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Stories · 3,636
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House Kills Effort To Stop Workplace Requests For Facebook Passwords
An anonymous reader writes "House Republicans today defeated an amendment introduced yesterday that would have banned employers demanding access to Facebook accounts. While the practice isn't widespread, it has caused a big brouhaha after reports surfaced that some organizations were requiring workers to hand over Facebook passwords as a condition of keeping their current job or getting hired for a new one."
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Munich Has Saved €4M So Far After Switch To Linux
New submitter Mojo66 writes "Mayor Ude reported today that the city of Munich has saved €4 million so far (Google translation of German original) by switching its IT infrastructure from Windows NT and Office to Linux and OpenOffice. At the same time, the number of trouble tickets decreased from 70 to 46 per month. Savings were €2.8M from software licensing and €1.2M from hardware because demands are lower for Linux compared to Windows 7."
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Your Privacy Is a Sci-Fi Fantasy
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the 'sci-fi fantasy' that is privacy in the digital era. 'The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone wants to get in on the booming business of clandestine snooping — even blatant prying, if you consider reports of employers demanding Facebook passwords prior to making hiring decisions,' Venezia writes. 'What happened? Did the rules change? What is it about digital information that's convinced some people this is OK? Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.'"
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Senators Ask Feds To Probe Facebook Log-in Requests
thomst writes "Cnet's Michelle Meyers reports that democratic senators Richard Blumenthal and Charles Schumer have asked the Justice Department to investigate what they call a 'new disturbing trend' of prospective employers demanding job applicants to turn over user names and passwords for their social networks. 'Employers have no right to ask job applicants for their house keys or to read their diaries — why should they be able to ask them for their Facebook passwords and gain unwarranted access to a trove of private information about what we like, what messages we send to people, or who we are friends with?' asked Schumer. Last Friday, in response to complaints from employees, Facebook published a post expressing its opposition to the practice, which it said undermines both the security and the privacy of the user and the user's friends. Erin Egan, the company's chief privacy officer for policy, offered that employers who demand password information for prospective employees might just end up getting sued."
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US Puts Tariff On Chinese Solar Panels
retroworks writes "Two stories in Digitimes make a puzzle of economic policy. U.S. and European tax incentives and stimulus increase steady demand for solar panels. The Chinese government subsidizes production of solar panels to meet this growing demand. The U.S. and EU complain, and place tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Do allegations that China has used government funding to subsidize the production trump our desire for cheaper solar power? Subsidizing demand led to subsidized production. In other words, one market interference (subsidized demand for solar) leads to its counterpoint, government tariff and taxation of the same product."
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Battling Fish Fraud With DNA Testing
itwbennett writes "High demand, high prices, and nearly identical cheaper alternatives is a recipe for fraud. Eel fraud, that is. This has led Japanese researchers to develop a method to cheaply and quickly batch-test DNA by taking small tissue samples from thousands of eels. 'If a non-local eel is found in a batch, more tests will be performed to find the guilty foreigner.'"
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Australian Greens Demand Public Access To Cloak and Dagger Anti-Piracy Meetings
Fluffeh writes "Continuing the recent stories on the secret, closed door, FOI blocked talks, the Australian Greens have filed a motion in the Senate requesting that the Government release documents regarding its closed door meetings on Internet piracy which the Attorney-General's Department has blocked from being released under Freedom of Information laws. This morning, Greens Communications Spokesperson Scott Ludlam filed an order in the Senate that the Government disclose details of the most recent meeting. 'The Government refuses to reveal almost any information about the attendees, the substance or the outcomes of the meeting,' he said in a separate statement. 'A Freedom of Information request from a journalist looks like it's been met with maximum resistance.'"
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Senator Wyden Demands ACTA Goes Before Congress
Fluffeh writes "As recently covered here, EU countries are starting to drop ACTA support. Now, long-time opponent of the secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, Sen. Ron Wyden introduced an amendment to a Senate 'jobs bill' that would force ACTA to come before Congress for approval. His second amendment tries to force a change (PDF) in how the whole process around such treaties is handled. Right now, the U.S. attempts to keep its negotiating positions a secret. What vital national security interests could be at stake if the public knew USTR was promoting 'graduated response' laws or proposing changes in ISP liability? Wyden doesn't believe there are any."
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Optimize Offshore Wind Farms Using Weather Modeling
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from a Stanford news release: "Politics aside, most energy experts agree that cheap, clean, renewable wind energy holds great potential to help the world satisfy energy needs while reducing harmful greenhouse gases. Wind farms placed offshore could play a large role in meeting such challenges, and yet no offshore wind farms exist today in the United States. In a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of engineers at Stanford has harnessed a sophisticated weather model to recommend optimal placement of four interconnected wind farms off the coast of the Eastern United States, a region that accounts for 34 percent of the nation’s electrical demand and 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. ... Among its findings, the Stanford model recommended a farm in Nantucket Sound, precisely where the controversial Cape Wind farm has been proposed. The Cape Wind site is contentious because, opponents say, the tall turbines would diminish Nantucket’s considerable visual appeal. By that same token, the meteorological model puts two sites on Georges Bank, a shallows located a hundred miles offshore, far from view in an area once better known for its prodigious quantities of cod. The fourth site is off central Long Island."
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Canadian Police Recommend Online Spying Tax For Internet Bills
An anonymous reader writes "One of the major unanswered questions about Bill C-30, Canada's lawful access/online surveillance bill, is who will pay for the costs associated with responding to law enforcement demands for subscriber information ('look ups') and installation of surveillance equipment ('hook ups'). Michael Geist recently obtained documents (PDF) from Public Safety under the Access to Information Act that indicates the government doesn't really have its own answer. But he reports that the police do — a new 'public safety' tax to be added to Internet and wireless bills."
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Changing the Texture of Plastics On Demand
cylonlover writes "Imagine a pair of rubber gloves whose surface texture could be altered on demand to provide more grip for climbing. Or maybe gloves with "fingerprints" that can be changed in the blink of an eye. They are just a couple of the many potential applications envisioned by researchers at Duke University for a process they have developed that allows the texture of plastics to be changed at will. By applying specific voltages, the researchers have been able to dynamically switch polymer surfaces among various patterns ranging from dots, segments, lines to circles."
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Crying Foul At the BSA's "Nauseating" Anti-Piracy Tactics
Barence writes "The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has been accused of heavy-handed tactics that could drive small companies to incriminate themselves. The Microsoft-backed piracy watchdog generates a quarter of its cases by offering employees cash rewards for informing on their own employer. 'It is basically harvesting allegations from disgruntled employees and farming them out to expensive law firms,' one small business owner told PC Pro, who said he was 'nauseated' by the tactics. The BSA then sends out a letter demanding the business owner fill out a software audit, or potentially face court action — even though the BSA has no power to demand such an audit and hasn't pursued a court case in five years. 'It's designed to scare the recipient into thinking that they're obliged to provide certain information when, in fact, it's difficult to see that they are,' said a leading IT lawyer."
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Internet Crime Focus of Black Hat Europe
kierny writes "'The Internet needs crime,' said renowned cryptographer Whitfield Diffie, kicking off the Black Hat Europe conference in Amsterdam. His analysis — that there can't be good guys without bad guys — helps explain not just the rise of black hat hackers and, more recently, hacktivism, but signals that the information security profession will continue to not just be relevant, but demanded, especially as the number of data-spewing devices increases exponentially."
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Yahoo's Own Lash Out At Company Over "Weaponized" Patents
Velcroman1 writes "Yahoo is suing Facebook for patent infringement — and the people responsible for Yahoo's patents are outraged. Andy Baio sold Upcoming.org to Yahoo in 2005 for an undisclosed sum, and agreed at the time to help the company file for patents based on the site he had invented and the code he had written. Baio was hesitant to do so, but told Wired.com that he thought he was helping as a precautionary measure. 'I thought I was giving them a shield,' Baio said. 'It turns out I gave them a missile with my name permanently engraved on it.' He helped Yahoo file for eight patents, four of which were later granted. And while none were cited in the Yahoo complaint, Baio said a handful were now 'weaponized to use against people like me.'" bdking points out that Mark Cuban is sick of the patent fiasco as well but his approach is slightly different. "He's rooting for Yahoo to 'destroy' Facebook in its patent lawsuit. Why? Because if Yahoo collects, say, $50 billion from Facebook and forces the social networking company out of business, consumers will revolt and demand patent reform."
