Tuesday, October 08, 2002

New York Times - free registration required Protesting the Big Brother Lens, Little Brother Turns an Eye Blind. A national debate over the ethics of surveillance continues to grow as video cameras proliferate. [ ... ] In recent weeks there have been a growing number of incidents involving video-surveillance cameras, ranging from the mother who recently surrendered after she was recorded hitting her 4-year-old daughter in an Indiana parking lot to a man who filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the Marriott hotel chain last month after discovering a video camera hidden in a bathroom light fixture. The growing reliance on surveillance is giving some of the pioneers of the video camera industry second thoughts. "I have lots of worries about how this technology is being used," said John Graham, who is the founder of BroadWare Technologies, a Cupertino, Calif., maker of software for video-camera networks, and who was one of the first researchers to send audio and video over the Internet. "I've become Big Brother, but I didn't mean to be," Mr. Graham said. "It's just that there's no money in education or scientific collaboration." [ ... ] The value of video cameras to improve safety and detect terrorists has been greatly overrated, according to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. Like the Surveillance Camera Players, Mr. Rotenberg said he worries that while Internet-viewable cameras might offer entertainment, there are other networks of private and law enforcement cameras that collect information secretly on behalf of the government. "There has been a reduction in privacy and there has been an expansion in government secrecy," he said. "We give up our privacy, but we don't gain openness in exchange." [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:41:24 PM          Now am uneducated about the real solution to protecting ourselves.  I know I would rather not have another 2002.09.11.  However I also worry about my loss of privacy.  Not like I really have a lot of secrets anymore.  Just that my business is not the publics concern.  New York Times - free registration required Report Calls for Plan of Sharing Data to PPrevent Terror. Unless information provided by state and local officials, as well as the private sector, is shared with Washington, "we may wind up getting all of the disadvantages of invasion of privacy with none of the national security gains," conclude the task force's co-chairmen, Zoë Baird, the president of the New York-based Markle Foundation, and James L. Barksdale, a businessman and former chief executive of Netscape. Although the Bush administration did not commission the report or formally participate on the 44-member panel that studied the issues for more than six months, senior administration officials who followed the group's work praised the effort. [ ... ] Treading carefully in one of the most sensitive policy areas, particularly for conservative Republicans, the task force avoids recommending the creation of a stand-alone domestic collection agency -- such as Britain's MI-5 -- or placing that responsibility under the F.B.I. "The people running criminal investigations should not be seeking all kinds of information from businesses, state and local officials all over the country," Ms. Baird said. The case for "fundamental separation" of criminal investigation and domestic counterintelligence "is strong," the report concludes. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:39:48 PM          As California goes the US goes, sooner or later.  Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong (apologies to Dennis Miller). Service providers win one, lose one. California's governor signs one bill requiring e-mail providers to warn consumers before shutting down accounts but vetoes another requiring notification by ISPs. [CNET News.com]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:36:12 PM          Now this is long, but it is a big concern of mine.  I want to be able to copy my purchased media any way I want. New York Times - free registration required Court to Review Copyright Law. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this week over the constitutionality of a 1998 law that extended copyright protection by 20 years. Experts on both sides of the closely watched case say that its outcome could reshape the way cultural products are consumed and how their profits are divided. [ ... ] The case has attracted 38 friend-of-the-court briefs from prominent intellectuals, artists, elected officials and advocates in numerous fields -- who in some instances seem to defy traditional political lines. Fifteen economists from across the political spectrum, including the Nobel laureates Milton Friedman and Kenneth Arrow, for instance, wrote a brief in support of the challenge, arguing that it is "highly unlikely that the economic benefits from copyright extension" outweigh the additional costs. The conservative advocate Phyllis Schlafly, who is the founder of the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund, also submitted a brief in support of overturning the law, as did the Intel Corporation, besides more predictable partisans like the Free Software Foundation and several library associations. [ ... ] Lined up on the government's side are Mr. Abrams; Dr. Seuss Enterprises; Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican; several members of the House Judiciary Committee, and virtually all of the major copyright holder trade associations. It will fall to Mr. Lessig, who is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and who has become a kind of rock star for the digital liberties set, to convince the justices to accept the unconventional analysis. If they do, the decision could be a turning point in redefining a balance between copyright consumers and producers -- and the technology companies that are often in the middle. [ ... ] Only about 2 percent of works protected by copyright produce continuing revenue for their owners, Mr. Lessig says. But no one can use the rest without hunting down the owners and negotiating licenses. Disney faced no such restrictions, he says, when the company drew on Victor Hugo's work to produce the animated film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" or the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm to make "Cinderella" and "Snow White." [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:33:53 PM      Technology News from Wired News - Codebusters Crack Encryption Key. It took four years, 331,000 participants and a difficult legal case, but the relentless efforts of Distributed.net and its supporters have finally broken a 64-bit encryption key developed by RSA Data Securities. When Distributed.net set up shop in 1997 to test various forms of encryption by essentially breaking through them, organizers figured it could take 100 years to uncover the RC5-64 sequence due to limited computer power and the fact that so many people would have to participate in the effort. Still, they forged ahead. [ ... ] While the accomplishment of breaking the 64-bit encryption standard is noteworthy, there are even greater challenges ahead for Distribution.net. Next up is breaking through RC5-72, RSA's next highest encryption key. RSA also has a 128-bit key, but trying to break a key that long is practically impossible because there are so many combinations of keys to consider, McNett said. "Major advances would have to be made in keyrate processing before that would be even approachable," he said. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:30:14 PM          I realize we're really just numbers to a computer anyway, but distilling myself down to just one number is a little sci-fi for me. NEWS.com.au | Phone system could have your number. A single telephone number doubling as an email address could soon be available in Australia despite fears the technology could become a de facto identification number. Under the ENUM system being analysed by the Australian Communications Authority, one number could track down a person via a home or mobile phone number, or an email or website address. The technology has attracted controversy overseas because of privacy implications of people being identified by a single number. The ACA wants feedback on a discussion paper it has issued, saying privacy is one of its concerns. But ACA numbering manager Neil Whitehead said potential benefits of the system could be enormous. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:24:12 PM      Fedscope . Welcome to FedScope Development, creators of the free FedScope Plugin for websites. FedScope v1 was released on October 6th, 2002 and has been a smash hit for us. Using reverse host lookups, FedScope determines if each visitor of your website is surfing from a computer that is connected to a US Government-owned Network. If it is, the hit and associated information is logged into a "MySQL" database and you can (optionally) print the last hit information to your webpages using server-side includes. You can see an example of this to your left. FedScope works on any webserver that can parse PHP and has the capability to write to a MySQL database. Best of all, the software is made available to you free of charge. This program is released under The General Public License ("GPL"), so you are free to use and redistribute it without charge. That is assuming that they use an address registered correctly. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:21:12 PM      New Northwest System for Internet Bookings. Northwest Airlines announced a new Internet-based system that could provide the airline's lowest-priced Web fares directly to travel agents for the first time. By Joe Sharkey. [New York Times: Technology]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:14:55 PM          I think this is a good thing... For the Ozone Layer, a New Look. Satellite observation of the hole in the ozone layer shows that it has split in two and has shrunk considerably. By The New York Times. [New York Times: Science]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:13:51 PM      Sniper Doesn't Fit the Expected Profile. The sniper who has killed six people does not fit the usual categories, and that may make the case harder to solve. By Fox Butterfield. [New York Times: National]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:11:43 PM      New York Times - free registration required House Passes Bill to Review Federal Agencies' Privacy Rules. Without dissent, the House passed legislation today to require federal agencies to review the effects on personal privacy of any new regulations that they propose and to let individuals go to court to attack those reviews as inadequate. The bill, originally sponsored by Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, and co-sponsored by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, was supported by a wide ideological range of interest groups from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Rifle Association. [ ... ] Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Scott and Representative Robert B. Aderholt, an Alabama Republican who was in the speaker's chair, were the sole members in the House chamber when the bill came up. It was considered under a procedure that allows 40 minutes of debate and requires a two-thirds vote for passage. The debate and the 2-to-0 vote took six minutes. It is unclear whether the measure will be considered in the Senate this year, where legislation to control the use of personal information gathered by the Internet has been stalled because of objections by Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the minority leader. But this bill, because it does not threaten any private industry whose political action committees help members win re-election, may prove more attractive to senators who want to connect with growing privacy concerns in the electorate. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:04:07 PM          Sounds good to me, hope this is a right of mine. Political News from Wired News - Free Speech Same as Free Content?. In a case that could shake U.S. copyright law to its foundation, attorneys on Wednesday will try to persuade the Supreme Court that public access to copyrighted works is a First Amendment right. Plaintiffs have challenged the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA), which extended current and future copyrights by 20 years. The law passed as a result of heavy influence from Hollywood studios such as the Walt Disney Company, whose earliest copyrights on characters such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were about to expire under the old limit of 75 years. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:01:49 PM          Now I get the risk, but how safe is the info on the internet backbone, as far as that goes... Business News from Wired News - Report: Wi-Fi Networks Too Risky. Starbucks customers who like surfing the Net wirelessly as they sip lattes might be surprised to hear that the federal government considers the practice dangerous. In a recently released report, the government asked federal agencies to exercise extra caution when using a wireless local area network (LAN) for Internet access. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:00:05 PM      San Jose Mercury News - Trading privacy for security without a thought. In fact, the public air was full of heated opinions and judgments about everything . . . except the videotape itself. No one seemed too concerned about the image or its trail from Kohl's to CNN. We have gotten so used to the idea of a security camera peering at us out of every ATM and parking lot, every airport and school, every department store and public square, that we no longer question it. When the booty of a department store's private eye is open to the public eye, we don't flinch. We just watch. Indeed, the only story alarming enough to raise privacy hackles these days came from Washington state, where two men were arrested for taking pictures up women's skirts. But these men were acquitted of voyeurism by the state Supreme Court because the pictures were taken in public places where, the justices ruled, people don't have a ``reasonable expectation of privacy.'' [ ... ] We've become a nation of surveillance with remarkably little discussion. Few of us are asking the questions offered by David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: ``What becomes of any tapes created by such systems, who has access to them and how might they be used?'' Nor are we asking what it means for a nanny or a student or a shopper to be on permanent candid camera. [ ... ] Frankly, I am comforted by a security camera in a parking garage late at night. And I know that videotapes are useful for police investigations . . . after the crime. But if security is overrated, intrusion may be underrated. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:52:34 PM      Microsoft networking gear disconnects. As the company begins its push into the market for home-networking hardware, its new products are having trouble keeping computers connected. [CNET News.com]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:51:12 PM      Polygraph Is Poor Tool for Screening Employees, Panel Says. In a report to the government, a panel of leading scientists said that polygraph testing is too flawed to use for security screening. By William J. Broad. [New York Times: Science]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:44:56 PM          Cause I like this stuff... Telescopes Find a Miniplanet at the Solar System's Edge. Astronomers have seen and measured the largest object in the solar system to be detected since the discovery of Pluto in 1930. By John Noble Wilford. [New York Times: Science]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:47:17 AM          This judgement will be interesting... Lindows to court: "windows" is generic term. Software maker files for summary judgment in battle against Microsoft [InfoWorld: Top News]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:40:42 AM

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