http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ Tech support, programming, web development, and internet marketing community. Forums to get free computer help and support. en-US Sun, 08 Nov 2009 02:56:44 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.daniweb.com/alphaimages/misc/rss.jpg http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ http://www.daniweb.com/news/story234801.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:50:02 GMT Calling social media sites a "productivity black hole," the UK IT services group Morse said that staff who use Twitter and other social networking sites while at work are costing UK businesses £1.38bn every year, according to the BBC.

More than half those surveyed said they used social networking sites during the working day for personal use, with the average being 40 minutes per week on these sites. While this doesn't sound like much, it adds up to almost a week a year, Morse said.

Other responses from the study, which surveyed 1,460 people:

• More than three-quarters of respondents said their employer had not given them specific guidelines with regards to using Twitter.
  
• A third of workers said they had seen sensitive information posted on social networks.
  
• 84 percent said they felt it should be up to them what they posted online.

]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread234801.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story234567.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:43:14 GMT The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously earlier this week to outsource its e-mail system to Google Inc., according to an article (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/city-council-votes-to-adopt-google-email-system-for-30000-city-employees.html) in the Los Angeles Times. The... The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously earlier this week to outsource its e-mail system to Google Inc., according to an article in the Los Angeles Times. The contract is worth $7.25 million and covers 30,000 employees.

In June, Washington, D.C. made a similar decision, signing a contract worth almost $500,000 for its 38,000 municipal employees to use Google's e-mail, spreadsheet and word- processing programs, giving them an Internet-based alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Office software, installed on computers, according to Bloomberg.

Interestingly, the chief technical officer responsible for the decision was Vivek Kundra, now Chief Information Officer of the United States. The White House recently decided to migrate its website from proprietary software to Drupal.

Los Angeles plans to complete implementation of the Google system by June and will begin with a pilot period during which a limited number of employees will test the system, the Times said. City law enforcement agencies including the Los Angeles Police Department will migrate to the new system once they are satisfied with the security and functioning of the system.

Los Angeles worked on the decision for nearly a year, where Google competed with other software vendors, including Microsoft. "Parties on all sides believe that if smaller cities see Los Angeles successfully transition to Google's cloud system, they may be more likely to follow suit," the Times said. ]]> Windows Software slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread234567.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story234021.html Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:52:07 GMT In addition to funding broadband projects (http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231771.html) in the states, particularly in rural areas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, includes funds for collection of state-level broadband data... In addition to funding broadband projects in the states, particularly in rural areas, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, includes funds for collection of state-level broadband data, as well as state-wide broadband mapping and planning.

The project, which will also help create a national broadband map, is being managed by the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

The State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program, announced on July 1, is a competitive, merit-based matching grant program that will provide approximately $240 million in grants to assist states or their designees to develop state-specific data on the deployment levels and adoption rates of broadband services, the NTIA said. Awardees are required to contribute at least 20 percent non-federal matching funds toward project costs.

Each state could have only a single, eligible entity to perform the mapping. Applications for the program were accepted from July 14 to August 14.

On September 9, the NTIA announced that it had received applications representing all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia. Fifty-two of the 56 states (or their designated entities) also submitted requests for broadband planning funds, typically about $500,000 each over a 5-year period, the NTIA said, which also released a list of the applicants.

Now, the NTIA is beginning to announce grant awards made to the states for mapping. On October 5, the NTIA announced the first grants:

• California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC): approximately $1.8 million
• Indiana Office of Technology (IOT): approximately $1.3 million
• Rural Economic Development Center, Inc. (e-NC Authority): approximately $1.6 million
• Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI): approximately $1.2 million

The CPUC was also awarded $500,000 for the cost of broadband planning activities in California over four years, bringing its grant award total to approximately $2.3 million, and the e-NC Authority was awarded approximately $435,000 for the cost of broadband planning activities in North Carolina over five years, bringing its grant award total to over $2 million, the NTIA said.

On October 23, the NTIA announced a grant of approximately $1.4 million to fund broadband mapping and planning activities in West Virginia. In addition, the West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey will receive $185,000 for the cost of broadband planning activities in West Virginia over two years, bringing its grant award total to approximately $1.4 million.

Other states are waiting to hear responses.

