According to the DHS:
The technology will be tested at a simulated port this spring. By July 31, 2005, the testing will begin at the ports of Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona; Alexandria Bay in New York; and, Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in Washington. The testing or “proof of concept” phase is expected to continue through the spring of 2006.
I know nothing about the details of this program or about the security of the cards. Even so, the long-term implications of this kind of thing are very chilling.
Category: Electronic Rights
Privacy: Hacking the Hotel TV
What’s more, by connecting his laptop to certain modern hotel TV systems, Laurie says he can spy on other guests. He can’t look into their rooms (yet), but depending on the system he can see what they are watching on their TV, look at their guest folios, change the minibar bill and follow along as they browse the Internet on the hotel television set.
To tease his fellow guests, he can also check them out of their room and set early wake-up calls via the TV.
Third Party Cookies
The controversy over the 2o7.net cookies highlights the tension that exists between marketing companies like Omniture and Web users who are increasingly aware of, and adverse to, files that are automatically placed on their computers when they surf the Internet. At a time when PCs are under assault by viruses and other nefarious software like never before, users are employing a range of software tools and tactics to protect themselves. Many users don’t distinguish between cookies, which are small bits of text commonly used by Web sites to identify users, and malicious software that can steal personal information or change PC settings. That has put marketers on the defensive, as they try to get users to spare cookies when wiping computers clean of potential threats.
Monopolies and DRM
Two years ago I (and others) wrote about the security dangers of Microsoft’s monopoly. In the paper, we wrote:
Security has become a strategic concern at Microsoft but security must not be permitted to become a tool of further monopolization.
A year before that, I wrote about Microsoft’s trusted computer system (called Palladium — Pd, for short — at the time:
Pay attention to the antitrust angle. I guarantee you that Microsoft believes Pd is a way to extend its market share, not to increase competition.
Intel and Microsoft are using DRM technology to cut Linux out of the content market.
This whole East Fork scheme is a failure from the start. It brings nothing positive to the table, costs you money, and rights. If you want to use Linux to view your legitimately purchased media, you will be a criminal. In fact, if you want to take your legitimately bought media with you on a road trip and don’t feel the need to pay again for it – fair use, remember – you are also a criminal. Wonderful.
Intel has handed the keys to the digital media kingdom to several convicted monopolists who have no care at all for their customers. The excuse Intel gives you if you ask is that they are producing tools, and only tools, their use is not up to Intel. The problem here is that Intel has given the said tools to some of the most rapacious people on earth. If you give the record companies a DRM scheme that goes from 1 (open) to 10 (unusably locked down), they will start at 14 and lobby Congress to mandate that it can be turned up higher by default.
Is Your Printer Spying on You?
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Imagine that every time you printed a document, it automatically included a secret code that could be used to identify the printer — and potentially, the person who used it. Sounds like something from an episode of “Alias,” right?
Unfortunately, the scenario isn’t fictional. In an effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you’re using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what’s worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse.
Watching Us Through The Sorting Door
A former CIA intelligence analyst and researchers from SAP plan to study how RFID tags might be used to profile and track individuals and consumer goods.
“I believe that tags will be readily used for surveillance, given the interests of various parties able to deploy readers,” said Ross Stapleton-Gray, former CIA analyst and manager of the study, called the Sorting Door Project.
What is RFID?
Payola is Pervasive
“This is not a pretty picture; what we see is that payola is pervasive,” Mr. Spitzer said, using a term from the radio scandals of the 1950’s in describing e-mail messages and corporate documents that his office obtained during a yearlong investigation. “It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong.”The Attorney General’s findings alleges that the illegal payoffs for airplay were designed to manipulate record charts, generate consumer interest in records and increase sales:
“Instead of airing music based on the quality, artistic competition, aesthetic judgments or other judgments, radio stations are airing music because they are paid to do so in a way that hasn’t been disclosed to the public,” Spitzer said at a press briefing.
An alternative? I think we’ll see more of this.
Milwaukee Talk Show Host Faces Court Date for Weblog Post
Barring a late settlement, talk-radio host Charlie Sykes faces a court date as a defendant in a libel suit this week.
The plaintiff, Spanish Journal editor Robert Miranda, sued Sykes in January over a November post on Sykes’ Weblog on the WTMJ-AM (620) site that alleged Miranda had helped foment a protest at a 1991 pro-Gulf War event in which several speakers were pelted with small objects. Miranda wasn’t in Wisconsin at the time of that protest, which Sykes described in his essay as an “an example of the assaults on free speech on university campuses.”
Although Miranda’s original requests for a court order mandating Sykes publicly apologize, undergo sensitivity training sessions and make diversity presentations to middle and high school students are no longer in play – a small-claims court doesn’t have that authority, it turns out – Miranda said the suit, which now requests the small-claims maximum of $5,000 in damages, will serve as a forum in which Sykes’ “journalistic integrity will be questioned,” among other matters.
George Gilder on Hollywood
Scott Kirsner interviews George Gilder about the pending “dissolution of the television and motion picture industries as we know them”. MP3 Audio. Meanwhile, our good Senator, Herb Kohl has some decisions to make on whether he supports the future, or the past.
US Help for China’s Internet Filtering
Cisco’s sale of networking equipment used to filter Chinese internet traffic has drawn some well justified attention recently (Microsoft’s activities with the Chinese government has also drawn attention):
- Rebecca MacKinnon
Cisco argues that if they don’t do this business, their competitors will. And that will be bad for U.S. jobs. Well, as I’ve said before, at the end of the day either we believe that the ideals of “freedom” and “democracy” mean something, and are worth sacrificing short-term profit so that more people around the world have a chance of benefiting from them, or we don’t. Cisco clearly doesn’t. This is an insult to the thousands of Americans – public servants, men and women in uniform, journalists and others – who risk their lives daily in far-flung corners of the globe for the sake of these ideals.
- Anne Applebaum:
Without question, China’s Internet filtering regime is “the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world,” in the words of a recent report by Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The system involves the censorship of Web logs, search engines, chat rooms and e-mail by “thousands of public and private personnel.” It also involves Microsoft Inc., as Chinese bloggers discovered last month. Since early June, Chinese bloggers who post messages containing a forbidden word — “Dalai Lama,” for example, or “democracy” — receive a warning: “This message contains a banned expression, please delete.” It seems Microsoft has altered the Chinese version of its blog tool, MSN Spaces, at the behest of Chinese government. Bill Gates, so eloquent on the subject of African poverty, is less worried about Chinese free speech.
UPDATE: Rebecca comments on a recent Newsweek story that fails to mention her 9 years of experience in China, among other items.