Thursday, April 6, 2006

local6.com - Technology - Disney Phone Service Features GPS Tracking Of Children The Walt Disney Company unveiled a new wireless phone service Wednesday that allows parents to track their children on a map using Global Positioning System technology, according to Local 6 News.The new "family friendly" service, called Disney Mobile, allows parents decide who their children can call and when, the report said. 2:18:19 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Let Goofy Track Your Children. Let Goofy Track Your Children.  Rio writes The Walt Disney Company unveiled a new wireless phone service that allows parents to track their children on a map using Global Positioning System technology, according to Local 6 News. The new "family friendly" service, called Disney Mobile, allows parents to decide who their children can call and when, the report said. The phone service will launch in June and has not been priced yet."  [Slashdot] 2:16:38 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Republicans defeat Net neutrality proposal | CNET News.com A Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday defeated a proposal that would have levied extensive regulations on broadband providers and forcibly prevented them from offering higher-speed video services to partners or affiliates. By an 8-to-23 margin, the committee members rejected a Democratic-backed "Net neutrality" amendment to a current piece of telecommunications legislation. The amendment had attracted support from companies including Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and their chief executives wrote a last-minute letter to the committee on Wednesday saying such a change to the legislation was "critical." Before the vote, amendment sponsor Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, assailed his Republican colleagues. "We're about to break with the entire history of the Internet," Markey said. "Everyone should understand that." This philosophical rift extends beyond the precise wording of the telecommunications legislation. It centers on whether broadband providers will be free to design their networks as they see fit and enjoy the latitude to prioritize certain types of traffic--such as streaming video--over others. (In an interview last week with CNET News.com, Verizon Chief Technology Officer Mark Wegleitner said prioritization is necessary to make such services economically viable.) 2:13:38 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Republicans Defeat Net Neutrality Proposal. Republicans Defeat Net Neutrality Proposal. LiquidEdge writes "A Republican controlled committee has defeated a bill that would have guaranteed fair access and stopped companies like AT&T and Verizon from charging high-bandwidth sites for allowing their customers to have priority access to them." [Slashdot] 2:11:04 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House. Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House. Jeff K writes "Facts and science collide with tribal loyalties, the Washington Post reports: 'Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'" [Slashdot] 2:01:43 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

States want IRS to restrict data - Thursday, 04/06/06 Tennessee's Paul Summers and the attorneys general of 46 other states are urging the IRS to prohibit or greatly restrict the use of tax return information for marketing purposes. Their letter to the agency comes as the IRS considers updating rules that require tax professionals to get permission before using or disclosing information about customers' tax returns. 1:55:04 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Rep. Kennedy to introduce health records privacy bill Existing laws to protect the privacy of Americans' health records have glaring holes, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said today, and he will introduce legislation to bolster those privacy protections. "We need a strong privacy law that covers everyone who has access" to individuals' health records, Kennedy said. One of his aides said the congressman wants to introduce the bill, to be called the Electronic Health Information Privacy Act, in May. Kennedy spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference. At the event, a coalition of 26 national organizations urged the House to include privacy protections in health information technology legislation now under consideration. The organizations, which span the political spectrum, wrote to House leaders urging them to support "a patient-centered system with patient privacy rights at the core of the health IT system." Deborah Peel, a Texas psychiatrist who heads the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, said none of the health IT bills pending in Congress provides adequate privacy protections. A bill Kennedy and Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced last year is "the only bill...that gives patients any control" over who sees their records, she said. Peel and representatives from the other organizations -- the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Christian Coalition of America and the Free Congress Foundation -- said they favored adoption of health IT as long as privacy protections are designed into the systems from the start. They cannot be retrofitted into systems designed without strong protections, Peel said. 1:19:28 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Bill Would Clean Up Caller ID. Bill Would Clean Up Caller ID. New legislation targets users of caller ID spoofing sites -- which already face FCC and law enforcement scrutiny. By Kevin Poulsen. [Wired News: Security Blanket] 1:16:56 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Why VOIP Needs Crypto. Why VOIP Needs Crypto. Internet phone calls can be wiretapped in ways that would have made Richard Nixon giggle with glee. It's time for strong encryption to become the rule, rather than the exception. Commentary by Bruce Schneier. [Wired News: Security Blanket] 1:14:50 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Senator questions FBI on ChoicePoint contract. Senator questions FBI on ChoicePoint contract. A top Democrat in the U.S. Senate questioned Wednesday why the U.S. Department of Justice continues to do business with data broker ChoicePoint Inc. a year after the company announced a data breach potentially affecting 145,000 U.S. residents. [Computerworld Privacy News] 1:12:58 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Are your data exports from Europe legal? Are your data exports from Europe legal?  Opinion: Privacy officer Jay Cline warns that moving employee or customer data out of Europe is illegal unless you follow the European Union's privacy directive. He identifies four ways to do it, all imperfect.. [Computerworld Privacy News] 1:10:25 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Scanning system easily IDs stolen cars -- Newsday.com Unknown to most Long Islanders, Nassau and Suffolk police have been operating a new device on a handful of their patrol cars that can scan license plates and immediately identify stolen vehicles. The roof-mounted system, also known as a license plate recognition program, scans thousands of plates per shift and sets off an alert to the police whenever it detects a stolen vehicle or a car wanted in connection with a crime, officials said. Web sites of various manufacturers of the devices, which can scan plates on vehicles that are moving or standing still, say they also can be connected to Amber Alerts for kidnapped children, parking violations scofflaws, and other databases. "We loved this system," Tim Motz, public information officer for Suffolk police, said yesterday. He said the county started a test of two of the units in August and the one used by a highway patrol car caught more than 600 motorists for a variety of violations, including driving without a license and driving with a suspended registration. He said the county completed its test, sent the two prototypes to the manufacturer and ordered 10 new ones. "We can't wait for them to get here," Motz said. Nassau police Sgt. David Curry said they have "a handful" of the devices, but that it was too early to assess their usefulness. The devices are made by different manufacturers and neither Curry nor Motz knew which models the counties tested. 1:08:14 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

