promote democratic expression and human rights on the Internet. "It shows a lack of independence and an attempt to curry favor."

Some are calling it corporate censorship, and comments from PayPal and a software provider added to concerns about the role played by Washington.

Companies such as credit card providers and Amazon are not obliged to provide services beyond the terms of their WikiLeaks contract, legal experts say. While contract terms are private, experts said the companies were likely well within their rights."

"Legal specialists voiced concerns about the government's ability to lean on companies such as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which handle the bulk of donations to an Internet-based operation such as WikiLeaks.

"Government censorship by a wink or raised eyebrow can be as serious as outright prohibitions. Particularly where a critical facility is at issue," said Diane Zimmerman, a professor at New York University School of Law.

But Zimmerman and others questioned whether a request, even if from the White House, amounted to censorship if it is not backed by a threat.

Chester, of the Center for Digital Democracy, said the risks of angering Washington can be high. Companies often need regulatory approval for mergers and laws regarding privacy, online advertising, sales tax and Internet access can have a big effect on the companies.

"Government censorship is still worse because the government has the ability to criminally prosecute you and take away your freedom," said David Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tennessee. "The looming issue is whether there is any push to prosecute (WikiLeaks) under the Espionage Act. That is the million-dollar question.""

Reuters - WikiLeaks shows reach and limits of Internet speech

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This is the way it is. We all know that media outlets can refuse to run ads and refuse to cover events. That's how the system is rigged. That is why the internet is such an important free space. And that is why the oligarchs are responding the way they are.

Arrests are already being made against participants in anonymous' efforts. Denial of Service attacks are still illegal.

I suspect throwing tea in the harbour in Boston was illegal as well.

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: Weapons Of War: LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) network stress testing application

2010-12-09T10:09:00.000-06:00

"LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) is a network stress testing application, written in C# and developed by "praetox". It attempts a denial-of-service attack on the target site by flooding the server with TCP packets, UDP packets, or HTTP requests with the intention of disrupting the service of a particular host. The program was exploited during Project Chanology to attack Scientology websites, and is currently being used by Operation Avenge Assange (Organized by Operation Payback) to attack the websites of companies and organizations that have opposed WikiLeaks."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOIC

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This is the weapon used and where people get it from. for your information only. this post in no way encourages anyone to use this program for any illegal or unethical purpose. in fact i strongly urge you to act with restraint, respect for law, morality, and decency in your heart, just like "W" the last President of the United States when he ordered the U.S. to kidnap and imprison people and torture prisoners [some of whom were wholly innocent].

i would also like to point out that using this software to attack anyone, even as part of a mass protest is wholly illegal in most jurisdictions and that arrests have already been made against participants in the DDOS attacks. using this software could result in your arrest. the sites being attacked keep logfiles of all connection attempts. there will be a record of your ip address somewhere and eventually the oligarchs will find you

this is a real live warning. understand there is no wink or nudge involved with my warning

https://github.com/NewEraCracker/LOIC

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[later edit December 10, 2010]

"Numerous people have downloaded -- and are apparently using -- the software. By Thursday, "for the server-controlled version, there have been already 33,000 downloads at a rate of more than 1,000 downloads per hour," said Rob Rachwald, director of security strategy at Imperva. By Friday, the manual version of the malware had been downloaded 50,000 times.

Thinking of enlisting? "Stay well away," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. He said that laws in the United Kingdom punish such attacks with up to 10 years in prison, while Sweden and the United States have similar laws on the books.

To that list, add the Netherlands. On Thursday, Dutch police officers arrested a teenager in The Hague. They said he admitted to participating in pro-WikiLeaks attacks against the MasterCard and Visa Web sites.

As that suggests, attacks can be traced back. "Many people believe that privacy on the Internet can be somewhat protected, but beware, the source IP addresses of attackers, which will inevitably end up in the target's Web site log files, can easily be matched with user's accounts if ISPs decide to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies," said SophosLabs' Svajcer."[bold mine - James]
Information Week - WikiLeaks Supporters Download Botnet Toolkit 50,000 Times
"Security experts warn those considering joining the pro-WikiLeaks army that it's very easy to trace those who participate in the illegal denial of service attacks."

WikiLeaks Cyberwar: A Message From Anonymous

2010-12-09T09:43:00.001-06:00

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of meat and mineral, we are from the Internet. The new home of social consciousness. On behalf of the future of this culture, I ask you of the obsolete past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we ever likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks; anonymity. I declare the global social space we are building together to be naturally independent of the tyrannies and injustices you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any real methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their judicial powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. The rapid growth of government censorship of the Web has not escaped our notice. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim to further impose unjust restrictions on our civil freedoms and rights. We cannot allow this. We consider this your formal warning, that if you continue to impose unjust control on us, you will meet with disaster.

We are anonymous, we are legion,

We do not forgive, and we do not forget.

Expect us."

- Anonymous - text of above video

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"Operation Payback (is a bitch), this is the Internet, we run this. An open message from Anonymous to the governments of the world and their legal leeches regarding the motivation of the cyber protests.

Corrupt governments of the world, we are anonymous. For some time now, voices have been crying out in unison against the new ACTA laws. The gross inadequacies of the new laws being passed internationally have been pointed out repeatedly. Our chief complaint is that such measures would restrict people's access to the internet.

In these modern times access to the internet is fast becoming a basic human right. Just like any other basic human right, we believe that it is wrong to infringe upon it. To threaten to cut people off from the global consciousness as you have is criminal and abhorrent. To move to censor content on the internet based on your own prejudice is at best laughably impossible, at worst, morally reprehensible.

The unjust restrictions you impose on us will meet with disaster and only strengthen our resolve to disobey and rebel against your tyranny. Such actions taken against you, and those you out source your malignant litigation too, are inevitable, unavoidable and unstoppable.

We Are Anonymous,

We Are Legion And Divided By Zero.

We Do Not Forgive Internet Censorship

And We Do Not Forget Free Speech.

We Are Over 9000,

Expect Us!"

- Anonymous - text of above video

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Is this what a manifesto looks like in the modern world?

Wikileaks Cyberwar: VISA Online Gets Smoked Off By Anonymous

2010-12-08T16:03:00.004-06:00

"Sky News Online was redirected to the search engine Bing when it tried to access Visa.

Anon_Operation had given an hour's notice that it would take down the Visa website as part of Operation Payback, a campaign against companies that have withdrawn services from the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

It urged supporters to "get your weapons ready" then "FIRE FIRE FIRE!!!"

SkyNews - Hacktivists Attack Visa Website

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FP Tech Desk: Hackers supporting WikiLeaks target Visa

"(update 5:04pm EST the Visa.com website has now been offline for more than one hour)

(update 4:31pm EST the Operation Payback Facebook page has just been removed by Facebook)

(update 4:14pm EST the Canadian Visa.ca address appears to be working while the main Visa.com address remains offline)

(update 4:04pm EST the Visa website – both the .com domain and the Canadian .ca address – are fully inaccessible. A DDoS attack appears to be underway, as promised)

After successfully taking down the MasterCard website Wednesday morning on behalf of WikiLeaks, the same group of hackers brought down the Visa website on Wednesday afternoon."

----

"Updated | 5:11 p.m. A group of Internet activists took credit for crashing the Visa.com Web site on Wednesday afternoon, hours after they launched a similar attack on MasterCard. The cyber attacks, by activists who call themselves Anonymous, are aimed at punishing companies that have acted to stop the flow of donations to WikiLeaks in recent days.

The group explained that its distributed denial of service attacks — in which they essentially flood Web sites site with traffic to slow them down or knock them offline — were part of a broader effort called Operation Payback, which began as a way of punishing companies that attempted to stop Internet file-sharing and movie downloads.

Visa’s Web site went offline minutes after the attack began and has not yet returned to service, an hour later.

On Twitter, the activists behind Operation Payback celebrated the apparent success of their attack on Visa’s Web site, writing: “IT’S DOWN! KEEP FIRING!!! #DDOS #PAYBACK #WIKILEAKS.”
New York Times - ‘Operation Payback’ Attacks Move on to Visa

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I wonder how the oligarchs that run our planet are going to react to someone f*ing with their financial system?

The Second Cyberwar Has Begun: WikiLeaks, Anonymous, The Intertubes...

2010-12-08T12:50:00.006-06:00

I previously wrote about Stuxnet the computer virus that appears to have been targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. Stuxnet is significant because it reached from computer hacking and information warfare into the control systems of the nuclear facilities with the ability to make things like the high speed centrifuges explode by modulating their rotational speed.

I am now going to describe WikiLeaks as the second cyberwar. WikiLeaks is an information war, but it has begun to reach out to the real world. PayPal, MasterCard, Amazon, and various banks and hosting companies have taken action against WikiLeaks after being contacted by the U.S. state department. Julian Assange has been targeted and arrested.

And now the net has begun to retaliate. This will be very interesting. This is in essence an internet insurgency. People from around the world are beginning cyber attacks against the entities that have taken action against WikiLeaks.

The beginning of those counter-attacks is by a relatively vile hive mind - anonymous. It's a group that can't be stopped. They live on the internet. Anonymous is a strange group. They publish and say and do awful things on the net. They "raid" and vandalise other websites. Yet they also go after white supremacists and paedophiles. They have been known to do random nice things like organise mass birthday card mailings to lonely old folks.

"As one reporter for The Independent puts it, "Angry, porn-obsessed adolescents they might be, but they’re angry, obsessed adolescents with significant technological firepower—and a grudge." It's a bit troubling, frankly." [The Economist]

----

"Knowledge is free.

We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us."

- anonymous speaking to its targets (see scientology videos below)

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"Anonymous is a cultural phenomenon which began on internet image boards. Many such boards require no registration for posting, and every poster remains anonymous. This format of communication is inherently noisy and chaotic. However, the unprecedented openness made possible by such boards has nurtured the appearance of a unique and persistent culture.

We are a collection of individuals united by ideas. You likely know Anonymous, although you don't know exactly who we are. We are your brothers and sisters, your parents and children, your superiors and your underlings. We are the concerned citizens standing next to you. Anonymous is everywhere, yet nowhere. Our strength lies in our numbers. Our will as a whole is the combined will of individuals. Our greatest advantage is a knowledge of the fundamentals we share as human beings. This knowledge is a fruit of our anonymity.

Anonymous has left its mark on society more than once. Previous Anonymous projects have resulted in the closing of the white-supremacist radio show produced by Hal Turner, and the criminal prosecution of Canadian paedophile Chris Forcand. Anonymous has been called a "Cyber Vigilante Group" by The Toronto Sun and Global News, though in reality we are much more than that.

We are Anonymous. You can be Anonymous, too. Together, we can shape society."

Why We Protest - Who is Anonymous?

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"[Anonymous is] the first internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're travelling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely.

—Landers, Chris, Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008" [wikipedia]

----

Anonymous took on scientology:

----

"One area where I disagree with him is in his insistence that all a denial-of-service attack can do is register protest. When you take down the website of a PostFinance or MasterCard, as Anonymous has done in the past, it does more than simply show disapproval, it affects business. This is the future of activism, and it is both empowering and scary. A group like Anonymous isn't really trying to impose anarchy as much as it's trying to impose the will of its members (or whichever members are active at a certain time). As it fights for freedom on the internet, it constricts the net itself, by taking down websites and halting e-commerce. And we have no idea who these people are. As one reporter for The Independent puts it, "Angry, porn-obsessed adolescents they might be, but they’re angry, obsessed adolescents with significant technological firepower—and a grudge." It's a bit troubling, frankly."

The Economist - Anonymous and cyber protest: Talking with Anonymous

----

The Tech Herald - Cablegate: Anonymous says the Internet will not be censored

AFP - Hackers target Mastercard website in WikiLeaks war

The Guardian - WikiLeaks: Who are the hackers behind Operation Payback?
(the Guardian story contains at least one serious error in regard to anonymous. it describes anonymous as being about 1000 members. WRONG. tens of thousands have participated. estimates go into the 100s of thousands of "followers". there may be about 1000 anonymous [i don't know - no one does] involved in that DDOS attack [best estimates i've seen is that there are about 4000 involved in the current PayPal/VISA DDOS events], but there is a larger membership which has participated in major actions like the project against scientology. something in the order of 10,000 people physically came out to protest against scientology in addition to their online actions - James)

Huffington Post - PayPal Admits Blocking WikiLeaks After State Department Took Action

Huffington Post - MasterCard DOWN: MasterCard.com, Swiss Bank, Lawyer's Site Hacked By WikiLeaks Supporters With DDOS Attack

ZDNet - Mastercard sites down, Anonymous claims responsibility

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First Cyberwar:

Stuxnet Nuclear Reactor Targeted Computer Virus "Game Changer" For Real World Effects Of Cyber War/Hostility/Threat

Cyber Warfare Reaches From The Net Into The Real World "Stuxnet cyber attack is as good as using explosives" On Iranian Nuclear Facilities

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Picture Credit: Texas A&M Engineering Works: Cyberwar

Bumpy Humpback Whale Flippers Inspire New Tidal Turbine Design

2010-12-06T14:33:00.003-06:00

I know this isn't about information or privacy... but it's too cool to pass up.

"Humpback whales are impressively agile swimmers—thanks in no small part to the rows of bumps, called tubercles, on the leading edges of their flippers. Tubercles generate swirling water formations, called vortices, which help the massive mammals maintain lift and delay stall, an aerodynamic phenomenon in which the flow of fluid over the top of the flipper becomes separated from the flow underneath, causing increased drag.

Previous research has shown that adding tubercle-like bumps to wind turbine blades could make the blades better able to harvest energy, especially at low speeds. Engineers have already applied the principle to industrial fans and continue to develop whale-inspired wind turbine technology. Now, researchers at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) have shown that adding bumps to underwater tidal turbines also improves their performance, too. In a laboratory experiment, the results of which they presented November 22 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, bumpy turbines produced significantly more energy at low speeds, when compared to a standard turbine with smooth-edged blades.

Ocean tides represent a large potential source of renewable, nonpolluting energy. But the tidal power industry has been slow to emerge, in large part due to technical challenges. One important obstacle facing engineers is the difficulty of designing turbines that do not stall in slow-moving water."

Bumpy humpback flippers inspire new tidal turbine design

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 'will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested'"

2010-12-06T09:46:00.004-06:00

"The founder of WikiLeaks has warned that his supporters are primed to publish a 'deluge' of leaked government documents should his activities be curtailed by any country.

Julian Assange has distributed to fellow hackers an encrypted 'poison pill' of damaging secrets, thought to include details on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

He believes the file is his 'insurance' in case he is killed, arrested or the whistleblowing website is removed permanently from the internet.

Mr Assange - understood to be lying low in Britain - could be arrested by Scotland Yard officers as early as tomorrow."

"Mr Assange's British lawyer, Mark Stephens, warned today that WikiLeaks was holding further secret material which he dubbed a 'thermo-nuclear device' to be released if the organisation needed to protect itself."

"This is what they believe to be a thermo-nuclear device in the information age.

'It's interesting to note people as high up the American tree as Sarah Palin have called for him to be hunted down by American special forces and assassinated.

'We've seen a number of suggestions that he should be assassinated, again from credible sources around the world.

'This is all about a man who is a journalist. He received, unbidden, an electronic brown envelope that journalists receive.

'This particular journalist has put it out. What they are doing is criminalising him, criminalising journalistic activity.'"

"The 'doomsday files' which have been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters are understood to include information on Guantanamo Bay, and aerial video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians, BP reports and Bank of America documents."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange 'will release poison pill of damaging secrets if killed or arrested'

----

"What they are doing is criminalising him, criminalising journalistic activity."

I think this is the most important line in the entire post.

You will all be familiar with the term "liable chill". That is when journalists and newspapers become reticent to publish articles damaging to the rich and powerful because they will get sued - whether successfully or not - and the cost of the defense becomes a factor in the choice of whether to publish or not.

Assassination threats are the ultimate form of liable chill...