The national broadband mapping project has come under criticism in recent months for bowing to industry pressure and planning to put less detail in the map. ]]> Domains and DNS slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread234021.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story233299.html Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:37:34 GMT The Associated Press reported (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iuRIVBTLUvW7823FC-fcfhvkSxHgD9BHLF180) this weekend that the official White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/) has been switched to using the open-source Drupal content management system Using open source... The Associated Press reported this weekend that the official White House website has been switched to using the open-source Drupal content management system

Using open source will result in improved security -- because more programmers will be looking for errors in the software -- as well as more quickly and less expensively updated, the AP said.

The White House site had been using technology held over from the administration of former President George W. Bush, but the staff had been working toward the transition since the inauguration. For example, the website that tracks stimulus spending, launched in February, was already built using Drupal.

Several other federal agencies, such as the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education, and the General Service Administration, are also said to be using Drupal.

However, modifications made by the White House staff, such as to improve security, have not thus far been given back to the Drupal community, noted Tim O'Reilly in his blog. "The source code for Drupal (and the rest of the LAMP stack) is indeed available, but the modifications that were made to meet government security, scalability, and hosting requirements have not yet been shared," he said. ]]> Linux Servers and Apache slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread233299.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story233045.html Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:57:08 GMT Two groups are working to set up a .gay top-level Internet domain, with plans for using some of the proceeds for registering sites in that domain to support gay causes, according to an article (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/competing-groups-press-for-a-gay-internet-suffix/) in the... Two groups are working to set up a .gay top-level Internet domain, with plans for using some of the proceeds for registering sites in that domain to support gay causes, according to an article in the New York Times.

While it can cost up to $400,000 to set up a new top-level domain, companies compete for control, because the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the development and management of the Internet’s unique identifiers, awards the registry rights to just one applicant for each new top-level domain, which can result in millions of dollars per year, the Times said.

Currently, the two groups are competing for the right to apply by each claiming to be more gay than the other. "The Dot Gay Alliance (dotgay.org), out of New York City, is being led by a longtime gay activist," the Times said. "And dotGay (dotgay.com) is being spearheaded by a heterosexual German man in Riga, Latvia, who has incorporated a company in San Francisco."

The Dot Gay Alliance points out that it is run by a gay man, while dotGay points out that it is based in San Francisco and that its head has experience setting up new top-level domains.

Neither of the for-profit groups has said what percentage of revenues it would commit for gay causes, though Joe Dolce, founder and executive director of the Dot Gay Alliance, spoke favorably of Al Gore's declaration that he would support a particular group's right to the .eco top-level domain -- where a similar fight is taking place -- only if half the proceeds went to environmental causes. ]]> Domains and DNS slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread233045.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story232782.html Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:52:58 GMT Twitter, Inc., has shut down 33 fake Twitter accounts created by Republicans using the names of Democratic state representatives, but fake websites using the Democrats' names are still up.

The story was reported in the Hartford Advocate, an alternative newsweekly.

State Republican Chairman Chris Healy told the paper that it was the Connecticut Republicans' idea.

Twitter announced earlier this year that it planned to verify the accounts of people such as public officials, after several cases of Twitter impersonations.

According to the paper, a Democratic legislative leader reported the accounts to Twitter, which replied, "A person may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse or deceive others. ... Impersonation is against our terms unless it is a parody. The standard for defining parody is, 'Would a reasonable person be aware that it's a joke?' Because this is not the case in your situation, we have removed the profile(s) from circulation."

Healy criticized the Democrats' response as "stopping free speech."

The fake web sites all use the same theme and basic design, and note at the bottom that they were "Paid for and Authorized by the Connecticut Republican Party, Jerry Labriola Jr. Treasurer." They are called "Meet Matt Lesser," "Meet Joe Aresimowicz," and so on, with the names of the 33 Democratic legislators.

The sites, as well as other articles about the issue, can be found with this web search. ]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread232782.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231771.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:03:48 GMT In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications... In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, Congress appropriated $7.2 billion for broadband grants, loans, and loan guarantees to be administered by the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The deadline for submissions was earlier this year.

Now, you can search the database yourself to find what projects were submitted.

Endeavour Partners, a consulting company, downloaded the data to see what it could find out about the proposals.

First of all, $28 billion in requests was submitted for $7.2 billion in funding.