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AC and DC Battle For Data Center Efficiency Crown
jfruh writes "AC beat DC in the War of the Currents that raged in the late 19th century, which means that most modern data centers today run on AC power. But as cloud computing demands and rising energy prices force providers to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of their data centers, DC is getting another look."
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SOPA-style Amendments Dropped From C-11; DRM Provisions Not
New submitter Ashenkase writes "Michal Geist reviews what stayed and what was rejected by the Bill C-11 Committee Review. Looks like SOPA-style amendments are dropped except Digital Locks. There is still a chance for Canadians to have their voices heard before third reading: 'The Bill C-11 legislative committee concluded its clause-by-clause review yesterday as eight government amendments were added to the bill and all opposition amendments were defeated. The amendments included an expanded enabler provision and some modest tinkering to other elements of the bill. There are still several steps needed before the bill passes including third reading at the House of Commons, Senate review, and ultimately royal assent, but Canadian copyright reform is well on its way to completion before the summer starts. In the days leading up to the clause-by-clause review, many focused on three key issues: no SOPA-style amendments such as website blocking or warrantless disclosure of information, maintaining the fair dealing balance found in the bill, and amending the digital lock provisions. By that standard, the changes could have been a lot worse. The government expanded the enabler provision, though not as broadly as CIMA requested. Virtually all other copyright lobby demands — website blocking, notice-and-takedown, iPod tax, copyright term extension, disclosure of subscriber information — were rejected. Moreover, the provisions supported by consumer and education groups including user generated content protection, time shifting, format shifting, backup copies, Internet provider liability, and statutory damages reform were left untouched. This represents a major victory for the many Canadians and groups such as Open Media that spoke out on these issues.'"
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How To Crash the US Justice System: Demand a Trial
Hugh Pickens writes "The U.S. Bill of Rights guarantees the accused basic safeguards, including a fair and speedy jury trial, but in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation's prison population has quintupled in a few decades — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury, in part because the Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. 'The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,' says Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. Now Susan Burton, head of 'A New Way of Life' (PDF), is helping to start a movement to demand restoration of Americans' basic civil and human rights by asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. 'Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?' Burton says if everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation."
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Last Chance To Stop SOPA From Coming To Canada
An anonymous reader writes "This weekend may be the last chance for Canadians to fight back against SOPA-style laws being added to Canadian copyright law, with the final hearing scheduled for Monday. In recent days, the copyright lobby has demanded website blocking, warrantless access to subscriber information, and unlimited damage awards. Michael Geist has the details on who to contact and Open Media has launched a campaign to encourage Canadians to speak out before Monday's Bill C-11 meeting. The group makes it easy to speak out against SOPA style reforms, harms to fair dealing, and unduly restrictive digital lock rules."
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Why Making Facebook Private Won't Protect You
itwbennett writes "Facebook's privacy settings, such as they are, don't hold up in the face of prospective employers who demand to see applicants' profiles. In an MSNBC report, Bob Sullivan found that 'in Maryland, job seekers applying to the state's Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall. ... Meanwhile, on the other side of the barbed wire fence, coaches and administrators are forcing student athletes to 'friend' them in order to monitor their activity of social sites."
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Canadian Music Industry Wants Subscriber Disclosure Without Court Oversight
An anonymous reader writes "The incredible demands of the Canadian music industry as it seeks a massive overhaul of Canadian copyright law continues. It is seeking increased liability for social networking sites, search engines, blogging platforms, video sites, and many other websites featuring third party contributions, plus a new iPod tax, and an extension in the term of copyright. Last week, it went further, demanding a requirement for Internet providers to disclose customer name and address information to copyright owners without court oversight as well as takedowns with no due process and unlimited statutory damages."