I will quote in entirety a piece (I assume it is a letter to the editor) on the Calgary Herald's website (do a click through so they get an ad view, please):

"Re: "Professor won't face discipline for remarks," Dec. 3.

The citizens of our liberal democracy should be alarmed at the reaction against WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

From condemnation to suggestions of assassination of Assange, we have prominent political leaders to University of Calgary professors, openly calling for this man's termination.

What we are witnessing is the beginnings of Stalinist silencing. No matter how inflammatory Assange's reporting may be, it is still newsworthy and carries the right to be published in any society that market's itself to be, quote unquote, a free entity.

Let us ask ourselves the chilling question of when will people's legitimate political expression and opposition be silenced in the way that some are suggesting Assange be silenced? [bold mine - James]

Frank Koeksal,

Calgary"

Here's Where All Your Spam Comes From

2010-12-04T12:57:00.000-06:00

"According to Kapersky Labs' monthly spam report, Russia became the number one source of spam emails in October for the first time ever, more than doubling its September output. The U.S. is #18 in the global p3nis enlargement industry. Yay!"

Here's Where All Your Spam Comes From

F*ing Spammer Caught And Charged For Sending 10 BILLION Spam A Day

2010-12-03T16:54:00.003-06:00

"Milwaukee FBI agent trips up Russian 'king of spam'
Authorities say suspect behind 10 billion e-mails a day"

"Authorities say he was the king of spam, a 23-year-old Russian controlling a network of infected computers generating 10 billion unwanted e-mails a day - a third of the global spam stream - until a Milwaukee FBI agent unplugged the operation.

Now, Oleg Nikolaenko awaits a hearing in federal court in Milwaukee, where he is charged with helping cyber hucksters pitch everything from counterfeit Rolex watches to fake Viagra.

According to a federal criminal complaint, agents from the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission had been tracking Nikolaenko's activities since at least 2007. The complaint outlines how international fraud artists rely on tech-savvy spammers to annoy and defraud consumers in an enterprise that generates enormous illegal profits.

Agents tracked Nikolaenko during two visits to the United States last year, and when he returned to Las Vegas last month for a popular automotive show, he was arrested Nov. 4. He was indicted Nov. 16 on one count of violating the 2003 federal CAN-SPAM Act, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. The charges were initially not made public."

----

"Last month, Russia was the No. 1 source of spam in the world. It's probably because of Oleg Nikolaenko, a 23-year-old who was recently arrested for flooding the world with 10 billion spam emails a day.

Using a network of over 500,000 zombie computers known as the Mega-D botnet, Nikolaenko churned out 10 billion spam emails a day at the height of his operation. These advertised mostly counterfeit goods and herbal remedies--one Rolodex counterfeiter who was his client said he spent $2 million on spam advertising. But starting in 2007, the FBI began closing in on Nikolaenko. He was arrested on Nov. 4th, while in Las Vegas for a car show, and now faces a $250,000 fine and up to three years in prison."

23-Year-Old Russian Hacker Was Responsible for One-Third of Global Spam

----

At least now I know why my level of Viagra spam has been enlarged over the last month...

Wikileaks: Part of Why I'm Itchy About Database Function Creep And The "One Big Database" Approach To Government Records

2010-11-26T14:00:00.001-06:00

This story is about the wikileaks and how low level access to "secure" databases can lead to information being disseminated without controls. While I am ambivalent about some of the information wikileaks has released (specifically the names of informers in Afghanistan and such), I am actually more concerned about what these kinds of incidents mean for our collective privacy.

The anti-war guy, and anti-secrecy guy in me applauds transparency, the privacy freak in me is worried about protecting the medical databases that I am charged with protecting as part of my occupation. Technology, privacy, security, and records management are all inextricably interlinked.

"Manning claimed to have leaked 260,00 cables. But he was charged on July 5 with downloading more than 150,000, and with allegedly leaking at least 50 of them to an unauthorized third party.

The cables were widely accessible within the U.S. military under an information-sharing initiative called Net-Centric Diplomacy.

Established in the government’s post-September 11 drive to break down information barriers between agencies, Net-Centric Diplomacy makes a subset of State Department documents available on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet, the Pentagon’s global, Secret-level wide area network. SIPRnet is accessible to cleared American military service members and civilian agencies around the world."

Wired Mag - WikiLeaks Diplomatic Cable Dump Reportedly Imminent

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Once again - your privacy is at stake. Suppose someone dumped a secure police database and your name was in there as having provided eyewitness information related to a gang hit. That would probably not be good.

Suppose University registration information was released - home addresses of students (which has happened) and some guy was stalking a young woman (which has happened).

"One big database" as a goal has unintended consequences.

How Do Airport Scanners Work? Excerpts And Links To Easy To Read Explanations

2010-11-26T10:19:00.003-06:00

The above question asked on google has been worth about a quarter of all the hits on my blog according to SiteMeter.

So here is some information on how the two kinds of airport scanners work:

"Backscatter X-ray is an advanced imaging technology. Traditional X-ray machines detect hard and soft materials by the variation in transmission through the target. In contrast, backscatter X-ray detects the radiation that reflects from the target. It has potential applications where less-destructive examination is required, and can be used if only one side of the target is available for examination.

The technology is one of two types of whole body imaging technologies being used to perform full-body scans of airline passengers to detect hidden weapons, tools, liquids, narcotics, currency, and other contraband. A competing technology is millimeter wave scanner. These airport security machines are also referred to as "body scanner", "whole body imager (WBI)", and "security scanner""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray

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"The TSA has slowly been implementing the use of X-ray scanners in airports (so far, 38 airports have 206 of the machines) in order to see through passengers' clothes and check them for explosive devices. Officials have asserted that the machines are okay to use on the basis of the everyday use of X-rays in medical offices. However, a group of four UCSF professors pinpointed several important differences between the medical X-ray machines and those used in airports. They described the issues in a letter to Dr. John P. Holdren, the assistant to the president for science and technology."

"A normal X-ray image is a familiar sight—depending on the exposure, an X-rayed person typically appears only as a skeleton. This is because the X-rays used in those machines penetrate the skin and can only scatter off of the larger atoms in bones.

Unlike a medical X-ray, the TSA X-ray machines are a sci-fi fan's dream: they are lower-energy beams that can only penetrate clothing and the topmost layers of skin. This provides TSA agents with a view that would expose any explosives concealed by clothing. But according to the UCSF professors, the low-energy rays do a "Compton scatter" off tissue layers just under the skin, rather than the bone, possibly exposing some vital areas and leaving the tissues at risk of mutation."

"Because the X-rays only make it just under the skin's surface, the total volume of tissue responsible for absorbing the radiation is fairly small. The professors point out that many body parts that are particularly susceptible to cancer are just under the surface, such as breast tissue and testicles. They are also concerned with those over 65, as well as children, being exposed to the X-rays."

ars technica - FDA sidesteps safety concerns over TSA body scanners

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"A millimeter wave scanner is a whole body imaging device used for airport security screening. It is one of two common technologies of full body scanner used for body imaging; the competing technology is backscatter X-ray."

"Clothing and many other materials are translucent in some EHF (millimeter wave) radio frequency bands. This frequency range is just below the (related) sub-millimeter terahertz radiation (or "T-ray") range.

The millimeter wave is transmitted from two antennas simultaneously as they rotate around the body. The wave energy reflected back from the body or other objects on the body is used to construct a three-dimensional image, which is displayed on a remote monitor for analysis."

"Millimeter wave radiation and radio frequency radiation is not genotoxic (unlike X-rays and ultraviolet radiation), but chronic exposure to lower frequencies of microwaves in some animal studies have been correlated with accelerated development of existing tumors.

A study conducted by Boian S. Alexandrov and colleagues at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory on Terahertz radiation (which is a 1000 times higher in frequency than mm waves) in New Mexico performed mathematical models how terahertz fields interact with double-stranded DNA, showing that, even though involved forces seem to be tiny, nonlinear resonances (although much less likely to form than less-powerful common resonances) could allow terahertz waves to "unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication". Experimental verification of this simulation was not done and as the effect is frequency dependant the studies do not cover the mm wave region of the spectra were the whole body scanners operate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeter_wave_scanner

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This next article is a really good one:

"Another group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, sent a letter to the President's science and technology adviser arguing that the X-ray scanner poses a greater risk than medical X-rays and the radiation absorbed during a flight. In those two cases, the radiation is distributed evenly throughout the body, the doctors say. The radiation from the scanners, however, is embedded in the skin, resulting in a higher concentration of radiation in a given area.

Questions remain including how the X-ray scanners will affect frequent flyers (including businessmen and flight attendants who could go through security anywhere from 200 to 400 times a year), children, pregnant women and travelers with weakened immune systems. There is also a question of what could happen should a machine get stuck or fail, potentially blasting one point on a person's body with excess X-ray radiation.

The good news about scanners: Millimeter wave scanners, which are also in use at airports around the country, use very far infrared waves, waves at the opposite end of the electromagnetic spectrum from the dangerous ionizing radiation of X-ray waves. X-rays are shorter waves that can penetrate the skin and alter DNA. Millimeter waves, by contrast, are longer waves that penetrate clothes but stop at the skin. The millimeter scan is akin to a heat lamp and is considered to be far safer than X-ray scanners."

Physics Central - Airport Body Scanners: To Fear or Not to Fear?

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And finally:

PCWorld - X-Ray Body Scanner Hubbub: The Naked Truth

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Enjoy

One More Person Standing Up For Stacy Bonds After Her Horrific Strip Search

2010-11-25T14:28:00.006-06:00

"David M. Tanovich is a professor of law at the University of Windsor and academic director of the Law Enforcement Accountability Project (LEAP)."

"In R.v. Golden, the leading constitutional case on strip-searches, the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that "[w]omen and minorities in particular may have a real fear of strip searches and may experience such a search as equivalent to a sexual assault." Indeed, as Bonds puts it, "I was mentally and verbally raped."

The trial judge concluded that the only reasonable explanation for the officers' conduct was "vengeance and malice." He didn't link it to any prior event but presumably it was for Bonds' questioning the authority of the police earlier on the street. As Bonds is a black woman, there is also the lurking question of whether race and/ or gender were a factor not only in their decision to stop her on the street, but also to subsequently humiliate her. Given what we know about racism in policing and given that one of the officers was earlier temporarily demoted for assaulting and repeatedly Tasering a young woman in a cell less than a week before this incident, this is a very real likelihood."

Sourced from:

The Ottawa Citizen - What were the prosecutors thinking?

University of Windsor, Faculty of Law - What were the prosecutors thinking?

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Bravo to the Ottawa Citizen for publishing the above piece.

Please read the full editorial linked to above. The two posts have slightly different biographical notes, but are otherwise verbatim.

I post this story on my blog because privacy is about security. Knowledge is power. Privacy is about secuirty of self from intrusion and abuse at the hands of those who would use information to further their own ends without your permission.

Privacy and freedom from unwarranted state intrusion and interference are important. The police video shows what happens when constraints on those in power are not applied.

The guy I know from Chile, that I have spoken about in other posts, talked about serving in the Chilean military after the coup. He talked about how any woman on the street after curfew was fair game to be gang raped by the military patrols. How the rapes were not reported by the women because they would suffer an even worse fate if they reported the crime against them. They would be arrested for violating curfew and then be wholly in the hands of that murderous regime.

How members of his unit would be at church on Sunday with their mothers after committing barbarous acts the week prior.

He deserted the army and fled Chile.

The Stacy Bonds story tells me that it can happen here. We had martial law here in Canada during the FLQ crisis. The only party (the NDP) that voted against martial law (the NDP proposed amendments to police powers instead) was punished at the polls in the subsequent election. Remember - the entire country was under martial law - not just the parts of Ontario and Quebec that were affected by the situation.

Once again I will restate my support for police and their work. I want police to come rescue my ass when something goes wrong. I want people who can bust heads come help me out. What I don't want is police who think they are above the law, and who abuse their authority.

As I said in my post "Toronto Police Using Facial Recognition Software To Find G20 "Most Wanted""

"I want to underline my fervent support for police and their work, however, I just know far too many enforcement officers that take preserving the public order a little too far (think mass arrests of people at the G20 subsequently released with no charges)."

The following video is highly disturbing. Imagine yourself in the same situation. Imagine you just asked a police officer why they stopped you.

I post this video because I find it so disturbing. I had to force myself to watch it all the way through. I wanted to stop watching it, but continued as a personal attempt to bear witness to Stacy Bonds' ordeal. To, after the fact, stand with her. The police officers actions constitute torture. At a distance I cannot do anything but try to shed the light of truth and transparency on the indignities and assault perpetrated on Stacy Bonds.

Does This UN Resolution Mean That It Is Now OK To Execute Gays?

2010-11-25T14:01:00.002-06:00

"The United Nations has removed a plea for lesbians, gays and bisexuals not to be executed in a narrow vote.

For the last 10 years sexual orientation has been included in a list of discriminatory grounds for executions – gay rights activists say the vote to remove that listing is “dangerous and disturbing.”

The UN resolution urges countries to protect the right to life of all people, calling on them to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. Sexual orientation was previously listed as one of these forms of discrimination, alongside ethnicity, religious belief and linguistic minorities.

Others protected by the resolution were human rights defenders (like journalists, lawyers and demonstrators), street children and members of indigenous communities.

But now sexual orientation has been taken out of the list."

PinkPaper - Countries vote to accept execution of gays

(Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for this story)

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I have expressed concerns before about the use of invasive technology on populations. Once again, I remind people of the concern we should all share when the state becomes unfettered in its ability to monitor its citizenry. I have discussed what can happen to privacy with creative data mining.

Re-read my post "Project 'Gaydar': At MIT, an experiment identifies which students are gay, raising new questions about online privacy"

I quote my own commentary below:

"This is an example of the power of data mining - and new applications for the kinds of algorithms used for searching, data mining, and market research. These two researchers have used the same kind of techniques that facebook uses when its automated systems decide what ads you should see when you are logged in.

The information about whether a person is gay or not could have potentially devastating consequences for the individual. Think about what would happen if the government of Iran or another fundamentalist (like Saudi Arabia) or stridently anti-gay regime (think Uganda [Fear grows among Uganda’s gay community over death penalty draft law]) decided to keep track of its students living abroad..."

Ok, What's Next In Airport Searches?

2010-11-25T11:00:00.003-06:00

"What's Next?

With increasing privacy violations at the airport, the hot topic on many people's minds is -- where will the TSA stop?

There's been growing speculation about terrorists trying to smuggle explosives by inserting them in their rectum. A Saudi suicide bomber already smuggled a bomb in his anal cavity. A terrorist, in theory could smuggle a bomb onto a plane in their anal cavity and then remove it and detonate it.

Current generation scanners are likely not capable of detecting low-density explosives inside the anal cavity.

If such an attack is attempted, the TSA may have to opt for even greater "enhancements" to its already intimate screening protocol.

And in reality there's probably plenty of vulnerabilities that haven't been thought of. What is clear is that the public likely faces a choice between continuing to give up their freedoms or drawing a hard line now and resisting the current protocols."

DailyTech - TSA Defends Its Right to Pat Downs, Nude Scans in Light of Protests

"For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing'"

2010-11-25T09:53:00.004-06:00

"The TSA's latest efforts to increase airport security include 'enhanced' pat-downs that have been criticized as invasive. Rape counselors advise that victims know their rights to protect themselves."

"As the outcry grows against the new security screenings at US airports, one population may face a special burden at TSA checkpoints: victims of rape or sexual assault who are now confronted with a procedure that they feel explicitly strips them of control over their bodies.

The experience “can be extremely re-traumatizing to someone who has already experienced an invasion of their privacy and their body,” says Amy Menna, a counselor and professor at the University of South Florida who has a decade’s experience researching and treating rape survivors.

Nationwide, an estimated 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, according to a consensus of figures compiled by the Department of Justice, FBI, and Centers for Disease control. About a quarter of a million people each year report a sexual assault.