Other observations include:

• 2,186 applications were received
• The average application size was $12.7 million, but the median application size was $2.7 million
• Alaska had the largest total dollar amount requested, at $1.3 billion
• The largest application was from RADgov, a proposal to build and connect computer learning centers in underserved communities across the US for $938 million
• The top 10 states requesting the most money were California, Florida, Colorado, Alaska, New York, Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Maryland, and Illinois.
• The top 10 states requesting the most money per capita were Alaska, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Hawaii, Vermont, Colorado, New Mexico, and Maryland.

While a number of the top 10 per capita states actually are laggards in terms of broadband availability, "three of the top 10 states ranked on funding requests per capita are in the top 10 for actual broadband performance: Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, and Maryland," the group said. "These are all densely populated areas with meaningful broadband competition."

Awards for this first round are expected to be announced in November.

"It will be interesting to see how the process plays out – if awards will be made to a few large, pork barrel projects or if dollars will be carefully allocated to the rural states and areas where broadband economics break down and private sector competition is likely to remain weak," Endeavour concluded. ]]> Domains and DNS slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231771.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231517.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:40:16 GMT The other day I was on Facebook and a chat window popped up from a college friend of mine.

Bob: Hey there. How are u doing?
Sharon: ok. you?
Bob: Am not too good. Im in some kind of deep mess right now
Sharon: uh oh. what happened?

What "Bob" didn't know was that I was already suspicious of him by then.

Bob: Im stranded in London. I got mugged at a gun point last night!

Sure you did, "Bob."

This is a classic example of the "I've been mugged!" scam that's been going around Facebook chat. A friend starts a chat, tells how they've been mugged in some world city, and begs you to use Western Union to wire them some money.

(Poor Western Union. Does anyone use them for anything legitimate any more?)

Not to mention -- robbed at gunpoint? In England? Are you kidding?

But I played along.

Sharon: oh no!
Bob: All cash,credit card and phone was stolen!
Sharon: that's terrible!
Bob: Thank God i still have my life and passport
Sharon: yes, for sure
Bob: I need your urgent help Sharon!
Sharon: how can I help?

Then I waited for "the touch." Sadly, there were no more messages, and four minutes later "Bob" had signed off.

I got into email to contact "Bob" and let him know what was going on, only to find email from him in my mailbox, warning that he thought his account had been hacked and to ignore any chat messages from him.

What tipped me off is that I'd read articles about this method. But what tipped Bob -- the real one -- off?

"They tried to change my contact email address," Bob said. "FB sent a notice asking me to confirm the change. I had not initiated said change, so I knew something was up."

(Notice, too, the sorts of word choices and spelling the real Bob uses, compared to the fake one.)

What should you do if you're on the receiving end of one of these scams? Experts suggest that you try to confirm some piece of information that only the real person would know, such as the last time you saw each other or the names of their children or pets. And, of course, try to contact the real person to see if they're actually in London or wherever.

Obviously, also, pay attention if you get an unexpected message trying to change your email address. Bob took the additional step of emailing his friends, plus posting a message with his real location so people would be suspicious if they then heard he was in London.

Sadly, many of these scams are perpetrated outside the U.S., so it's tough to nail them. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231517.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story231276.html Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:35:28 GMT The 2008 presidential election featured a new emphasis on using the Internet, ranging from raising money to advertising to getting support.

It's still going on. Facebook, in particular, due to the ease in which people can set up affinity groups, is proving to be a new source of online activism, according to a recent article.

"Facebook’s features, such as the ability to add real-world events to a group or fan page, the ability to send a message to up to 5,000 members on a group page and the built-in discussion boards, make it an all-in-one stop for the connected protester," the article said.

It's also expected that, while the Federal Elections Commission ruled in 2006 that campaign regulations do not apply to most Internet activity, except for paid political advertising on someone else's Web site, new rules on campaigning will be in effect by the 2010 election cycle, according to an AP article.

"When does a blog connected to a campaign need to disclose its allegiance?," the article asks. "Does a candidate's personal Facebook page need a disclaimer if it is updated by a staffer? Can a campaign-related tweet — a message posted on social media site Twitter — even be regulated?" Another example cited in the article was whether Internet advertising -- such as pop-up ads whenever someone Googles an opponent -- need the sort of "Paid for by..." disclaimer that printed ads require.

Ironically, however, a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project called Civic Engagement Online found that the Internet hasn't much changed the political landscape.

"Contrary to the hopes of some advocates, the internet [sic] is not changing the socio-economic character of civic engagement in America," said Aaron Smith in the report. "Just as in offline civic life, the well-to-do and well-educated are more likely than those less well off to participate in online political activities such as emailing a government official, signing an online petition or making a political contribution."

However, this may change in the future, Smith said. It is "not inevitable that those with high levels of income and education are the most active in civic and political affairs," he said. "In contrast to traditional acts of political participation -- whether undertaken online or offline -- forms of engagement that use blogs or online social network sites are not characterized by such a strong association with socio-economic stratification." ]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread231276.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story227496.html Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:50:39 GMT A company that has been attempting to obtain licensing fees from adult companies, as well as other providers such as Internet radio stations and leading satellite and cable companies such Echostar, DirectTV, Time Warner Cable, and CSC Holdings, Inc., has had its patent thrown out... A company that has been attempting to obtain licensing fees from adult companies, as well as other providers such as Internet radio stations and leading satellite and cable companies such Echostar, DirectTV, Time Warner Cable, and CSC Holdings, Inc., has had its patent thrown out by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Acacia Research's patent on streaming media technology had been targeted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation as part of its Patent Busting Project for being overly broad. "Laughably broad patent would cover everything from online distribution of home movies to scanned documents and MP3s," the EFF described it.

The company systematically acquired a number of patents on streaming media, with an eye toward making money on licensing fees, according to a 2003 CNET article.

"The company's digital media strategy began in earnest several years ago," the article said. "It had determined that it owned about a third of the patents it needed to mount a licensing strategy for Web streaming, and its attorneys spent considerable time researching the rights held by another set of companies that Acacia ultimately purchased in 2001. By the time Acacia finished, it owned five U.S. patents and 17 international patents dating back to 1991."

Acacia started with the adult website market. "The case reaches all the way back to 2002, when Acacia began sending out media packets to online adult companies asserting that the companies were violating patents associated with its Digital Media Transmission technology, which Acacia claimed covered virtually any manner of transmitting and receiving digital and audio content over the Internet," according to an article in XBIZ Newswire. "Although Acacia was able to secure settlements from a number of adult companies, other companies fought back, and eventually coalesced into the united Adult Defense Group effort, spearheaded by Homegrown Video parent company New Destiny Internet Group."

In 2003, the company began targeting Internet radio providers, and obtained licensing fees from a number of them, including Radio Free Virgin, the online music division of Richard Branson's Virgin corporation.

In 2004, it moved on to colleges and universities, sending letters demanding licensing agreements of a minimum of $5,000 to more than 100 of them.

The company has not yet commented but is expected to appeal the ruling. ]]> eCommerce slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread227496.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story226914.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:57:05 GMT GovLoop, an online social network for government workers that was started by a federal worker, has been sold to GovDelivery Inc., a venture-backed government communications platform, with GovLoop founder Steve Ressler as its head of social networking. Terms of the sale were not disclosed... GovLoop, an online social network for government workers that was started by a federal worker, has been sold to GovDelivery Inc., a venture-backed government communications platform, with GovLoop founder Steve Ressler as its head of social networking.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

The service currently has about 20,000 members, and Ressler would like to increase it to 100,000, he told the Wall Street Journal.

GovDelivery is "a supplier of government-to-citizen email and wireless communication systems (mostly for mass notification) to state and local but also to some federal agencies," according to Gartner government analyst Andrea DiMaio. However, noting that government users are now allowed to use mainstream services such as Facebook (though not Twitter), he wondered in his blog how much relevance GovLoop would continue to have -- comments that Ressler himself agreed with. "I see the future of GovLoop as a “knowledge network” for government – a place where government people can go to get their questions answered to do their job better," he said. "That can be asking a question on their government career, on a niche topic like how to implement a wiki, or a broad scope like talking about the future of cloud in government." ]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread226914.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story226660.html Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:26:06 GMT In its ongoing effort to become the coolest city in the U.S., the mayor of Portland, Oregon, is going to attempt tomorrow night to make it an "open source city," making its data as open as possible while respecting privacy, and buying open source applications when possible.

If passed by the City Council, Mayor Sam Adams' proposal will have the following steps:

"a. Enter into agreements with our regional partners to publish and maintain public datasets that are open and freely available while respecting privacy and security concerns as identified by the City Attorney;
b. Develop a strategy to adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other formats of media;
c. Organize a regional contest to encourage the development of software applications to collect, organize, and share public data;
d. Establish best practices for analysis of business requirements in software review and selection processes, identify existing commercial software systems with licenses that are scheduled to expire in the near future, and encourage the consideration of Open Source Software in the review, replacement and continual improvement of business solutions."

As for carrots, the city is also hoping to encourage the lucrative conference industry to come to Portland; the proposal also suggests promoting "Portland as a host city for leading Open Source Software conferences and related technology events, such as LinuxCon, Innotech, etc."

In addition, all formal technology related purchasing and contract opportunities will be offered to the open source community, according to the proposed resolution.

Adams first declared his intention of making Portland more open in June, during the Open Source Bridge conference. According to the Silicon Florist blog, this was a way of competing with Vancouver, B.C., Canada, which had announced in May its intention of doing the same thing. ]]> Linux Servers and Apache slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread226660.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story226442.html Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:23:54 GMT A poll on whether President Barack Obama should be assassinated, which was posted to Facebook on Saturday, has been taken down after an investigation by the Secret Service, according to NPR.

The poll consisted of a single question: 'should obama be killed? [sic]' with the choices yes, maybe, if he cuts my health care, and no, according to a screen capture of the poll.

The screen capture also reported that 387 people had responded, but that results were only available if a user approved the application, which has security implications. Reportedly, 339 people voted 'no.'

Facebook took down the entire application that allowed the user, who has not been named, to create the poll, NPR said. But according to the Los Angeles Times, the company didn't take the poll down til Monday, at which point 730 people had voted.

A blogger who had reported the poll to the Secret Service said they had received a call back, and were told that the Secret Service relies on users to report such incidents. Threatening the life of the president is a crime, the LA Times reported.

It is not known whether people who responded to the poll could be tracked down. ]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread226442.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story225576.html Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:29:08 GMT Idaho, where I live, likes to brag when it makes lists such as "best places to live," "best places to start a business," etc.

Now we've made another list: we're the most spammed.

According to MessageLabs, which was acquired by Symantec in November, the ten states with the highest percentage of spam are:
1 Idaho 93.8%
2 Kentucky 93.0%
3 New Jersey 92.8%
4 Alabama 91.9%
5 Illinois 91.6%
6 Indiana 91.0%
7 Massachusetts 90.9%
8 Pennsylvania 90.5%
9 Arizona 90.4%
10 (tie) Maryland, 90.3%
North Carolina and
New Mexico

The ten states (and territory) with the lowest percentage of spam are:
1 Puerto Rico
2 Montana
3 Alaska
4 Kansas
5 South Dakota
6 Tennessee
7 Vermont
8 (tie) West Virginia and Rhode Island
9 Wisconsin
10 (tie) Iowa and Florida

MessageLabs did not reveal figures for these areas except for Puerto Rico, at 83.1%.

Why Idaho? MessageLabs wasn't sure. It didn't indicate that Idahoans were particularly gullible about Nigerian princes nor particularly ignorant about anti-spam software (which, no doubt, MessageLabs and Symantec would be happy to sell them).

However, it did have some correlations to point out. "The areas that are subjected to the highest levels of spam are generally those locations that are populated with a higher density of small-to-medium sized businesses."

On the other hand, MessageLabs goes on to add, "Similarly, the least spammed places are often home to some of the largest companies."

Puerto Rico? Montana? Really?

MessageLabs also notes that the most-spammed industries are Marketing, Wholesale, Recreation, Engineering and Real Estate (how can they tell?), while the least spammed are Chemical and Pharmaceutical, followed by Agriculture, Public Sector, Transportation and Healthcare -- which is particularly odd because these least-spammed industries provide a large share of Idaho's employment.

Last year, Idaho was the 44th most-spammed state. In fact, the top three most-spammed states were among the ten least spammed states in 2008.

On the other hand, for all states, the difference between the most- and least-spammed states decreased from 15.1% in 2008 to 10.7% in 2009 -- making reports like this less and less relevant. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread225576.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story224982.html Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:55:17 GMT Remember Terry Childs? He was the network administrator for the city of San Francisco who -- claiming he was protecting the city government's computer system from incompetent coworkers -- changed the system's passwords and then for more than a week refused to give them to anyone, even after being arrested.

Childs eventually did give the passwords to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and was charged with four felony counts, basically of variations on hacking.

Well, it's more than a year later, and Childs is still in jail, without yet having been convicted of anything.

In August, San Francisco Superior Court judge Kevin McCarthy dropped three of the four charges, related to his attaching three modems to the network. The charge associated with his refusing to reveal the passwords stayed.

However, later in the month, Judge Charles Haines refused to lower Childs' $5 million bail, calling him a flight risk (when arrested, he'd been found with a large amount of cash) and a security risk to the San Francisco network.

In comparison, the San Francisco Felony Bail Schedule, which provides bail guidelines for a variety of offenses, lists a $1 million bail for the most serious crimes, such as sexual assault of a child, aggravated arson, or kidnapping for ransom, according to the IDG News Service.

Meanwhile, in January, Childs filed a $3 million lawsuit against the city, including $1 million in compensation for lost wages and benefits, $1 million for emotional stress, $500,000 in attorney fees, and $500,000 in unspecified "special damages."

If convicted, Childs faces up to five years in prison -- assuming, of course, they manage to go to trial and convict him by then. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread224982.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story224717.html Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:14:46 GMT In an attempt to build support for a bill that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress, the online gambling industry is running online ads noting that legal online gambling could raise $48 billion for the deficit-plagued U.S. government.

"At a time when the federal deficit is at record levels, regulation will raise up to $48 billion over 10 years," according to the ad. "In a struggling economic environment, regulated Internet gambling would generate billions in new revenue for federal and state governments to fund key economic and social programs," the ad continues on another screen.

Representative Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, introduced legislation earlier this year, HR2267, that would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that serve American customers. Frank, who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, actually cited increased tax revenues as a reason to support the legislation.

Since introduction of the legislation, a bipartisan group of more than 50 co-sponsors have signed onto the bill, according to an article in PokerPagesOnline. Supporters include George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor; John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary; Charles Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means; Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Pete King (R-NY), ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Ron Paul (R-TX), vice-chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. ]]> Growing an Online Community slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread224717.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story224479.html Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:38:20 GMT Two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have learned that it is possible to predict which men in social networks are gay, even if they aren't out, based on who their friends are.

It's the theory behind traffic analysis, or the process of intercepting and examining messages to deduce information from patterns in communication, even without the content of the messages.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the project, code-named Gaydar, analyzed the Facebook friend links of 1,544 men who said they were straight, 21 who said they were bisexual, and 33 who said they were gay. "Gay men had proportionally more gay friends than straight men, giving the computer program a way to infer a person’s sexuality based on their friends," the article said.

The students then asked the program to determine the orientation of men who did not declare it on Facebook, and ten men -- whom the students knew to be gay -- were also predicted to be gay by the program. (The program was not so successful at picking out gay women, or bisexual men and women.)

It's not that people need to be worried about being outed by a couple of MIT students. But a number of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have warned users how much personal information they are revealing in social networking sites without realizing it. What MIT students can do, other people -- including potential bosses -- could also figure out how to do, potentially leading to the notion that users might hesitate at publicly friending others based on what inferences -- correct or not -- might be drawn. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread224479.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story223654.html Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:43:37 GMT Far from being made superfluous by the Internet, a recent study (http://www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/plftas/2008_2009/index.cfm) by the American Library Association finds that the library is often the only source of free Internet access in a community. More than 71 percent of all... Far from being made superfluous by the Internet, a recent study by the American Library Association finds that the library is often the only source of free Internet access in a community.

More than 71 percent of all libraries (and 79 percent of rural libraries) report they are the only source of free access to computers and the Internet in their communities, according to the survey. 76 percent of public libraries offer free wireless access. However, nearly 60 percent of libraries report Internet connection speeds are insufficient to meet patron demand at some point in the day, and 81 percent of public libraries report there are not enough public Internet computers to meet patron demand some or all of the time.

