Flaws in Palin Hacker’s Indictment?

A grand jury has handed down this indictment against David Kernell, the son of a Democratic state legislator in Tennessee, for allegedly hacking into Governor Sarah Palin’s e-mail account. (News story here.) Professors Orin Kerr and Paul Ohm, probably the two most knowledgeable scholars in the country on the subject of computer crime, [...]

Skype, Filtering, and Privacy

[Update Oct. 3 5:45PM - Skype's president responds, and says Skype was unaware of TOM's monitoring. But this is why tech firms partner with domestic Chinese firms: to handle uncomfortable requests such as filtering and surveillance... (via Wired)]
The New York Times reports on some terrific research done by my former ONI colleague Nart Villeneuve - [...]

Is Facebook Beacon Gone?

[Important UPDATES below]
I just looked at Facebook’s privacy settings to remind myself how to opt out of the Beacon feature for the article I am writing about social marketing. Amidst the redesign and snappy new home page, it appears the tab I described earlier this month is now gone. Has Facebook quietly pulled [...]

This Might Convince Me to Buy an iPhone

Lifehacker and CNET point out that IBM is releasing an “Ultralite” version of iNotes — a way of accessing your Lotus Domino (= Notes server) e-mail, contacts, and calendar from an Apple iPhone. This is cool, and a nice addition (competitor) to the current POP / IMAP options for iPhone. I’ve held off on buying [...]

South Carolina Tries Peer Review

The South Carolina Law Review is launching a pilot program where submitted articles are evaluated by peer reviewers who are knowledgeable about the article’s subject matter. This is terrific news: peer review will help improve the quality of published articles, and will increase the likelihood that published pieces are genuinely novel contributions to the scholarly [...]

Again with the Linking!

A recent dispute in Wisconsin has raised an issue I thought long-dead: whether permission is required to link to a Web site. Jennifer Reisinger, a resident of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, runs a Web design business and is also a political gadfly - she set up a Web site that seeks to have the mayor of Sheboygan, [...]

Filtering on Planes, or Why I Will Only Take Amtrak

American Airlines is testing in-flight wi-fi Internet access, and flight attendants want something to be done to prevent passengers from looking at naughty things in flight. (”something” = filter the content). This brings back some funny travel memories from my days in consulting, such as seeing someone on a flight to Toronto openly reading Playboy, [...]

Beacon Lawsuit Faces Uphill Climb

This post analyzes a new privacy lawsuit against Facebook. But first, some context: I received an e-mail from a friend this weekend that read, in part:
Subject: Privacy Code Red!
How do I make it so that my Fandango purchases don’t show up on Facebook???? Is it going to happen if I buy a [...]

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Several acquaintances have mentioned, or e-mailed, or (appropriately enough) posted on Facebook this New York Times Magazine article from Sunday about Facebook, Twitter, and “ambient awareness.” A lot of it will be fairly old news to many readers here, and ground that I am sure will be covered more completely by John Palfrey and [...]

Studying Cyberwar

The Washington Post has a great piece about the InfoWar Monitor project, including interviews with my former ONI colleagues Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski. Cyberwar is a new, murky, and fascinating zone of interstate conflict. Most interestingly, it’s one where combat is outsourced: hackers and denial of service attacks can come from volunteers and on-line [...]

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