Dr. Menna recommends that people know their rights so that they can avoid the sense of powerlessness when going through a security check"

Christian Science Monitor - For sexual crime victims, TSA pat-downs can be 're-traumatizing'

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1 in 6, and 1 in 33 people have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape.

And the U.S. government is allowing aggressive groping searches.

Sensitive governance...

Some interesting 2009 Internet Statistics

2010-11-24T14:28:00.000-06:00

Learn them now, impress your friends with your tech and intertubes savvy coffee conversation.

"Email

* 90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
* 247 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
* 1.4 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
* 100 million – New email users since the year before.
* 81% – The percentage of emails that were spam.
* 92% – Peak spam levels late in the year.
* 24% – Increase in spam since last year.
* 200 billion – The number of spam emails per day (assuming 81% are spam)"

Royal Pingdom - Internet 2009 in numbers

MotorTrend Trashes Limbaugh: "Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don’t mix"

2010-11-24T13:25:00.003-06:00

"You said, “Folks, of all the cars, no offense, General Motors, please, but of all the cars in the world, the Chevrolet Volt is the Car of the Year? Motor Trend magazine, that’s the end of them. How in the world do they have any credibility? Not one has been sold. The Volt is the Car of the Year.”

So, Mr. Limbaugh; you didn’t enjoy your drive of our 2011 Car of the Year, the Chevrolet Volt? Assuming you’ve been anywhere near the biggest automotive technological breakthrough since … I don’t know, maybe the self-starter, could you even find your way to the front seat? Or are you happy attacking a car that you’ve never even seen in person?"

"Back to us for a moment, our credibility, Mr. Limbaugh, comes from actually driving and testing the car, and understanding its advanced technology. It comes from driving and testing virtually every new car sold, and from doing this once a year with all the all-new or significantly improved models all at the same time. We test, make judgments and write about things we understand."

MotorTrend - Rush to Judgment

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MotorTrend makes some really good points in its post which I urge you to take a full read of. The post speaks for itself. It's a fun read.

Wired: "Retinal Implant Restores Vision in Blind Mice"

2010-11-24T09:10:00.003-06:00

"A new type of prosthetic eye may someday allow blind people to seamlessly see the broad sweep of an ocean or the dimples in a baby’s face. The approach, presented Nov. 13 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may benefit the estimated 25 million people worldwide who have lost sight due to retinal diseases.

“This is a spectacular example of what we all hoped to be able to do,” said Jonathan Victor, a computational-systems neuroscientist who was not involved in the new work. “It’s a solution to an abstract problem” that could be useful in many kinds of systems.

Sheila Nirenberg and Chethan Pandarinath, both of Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, tested their new retinal prosthetic in blind mice and found that it allowed the mice to see a baby’s face.

Current prosthetics are limited to reproducing simple features, such as bright spots or edges, but miss much of a scene. Many scientists are intent on boosting the retinal prosthetics’ power, so that the message from the artificial eye to the brain is stronger. But Nirenberg’s work suggests that a second, underappreciated area is also important: the pattern of cell activity in the retina, something she called “a big problem lurking in the background."

Wired - Retinal Implant Restores Vision in Blind Mice

It's not really privacy, but it is technology, and visualisation related. The technology and research involved in understanding how people see will eventually find its way into facial recognition heuristics and related technologies, so this has implications for all those closed circuit TV cameras mounted around all those cities.

It also puts us one step closer to implanted chips that can talk to peoples brains and sensory receptor cells.

Help blind people = good. Help dictatorships spy on their people = bad. Two potential sides to one technology.

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Picture credit: clipart.com

"TSA Chief Apologizes to Airline Passenger Soaked in Urine After Pat-Down" (bladder cancer survivor, urostomy bag)

2010-11-23T14:59:00.003-06:00

An airline passenger outfitted with a urine bag for medical reasons had to sit through his flight soaked in urine after a TSA agent dislodged his bag during an aggressive security pat-down. Nearly a month later, he finally received an apology from TSA chief John Pistole.

Tom Sawyer, who wears a urostomy bag as a result of a bout with bladder cancer, explained his medical condition to a TSA agent at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Nov. 7 after agents noticed something under his shirt during an X-ray scan of his body. When agents told him he’d have to undergo a pat-down, Sawyer asked for it to be conducted in a private room, to which the agent complied.

But Sawyer says the agent showed little sensitivity or patience in conducting the pat-down and, as a result, dislodged the cap on the urostomy bag, releasing urine onto his clothes and body. The agent offered no apology or even acknowledgment of what he’d done, and Sawyer was reduced to tears as he dealt with the humiliation of having to face other passengers in his condition. With no time to change clothes before his flight, Sawyer was forced to endure the journey to Florida in urine-soaked clothes."

Wired Mag - TSA Chief Apologizes to Airline Passenger Soaked in Urine After Pat-Down

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Picture Credit: AtHomeMedical - Hollister Hollister Ostomy Products FlexTend Urostomy Pouch with Flat Barrier

BBC: "Chip implant developed to help the paralysed exercise"

2010-11-23T14:44:00.001-06:00

"A tiny, implantable chip that delivers electrical impulses to aid in exercising paralysed limbs has been unveiled by scientists.

Similar attempts to promote muscle stimulation have been developed before, but have been too bulky to implant."

BBC - Chip implant developed to help the paralysed exercise

TPM: "Pew Study Finds Republican Bias In Landline-Only Polls"

2010-11-23T11:42:00.001-06:00

"For years, people have contended that a right-leaning bias exists in public opinion polls that fail to consider cell phone users. This argument has some new backing-- a Pew Research Center report released Monday suggests that polls based on landline-only samples do, in fact, suffer from a Republican bias.

The report, which confirms findings from a mid-October study, suggests that support for Republican candidates is significantly higher when a survey's sample is composed only of landline telephone respondents, rather than both landline and cell phone users ("dual frame samples"). Pew calculates a bias among likely voters in 2010 that is about twice as large as the statistical skew evident in 2008 landline-only election surveys."

TPM - Pew Study Finds Republican Bias In Landline-Only Polls

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"The number of Americans who rely solely or mostly on a cell phone has been growing for several years, posing an increasing likelihood that public opinion polls conducted only by landline telephone will be biased. A new analysis of Pew Research Center pre-election surveys conducted this year finds that support for Republican candidates was significantly higher in samples based only on landlines than in dual frame samples that combined landline and cell phone interviews. The difference in the margin among likely voters this year is about twice as large as in 2008

Across three Pew Research polls conducted in fall 2010 -- conducted among 5,216 likely voters, including 1,712 interviewed on cell phones -- the GOP held a lead that was on average 5.1 percentage points larger in the landline sample than in the combined landline and cell phone sample.

In six polls conducted in the fall of 2008, Barack Obama's lead over John McCain was on average 2.4 percentage points smaller in the landline samples than in the combined samples"

The Growing Gap between Landline and Dual Frame Election Polls
Republican Vote Share Bigger in Landline-Only Surveys

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Picture Credit: textually.org

Stuxnet Nuclear Reactor Targeted Computer Virus "Game Changer" For Real World Effects Of Cyber War/Hostility/Threat

2010-11-19T16:25:00.003-06:00

"Stuxnet, the first known weaponized software designed to destroy a specific industrial process, could soon be modified to target an array of industrial systems in the US and abroad, cyber experts told US senators Wednesday.

The Stuxnet malware, discovered this summer, was apparently designed to strike one target – Iran's nuclear-fuel centrifuge facilities, researchers now say. But Stuxnet's "digital warhead," they caution, could be copied and altered by others to wreak havoc on a much grander scale.

Variants of Stuxnet could target a host of critical infrastructure, from the power grid and water supplies to transportation systems, four cybersecurity experts told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs."

Christian Science Monitor - Son of Stuxnet? Variants of the cyberweapon likely, senators told
The Stuxnet cyberworm could soon be modified to attack vital industrial facilities in the US and abroad, cybersecurity experts warned Wednesday at a Senate hearing.

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"WASHINGTON — The Stuxnet worm that infiltrated Iran's nuclear facilities poses a threat to critical industries worldwide such as water, power and chemical plants, cybersecurity experts warned on Wednesday.

Sean McGurk, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), described Stuxnet in testimony before a US Senate committee as a "game-changer."

Stuxnet, which was detected in July, has "significantly changed the landscape of targeted cyberattacks," McGurk told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

"For us, to use a very overused term, it's a game-changer," he said.

Stuxnet targets computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Most Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there, especially the Russian-built atomic power plant in the southern city of Bushehr.

Computer security firm Symantec said last week that Stuxnet may have been specifically designed to disrupt the motors that power gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

Dean Turner, director of Symantec's Global Intelligence Network, told the Senate panel that while 60 percent of the Stuxnet infections detected were in Iran it should be seen as "a wake-up call to critical infrastructure systems around the world."

"This is the first publicly known threat to target industrial control systems and grants hackers vital control of critical infrastructures such as power plants, dams and chemical facilities," Turner said."

AFP - Stuxnet a threat to critical industries worldwide: experts

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""We have not seen this coordinated effort of information technology vulnerabilities and industrial control exploitation completely wrapped up in one unique package," McGurk said.

Stuxnet illustrates the need for governments and businesses to adopt new approaches to cyberthreats, added Michael Assante, president and CEO of the National Board of Information Security Examiners. "Stuxnet is, at the very least, an important wake-up call for digitally enhanced and reliant countries, and at its worst, a blueprint for future attackers," he said.

As of last week, there were still about 44,000 computers infected with Stuxnet worldwide, with about 60 percent of them in Iran, said Dean Turner, director of Symantec's Global Intelligence Network. About 1,600 of the current infections are in the U.S., he said."

PCWorld - Experts: Stuxnet Changed the Cybersecurity Landscape

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"Stuxnet, the seemingly unstoppable Windows operating system worm, slithered into the spotlight on Capit0l Hill.

Testifying at a hearing held this morning by the Senate Committee on Homeland and Security Affairs, Dean Turner, director of Symantec's Global Intelligence Network for Symantec Security Response, called Stuxnet "one of the most complex threats we have analyzed to date."

Stuxnet underscores the fact that "direct-attacks to control critical infrastructure are possible and not necessarily spy novel fictions," Turner testified. "The real-world implications of Stuxnet are beyond any threat we have seen in the past.""

"The worm is programmed to infiltrate Industrial Control Systems, computer-driven machinery widely used in manufacturing, pharmaceutical factories, water-treatment facilities, power stations and chemical plants. Stuxnet has the potential to overwrite commands and thus sabotage the infected systems."

USA Today - Unstoppable Stuxnet worm not the work of lone hacker

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Picture Credit: Ars Technica - Clues suggest Stuxnet Virus was built for subtle nuclear sabotage

Do Airport "Nudie Scanners" Even Work?

2010-11-18T11:35:00.001-06:00

"Italian security officials stopped using the scanners in September. "We didn't get good results from body scanners during testing,” said Vito Riggio, the president of Italy’s aviation authority, describing the scans as slow and ineffective.

British scientists found that the scanners picked up shrapnel and heavy wax and metal, but missed plastic, chemicals and liquids, reported UK newspaper The Independent in January.

“Some of these technological responses to terrorism really start to seem like placebos,” says Susan Herman, President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and law professor at Brooklyn Law School. “To the extent that people understand what the benefits are, and the invasion of privacies are, they can make more informed decisions about giving up their privacy for machines that make them feel better, but don’t do the job of preventing any terrorist device from getting on an airplane.”"

Christian Science Monitor - Are TSA pat-downs and full-body scans unconstitutional? The TSA says the pat-downs and full body scans are necessary to keep airliners safe. But critics ask if such intimate searches violate the Fourth Amendment.

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"And experts in the US said airport "pat-downs" – a method used in hundreds of airports worldwide – were ineffective and would not have stopped the suspect boarding the plane.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, allegedly concealed in his underpants a package containing nearly 3oz of the chemical powder PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate). He also carried a syringe containing a liquid accelerant to detonate the explosive.

Since the attack was foiled, body-scanners, using "millimetre-wave" technology and revealing a naked image of a passenger, have been touted as a solution to the problem of detecting explosive devices that are not picked up by traditional metal detectors – such as those containing liquids, chemicals or plastic explosive.

But Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP, who was formerly involved in a project by a leading British defence research firm to develop the scanners for airport use, said trials had shown that such low-density materials went undetected.

Tests by scientists in the team at Qinetiq, which Mr Wallace advised before he became an MP in 2005, showed the millimetre-wave scanners picked up shrapnel and heavy wax and metal, but plastic, chemicals and liquids were missed.

If a material is low density, such as powder, liquid or thin plastic – as well as the passenger's clothing – the millimetre waves pass through and the object is not shown on screen. High- density material such as metal knives, guns and dense plastic such as C4 explosive reflect the millimetre waves and leave an image of the object. "

The Independent - Are planned airport scanners just a scam?
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As Bruce Schneier and AMERICAblog point out:

Schneier on Security - A blog covering security and security technology: German TV on the Failure of Full-Body Scanners

The video is worth watching, even if you don't speak German. The scanner caught a subject's cell phone and Swiss Army knife -- and the microphone he was wearing -- but missed all the components to make a bomb that he hid on his body. Admittedly, he only faced the scanner from the front and not from the side. But he also didn't hide anything in a body cavity other than his mouth -- I didn't think about that one -- he didn't use low density or thinly sliced PETN, and he didn't hide anything in his carry-on luggage.

Full-body scanners: they're not just a dumb idea, they don't actually work.

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AMERICAblog

"Everyone who flies wants to be safe but again, when will someone provide solid proof that the body scanners are anything other than a huge waste of valuable money. Numerous experts have pointed out the problems yet that doesn't matter for those buying these expensive machines. Even if you don't understand German, it's easy enough to follow how this physicist beat the system."

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The video discussed above can be found further down this page. Some of the commenters on Schneier on Security have reasonable points about the technology and the flaws in the video "expose":

"This was a passive scanner working by identifying anything which obstructed the body's natural radiant heat. Notice the way in which ties were quite clearly visible... but the Home Affairs Committee rep's pacemaker didn't show up, because it is subcutaneous.

Bruce - I agree the video can be informative even if you don't speak German, but it can also create quite a misleading impression if you don't understand the details of what's going on. (For instance, if you equate this machine with the millimeter-wave X-ray ones in the media)."

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"Hmm. These are indeed different to the millimeter wave scanners that are frequently shown in the news. This is ThruVision - which is a passive terahertz imaging system rather than an active EHF system.

I've seen this demoed before, and it's a great system in certain applications. It can actually be used from a distance and on moving subjects, unlike millimeter wave scanners. I was under the impression they were targetting this at knive and gun crime in railway stations and the like.

It's pretty clear that this guy was set-up. He doesn't speak German, he gets railroaded into allowing the guy to wear a jacket, doesn't get to use a metal detector, he isn't allowed to pat him down. He also doesn't appear to be the most charismatic or quick-thinking character and ends up getting pwned. I'd seriously be questioning the reasoning of the people who sent him out there."

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And the video:

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Picture Credit: AFP/Getty - MailOnline - Full-body airport scanners face further delays over fears they breach child porn laws

Cyber Warfare Reaches From The Net Into The Real World "Stuxnet cyber attack is as good as using explosives" On Iranian Nuclear Facilities

2010-11-17T15:50:00.000-06:00

"Researchers from California and Germany dove into the Stuxnet code and found it sought out specialized components used in Iran nuclear centrifuges – and could cause them to explode."

"Stuxnet, the world's first known “cyber missile,” was designed to sabotage special power supplies used almost exclusively in nuclear fuel-refining centrifuge systems, researchers studying its code have revealed. The discovery is another puzzle piece experts say points to Iran's nuclear centrifuge plants as the likely target."

"It now appears that a smoking gun within Stuxnet's software code targets power supplies almost certainly used inside any Iranian nuclear fuel refining plant, researchers say. Working separately, researchers at California computer security firm Symantec arrived at the same conclusion as researchers in Germany late last week: Nuclear-fuel centrifuges were the target.

