Slashdot Mirror
Google Map Hack & Chicago Crime Data
joepez writes "In recent weeks we've seen some great Google Maps hacks (HousingMaps,
Google's own Ride Finder,
etc.), but this weekend Adrian has brought us something truly innovative. He's merged Google map data with Chicago crime data to present a once a day updated crime map of the entire city, including some really nice summarized data. Adrian calls the project Chicagocrime.org. How long till we have real time crime data showing up on Google's map? Pull open HousingMaps next to Chicagocrime.org and figure out if that low rent apartment is truly worth it. Or is this all a clever trick on Google's part to build up more and more third parties dependent upon Google?" There's also a cheap gas hack as well.
It's like a koala crapped a rainbow in my brain.
seen it. NEXT.
i'm still high from last night
http://del.icio.us/popular/
Where you will find a guide on how to embed Google Maps, a guide on How to get Slashdotted, details of the Google Translator and numerous other goodies.
del.icio.us/popular - Your source for all slashdot stories before the rush starts!
(I work at a Bank) Since Sarbaines kicked in, we have to keep a backup of every single file you use for work purposes, not just email. This means archiving every word doc, spreadsheet, database...etc. Starting January 1, they also blocked our access to all external sources of email and external instant messaging clients as well. After seeing this judgement, now I understand why.
I freely admit I haven't RTFA, but I read some excellent coverage of this story on wsj.com.
Apparently, Morgan Stanley came forward, said they had produced all the emails. (time passes) They find some more emails and turn them over. (time passes) The find a closet stuffed with backup tapes and turn them over. (Time passes) Morgan Stanley files a document certifying that they turned everything over. (Time passes) Morgan finds even more emails and turns them over. This causes the judge to get annoyed.
One of the earlier problems was that Morgan had built a database to house old emails and the first time they were told to turnover emails, a sysadmin who was not in a clueful state just searched the database without finding out how much had already been imported into the DB. (Turned out the DB had only had a small percentage of old emails put into it.)br
I was a client of MS/DW. I kept trying to let my financial advisor know about this wonderful pill that would make his penis bigger, and I get the feeling that MY emails were deleted as well!
br
I think the issue is "selective memory loss" - Microsoft plays this card all the time in court. Emails from a relevant time period are "deleted" when convenient, while older or newer or even contemporaneous mail is saved... the judge in this case was simply smart enough to call shenanigans.
You can delete old email if you're that hard up for space, just have a rock-solid deletion policy you can prove you adhered to in a court of law.
It also helps to audit your archives and backups regularly, and document what data was lost when. 'Cuz face it, every admin at some point or other loses some data to corruption, hardware failure, bookeeping mixups or user error. Knowing what you forgot and when you forgot it can help in situations where not having the data on hand can cost a billion bucks or so.
SoupIsGood Food
ok being serious (no more shinyfeet plugs), I used to work as an admin where the retention policy was 1 year. however, that just meant you rotated the tapes for 1 year. the email growth rate was very small (even though there was 1,000s each day), it was the files that grew beyond the retention. even the attachments and email boxes with 1+GB were safe, as 20 years of email fit onto a single DLT4.
granted, MS, er Morgan Stanley is a much bigger company, but I find it very hard to believe that any retention policy would include email, that has got to be their smallest backup.br
Yep, it's like the olden days, now that they have essentially busted the unions. We are headed back to the bad old days of time study, 16 hr days, 6 day weeks, etc.
Pretty soon if you get a bad mark on your time study, you will be up for 39 lashes.
Over in Europe, meanwhile, they work 20% less year than we do.br
ok being serious (no more shinyfeet plugs), I used to work as an admin where the retention policy was 1 year. however, that just meant you rotated the tapes for 1 year. the email growth rate was very small (even though there was 1,000s each day), it was the files that grew beyond the retention. even the attachments and email boxes with 1+GB were safe, as 20 years of email fit onto a single DLT4.
granted, MS, er Morgan Stanley is a much bigger company, but I find it very hard to believe that any retention policy would include email, that has got to be their smallest backup.
I worked at a large broker, and they had to be able to come up with a two-week old email immediately, a year old email within two weeks, etc., back to like seven years I think.
Can someone with more legal understanding than myself please explain why emails can be considered as hard evidence?
1) They can't be authenticated: There's no way to prove if the email was written by the person on record.
2) The contents can not be validated: There's no way to prove that the contents were not altered in transit.
To me, email is so easy to spoof that I would take anything I got from such "evidence" with a huge proverbial bucket of salt. Furthermore, I know that institutions such as Morgan Stanley are required to keep certain records on hand but considering the fragile nature of email I find it quite odd that companies would be required to keep it around. Do IM conversations fall into the same category?
Call me ignorant (I am), but this issue really confuses me. It's not like Morgan Stanly destroyed a bunch of notorized documents.
Actually, I've come to the opposite conclusion. I don't know every e-mail system, and I don't know what Morgan Stanley was using, but I have administered serious e-mail systems for about 15 years, and I can tell you that in many, it is in fact very difficult to insert a fake message into the message store in the right place, with the right semantic context. Don't forget that in all these cases the recovery is from (presumably) dated and logged backup tapes, possibly under the observation of opposing counsel's expert, and under penalty of perjury. So go ahead, tell me how you insert (or even alter) a message into a multi-gigabyte message store coming off a tape that's been archived and logged at Iron Mountain for the last five years. Will it have the right SMTP transit headers? The correct "In-Reply-To:"? What about the context of the message? Are you replying to someone? Do they later reply to you? Does it all fit together? This is a distinctly non-trivial exercise. Possible, yes, but maybe only theoretically so. And the grunt doing the recovery is *very unlikely* to want to risk going to jail to cover up some fraud he was probably never associated with.
For a large business knowing all the places something might be backed up and how the servers connect to one another requires a great deal of institutional knowledge. Even knowing how to find this sort of thing out requires institutional knowledge and time. Which is to say an experienced system's analyst with the time necessary to do this project and lots of other expert system admins, network admins, etc... for him to talk to.
This is exactly the kind of "fat" that Morgan Stanley and other companies got rid of 4 years ago. They couldn't answer the question because they no longer understand their email system because they fired everybody who had the broad and deep knowledge. They no longer have people on staff who have the experience in doing this sort of research and they don't have the other kinds of experts available to do it in reasonable time.
But they would much rather pay the fine than admit this under oath.
%windowscd%\win98\precopy2.cab\license.txt ...
7. EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. If this EULA is not labeled and the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is not identified as "North America Only Version" above, on the Product Identification Card, or on the SOFTWARE PRODUCT packaging or other written materials, then the following terms apply: You agree that you will not export or re-export the SOFTWARE PRODUCT to any country, person, or entity subject to U.S. export restrictions. You specifically agree not to export or re-export the SOFTWARE PRODUCT: (i) to any country to which the U.S. has embargoed or restricted the export of goods or services, which as of March 1999 include, but are not necessarily limited to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, or to any national of any such country, wherever located, who intends to transmit or transport the SOFTWARE PRODUCT back to such country; (ii) to any person or entity who you know or have reason to know will utilize the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or portion thereof in the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; or (iii) to any person or entity who has been prohibited from participating in U.S. export transactions by any federal agency of the U.S. government. You warrant and represent that neither the BXA (as defined below) nor any other U.S. federal agency has suspended, revoked or denied your export privileges.
How long until some autocratic judge declares that you have to keep all voice mails and record all phone conversations in some ruling?
Why is it judges can make "laws" with no checks or balances?