More accurate on the eye | The Register In response to questions from Government Computing News, the Home Office has claimed that the technology for iris scanning has improved. It has not, however, made any claims for fingerprints and facial recognition. Verification performance of the three main biometrics were recorded as part of the study on user experience published by the Home Office in late 2004. It showed success rates of 96 per cent for iris scans, 81 per cent for fingerprints and 69 per cent for facial recognition. This has fuelled concerns that the technology for a biometric national identity card, the legislation for which has now received royal assent, does not work well enough for the cards to be used effectively. Answering a question on whether it regarded the rates as satisfactory, the Home Office replied: "It is true to say that at times in the past some difficulties have been experienced in successfully recording the iris images of people with very dark skin (on some iris systems). The difficulty lay in the ability of the system to successfully locate irises against a darker skin tone. "The technical solution to this problem is now well understood, and lies in the use of infrared light, correctly controlled exposure and appropriate filters that enable an iris system to successfully locate the iris and record an image irrespective of skin colour." It did not make any comment on fingerprints or facial recognition. 1:02:28 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

GAO Report Highlights Dangers of Government Using Private Data. GAO Report Highlights Dangers of Government Using Private Data. The General Accounting Office (GAO) this week issued a report highlighting the privacy problems that arise when government agencies obtain information about citizens from private data brokers. The report found that government agencies and the major information resellers they work with don't abide by all of the Fair Information Practices. CDT has long maintained that government agencies should not be permitted to exploit a loophole in federal privacy protections by contracting with private brokers to obtain personal data about American citizens. [Center for Democracy and Technology] 12:56:56 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Digital Distribution Drives Improvement in Recording Industry Profits. Digital Distribution Drives Improvement in Recording Industry Profits. As the recording industry's doom and gloom rhetoric continues in the face of ever increasing file sharing, the RIAA's own statistics [PDF] tell a much different story. Wired's Chris Anderson examined the recently published 2005 sales stats and found that "2005 may have been more profitable than 2004." While CD sales continued to decline, online and mobile sales made up the difference. The obvious lesson: the more the record industry focuses on giving fans what they want and embraces digital distribution, the more its profits will increase. Better services, not futile lawsuits and technological restrictions, provide the best way forward. If it can already halt declines through today's online services, imagine how much more the industry would make if it got serious about competing with free by dropping the DRM and radically expanding the available catalogs. Indeed, there's a veritable pot of gold waiting for the industry if only it would stop turning its back on the vast majority of online downloading and provide fans a way to continue file sharing legally. Here's hoping the RIAA takes this lesson to heart. [EFF: Deep Links] 12:53:48 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Net neutrality bid fails. Net neutrality bid fails. Again A legislative bid to prevent US network operators from introducing discriminatory pricing for their own services has been defeated at the sub-committee phase in the lower house.âo[oe] [The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs] 12:51:02 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

EFF Files Evidence in Motion to Stop AT&T's Dragnet Surveillance. EFF Files Evidence in Motion to Stop AT&T's Dragnet Surveillance. Internal AT&T Documents Had Been Temporarily Held Back Due To Government's Concerns San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Wednesday filed the legal briefs and evidence supporting its motion for a preliminary injunction in its class-action lawsuit against AT&T. After asking EFF to hold back the documents so that it could review them, the Department of Justice consented to EFF's filing them under seal -- a well-established procedure that prohibits public access and permits only the judge and the litigants to see the evidence. While not a party to the case, the government was concerned that even this procedure would not provide sufficient security and has represented to the Court that it is "presently considering whether and, if so, how it will participate in this case." "The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now." EFF's evidence regarding AT&T's dragnet surveillance of its networks includes a declaration by Mark Klein, a retired AT&T telecommunications technician, and several internal AT&T documents. This evidence was bolstered and explained by the expert opinion of J. Scott Marcus, who served as Senior Technical Advisor for Internet Technology to the Federal Communications Commission from July 2001 until July 2005. The internal AT&T documents and portions of the supporting declarations have been submitted to the Court under a tentative seal, a procedure that allows AT&T five court days to explain to the Court why the information should be kept from the public. "The public deserves to know about AT&T's illegal program," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "In an abundance of caution, we are providing AT&T with an opportunity to explain itself before this material goes on the public docket, but we believe that justice will ultimately require full disclosure." The NSA program came to light in December, when the New York Times reported that the President had authorized the agency to intercept telephone and Internet communications inside the United States without the authorization of any court. Over the ensuing weeks, it became clear that the NSA program has been intercepting and analyzing millions of Americans' communications, with the help of the country's largest phone and Internet companies, including AT&T. "Mark Klein is a true American hero," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "He has bravely come forward with information critical for proving AT&T's involvement with the government's invasive surveillance program." In the lawsuit, EFF is representing the class of all AT&T residential customers nationwide. Working with EFF in the lawsuit are the law firms Traber & Voorhees, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP and the Law Office of Richard R. Wiebe. For the notice of motion for preliminary injunction: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/NotMot.pdf For the motion to lodge under temporary seal: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/MotionReSealing.pdf For more on EFF's suit: http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/ Contacts: Derek Slater Acting Media Coordinator Electronic Frontier Foundation derek@eff.org For Mark Klein: Miles Ehrlich, Esq. Ramsey & Ehrlich miles@ramsey-ehrlich.com [EFF: Breaking News] 12:48:43 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []