Dozens of leading Web sites are adopting the Internet's version of nutrition labels, giving visitors a quick sense of how well they honor surfers' personal privacy.

The labels alone won't protect credit card numbers or stop junk e-mail -- just as nutrition labels won't guarantee balanced diets. But they should offer consumers a simpler alternative to the lengthy privacy policies written in legalese that hardly anyone reads.

The industry-backed World Wide Web Consortium is expected to adopt by April the software platform that does the labeling. It's called Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P.

Article also carried by: BayArea.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Top Web sites adopting Internet privacy platform.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Mercury News | 03/15/2002 | Many major Web sites noncommittal on automatic privacy disclosure.

Yet while no major Web site has publicly rejected P3P, many are noncommittal. They're waiting to see what competitors do and whether consumers demand it.

Consumers, meanwhile, are vaguely aware and hence generally don't know if they should care.

``We have somewhat of a chicken-or-egg problem,'' said Lorrie Cranor, chairwoman of the P3P working group at the Web consortium. ``Without consumers interested in it, there's less motivation for sites.''

Because tools using P3P were largely unavailable to consumers until recently, the consortium is only now trying to educate them, Cranor said.

MIT's Technology Review - Hiding in Plain Sight.

In the weeks after the September 11 terror attacks, reports surfaced that terrorists might have communicated with each other through messages embedded in images posted on the Web. So far, no such hidden communications have been confirmed publicly, but intelligence agencies are certainly keen on finding them if they exist. To aid in the search, a computer scientist at the State University of New York at Binghamton has developed a way to screen digital images for evidence of hidden content.

Binghamton's Jessica Fridrich says her algorithms examine the numbers that encode color in pixels, the colored or gray dots that make up an image. When an image conceals information--say, a 15-page text file--the numbers that encode its pixel colors are changed slightly. While the human eye can't see the resulting color changes, Fridrich's algorithms can detect statistical anomalies in the underlying numbers. In most kinds of image files, Fridrich's tool can detect the signatures of a number of concealment--or "steganography"--programs, all widely shared in the hacker subculture. Cryptographers must then decode any images that have been altered.

Fridrich delivered the first version of the software to her U.S. Air Force sponsors last year. "What they do with it, I'm not allowed to know. We can only assume the government is somehow using it," she says.

Google Search: related:PrivacyDigest.com/. A few sites that Google thought readers of Privacy Digest might find useful. I got the idea from John Robb's Radio Weblog. When he did the same display for his weblog.

India Times - IB can't figure out SMS, wants it shut down.

New Delhi: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has a surprise for cell-phone users. It wants the highly popular short message service (SMS) withdrawn by all mobile telephony providers.

Reason? The information that underworld dons within and outside the country were using SMS facilities to coordinate with anti-social elements to spark communal tension across the country over the shila daan in Ayodhya.

The officials of IB, police and other intelligence agencies believe that SMS facilities should be withdrawn till they can tap a technology to monitor messages, an IB source told The Times of India.

Interrogations of several criminals arrested recently revealed that they now routinely use e-mail and SMS to plan strikes. This was why the Mumbai police jammed the SMS service in the city on Friday, he said. It is easy for the police to ''monitor'' a mobile phone, but almost impossible to check SMS.

Slashdot | India Shuts Down Mobile SMS For 'Security'.

Boston.com / Can e-mail seal a sales deal? Judge says yes, refuses to dismiss lawsuit claiming breach of contract

Buyers beware, and sellers, too - especially if you communicate with each other by e-mail.

A pretrial decision by a judge in a dispute over a multimillion-dollar home in Marion could end up making real estate deals outlined in e-mail as binding as those put on paper.

[ ... ]

"This is the first time in Massachusetts that e-mail communication is sufficient to form a contract," added Philip Lapatin, legal counsel to the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

"The court just took it one step further in terms of what a signature is."

The decision raises important issues, because people may be using e-mail to communicate at a quicker pace - and increasing the risk of legal complications.

Allowing people to make a legally binding contract with as much ease as the sending of an e-mail may not be in consumers' best interests, some say.

"One of the very unfortunate things about this is that by allowing consumers to casually enter into what might be the most legally important transaction of their life, consumers are not benefitted," Lapatin said.

"Even though e-mail is in writing, most people still think of e-mail as an informal form of communicating," he said. "Now the court is saying that it is now a binding document."

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - Email, a Legally Binding Contract?.

Slashdot | Crappy Passwords Very Common.

San Francisco Gate - Racial privacy initiative ignites upset / Connerly plan would limit agencies' collection of data.

University faculty and public policy researchers are up in arms over a proposed initiative that would bar most public agencies from collecting individual racial and ethnic information.

The Racial Privacy Initiative is the latest project of University of California Regent Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Coalition and the architect of Proposition 209, which banned the use of racial preferences in California hiring and university admissions in 1996.

Opponents said the proposed initiative would deprive them of data they rely on for research. And if it is implemented, they said, it would become impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of policies intended to eliminate discrimination against any group.

Yahoo! News - Photo. A test scan of is shown during a demonstration of new screening devices at the Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida March 14, 2002. The screen shows a scan from the Secure 1000, a low-energy full body x-ray scan. Airport spokesperson Carolyn Fennell said the devices should be in use for passengers on a voluntary basis in several days.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online - ICANN Board Spurns Democratic Elections.

Morrison & Foerster - Press Release - Morrison & Foerster Sues Spammer; California's largest law firm takes Etracks.com to court.

LOS ANGELES -- March 13, 2002 -- Morrison & Foerster LLP announced that it is suing Etracks.com, Inc., a Belmont, California-based company that delivers high-volume advertising services via the Internet. The lawsuit, filed last month in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks relief because Etracks has bombarded Morrison & Foerster's email users in California with thousands of unsolicited email advertisements.

The lawsuit is based on two California anti-spam statutes. The first statute forbids the use of California-based equipment of an electronic service provider, such as Morrison & Foerster, to transmit unsolicited email advertisements to the service provider's users if the provider's policy prohibits such use of its equipment. Even after receiving formal notice of Morrison & Foerster's policy against spam, Etracks has sent at least 6,500 unsolicited email advertisements to Morrison & Foerster's California users.

Slashdot | Class Action Lawsuit Against Spammer.

Slashdot | Mining Unstructured Data.

CNET NEWS.COM - 25 states unite to fight Microsoft motion.

In three separate legal briefs filed Friday, a total of 34 states opposed a Microsoft motion that a federal judge should dismiss the remaining portion of its antitrust case.

Slashdot | 25 More States Oppose MSFT Antitrust Dismissal.

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