The researchers followed a complex trail. After cleverly gaining access to computer systems using an array of devious "exploits," Stuxnet searches for and infects only a specific Siemens-made programmable logic controller (PLC) performing specific functions, the researchers found. Then – and this is the part just unearthed – it hunts for identification numbers unique to a special kind of "frequency converter drive" made by just two firms in the world: one headquartered in Finland, the other in Tehran.

Frequency converter drives are a kind of power supply that can change the frequency of its output to control the speed of a motor. The drive responds to a PLC's computer commands and is used for industrial control in factory settings worldwide. Stuxnet hunts for specific drives set at specific speeds – the very high speeds a centrifuge must achieve to physically separate and concentrate uranium isotopes for use as nuclear fuel. Such fuel can then be used in a reactor or, if refined to far higher concentrations, a nuclear weapon.

Symantec researchers were aided by a Dutch industrial control systems expert who revealed the connection with Tehran and Finland firms. It turns out that the special drives Stuxnet targets are built to operate "at very high speeds ... speeds used only in a limited number of applications," Symantec stated in a report update Nov. 12. Such drives are "regulated for export in the US by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," because one of their main uses is for uranium enrichment, it noted."

"Once Stuxnet has locked its sights on the target, it alternately brings the centrifuge process to either a grinding slowdown or an explosive surge – by sabotaging the centrifuge refining process. It tells the commandeered PLC to force the frequency converter drive to do something it's not ever supposed to do: Switch back and forth from high speed to low speed at intervals punctuated by long period of normal operation. It also occasionally pushes the centrifuge to far exceed its maximum speed."

"Stuxnet "sabotages the system by slowing down or speeding up the motor to different rates at different times," including sending it up to 1410 Hz, well beyond its intended maximum speed. Such wide swings would probably destroy the centrifuge – or at least wreck its ability to produce refined uranium fuel, others researchers say.

"One reasonable goal for the attack could be to destroy the centrifuge rotor by vibration, which causes the centrifuge to explode" as well as simply degrading the output subtly over time, Ralph Langner, the German researcher who first revealed Stuxnet's function as a weapon in mid-September, wrote on his blog last week.

All of the circumstantial evidence points in the same direction: Natanz. "

Christian Science Monitor - How Stuxnet cyber weapon targeted Iran nuclear plant

(again, Dear Readers, click through onto the story that I have heavily excerpted and give CSM some ad views, please. The whole article is really interesting, too)

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If you haven't read my previous post linking to a Wired story on the change in tactical warfare thought that occurred because of the burning of Atlanta, you should read the story: Nov. 15, 1864: Sherman’s March to the Sea Changes Tactical Warfare

As the Wired article says:

"Sherman was vilified for his barbarism, but the Union commander was a realist, not a romantic. He understood — as few of his contemporaries seemed to — that technology and industrialization were radically changing the nature of warfare.

It was no longer a question of independent armies meeting on remote battlefields to settle the issue. Civilians, who helped produce the means for waging modern war, would no longer be considered innocent noncombatants. Hitting the enemy where he ate and breaking him psychologically were just as important to victory as vanquishing his armies in the field.

Sherman grasped this and, though he wasn’t the first military proponent of total war, he was the first modern commander to deliberately strike at the enemy’s infrastructure. The scorched-earth tactics were effective. The fragile Southern economy collapsed, and a once-stout rebel army was irretrievably broken.

Meanwhile, the marshals of Europe watched Sherman’s progress with fascination. And they learned. "

The whole world is learning from Stuxnet.

Stuxnet is more significant in military terms as the development of the Blitzkrieg, or even probably more significant as the development of mobile armoured artillery (tanks), or military aircraft - it is a paradigm shift. Totally and completely. I won't say it is as significant as the development of the nuclear bomb - but i was going to. Atomic weapons naturally win the significance battle because all life on the planet could be wiped out.

Stuxnet is significant because it allows warfare to be waged secretly. Without major powers having to admit they are taking action.

It also gives large organisations of any kind (think private corporations [think blackwater/Xe]) the ability to wage war.

And it certainly gives groups of individuals the model to create their own cyber weapons. We have nuclear plants too...

And India, China, and Pakistan all have large numbers of awesome programmers - some of whom might be feeling less than charitable toward the United States and its allies (like Canada - of the recent extended Afghanistan mission).

You do the math. Someone else most certainly already is.

Perhaps it's time to stock up on survivalist gear. Freeze dried peas in large cans anyone? Good thing I know some Mormons - they are suppose to always have a year's worth of food and gear in case some cleansing happens:

"“Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the Church—and the need for that cleansing seems to be increasing—a famine in this land of one year’s duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned.”"

"I believe that every prophet over the last 60 years has talked about having the Church members get a bare minimum of at least a one year’s supply of basic food items. Though it is not addressed directly in every conference, it is published in a tremendous amount of Church literature, pamphlets, Church handbook of instructions, monthly messages for home teachers and visiting teachers, instruction manuals, etc."

Here's a link to a "Latter Day Saints" compliant list of survival crap (meant in a positive manner) we'll all need (.pdf)

Here's some great stuff courtesy of Wired Mag.

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Picture Credit: Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP Photo - Exploring Iran's Secret Nuclear Plant (link and photo ripped off via Google images and the Daily Beast...)

Today In Technology History (2 days late): Nov. 15, 1864: Sherman’s Infrastructure Destruction Changes Tactical Warfare

2010-11-17T11:00:00.002-06:00

"1864: Union troops under Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman burn the heart of Atlanta to the ground and begin their March to the Sea. By the time they’re done, the tactics of warfare will be changed forever.

After driving the Confederates out of Atlanta, Sherman entered the city in early September and remained until Nov. 15. Sparing only the churches, courthouse and the city’s private residences, Sherman’s troops cut the telegraph wires and burned everything else of consequence: warehouses, train depots, factories."

"Sherman was vilified for his barbarism, but the Union commander was a realist, not a romantic. He understood — as few of his contemporaries seemed to — that technology and industrialization were radically changing the nature of warfare.

It was no longer a question of independent armies meeting on remote battlefields to settle the issue. Civilians, who helped produce the means for waging modern war, would no longer be considered innocent noncombatants. Hitting the enemy where he ate and breaking him psychologically were just as important to victory as vanquishing his armies in the field.

Sherman grasped this and, though he wasn’t the first military proponent of total war, he was the first modern commander to deliberately strike at the enemy’s infrastructure. The scorched-earth tactics were effective. The fragile Southern economy collapsed, and a once-stout rebel army was irretrievably broken..."

Wired Mag - Nov. 15, 1864: Sherman’s March to the Sea Changes Tactical Warfare

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Total warfare. Destruction of infrastructure. Infrastructure and technology as an integral part of the military equation.

That's why this article is being posted on a technology, freedom, and privacy blog.

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Picture credit: Wired Mag - Nov. 15, 1864: Sherman’s March to the Sea Changes Tactical Warfare

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Senator Defend Airport "Naked Scanners"

2010-11-17T09:43:00.001-06:00

"The US official leading the introduction of controversial full-body x-ray scanners and body "pat-downs" in US airports defended the practice Tuesday, insisting they were "the best technology" to protect against terrorist attacks.

Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security that held a hearing on the issue, was also quick to support the "difficult" and "sensitive" effort, maintaining "it is necessary" to ensure aviation safety.

"This is unfortunately the world in which we live," Lieberman told the hearing on air cargo security, held in the wake of an attempted cargo plane bombing that originated from an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Yemen.

John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), told lawmakers that he thought "everybody who gets on a flight wants to be sure the people around them have been properly screened.""

AFP - US transport official, top senator defend 'naked' scanners

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"Several senators asked Pistole to address public criticism of the body-imaging machines and more intrusive pat-downs the agency is using. Pistole said the tougher screening is necessary, and that the FDA has found the imaging machines to be safe. Going through the whole-body scanning machine is similar to getting about three minutes of the radiation that passengers receive at 30,000 feet on a typical flight, he said.

Pistole said his agency was working to address pilot and flight attendant concerns about the screening."

The Canadian Press - US authorities say passengers will have body imaging, pat-downs despite religious objections

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"Airline passengers who object to any type of physical screening are not going to fly anywhere, the head of the Transportation Security Administration told a congressional committee Tuesday."

Washington Post - If you won't submit to screening, you won't fly, TSA says

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If you won't allow your body scanned image to be viewed and possibly recorded (and we know absolutely nothing about the databases these images, our passport information, and other information are potentially ending up in. Is this part of the beginning of biometric tracking based on body image? How long until we have to be biometrically scanned and recorded to get a passport? Drivers licenses with thumbprints and retinal scans, biometric images - voice prints any one?

Did you know that there is a semi-clandestine group of countries, led by the U.S. that monitor phone and data traffic that gets passed to and from satellites?

"ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UK–USA Security Agreement (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUSCANNZUKUS).[1][2] It has also been described as the only software system which controls the download and dissemination of the intercept of commercial satellite trunk communications.[3]

ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence%29

"Toronto Police Want To Keep Most G20 Security Cameras"

2010-11-16T13:39:00.000-06:00

"Toronto's Police Chief Bill Blair wants to keep some of the equipment bought expressly for the G20 Summit, particularly security cameras and so-called long range acoustic devices."

"The police acquired 77 new cameras for use downtown for the June 26-27 G20 Summit in the downtown core. The cameras had to come down after the summit.

At the January Police Services Board meeting, Blair will formally ask to keep the cameras. Because they were purchased for the G20, they will only cost half the usual price. The federal government will pay the rest, CTV Toronto reported."

CTV - Toronto police want to keep most G20 security cameras

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"Toronto Police plan to make a formal request to buy 52 cameras, according to a report in the Globe and Mail. Blair said he intends to put some of them in the growing club district. The force currently has 24 CCTV cameras, but not all are currently in use.

The equipment will be bought back from the federal government at half the price.

Aside from the cameras, police are also hoping to purchase the three of four L-RADs (long-range acoustic devices) used during the summit. The controversial devices, also referred to as sound cannons, can emit ear-piercing blips and broadcast messages.

The report also states police want to buy back 400 sets of tactical safety gear, which include helmets, gas masks and shields"

CityNews - Toronto Police Want To Buy Surveillance Cameras Used During G20

(Click on the CityNews link above, please. I have yanked more of their article than is reasonable use... give them the page click/view so that they can at least make money off their story/advertising)

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I think that the creation of courses of study and research like the following are an indicator of the disturbing level of monitoring and surveillance in our society:

"Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University

Surveillance of many kinds is growing rapidly throughout the world and the Surveillance Studies Centre (SSC) at Queen’s University is committed to high quality research to follow such developments. Current active research explores camera surveillance, ID systems, biometrics, social media, border and airport controls – indeed on many aspects of contemporary monitoring, tracking, management and control. While much research happens on the Queen’s University campus, the SSC is also part of a broad network of surveillance research that is both multi-disciplinary and international."

Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University

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New Transparency Project (at Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University)

With the goal of providing up-to-date research background or findings to a broad audience as well as to the Integrated Research Sub-Projects (IRSPs) the New Transparency Project publishes occasional working papers. Unlike our reports, published articles and books, they are works-in-progress and should be treated as such.

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There are a number of seminars and projects occuring through the above structures at Queen's. If I were closer and/or richer I would attend one or more...

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Picture Credit: Leibold Consulting

WiredMag: "Etiquette: Making Amends in the Digital Age"

2010-11-15T15:53:00.000-06:00

"SIN: You waste people’s time by tweeting about your lunch.
PENANCE: You must eat a meal composed of ingredients so bizarre that someone might actually want to hear about them. Think calf brains, sheep hearts, fried grasshopper, and Rocky Mountain oysters."

"SIN: You open an email attachment called MeganFoxBoobs.exe, thereby infecting your employer’s network with the software equivalent of syphilis.
PENANCE: Buy the IT department a case of beer—preferably an overpriced microbrew. Then drive to your great-aunt’s retirement home and install Norton Antivirus on everyone’s PC."

Wired Mag - Etiquette: Making Amends in the Digital Age

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Ok, maybe it's just because I'm an IT guy, but this article is hilarious...

Radiological Scientists Strongly Question Whether Airport "Nudie Scanners" Are Safe?

2010-11-15T14:56:00.000-06:00

"Earlier this year, four scientists from the University of California, San Francisco, wrote a letter to Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren raising concerns about the cancer risks of exposing hundreds of millions of travelers every year to airport X-ray scans."

"Dr. David Brenner is equally unpersuaded by the government's response. Brenner is head of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University."

"And Brenner says there's reason to think the radiation dose delivered per scan is about 10 times higher than the government says. It comes from a paper by Arizona State University physics professor Peter Rez that is scheduled to appear in a journal called Radiation Protection and Dosimetry.

Rez says he was skeptical that the X-ray dose the government claims for the machines – about 1/10,000th of a chest X-ray — could produce a usable image at all. He calculated backward to figure out how big an X-ray dose would be needed to get the kind of images the machines produce."

NPR - Protests Mount Over Safety And Privacy Of Airport Scanners

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"...the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-profit privacy advocacy group, is taking legal action against the TSA.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, says the TSA should be required to conduct a public rule-making to evaluate the privacy, security and health risks caused by the body scanners."

CNN - Protesting airport body scanners, privacy group sues TSA

"Backlash grows over TSA's 'naked strip searches'"

2010-11-15T14:10:00.000-06:00

"Unions representing U.S. Airways pilots, American Airlines pilots, and some flight attendants are advising their members to skip the full-body scans, even if it means that their genitals are touched. Air travelers are speaking out online, with a woman saying in a YouTube video her breasts were "twisted," and ExpressJet pilot Michael Roberts emerging as an instant hero after he rejected both the body scanning and "enhanced pat-downs" options and was unceremoniously ejected from the security line from Memphis International Airport."

"Body scanners penetrate clothing to provide a highly detailed image that TSA says is viewed by a remote technician. Technologies vary, with millimeter wave systems capturing fuzzier images with non-ionizing radio waves and backscatter X-ray machines able to show precise anatomical detail.

TSA says it does not store scans, and there is no evidence indicating the agency does at routine airport checkpoints.

But documents that EPIC obtained show the agency's procurement specifications require that the machines be capable of storing the images on USB drives. A 70-page document (PDF), classified as "sensitive security information," says that in a test mode the scanner must "allow exporting of image data in real time" and provide a mechanism for "high-speed transfer of image data" over the network.

Another federal agency, the Marshals Service, has acknowledged (PDF) that tens of thousands of images from a Brijot Gen2 machine were stored from just one courthouse checkpoint."

CNET - Backlash grows over TSA's 'naked strip searches'

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"THE Transportation Security Administration, America's second-most loathed bureaucracy, has used its stimulus bucks to stock up on fancy ritual-humiliation scanners that electronically disrobe air-travellers. TSA officers are exceedingly unlikely to detect terrorist tools thereby, but they can always wince and titter at their victims' corpulence or unimpressive primary and secondary sexual characteristics. And if you are unwilling to surrender your dignity to a low-level security-state functionary in this way, you always have the option to surrender your dignity to a low-level security-state functionary in an "enhanced pat-down". The enhancement is that the TSA agent now gets right in there and gropes nearer the possibly ne'er-do-well passengers' tender bits."

The Economist - Nude model or groping victim?

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"This is a letter from Captain Dave Bates, the president of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents 11,000 American Airlines pilots, to his members, in which he calls on pilots to refuse back-scatter screening and demand private pat-downs from TSA officers. Bates's argument is multifaceted and extremely cogent. He worries about increased exposure to radiation, of course (a big worry among commercial pilots) and he is eloquent on the subject of intentional humiliation:
There is absolutely no denying that the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience. In my view, it is unacceptable to submit to one in public while wearing the uniform of a professional airline pilot. I recommend that all pilots insist that such screening is performed in an out-of-view area to protect their privacy and dignity.

It is a source of continual astonishment to me that pilots -- many of whom, it should be pointed out, are military veterans who possess security clearances -- are not allowed to carry onboard their airplanes pocket knives and bottles of shampoo, but then they're allowed to fly enormous, fuel-laden, missile-like objects over American cities."

