Author Archives: gtdonovan

Recent Bookmarks

• Secpoint: Lawsuit filed against Warner, Disney, and others:
  From the article: "A lawsuit was filed on August 10 against several popular websites supposedly because of secretly spying on surfers, particularly children. The websites include those of Warner Bros. Records, Disney, and Demand Media."
• ACLU Report: Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment‐Protected Activity:
  From the report: "Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by the police for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints, and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public.
• WSJ: Apple Changes Privacy Policy to Collect Location Data:
  From the article: "As it rolls out a new iPhone operating system and an advertising platform, Apple is changing its privacy policy to allow collection and sharing of 'precise location data,' including 'real-time geographic location' of devices."
• ZDNet: Australian Govt Wants ISPs to Record Browsing History:
  From the article: The Australian government has been in discussions with ISPs on implementing a data retention regime that would log and retain customer's private web browsing history for a certain period of time for law enforcement to access when needed
• Wired: Police Wiretapping Jumps 26 Percent:
  From the article: "The number of wiretaps authorized by state and federal judges in criminal investigations jumped 26% from 2008 to 2009 … Not one request for a wiretap was turned down."
• Wired: Study Shows Fair Use Contributes Trillions to U.S. Economy:
  From the article: "For the year 2007, the fair-use economy accounted for $4.7 trillion in revenue  and $2.2 trillion in value added … The fair-use economy also employed more than 17 million people with a $1.2 trillion payroll."
• EFF: Facebook Further Reduces Your Control Over Personal Information:
  From the article: "Today, Facebook removed its users' ability to control who can see their own interests and personal information."
• Guardian: Google and Yahoo criticise Australia's 'heavy-handed' internet filter plans:
  From the article: "Australia came under fire today from the United States for its proposed internet filtering system, which, if implemented, would be the strictest of any democracy."
• NY Times: F.C.C. Plan Would Establish High-speed Internet as Dominant U.S. Communication Network:
  From the article: "The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries."
• Wired: Supreme Court Takes ‘Informational Privacy’ Case:
  From the article: "The U.S. Supreme Court is agreeing to decide how much personal information the federal bureaucracy may acquire on its workers. The justices decided to review a lower-court decision surrounding the concept of informational privacy."
• Seattle Times: School used its laptops to spy on students at home:
  From the Article: "A suburban Philadelphia school district used webcams in school-issued laptops to spy on students at home, potentially catching them and their families in compromising situations, a family claims in a federal lawsuit."
• Facebook Settles ‘Beacon’ Data Breach Lawsuit:
  Facebook will setup a $6M “Digital Trust Fund” to fund research on privacy in response to allegations that its Beacon program breached federal wiretap and video-rental privacy laws by monitoring what users were doing on over 44 external sites.
• McClatchy: Most Americans would trim liberties to be safer:
  New McClatchy-Ipsos poll: 51% of Americans think it's necessary to give up some civil liberties to make the country safe from terrorism, while 36% think some of the government's proposals will go too far in restricting civil liberties.
• Silicon Alley Insider: Health Insurers Pay Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill:
  From the article: "Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill."
• Wired: Body Scanners Might Violate U.K. Child Protection Laws:
  Meet the new pornographers . . .
• AP: NYPD Must Show GOP Convention Surveillance:
  From the article: "A federal judge has ruled the New York Police Department must release 2,000 pages of documents related to its surveillance of protesters before the 2004 Republican National Convention."
• AASCU Report on U.S. Higher Education:
  The state of higher education in the US: less investment in basic research, decreased interest in science among undergraduates, fewer young people getting college degrees, and price of higher education only increasing.
• FT: Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact:
  From the article: "Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google. . ."
• Vimeo: The Internet Is Serious Business:
  "Have you ever wondered how the Internet’s physical infrastructure works? Who owns it and why that might matter? In the spring and summer of 2008, youth from NYC's City-As-School worked with CUP and People's Production House to investigate..."
• HuffingtonPost: Government Pushes To Create New Health Internet:
  From the article: "The concept has drawn intense interest from technology firms, including Microsoft & Google, which are scrambling to find new, & profitable, uses for digital medical records & the cyber healthcare services they are starting to spawn."
• Wired: Feds Admit AT&T Is Arm of Government in Spy Suit:
  From the article: "The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: The nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying"
• BusinessWeek: The Lost Generation:
  BusinessWeek discusses some of the consequences of rising unemployment among U.S. youth & proposes a reduction in the minimum wage as a solution - with no explanation of how this reduction would address the problem of a "lost generation."
• NY Daily News: NYPD tracking cell phone owners, foes aren't sure it's legal:
  From the article: "A recent internal memo says that when cops make an arrest, they should remove the suspect's cell phone battery to avoid leakage - then jot down the International Mobile Equipment Identity number."
• U.S. Department of Labor: Employment and Unemployment Among Youth:
  From the report: From April to July 2009, the number of employed youth 16 to 24 years old increased by 1.6 million to 19.3 million . . . the proportion of young people who were employed in July was 51.4 percent, the lowest July rate on record
• StatShot: U.S. Web Users’ Time on Social Networks Has Tripled:
  From the article: 17% of all time spent on the web in August in the U.S. was on social networks, up from 6 percent during the same period a year ago . . . advertising on social networks rose to $108M last month from $49M in Aug of 2008