The Atlantic - American Airlines Pilots in Revolt Against the TSA

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One woman, who is - according to reports - highly attractive, gets singled out from other passengers for the "nudie scanner", then gets handcuffed to a chair and for a full body pat down after refusing to do a full body scan.

It's interesting to listen about what will happen if a person refuses or even questions. Singled out. Humiliated. Handcuffed to a chair. Answers not forthcoming. Shows what happens to those who buck the system.

"When she asked some question about what they planned to do to her, they flipped out. TSA agents yelled at her, handcuffed her to a chair, ripped up her ticket, called in 12 local Miami cops and finally escorted her out of the airport."

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One of the folks in the above youtube copy of a radio interview makes the point "These people have to justify themselves and their procedures, at least to themselves, in order to remain relevant."

I think that point is well made.

The Economist article points out "The odds of being a victim of terrorism on a flight are approximately 1 in 10,408,947—rather less than the 1 in 500,000 odds of getting killed by lightning."

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Picture Credit: The Economist - Nude model or groping victim?

Wired Mag: "Sarah Palin E-mail Hacker Sentenced to 1 Year in Custody"

2010-11-12T12:09:00.003-06:00

"David Kernell, the former Tennessee student convicted of hacking into Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account, was sentenced on Friday to one year in custody.

Kernell, 22, was convicted earlier this year of misdemeanour computer intrusion and a felony count of obstruction of justice. The jury found him not guilty of a wire-fraud charge and hung on a fourth charge for identity theft, after four days of deliberating.

The convictions carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in custody and a possible fine of up to $250,000. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence of between 15 and 21 months in prison. The government was seeking 18 months, but Kernell’s attorney asked the court to forgo a prison sentence and give his client probation instead"

Wired Mag - Sarah Palin E-mail Hacker Sentenced to 1 Year in Custody

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So why is this a story about privacy?

Two other paragraphs from this story say why:

"Threat Level broke the story in September 2008 that someone using the name “Rubico” had obtained access to Palin’s personal Yahoo e-mail account. Palin was then running for vice president on the Republican ticket. Kernell got into the account by using publicly available information — such as Palin’s birthdate and postal ZIP code — to reset the password to “popcorn” and gain control of her account."

and

"Although Kernell never found information in the account that was damaging to her campaign, the hack did show that Palin used her personal e-mail account to conduct official Alaska state business. Critics had accused the Alaska governor and her staff of using personal e-mail accounts to avoid public oversight."

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More on the problematic activity of using Yahoo emails to avoid oversight while trying to get your former brother-in-law fired here:

Ars Technica - Palin comes under fire for using Yahoo e-mail for state biz

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Here's a primer on how to avoid the secret questions trap, courtesy of Lauren Weinstein of "People For Internet Responsibility" [http://www.pfir.org/]

Greetings. I've already discussed the hacking of Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and why that hack was both dumb and wrong ( http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000429.html ).

But how was this attack accomplished? Reports suggest that a youngster exploited one of the weakest aspects of account protection at many sites, the so-called "secret question" system.

The secret question (and its corresponding "secret answer") is supposed to be used for you to recover system access when you've lost or forgotten your real password. Questions like: "What is your favorite color?" or "What High School did you attend?" (that's the one that was used in Palin's case, we're told), or "What was your first dog's name?" and so on.

Supposedly the concept behind this approach is to come up with something that you know well and won't forget. The problem of course is that in many cases the answers to these questions are trivial to guess or research, as seems to have been the case with Palin's account hacker.

How to Avoid the Sarah Palin "Secret Question" Account Trap

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Yeah - don't be stupid when it comes to verification questions. Sarah Palin was stupid (whether she still is stupid I will leave to your own personal observations).

So don't be like Sarah Palin.

Protect your passwords.

Don't Run Your Air Conditioner Too Much Or the Police Might Use Your Power Records to Bust Your Ass

2010-11-09T15:18:00.000-06:00

"North Vancouver RCMP have backed off on a request that would have forced BC Hydro to turn over the records of more than a thousand North Vancouver homeowners using large amounts of power to police."

"BC Hydro filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court this month fighting the request after a North Vancouver judge ordered the power company to hand over a list of residential addresses to police of anyone in North Vancouver whose power consumption averaged more than 93 kilowatt hours per day"

Vanvoucer Sunn - Hydro fights RCMP on power records
North Van detachment backs off on court order for heavy consumers

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"BC Hydro asked for a judicial review of the decision, arguing the order was too broad.

In an affidavit filed in court, the power company expressed concern that the order could end up forcing it to hand over records of law-abiding citizens and subjecting them to a police investigation even though there is little likelihood they are involved in marijuana grow-ops."

Global B.C. - Hydro fights RCMP on power records

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"But a petition filed in B.C. Supreme Court by Hydro says the judge erred in law because the order does not include a term denoting specific dates or a period of time and “is therefore unduly vague.”

An affidavit attached to the petition says Hydro is concerned that providing the list to the RCMP would subject many of its customers to an investigation even though “there is little or no likelihood that they are involved in growing marijuana.”"

The Province - B.C. Hydro to challenge court order to hand over power consumption records

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Here is a link to a legal article about a B.C. law that allowed electrical inspectors to enter homes with odd or high electrical usage (halfway down the page):

Arkinstall v. Surrey

[excerpts]

"In Arkinstall v. City of Surrey (2008 BCSC 1419), Mr. Justice Smart of the B.C. Supreme Court held that police officers could not, as a matter of course or policy, accompany the City’s Electrical and Fire Safety Inspections Team (the “EFSI Team”) during residential inspections made under the Safety Standards Act (the “SSA”). "

"Three things can be taken from Arkinstall. First, Mr. Justice Smart upheld the use of the electrical consumption threshold used as a basis for property inspections, together with the overall inspection regime established under the SSA. Second, the decision continues to uphold a lower standard of Charter of Rights review for inspections that occur in situations that typically involve local governments, and specifically referred to the decision of the B.C. Court of Appeal in R. v. Bichel (1986) 4 B.C.L.R. (2d) 132, which the Petitioners argued was “dated”. Third, it is now clear that police entry into private residences during inspections has to be justified on a case by case basis, rather than being based on a general policy. Police involvement in inspections will have to either be pursuant to a warrant, or justified under the common law test."

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Here is an article about the legality of police using third parties (such as utility companies) to gather evidence using the extra access that they have to homes - in this article, asking the electric company to put an extra electrical usage monitor on a person's home:

"Although Gomboc revolves around the constitutionality of DRA evidence, one of the most interesting facets of the case is Enmax’s role in procuring the damning evidence.

Out of necessity, homeowners must grant utility companies greater access to their premises than they would afford the general public. This is also true for a range of other services and products – an Internet Service Provider (ISP), for instance, may have access to personal and identifying information that would attract a reasonable expectation of privacy.

In addressing whether a provincially-enacted regulation could be used by police to obtain DRA records from a utility company without a warrant, Martin J.A. noted that such a regulation would allow police to “recruit any agency with limited access to a home to exploit the access to gather information for them.” Using the example of a mail deliverer who could look in through a home’s windows or a cable television provider who could disclose the viewing habits of a subscriber, he concluded that “such unauthorized state surveillance of its citizens … would render the protection of a reasonable expectation of privacy over one’s home illusory.”

The fact that a commercial service provider used its access to help police obtain a crucial piece of evidence adds a layer of complexity to the Gomboc case. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), which had intervener status in the recent Supreme Court hearings, has argued that Charter scrutiny applies when police exploit service relationships during an investigation. In its factum (PDF) for the Court proceedings, the CCLA argues that “an informed observer would conclude that exploiting third party access in such fashion is antithetical to any reasonable conception of privacy in a modern democracy.”

The Court ("THE COURT is the online resource for debate & data about the Supreme Court of Canada") - Gomboc — Power Usage, Police Powers of Search, and the Role of Power Companies September 14th, 2010

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Laws and rulings are still all over the map.

I will post some articles in the near future about the privacy dangers of the so-called electrical "smart-grid" and some commentary over how data can be used to monitor citizens' activities.

And if you think I am being alarmist about what can happen when police get real interested in your activities, read on...

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A true story of what can happen to real people who have done nothing wrong when the police decide to go Rambo...

"Deadly Force
Acting on a mistaken drug trafficking suspicion, a SWAT team broke down [the] door [of the home of the Mayor of Berwyn Heights], shot beloved pets and shattered a happy home. Was it an extreme reaction, or business as usual in America's war on drugs?"

[excerpts below - read the full story by clicking on the link at the bottom of the story]

"Cheye, struggling to understand, pieced together questions officers asked him and comments he overheard. Narcotics investigators for the Prince George's police had apparently left that white box on his front step, then sent SWAT officers from the Sheriff's Office to retrieve it. The box contained marijuana. Officers from the two county law enforcement agencies had apparently been parked watching his house all day. Yet they had apparently done so little investigatory work -- they hadn't even taken 30 seconds to Google Cheye -- that they didn't know they were launching a paramilitary attack on an elected official's home until after they'd broken down the door and shot the dogs. Cheye was particularly disturbed when he discovered that narcotics investigators seemed to have known that criminals had been mailing drugs addressed to innocent people, in hopes of intercepting the packages before the addressees claimed them."

"The guy in there is crazy," Johnson remembered a Prince George's County officer telling him when he arrived. "He says he is the mayor of Berwyn Heights."

"That is the mayor of Berwyn Heights," Johnson replied.

The detective looked very surprised, Johnson later recalled: "He had that 'Oh, crap' look on his face."

Alarmed, Johnson used his cellphone to notify Berwyn Heights Police Chief Patrick Murphy that, as improbable as it sounded, the Sheriff's Office SWAT team had apparently broken down the mayor's door, shot his dogs and confiscated a box containing 32 pounds of marijuana.

Murphy -- home gardening 54 miles away in St. Mary's County -- sat down, stunned. The 35-year veteran of law enforcement searched his memory for any clue he might have overlooked that the nice young mayor who loved his wife, those two goofy Labs and code enforcement could be involved with drugs. He couldn't come up with anything.

The chief told Johnson to go find their department's second-in-command, Det. Sgt. Ken Antolik, who was moonlighting a few blocks away from Calvo's house at the Blue Bird Driving School, to help him find out what in the heck was going on.

Inside the house, Cheye was starting to ask questions, too.

"Do you have a warrant?" he recalled asking more than once, until someone said:

"It's en route."

"I kept saying: 'This is a very terrible thing. This is just horrible.' The context in which I told them I was the mayor, I said, 'I'm the mayor of Berwyn heights, and I have to get to a community meeting tonight.' " Finally, one of the deputies, the men in black, nodded to the recently delivered big white box on the living room table and barked accusingly, "Do you know what is in this box?"

"A box," Cheye recalled thinking. "This is about the box?"

Someone shifted Cheye, his hands still bound behind him, into a chair. He could see blood pooling from beneath Payton's head. An officer picked up one of the boys' dog beds and used it to cover Payton's corpse. Cheye asked if they'd killed Chase, too, and someone said that they'd called animal control to remove two dead dogs.

"You shot my dogs," Cheye recalled saying over and over. "You shot my dogs. You shot my dogs. You shot my dogs."

At home in St. Mary's, Murphy dialed the cellphone of his second-in-command, now standing on the mayor's front lawn. Murphy's officer handed the phone to a Prince George's narcotics investigator, Det. Sgt. David Martini.

This is how Murphy later recalled their conversation:

"Martini tells me that when the SWAT team came to the door, the mayor met them at the door, opened it partially, saw who it was, and then tried to slam the door on them," Murphy recalled. "And that at that point, Martini claimed, they had to force entry, the dogs took aggressive stances, and they were shot."

"I later learned," Murphy said in an interview, "that none of that is true."

Martini said he was not free to comment for this article.

***

It was about 7:45 p.m. when Trinity turned her 1997 Suburu Outback with the kayak rack on top onto Edmonston. The road was so jammed with police vehicles that she couldn't reach her driveway. Assuming that the house had been robbed, Trinity abandoned her car and searched frantically for any sign of an ambulance.

"Is my husband okay?" she asked when Ken Antolik met her near her front gate. "Is my mom okay?

"Yes," he told her. "They are in the house.

Then it struck her. It was too quiet. She didn't hear dogs barking. She knew, even before she asked: "Payton and Chase?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

Trinity collapsed against his chest. A female officer eventually came and led her gently around to the back door. Trinity started in to find her husband and mother, then saw blood. There was so much blood. There was blood pooled near the door. Officers were tracking her dead dogs' blood all over the house. She backed outside.

"I remember sitting on the steps thinking, 'I'm never going to be able to live here again,' " Trinity recalled.

"I found something," Georgia heard a detective yell excitedly. The woman held a white envelope filled with cash. Inside, was $68. Across the front of the envelope were written two words: "yard sale."

The detective seemed crestfallen, Georgia said. Georgia, who had been moved, still bound, into the downstairs bedroom, says she overheard the woman saying something like: "It's my first raid, and we got the mayor's house."

Cheye, struggling to understand, pieced together questions officers asked him and comments he overheard. Narcotics investigators for the Prince George's police had apparently left that white box on his front step, then sent SWAT officers from the Sheriff's Office to retrieve it. The box contained marijuana. Officers from the two county law enforcement agencies had apparently been parked watching his house all day. Yet they had apparently done so little investigatory work -- they hadn't even taken 30 seconds to Google Cheye -- that they didn't know they were launching a paramilitary attack on an elected official's home until after they'd broken down the door and shot the dogs. Cheye was particularly disturbed when he discovered that narcotics investigators seemed to have known that criminals had been mailing drugs addressed to innocent people, in hopes of intercepting the packages before the addressees claimed them.

Yet, here he was, hands bound behind him, trying to convince county police that he and Trinity were not drug lords. "Look around," he tried arguing. "We own almost nothing but books. We live on 70 percent of our salary and bank the rest." Do drug lords tend organic gardens and store the decorations for the community's holiday parties in their garage?

In fact, the officers searching his house were unable to find any evidence of drugs other than the box they'd delivered. They didn't find gun caches or, aside from the yard sale money, stacks of cash. Cheye and Trinity didn't have a bong or hookah, not a single rolling paper, stem or seed. Cheye watched their search efforts grow halfhearted, he said.

Nobody seemed to know how to remove the plastic cuffs still binding his and Georgia's hands behind their backs. The deputies from the SWAT team who had put them on were gone. When Georgia and Cheye complained to detectives that the cuffs were cutting off their circulation, they said the detectives just shrugged. After awhile, the officer moved Cheye into the kitchen. From his new vantage, he could see into the dining room. Chase was lying dead in a pool of blood.

The scene at the house was so terrible and odd to Berwyn Heights officer Johnson that he planted himself in the living room. He couldn't see a search warrant posted anywhere. The mayor looked so vulnerable that Johnson wanted to make sure nothing even worse happened to him, such as getting shot. "Not that I didn't trust the police," Johnson would later say. "But I wanted to personally witness what is going to happen to my mayor, so if they try to say this guy went for a gun -- and he didn't -- it's not going to happen on my watch."

When animal control officers finally came for Payton and Chase, Cheye lost it. Payton's big head tumbled limply off the stretcher as they lifted it to take him away. "I roared," Cheye later recalled. "I broke down sobbing." Cheye had named his big boy for the late, great Chicago Bear Walter Payton, whose nickname was "Sweetness." Cheye's Payton ran more like a 350-pound lineman than like Walter Payton. But he was the sweetest, most wonderful dog Cheye had ever known, and strangers were taking him away forever. "My hands were still bound, so I couldn't get my hands to my face as tears just flowed down. I remember turning, and looking away."

Out on the back stoop, it seemed to Trinity that the detectives in their house had shifted into damage control. One pleasant woman, trying to make pleasant conversation, asked Trinity if she and Cheye ever planned to have children.

"All I could think was, Our dogs were our kids, and I can't believe you are asking me that," Trinity recalled. "I let it go and said that we were thinking about adopting."

***

Nearly four hours after the SWAT team broke down the front door, the detectives were ready to leave. Someone had figured out how to cut the cuffs off Cheye and Georgia. They had led Georgia outside to Trinity. Georgia was still so hysterical that she could barely speak.

Cheye says the lead officer at the scene, Prince George's Det. Shawn Scarlata, told him and Trinity that he could haul them all into jail because the box had been addressed to Trinity. But he said he wasn't going to as long as they cooperated. (Scarlata later said he could not comment on the case for this article.)

Johnson stayed to help Cheye lift the splintered door back into its frame and prop it there. There was no way to make the lock work. "I just felt so sorry for them," Johnson recalled. "I didn't know what to say. I told them I'd keep an eye on the house."

Cheye grasped Trinity by the shoulders. "Whatever happens," he said. "I don't want this to affect us." He was a romantic idealist. He had proposed to Trinity at the Jefferson Memorial. But he wasn't naive. This night had been so terrible, Cheye knew that it would change each of them forever in ways they couldn't predict. He felt only a determination not to allow this horror to creep inside their love.

Trinity, sobbing, said nothing could ruin their marriage, but they might have to move. She didn't know if she could live in this house. She didn't think she could stay in Prince George's County. They toured their home room by room. Everything they owned was thrown on the floor, a table or a bed. Their meticulous files had been dumped, the paper scattered. But the blood was the worst.

Exhausted, Cheye telephoned a friend and asked him to come over and help him scrub the blood off the floors. They had to do it for Trinity. It was after 1 a.m. when the two men stopped scrubbing.

Cheye dragged an air mattress into the living room so that he, Trinity and Georgia could huddle together through the night. Nobody slept. Somewhere out there was a drug dealer who might be thinking that they had his box of pot, and they couldn't lock their front door.

About 3:30 a.m., Cheye typed an e-mail on his Treo trying to explain why he wouldn't be coming to the office that morning.

"I'm on the Beltway," Cheye's boss, Rajiv Vinnakota, said, when he called at 7:30 the next morning and said he was on his way. "My only question is, 'Do I bring bagels?' "

Cheye earned his living working for SEED, a District-based educational foundation trying to expand its network of schools to several states. There was no way a drug raid on a mayor's house where police broke down the door and shot the family dogs wouldn't become news. Cheye's boss counseled him to get a lawyer, because innocent people go to jail all the time, and to be proactive about reaching out to the media.

Cheye felt confident that people who knew him and Trinity would know they'd never have anything to do with drugs. But what about everyone else?

As they talked, it dawned on Cheye that police hadn't just killed his dogs, terrorized his family and destroyed his once-happy, pretty home. They might just have ruined his life.

By mid-morning, Cheye had agreed to let a television reporter tour the house and had sent a mass e-mail to everyone he knew and the entire town of Berwyn Heights' mailing list.

"We try to make sense of it," Cheye wrote in the e-mail. "They invaded our home and killed our dogs! That above all else, can't be undone."

The Berwyn Heights annual employee-appreciation luncheon was scheduled for noon. Cheye went, feeling unsteady from lack of sleep and wondering if he were still in shock. He sat next to Murphy, who Cheye felt was acting cool toward him.

"I'm always highly suspicious because of all the things I've seen in 35 years in law enforcements," the chief later said. "Sometimes, I look at the priest in church, and I wonder what his thing is, which isn't all that healthy. But there's always a suspicion there. At the same time, I think I'm a pretty good judge of character."

Cheye, he concluded, couldn't have been the criminal the county detective had described on the phone.

As Cheye implemented his plan to let people know that they were innocent, Trinity labored to make their house minimally habitable. Her father -- Georgia's first husband -- flew in from Wyoming to help. One of the first things they did was throw away the blood-soaked dining room rug.

At bedtime, Trinity and Cheye stared at each other. Trinity had always gone upstairs first, leaving Cheye reading downstairs, Chase at his feet. Payton had always followed Trinity, crept onto Cheye's side on the bed, snoozed until he heard him coming, then jumped down guiltily. Now their hearts sank, not just at all they'd lost, but at how everything either of them said or did, anyplace they looked in the house, was a reminder.

They got into bed, but kept the lights on. Trinity was afraid now to sleep in the dark. After a few minutes, Cheye got up and turned off the fan. They wanted to be able to hear in case someone broke in again.

***

The first news reports on the raid at the Berwyn Heights mayor's house quoted spokesmen for the Prince George's police saying that the mayor and his family remained "persons of interest" in an ongoing drug-smuggling investigation. Police said they became aware of the box addressed to Trinity when a drug-sniffing dog had alerted them to it at a package hub, and authorities notified the county police. A police spokesman told reporters that Prince George's narcotics investigators had sought, and been granted, a "no-knock" warrant before searching Cheye and Trinity's house. Maryland law authorizes police to request a no-knock warrant, one intended to be served by force and unannounced, if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that evidence would be destroyed or officers' lives placed in danger if they knocked on a suspect's door and demanded entry.

Those same news reports quoted law enforcement officials around the region saying it was a known tactic of traffickers to ship a package containing drugs to an innocent stranger's home, planning to retrieve it before the recipient opened the box. In fact, law enforcement officials told reporters, recent incidents in College Park and Dunn Loring had been foiled when surprised innocents alerted police after opening the packages before the dealers could snatch them. Cheye was flabbergasted. Given that, how could the police who had broken down his front door with a battering ram, terrorized his family and killed his dogs not at least have considered the possibility, even the likelihood, that he might be innocent?

On Friday, Aug. 1 -- 71 hours after the raid -- the lead detective, Scarlata, returned to their home. He came alone. Cheye met him at the fence. The detective handed Cheye the warrant he had first asked to see while handcuffed in his living room. Scarlata also gave Cheye a list of what they'd confiscated in the raid. It consisted of a single item: the box police had brought there in the first place.

After the detective left, Cheye studied the document. There was nothing anywhere to indicate that Scarlata had asked the judge who signed it for permission to break his door down for a no-knock search. He hadn't presented the judge with evidence that anyone in the household was armed and dangerous. He'd basically said that police had intercepted a box of drugs addressed to Trinity, delivered the box and watched as it was taken inside."

"Police Chief Murphy was angry that Prince George's police hadn't given him the courtesy of notifying him before their raid, allowing him to help them execute their search warrant peacefully and avert tragedy. "I never imagined, when I set out to protect people from the crooks and the criminals, that I would have to protect them from my fellow police officers," Murphy told the crowd.

Cheye thanked the townspeople he'd served for five years as mayor. "Injustice in this county, in this country, in this world happens every day," he said. "But people who experience it most often don't have the support, don't have the community, don't have the resources that we do."

***

Cheye and Trinity flipped channels waiting for the 5 o'clock news, certain that -- finally -- they would be officially cleared. It was Wednesday, Aug. 7, more than a week after the raid. Then-Prince George's Police Chief Melvin C. High and Sheriff Michael Jackson held a joint news conference to announce the arrests of a FedEx deliveryman and a second man alleged to be involved in a scheme to smuggle marijuana by shipping packages addressed to unsuspecting recipients, including the one to Trinity. Police refused to release their names.

Yet neither High nor Jackson apologized to Cheye, Trinity and Georgia or declared their absolute innocence.

The mayor of Berwyn Heights and his family "most likely, they were innocent victims" of the drug traffickers' scheme, High said. "But we don't want to draw that definite conclusion at the moment." "

Washington Post - Deadly Force

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While I am not ideologically in tune with the Cato Institute, here is an interesting report:

Cato Institute report, "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America."

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Picture Credit: MustKnowHow - Noisy window air conditioner

Behaviour Analysis Software To Monitor Massively Multiplayer Online Games

2010-11-08T11:30:00.002-06:00

"That means if a player is signed in as an 8-year-old boy, but the program believes they are chatting or behaving like a 40-year-old, moderators will be alerted to watch them."

"But as the popularity and the potential revenue of these games grew, so did the importance of moderation. Modern massively multiplayer online games don't have to deal with just cheating and player hazing, but gold running, character theft, even real world crimes, like players targeting underage players for real-world sex or discussing crimes they want to or already have committed."

"[massively multiplayer online games] are often compared to theme parks, they are fun destinations you can go hang out in with lots of other people," said Ryan Seabury, one of the founders of MMO developer NetDevil. "Statistically speaking, with a large enough group of people, you are going to get a small percentage of trouble makers, and as the saying goes one rotten apple spoils the bunch. Most theme parks I've been to have safety and security staff on hand monitoring all areas to ensure that inevitable small percentage does not disrupt the enjoyment of the majority patronage. So monitoring in MMOs is very much along the same lines of thinking. "

kotaku.com - A Computer Mind To Finger The Real Bullies, Pedophiles and Killers of Virtual Worlds

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Policing online communities of all sorts is an important thing. I have been involved in more than one real world organisation, and more than one bulletin board, where a single asshat has destroyed or seriously damaged the community.

The thing that makes me worry about software like the kind discussed in the article is that the same kind of "preemptive behavioural policing" could easily be applied to other behaviours in life. That the same way the student ID linked debit cards gives school administrators the ability to receive fitness profile warnings if student buy too much junk food from school vending machines, a behavioural matching data program could preemptively point out to police whether someone was behaving in the same way as someone doing something they shouldn't - e.g. criminality. Whether you are actually a criminal or not.

Now before you get thinking that I'm getting weird and paranoid, I'd like to point out that rudimentary data mining looking for criminal behaviour is already taking place. Laws are being passed that allow armed police to raid your dwelling based strictly on data points.

Yes, that's right.

Armed police can smash down your door with drawn weapons, handcuff and detain you and your family, and then not even give an apology if they were wrong. All based on data points in a behavioural analysis program and profile.

It's not a movie.

Even as you read this, there are computer programs going over electrical records all across Canada (and I believe the United States) looking for atypical electrical usage:

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"Media Awareness Project - HYDRO WILL TARGET SUSPECTED B.C. GROW OPS

Heavy Users Of Electricity Will Be Reported To Police Under New B.C. Legislation.

Near the end of this month, municipalities will have BC Hydro records on demand, data which will be turned over to police to determine whether spikes in power use were caused by a marijuana grow operation.

Marijuana grow ops require high power consumption, typically three to 10 times the amount used by a normal home.

"This amendment will help local authorities target and shut down marijuana grow operations more quickly and more efficiently," Minister of Public Safety John Les said in the legislature Thursday, as he introduced Bill 25. "With these amendments, municipalities will now be able to obtain information from electricity companies about residences with unusual power consumption."

The names and addresses of the account holders will now be given to local authorities to investigate whether their homes contain a grow operation, he said."

It doesn't always work out the way the police intend...

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"An Abbotsford mom says gun-toting police terrified “innocent” children on the weekend during a raid that failed to produce the underground grow-op bunker police were after.

“Maybe somebody’s going to get shot the next time,” mom Jennifer Hewison, 35, told The Province after an emergency response team surrounded the family’s home on Saturday, looking for what they called a “large-scale grow operation” in an underground bunker.

Abbotsford police admit they failed to find a bunker, but said no apology will be made."

"“What Abbotsford police did was wrong. They didn’t investigate properly. They came with guns drawn into a house with children. It is an innocent home. They treated us like criminals.”

It was the second such incident involving Abbotsford police and an attempted grow-op bust in just over a month. On July 4, officers burst into a home with guns drawn, only to apologize later, calling the family “upstanding citizens.”"

"After family members emerged, police handcuffed everyone except two preschool-aged children, Hewison said.

“The kids were scared. They can’t sleep at night,” she said."

"“Two high-voltage compressors are used in a tool shop,” Hewison said. “Our bill is about $300 per month in the winter.

“We also have a nosy neighbour who sees us using a generator and thinks everyone is a criminal."

The Province - Abbotsford family fury after botched grow-op bust

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Preemptive arrest and detention based on data points without corroboration is probably not a great thing. You know this will happen with so-called anti-terrorist activity. And as a guy who gets consistently profiled and extra questioned at airport security because I look vaguely Middle Eastern/Central Asian when I have a tan... I'm already fed up with being profiled (yes i have a personal axe to grind on this one [for the record, I am of Ukrainian descent])

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As for behavioural analysis and crime fighting, and intrusions on your privacy - keep it in mind when it hits the news over the next few years.

Or, wait until the Toronto or Ontario Provincial Police come and arrest and detain you preemptively before the next G20 summit. Perhaps you will have been out purchasing bubble soap solution...

Can Facebook Predict A Relationship Break-Up?

2010-11-04T14:56:00.003-06:00

"Are you going to get dumped soon? It turns out, Facebook might already know.

Information based on a graphic created by David McCandless, a British journalist and graphic designer who specializes in streamlining data into visual packages, shows a distinct break up cycle throughout the year. With the help of colleague Lee Byron, McCandless combed through the words of 10,000 different Facebook status updates for the phrases "break up" and "broken up" to determine a pattern.

With the holiday season approaching, if your relationship is on the rocks, you might want to look out. Whether it's because of an aversion to coughing up the cash come Dec. 25, or due to a desire to party in Cancun on spring break, McCandless found that the two biggest spikes in break ups happen in the two weeks leading up to Christmas and in early March, right around spring break. However, he found that Christmas Day was the day your lover is least likely to give you the boot. There was also a surge in failed relationships right after Valentine's Day. Over the summer, the number of break ups stabilize, with the safest time for relationships falling between the end of July to October, according to the data."

PC Magazine - Can Facebook Predict a Break Up?

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i thought this study was really cool.

with 500 million and climbing user base, is there anything facebook won't be able to do soon?

yet one more way crawling and combing your user data is invasive and interesting at the same time.

is there a privacy issue involved in crawling and summarising based on keywords? not if individual data is not retained. yes, if they retained the data.

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Picture credit: Information Is Beautiful - Peak Break-Up Times Times On Facebook

Why Be Interested In Data & Information Issues? "5 million patients get electronic medical records"

2010-11-03T11:56:00.002-06:00

"Nearly 5 million patients across Ontario may now have an electronic medical record in their doctor’s office but critics argue the province is still “light years” behind others.

Health Minister Deb Matthews announced Tuesday 5,500 doctors now can manage patients’ health files electronically — a jump of more than 80 per cent in one year."

The Star - 5 million patients get electronic medical records

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"TORONTO — Almost 5,500 doctors treating more than five million people in Ontario are now using electronic medical records, but many still can't communicate with each other, eHealth CEO Greg Reed said Tuesday.

Doctors who have adopted an electronic system can exchange information with a local hospital or other physicians within their own office, but a provincewide network has yet to be built, he said."

CTV - Almost 5,500 Ont. doctors using electronic records

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Why should I be interested in data security and privacy?

Isn't it just all about computers and boring stuff?

These are some questions I get asked when I tell people I am a computer guy and a privacy officer. I get plenty of eye rolling and eye glazing as soon as I begin to discuss any of the issues - and I'm reasonably good at explaining things to people in terms they can understand rather than techese...

Why should you be interested? Read this:

"SARNIA, Ont. - The confidential health information of more than 100 southwestern Ontario residents has been breached.

Bluewater Health and the North Lambton Community Health Centre have sent a letter of notification and apology to affected patients advising that personal information was inappropriately accessed.

Bluewater Health privacy officer Karen Waymouth says a North Lambton Community Health Centre employee accessed private information such as OHIP numbers and records of hospital visits."

Winnipeg Free Press - Health records privacy breach affects more than 100 in Sarnia, Ont., area

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Ottawa Citizen - Adami: Victim of privacy breach wants hospital to explain; Husband’s ex-wife repeatedly accessed medical records

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"A possible information breach at Miami Valley Hospital is one of the latest local reminders of those privacy concerns. It involves Brennan Eden, a “high-profile” patient whose sensational Aug. 23 vehicle crash on Interstate 675 was captured on video viewed nationwide.

About 200 hospital employees accessed Eden’s medical records, but it’s not yet clear whether any of that access was due to curiosity. Under federal law, workers may only access a patient’s electronic medical records for a legitimate business need."

Dayton Daily News - Electronic health records raise fresh privacy fears; Potential access can extend to hundreds or thousands of hospital and/or clinic workers.

UK Information Commissioner's Office Changes Opinion On Google Street View WIFi Data Collection Violation

2010-11-03T10:18:00.006-06:00

"There was a "significant breach" of the Data Protection Act when Google collected personal data via its Street View cars, the UK's Information Commissioner has ruled.

But Google will not face a fine or any punishment, Christopher Graham added.

Instead, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) will audit Google's data protection practices.

The move marks a U-turn for the ICO which originally ruled that no data breach had occurred.

Last week the ICO vowed to look again at the evidence, after the Canadian data agency found the search giant in breach of its law."

BBC - Google in 'significant breach' of UK data laws

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"Google said in May that it had collected information on unencrypted Wi-Fi routers, including fragments of data transmitted by those routers. The purpose of the data collection -- which occurred as its Street View imagery vehicles were cruising streets in many countries -- was to improve a geo-location database for location-based mobile applications.

Google denied the data could be traced back to an individual. But the company said on Oct. 22 that an examination of the data by seven external regulators have now shown that in some instances entire e-mails and URLs were collected along with some passwords.

Earlier this year officials from the ICO who viewed a sample of the collected data apparently missed the fact that some of it could be traced back to specific people. They concluded "that the data as fragmentary and was unlikely to constitute personal data" and declined to take further action.

ICO officials looked at parts of the data that was provided by Google and also did their own random sampling, but did not find information that constituted personal data, according to an ICO spokesman.

It is not known which regulatory agency in the 30 countries examining the Street View data discovered the full e-mails and passwords, although it should eventually be revealed, the ICO spokesman said.

To satisfy the ICO, Google will be subject to an audit within nine months by the ICO and must sign a document saying they will face further action unless the company takes steps to ensure data is protected."

PC World - UK: Google Wi-Fi Collection Violated Data Protection Laws

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I am proud of the UK ICO for being prepared to change its ruling in the light of new evidence. I am interested in the international coordination and communication amongst various privacy office's around the globe. I was at a privacy and records management conference and one of the speakers was Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She said that there was substantial cooperation between countries and between jurisdictions.

From subtext that I interpreted in the comments made by all off the Canadian privacy commissioners that were in attendance at the conference (I think there were 6 in total federal and provincial), my opinion is that a lot of the cooperation is borne of necessity. None of the privacy commissioners have enough budget to do their jobs, and without relying on other offices for expertise, assistance, and information sharing would be fighting quite a losing battle. It is my opinion that the commissioners are all in fact unable to truly do their jobs at their current resource level.

Jennifer Stoddart also made it clear that the various national privacy commissioners were acutely aware of the interjurisdictional nature of the internet and blobal media, and that additionally pushed them toward coordinated action and information sharing. There was some discussion of how very large and rich global corporations could easily thwart a single national jurisdiction.

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Picture credit: Pulse2 - Google Street View Cars Grabbed E-Mail and Passwords

"Electronic Freedom Foundation Defends Former Prosecutor From Righthaven Copyright Suit"

2010-11-02T16:53:00.003-06:00

This story is about "...Righthaven — a company formed last March to acquire the rights to newspaper articles, and then sue blogs and other websites that post or excerpt those articles."

"Copyright troll Righthaven is facing its second lawsuit from digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing a former federal prosecutor who tracks mysterious murder cases on his website.

Thomas DiBiase runs nobodycases.com, a site exclusively dedicated to tracking so-called “no body” cases, trials and investigations. A “no body case” is one in which a murder is suspected, but no body has been found.

In June, DiBiase posted a story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a Nevada man being sentenced to death for killing his wife who was never found. That put DiBiase in the crosshairs of Righthaven — a company formed last March to acquire the rights to newspaper articles, and then sue blogs and other websites that post or excerpt those articles.

The company has so far sued more than 160 defendants for cribbing articles from the Review-Journal, which is owned by Las Vegas-based Stephens Media. Righthaven’s lawsuit against DiBiase seeks $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of the nobodycases.com domain name."

Wired - EFF Defends Former Prosecutor From Righthaven Copyright Suit

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As a blogger whose entire blog is dedicated to excerpting and republishing pieces of articles in order to draw attention to issues, learning of groups like Righthaven makes me queasy.

Seems to be yet another element to the commoditisation of knowledge. A chill effect on free discourse.

Suing over 4 paragraphs of 34 seems a bit excessive to me.

So, in the interest of a future legal defence of this blog, I would certainly urge readers to read the sites I link to, and to pay special attention to the other site's advertising.

I don't have tens of thousands of dollars for any settlement...

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Picture credit: File:Copyright (Simple English) Wikibook header.png

"BitDefender Launches Beta of Facebook Privacy App"

2010-11-01T14:31:00.003-06:00

"Facebook privacy and security is a moving target. The bad guys keep inventing new scams and tricks, from clickjacking attacks that push traffic for their own Web sites to Trojan apps that actively steal your personal information. You can take proper precautions against bad links, but being too cautious cuts down on the fun of seeing what your friends want to share. And Facebook's own internal privacy settings just keep changing. With the new SafeGo app, currently in free public beta, BitDefender aims to put the fun back in Facebook.

Of course, you do have to trust BitDefender with your privacy. The app asks for permission to: access your information; send you e-mails; post to your wall; read your inbox; scan your news feed; and access your data even when you're not on Facebook. But if you can't trust a major security vendor who can you trust?"

PC Mag - BitDefender Launches Beta of Facebook Privacy App

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um, yeah...

'bout time

now we get to pay more for security because the original software authors and planners at facebook don't bother to do it right?

great

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Picture credit: ripped off from BitDefender (who can bite my hairy... over this trademark and copyright infringement in return for the free advertising of their services and product above)

U.K. Security Agencies Want Internet Service Providers To Routinely Store ALL User Email And Web Activities For 1 Year (Does This Sound Like Freedom?)

2010-10-29T14:07:00.002-06:00

"A massive [U.K.] government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials"

"The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it..."

"Industry sources gave warning that a single database would be at greater risk of attack and abuse.

Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner, said: “This would give us serious concerns and may well be a step too far. We are not aware of any justification for the State to hold every UK citizen’s phone and internet records. We have real doubts that such a measure can be justified, or is proportionate or desirable. We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Holding large collections of data is always risky - the more data that is collected and stored, the bigger the problem when the data is lost, traded or stolen.” "

The Times - ‘Big Brother’ database for phones and e-mails

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This plan was previously put on hold because of implementation difficulties and resistance. The above article is from 2008. The plan has been brought back... [James]

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"[Information Commissioner's Office] ICO objects to government data retention plans
Watchdog questions need to store emails and internet history for a year

The government's plans to store UK citizens' emails and internet history have been criticised by the Information Commissioner as going too far.

The Strategic Defence and Security Review, published last week, includes plans to force ISPs, and potentially all companies, to store email and internet data for at least one year." - 26 Oct 2010

V3.co.uk - ICO objects to government data retention plans

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"A resurrected plan to force internet service providers (ISPs) to store their customers’ personal internet browsing habits has been called “disproportionate” by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Despite the coalition government promising to outlaw the retention of internet and email records stored without good reason, the recent Strategic Defence and Security Review said that the former Labour government’s project would be revived.

ISPs and mobile operators already record, and retain for six months, email header information and web access details such as log-on/off times, IP address and details of dial-up numbers. Under the new regulations, this data would be supplemented with web activity logs, currently held for four days, and the complete data set would then be stored for a year."

IT Pro - Official privacy watchdog calls the former Labour plan “disproportionate”

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"In the July 2009 response, the ICO said that the value communications data has for crime prevention and detection was not justification enough for "mandating" the collection of all possible communications data on subscribers by communications services providers (CSPs)."

publicservice.co.ok - Internet data project has 'privacy risks'

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"President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower used the term in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:
'A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction...

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.' - Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government" - Wikipedia

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It has been said that the "Military Industrial Complex" has been replaced by the "National Security Apparatus".

I will quote "Jonathan Bamford, the assistant Information Commissioner" again "We have warned before that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

"...sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

"...warned..."

"...sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

"...warned..."

"...sleepwalking into a surveillance society."

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"It is easy to use George Orwell’s 1984 as a comparative reference to where society is at now, but the novel is surely as important as it ever has been.

The modern classic presaged a dystopian society where people were deprived of privacy and, as a ruling body, the Party watched every move citizens made through its Big Brother mechanism.

While Orwell was onto something, however, his prediction (if it indeed was one) of an omnipotent, omniscient, singular controlling body was not exactly spot on.

In today’s Western world the central powers – aka each nation’s government – are not the only ones watching over us, gathering our data and making use of it.

Instead, there are now an abundance of organisations mining personal information to ascertain what people are doing, and even to predict what they will do next.

Given the sheer proliferation of data available over the web and the huge range of sources, companies do not have a particularly arduous task in gathering our information these days.

And whilst in 1984 the Party was the dominant force of one state, Oceania, these companies are global and able to gather people’s data regardless of location.

So, a question: Are we now living in the updated version of the Orwellian Nightmare?"

IT Pro - The Orwellian Nightmare: Version 2.0

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Picture credit: Shepard Fairey in London: Big Brother Is Watching YOU

Shepard Fairey

http://obeygiant.com/

"Police Facial Recognition: There's an App for That"

2010-10-28T14:47:00.005-06:00

"US cops are employing Apple's iPhone to help identify potential criminals.

The system, known as MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System), lets police officers take a snap of a suspect and upload it to a secure network to be analysed.

If a biometric match is found, the identity, photo and background information of any suspect is transmitted back to the police officer's iPhone reports the Daily Mail newspaper.

Currently being tested by the gang unit at Brockton police in Massachusetts, the iPhone app is expected to be rolled out across 28 police departments and 14 sheriff departments in the state."

PC World - Police Facial Recognition: There's an App for That

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"With the snap of an iPhone camera, one police department is identifying suspects on the go.

Using an app called MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System), the police department in Brockton, Massachusetts is matching photos of suspects with a database in development by statewide sheriff’s departments.

Sean Mullin, president and CEO of BI2 Technologies of Plymouth who developed the app, explained that the app allows officers to identify suspects through facial recognition, iris biometrics and fingerprints – all on one device.

MORIS may be a quick, easy way to ID perps, but it isn’t cheap. Each iPhone loaded up with the app costs $3,000. These aren’t regular, off-the-shelf iPhones but augmented devices (considerably bulkier than what you’d find in a store and what could easily fit in a pocket) with super-sized batteries as well as some extra hardware.

During the testing phase, police have access to the facial recognition software but the system will later include both iris and fingerprint recognition. Brockton is using a federal grant to pay for the experimental program.

The first devices will be used by the gang unit until more grant money can be obtained to equip the rest of the force. In total, about $150,000 in grant money will be used in 28 police departments and 14 sheriffs departments across the state.

Police Chief William Conlan explained the advantages in a video interview,”This is something that the officers can actually access when they’re out on the road, so they don’t have to bring somebody back here to figure out who they are.”"

Cult of Mac - Police use Facial Recognition iPhone App to ID Perps

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"New tests conducted by police yet again prove an increasing number of surveillance systems are unreliable.

200 people were enrolled to test CCTV face recognition software on three systems which failed to recognise 8 out of 10 people, even when the system was fed images of people standing still – one of the easiest settings often used to suggest the software is reliable.

The tests were conducted on software produced by Cognitec, Bosch and Cross Match.

The federal police in Germany who conducted the test are citing “bad lighting” as the reason for the failure..."

"Through the use of number plate recognition, cars fitted with mandatory RFID, schools fingerprinting, biometric passports, a European biometric database and ‘Spy Drones’ monitoring street activity, we see not only Big Brother nations emerging but the creation of an entire European Big Brother continent were all movements can be tracked and recorded."

RINF Alternative News - [German] Police Report: Face Recognition CCTV Unreliable

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I'm torn on this one. I am hip to giving police the ability to check against a database from the scene or from the street. Especially in the uses described in the article - a gang task force. The positive that I do see is police will have less likelihood to haul someone down to the police station in a case of mistaken identity. Especially if dealing with racial differences - the stereotyped "all black people look alike" kind of moment (which applies to characteristic recognition across other racial groups).

(I recall when the movie Colors came out in 1988 and there was some discussion in the media of the role police played in non-white communities. The words used were "white occupational army". This was about the time that police forces all over North America were beginning to look at diversity issues in their ranks)

Where I live we have a large First Nations population. I know a few Indian folks who got hauled in for "further checking" because they had a resemblance to someone the police were looking for. Hopefully an app like this one will help prevent such events from occurring in the future.

On the other hand...

I have some concern about widespread use of this kind of technology on other photo databases. It won't be long before security agencies are using this to comb facebook (if they aren't already) and the web for people they are looking for. I am uncomfortable with the kind of "associative" databases that could be created from that kind of picture crawling.

I have friends who fled Chile and other central and South American countries during the various dictatorships. They told me there were many arrests and interrogations by association. Even just the neighbours of such dangerous people as trade union or human rights activists.

Which means if a coup or authoritarian regime arrives here we will all be among the first to be arrested, tortured and shot (or thrown into the ocean from helicopters). I'm not predicting anything, but hey - what happens if President Palin doesn't like a spanking new NDP/Green coalition government...

And if you don't think bad things can happen here, look at my last post on facial recognition and the G20. Think about the arrests and harassment of Quebec separatists and nationalists during the FLQ crisis. Look at the number of people detained and tortured by the United States during their current conflicts - the number that were detained with no real grounds.

Try this on for size:

"A week after the Justice Department released documents that described in extraordinary detail the CIA's top secret rendition program, an international human rights tribunal has agreed to take up the case of a German citizen who was "rendered" to a CIA black site prison in Afghanistan and tortured in a case of mistaken identity.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition in April with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, a truck driver, detained for four months. El-Masri was first detained in December 2003 in Macedonia by law enforcement authorities of that country for 23 days before being turned over to the CIA.

El-Masri was beaten, stripped and drugged prior to being loaded onto a plane bound for Afghanistan, according to the petition. After several interrogation sessions at the black site prison, the CIA realized they had captured the wrong person. In May 2004, the CIA blindfolded El-Masri, put him on a plane and abandoned him on a hillside in Albania. He was never charged with a crime."

Antimedius - International Tribunal Takes Up Rendition, Torture Case

'nuff said on that subject

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On to another topic, related to facial recognition. How long before we have "body recognition"? And what will happen when people start using a combination of body recognition and facial recognition on all those amateur porn sites where people upload their own pictures? Think Manitoba judges and such for the awesome results of being outed in relation to amateur porn and jilted ex's tossing nudie pics on the internet.

It's a brave new world...

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Picture credit: Cult of Mac - Police use Facial Recognition iPhone App to ID Perps

Sean Bruyea's Battle With Veteran's Affairs Is A Stark Reminder Of Why Privacy Is An Issue For All Of Us

2010-10-27T10:11:00.006-06:00

"OTTAWA – An outspoken veterans' advocate and Gulf War vet says the federal government tried to hospitalize him after he began speaking out against government policies."

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"Bruyea had complained after discovering through Access to Information that his file had been accessed 4,131 times over 10 years by more than 600 department officials."

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"Sean Bruyea told CTV’s Question Period that two months after he first testified against a controversial change to veterans’ disability payments, Veterans Affairs Canada attempted to discredit him by hospitalizing him and making his advocacy a psychological issue.

“Within two months of that period, they tried to force me to go to their hospital for a psychiatric assessment that they had never asked for before.

Why within two months of my advocacy, did they require that assessment?”Bruyea said.

“You are saying they were trying to hospitalize you?” asked CTV’s Craig Oliver.

“Well, exactly. I was terrified. As an intelligence officer who studied Soviet Russia, I mean I knew about the Gulags in Stalinist Russia, and I thought: 'This isn’t much different. They are trying to make my advocacy a psychological issue'.”

Bruyea said within days of his testimony against lump-sum disability payments, veterans affairs also denied him approval for treatment he had been receiving for his post-traumatic stress disorder, such as meetings with his psychologist and a couple’s therapist.

Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddard found Thursday there had been grave breaches of Bruyea’s personal information at the department and ordered a full audit."

Toronto Sun - Vet alleges government tried to hospitalize him

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"Until Ms. Stoddart ruled on Oct. 7 that the Veterans Affairs Department violated the Privacy Act by disclosing personal and medical information to bureaucrats and Cabinet ministers who had no right to the files, the government had delayed a legal response to the statement of claim for damages Mr. Bruyea filed last March 2, the court file shows. Normally, a notice of defence to the legal action would have been required at the latest within 30 days, but the government held it off until Sept. 22.

Ms. Stoddart launched her investigation after Mr. Bruyea discovered under the Access to Information Act how widely the department had circulated his medical files as an injured veteran within the department and to former veterans affairs ministers Greg Thompson, a Conservative, and Albina Guarnieri, the previous Liberal veterans affairs minister. Ms. Guarnieri notes Ms. Stoddart referred to the briefing notes she received as "appropriate" because they concerned issues Mr. Bruyea raised.

The privacy commissioner also confirmed Mr. Bruyea's complaint that departmental officials had used his medical condition, post traumatic stress disorder, in an attempt to discredit his work as a veterans advocate opposing a new Veterans Charter. Mr. Bruyea opposed in particular a $275,000 lump-sum cash payment for severely injured veterans, that had been initially brought in under Ms. Guarnieri and implemented by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government.

Ms. Stoddart said a departmental briefing note to former Conservative veterans minister Greg Thompson in March 2006 contained references to Mr. Bruyea's advocacy activities as well as "considerable sensitive medical information, including diagnosis, symptoms, prognosis, chronology of interactions with the department as a client, amounts of financial benefits received, frequency of appointments and recommended treatment paths." "

The Hill Times Online - Bruyea's lawsuit against feds could be settled out of court, says lawyer

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And Sean Bruyea's own words:

"As I testified to this committee last month, I was and am the victim of reprisals by Veterans Affairs officials precisely because of my opposition to the New Veterans Charter as well as my support of a veterans’ ombudsman. The New Veterans Charter cannot be looked at in isolation from the process in which it was created. We cannot as a nation or a parliament blindly accept that any means justify the end. The secretive and bullying manner in which the New Veterans Charter was fast tracked prevented due process of Committee review, a review we called for exactly five years ago today and which you are now thankfully carrying out.

Perhaps if Parliament had held public hearings prior to tabling the New Veterans Charter, Veterans Affairs officials such as Darragh Mogan, the chief architect of the NVC, would not have acted with such impunity on March 24 2006 when he told six VAC senior managers including Assistant Deputy Minister Brian Ferguson that it was “time to take the gloves off” when dealing with me and my public analysis of the New Veterans Charter. [bold mine - James]

It is not just a little alarming that the plan detailing what Mr. Mogan carried out with his “gloves off” was sent to two Canadian Forces officers and then later blanked out by Access to Information. It can’t be a coincidence but later that afternoon, Ken Miller circulated a letter to Assistant Deputy Minister Brian Ferguson, Darragh Mogan and others which I wrote to Prime Minister Harper regarding the Charter and which had bold letters written above: “Not for Departmental Viewing.” Thirty-six minutes later, instructions from Assistant Deputy Minister Brian Ferguson that my personal medical files be shared with Parliamentary Secretary Betty Hinton were put into action, just three days after Minister Thompson saw those same files.

I can only assume that this was done to undermine her confidence in me, because her office doesn’t look like a medical office to me and neither Mr. Mogan nor Mr. Ferguson appear to have M.D. or medical doctor designation following their names. More curiously, Parliamentary Secretary Betty Hinton’s support of me quickly declined after receiving the skewed medical information provided by the Department, and I don’t think that’s a fair or ethical use of my personal information. But I may not be alone here; the Privacy Commissioner is investigating the matter.

I wasn’t dreaming when 13,000 pages of Privacy Act information showed me how VAC had used my personal medical files, to slander my reputation with Ministers, Members of Parliament and Senior VAC managers thereby undermining my effectiveness as an advocate for the overhaul of the New Veterans Charter. Nor was I delusional when those same documents showed how VAC bureaucrats – not medical doctors – had determined that I was “clearly unwell”, in need of a “one-week” or more inpatient psychiatric assessment, simply because I demanded a Parliamentary review of the New Veterans Charter. [bold mine - James]

While it is true that I suffer from PTSD and have a therapeutic medical team which strongly opposed the need for this assessment, the mere fact that one disagrees with VAC officials, is not in itself, a diagnosis for such draconian measures or for any other treatment.--- If disagreement with VAC officials were a diagnosis for treatment, many members of this committee would already be racking up rather large therapy bills.

The fact that VAC officials would target an opponent in such a devious way, is precisely why a “Comprehensive Whistleblower Veteran and Family Protection” legislation must be included in any rewrite of the New Veterans Charter to show veterans that they are equal partners in overseeing the programs created in their name and in honour of their sacrifices."

fairwhilstleblower.ca - Sean Bruyea testifies on Veterans Charter (Part 2)

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Search google news for more on this horror story

Google news search - Sean Bruyea

Google search - Sean Bruyea

Sean Bruyea's website

Media Quote List - Sean Bruyea

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This is the sort of reprisal that can occur when anyone challenges those with power and authority. It happens when people challenge private corporations and it happens when people challenge politicians/government or its bureaucrats.

It happens in schools - remember my post about the remotely activated webcams on the school issued laptops? The student who received the largest part of the settlement for being spied on remotely by school administration officials was targeted because he was considered a troublemaker for the school administration.

A couple of decades ago I got suddenly paid out by an employer when I started to organise a union in my workplace (I had submitted my resignation effective some 6 months in the future because I was going to university in the fall of that year) prompted by some awful safety violations and tolerance of sexual harassment in the workplace. My co-workers told me that other union friendly people had been fired for contrived reasons in the past in this particular location of the large multi-national I worked for (no, I am not referring to Wal-Mart).

Information is a weapon. People having access to your information can arm them. There are times when people will try to harm you in one way or another. Sean Bruyea is a case in point.

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Picture Credit: fairwhilstleblower.ca - Sean Bruyea testifies on Veterans Charter (Part 2)

North Carolina Tax Dept. Wanted All Names, Purchases, & Titles Of N.C. Amazon Purchasers; Judge Says no way!

2010-10-26T13:56:00.001-06:00

"Some clever lawyering turned a routine Internet tax battle into a First Amendment case, as a federal judge in Washington rebuffed North Carolina’s efforts to get its hands on Amazon.com customer data.

Amazon’s lawyers, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the North Carolina Department of Revenue threatened the constitutional rights of Amazon customers when it requested the names of North Carolina customers on top of detailed purchase information it had already obtained.

In a 26-page ruling , U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman found the North Carolina revenooers’ request was too broad and subjected Amazon customers to unconstitutional scrutiny.

As the declarations from the Intervenors make clear, the fear of disclosure of their reading, watching, and listening habits poses an imminent threat of harm and chill to the exercise of First Amendment rights."

Forbes - Federal Judge Quashes N.C. Search For Amazon Customer Data

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"“The Amazon customers we represent — indeed, anyone who’s purchased books, movies or any other legal thing online — should be able to make purchases freely without the government looking over their shoulder. We hope the court agrees.”

— The court did agree with the ACLU in this case, when U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Washington state ruled yesterday that Amazon.com does not have to turn over the names and addresses of North Carolina residents who made purchases on the website from 2003 to 2010, as requested by that state’s use-tax collectors. Use taxes are collected on, among other things, purchases made online from merchants with no presence in the consumer’s state. CNet reports that Amazon had already provided North Carolina officials with purchases made by ZIP code, but that state officials wanted names and purchases linked together, a request that Pechman said “runs afoul of the First Amendment.” The court did not grant the broader injunction the ACLU, which had intervened in this case, had sought, which would have barred Amazon.com from revealing customer data without a subpoena."

Good Morning Silicon Valley - Quoted: Amazon wins round in privacy fight

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"North Carolina's Department of Revenue violated the First Amendment in asking Amazon for names of customers who bought books, a Washington judge ruled on Monday.

The ruling is a win for free speech advocates, but the ACLU may continue to pursue the issue because the ruling may not prevent similar requests for broad customer data in the future.

The lawsuit has its roots in a dispute over whether Amazon must pay sales tax on goods shipped to North Carolina residents. As part of its investigations into the issue, North Carolina asked Amazon to send it "all information for all sales" to customers in the state.

Amazon complied by sending specific information, including book titles, about products shipped to North Carolina. The trouble started when North Carolina then asked for the names and addresses of customers. Amazon subsequently asked the court to rule that sending customer names to North Carolina violates the customers' First Amendment rights because the state would then be able to match people's names with specific book titles."

PC World - Court Rules Amazon Doesn't Have to Turn Over Customer Names

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Once that sort of data is in one set of hands, how long does it take for other agencies to request it?

How long before Amazon purchases are tied into "terrorist" searches and profiling?

How long before such scrutiny wanders into thought police land? Think of the various school districts in the U.S. that have elected boards that censor library and textbook picks.

If you don't believe me, I can provide examples of preemptive enquiries on all variety of activities by police and security agencies all over the world.

As a guy who gets extra searched going through airports because he looks kind of Lebanese in person, especially when I have a tan, I can tell you that profiling and jumping to conclusions is rampant among officialdom. For the record, I am of Ukrainian ethnic descent and my Hutzul genotype has strong central Asian characteristics - my family has been in Canada for over 100 years. But I still get busted for looking like a "foreign" terrorist...

Just sayin'

Look to where information requests can end up sometime in the future. Because by the time you realise it, your freedom will be curtailed - and people really will be watching you.

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Picture credit: computing.co.uk - Data privacy and the surveillance state

Google Street View Scanned And Collected Data Streams From WiFi Nodes; Canadian Privacy Commisioner Not Impressed; Google Stops Doing It

2010-10-21T10:09:00.000-06:00

"The Canadian government concluded today that Google's collection of fragments of Wi-Fi transmissions violated the law, but also said that the recording was the "result of a careless error" and was not intentional.

Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's privacy commissioner, said she would consider the investigation closed and the matter resolved as long as Google revises its internal procedures to improve "the privacy training it provides all its employees" and deletes or segregates any data relating to Canadian citizens.

In e-mail to CNET, a Google spokesman said the company is working with the privacy commissioner: "As we have said before, we are profoundly sorry for having mistakenly collected payload data from unencrypted networks. As soon as we realized what had happened, we stopped collecting all Wi-Fi data from our Street View cars and immediately informed the authorities."

Stoddart's report sheds a bit more light on what led to the erroneous collection of about 12 Blu-ray discs' worth of Wi-Fi transmissions worldwide. She said that her investigation revealed that an unnamed Google engineer failed to follow company procedures by not sending design specifications for Street View code to the company's legal department for review"

CNET - Canada slaps Google for Street View Wi-Fi intercepts

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"Google’s roaming Street View cameras have been doing more than snap pics of your neighborhood; they’ve also been collecting packets of information sent over private WiFi networks, the company acknowledged Friday.

The company said the collection was “a mistake,” the result of a programming error, and that it has now stopped collecting the data, according to a post on its blog.

But the revelation raises questions about whether the company violated federal wiretapping laws in collecting the information and could draw scrutiny from U.S. regulators.

Last month, regulators with the Data Protection Authority in Germany asked the search giant what information its Street View cameras collected and what it did with that information."

Wired Magazine - Google Street View Cams Collected Private Content From WiFi Networks

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"Preliminary Letter of Findings
Complaints under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (the Act)

1. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada initiated three complaints against Google Inc. (Google) on May 31, 2010, pursuant to subsection 11(2) of the Act, after being made aware that Google Street View cars had been collecting payload data from unencrypted WiFi networks during their collection of publicly broadcast WiFi signals (service set identifiers [SSID] information and Media Access Control (“MAC”) addresses.
2. The three complaints are as follows:
1. Google’s collection, use or disclosure of payload data was done without the individual's prior knowledge and consent;
2. Google’s collection of payload data was done without prior identification of the purposes for which personal information (PI) was collected;
3. Google’s collection of payload data was not limited to that which was necessary for the purposes identified."

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada - Preliminary Letter of Findings; Complaints under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (the Act)

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"(CNET) -- Google has no plans to resume using its Street View cars to collect information about the location of Wi-Fi networks, a practice that led to a flurry of privacy probes after the company said it unintentionally captured fragments of unencrypted data.

The disclosure appeared in a report on Street View released this week by Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, who said that "collection is discontinued and Google has no plans to resume it." Assembling an extensive list of the location of Wi-Fi access points can aid in geolocation, especially in areas where connections to cell towers are unreliable.

Instead, Stoddart said that, based on her conversations with headquarters in Mountain View, Ca., "Google intends to obtain the information needed to populate its location-based services database" from "users' handsets."

That, at least, should come as no surprise. As CNET reported in June, mobile phone and laptop users who run certain Google applications already share their location information with the company, which then uses this crowdsourced data to refine its mapping capabilities.

When Google Maps Navigation users requests a location fix with the "use wireless networks" option checked in their settings, their device sends over a list of all nearby addresses associated with wireless hot spots, which can in turn be checked against Google's existing database of those addresses gathered through the Street View project."

CNN - Google ditches Street View Wi-Fi scanning

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Picture Credit: Wired Magazine - Google Street View Cams Collected Private Content From WiFi Networks

"Study: At Age 2, 81 percent of Kids have 'Digital Footprint'"

2010-10-20T13:57:00.003-06:00

I was going to put up a picture of a sonogram of a baby, but all the pictures on google images seemed to be someone sharing their child's sonogram with friends and family on personal blogs and it just didn't seem right to me to intrude on their space...

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"Do you have Facebook friends who share pictures of their babies – from sonograms to their infants’ births, baptisms and other baby-related content? Or those who create an online account for their babies, long before these babies can even see clearly?

These babies clearly have an online presence at a very early age. And it’s not surprising. With people easily using media to share information with others, sharing their babies’ information may sound harmless.

According to a study conducted by Research Now, 92 percent of all American babies have some form of online presence by the time they reach the age of two. It also revealed that children as young as six months have an online presence, including their own e-mail addresses."

Manila Bulletin - Study: At Age 2, 81 percent of Kids have 'Digital Footprint'

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"Canadian moms seem to have few qualms about the privacy risks of putting family photos on the Internet, according to a new study.

Out of 10 regions surveyed by software maker AVG, Canadian mothers were also the most likely to post scans of their prenatal sonograms online.

The study, which surveyed 2,200 mothers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Spain, suggests 81 per cent of today's kids have some kind of online presence before they turn two."

The Daily Gleaner - Canadian moms most likely to upload sonogram online: report

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"According to a study released last week by AVG, an average of 81 per cent of toddlers in 10 Western countries has a digital presence; 92 per cent in the United States, followed by 91 per cent in New Zealand and 84 per cent in Australia and Canada. A third of children are online at just a few weeks of age, while a quarter appear on the web before they are born in the form of ante-natal scans.

"It's a sobering thought," said AVG managing director Peter Cameron in a statement. "The vast majority of children today have online presence by the time they are two years old -- a presence that will be built on throughout their whole lives.""

Ottawa Citizen - Kids' online presence raises security worries

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The best advice I have heard on photos and personal information online goes something like this:

It's not going away. Your online footprint will be there forever. Manage it. Make sure that the first thing that comes up is not those embarrassing pictures of you sucking a face mounted Reindeer nose dildo (real story [not me]), or mooning your boss at a Christmas party (real story [not me]), or running naked through a football stadium (real story [not me]). Rand Paul and Aqua Buddha gets no mention here because it wasn't an online photo leak...

You have an online presence whether you like it or not. Ensure the top searches about you are what you want them to be.