Libraries are particularly being used in the economic downtown, with 66 percent of public libraries ranking job-seeking services, including resume writing and Internet job searches, among the most crucial online services they offer – up from 44 percent two years ago. In a separate survey, 80 percent of New York libraries indicated they helped someone search for a job in late 2008, the ALA said. More than 90 percent of public libraries provide technology training such as online job-seeking and career-related classes, general Internet, and computer use instruction.

With more governments turning to the Internet themselves to reduce costs, many government services are now often available only, or most easily, via the Internet, leaving people without Internet access stuck.

Ironically, at the same time libraries are being called on more heavily, they are having hours and staffing cut due to budget restrictions, with 44 percent of states reporting declines in state funding for public libraries in FY2009 – in some cases by as much as 25 or 30 percent. In addition, 14 percent of libraries reported FY2009 declines in local funding as well. ]]> eCommerce slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread223654.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220779.html Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:29:25 GMT If you've used Facebook for more than, oh, five minutes, you've seen a Facebook quiz. "What Greek dance are you?" "Which NFL coach are you?" "Which Diplomacy country should you play?" and so on. (I forget every quiz I see, and I'm up to more than 250 by now.)

But there's one quiz you might want to take a look at, which is the What Do Quizzes Really Know About You? on Facebook, from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Facebook applications typically have a boilerplate page, giving them access to all the information in your account. But this can add up to an awful lot -- especially since such applications also get access to information about your friends as well, the ACLU quiz warns.

The quiz then goes on to show you exactly what sort of information about you it has collected, as well as information about your friends, such as an aggregate of political affiliations, people's locations, and a sampling of groups to which they belong.

The purpose? To encourage users to change their privacy settings as well as to encourage them to contact Facebook to offer better privacy.

Coincidentally, on Thursday, Facebook announced a 12-month plan to enable users "to make more informed choices about their privacy."

"Specifically, Facebook will introduce a new permissions model that will require applications to specify the categories of information they wish to access and obtain express consent from the user before any data is shared," the company said. "In addition, the user will also have to specifically approve any access to their friends’ information, which would still be subject to the friend’s privacy and application settings."

However, Facebook didn't mention the ACLU quiz, instead saying it had been working with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. What Facebook also didn't mention is that the Canadian Privacy Commissioner ruled last month that Facebook had 30 days to come up with a plan to comply with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or face court action, according to the New York Times. ]]> Web Browsers slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220779.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220776.html Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:16:35 GMT What, you hadn't heard?

"A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a "kill switch" to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks -- a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties," FOX News said breathlessly. (Nice use of action verbs, though.)

"Obama-mania control of America continues,[sic] first the Census was pulled to the White House, now a bill that would give Obama and his unscrupulous cronies’[sic] control of the internet[sic] is making its way through the Senate," said examiner.com.

Eek.

(Now that Fox News has hold of the story, expect a lot more of this. Funny how protective the right wing is of the Internet all of a sudden.)

The bill, S773, the "Cybersecurity Act of 2009," was introduced in April. It is intended to help protect national security in the event of war, natural disaster, or an act of cyberterrorism by giving the government the ability to control the Internet. The first take of the bill came under a fair amount of criticism at the time, through organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far," the EFF said in April. "Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks."

So why are people having conniption fits over a bill that was submitted in April and has had no action since then?

In response to the criticisms, bill sponsors Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have been working on the bill. CNET's Declan McCullagh has reportedly obtained a copy of it, and posted an article on Friday detailing what was different about the bill, which in some ways he finds worse in terms of specificity and limits.

Okay. Let us stipulate that the bill as written is untenable -- not specific enough, could be used badly by a bad President, opens up too many loopholes, etc.

That stipulated, let's stop running around like chickens with our heads cut off about it, for the following reasons:

1. The bill isn't done. The version McCullagh cites hasn't been submitted, as far as I can tell. This is the way the process of developing laws is supposed to work. There are a jillion people watching the progress of this bill. They're not going to sneak it by us. Let's let them finish writing the thing before we jump on it.

2. Like it or not, something like this is probably necessary. Anyone else old enough to remember the Morris Worm in 1988? People were panicked. (In one memorable case, the IT director ordered staff to *take an ax* to the cable connecting the company to the Internet.) And that was a bored college student. If someone breaks into the power grid via the Internet and starts shutting things off, say, do we really want no recourse? More pragmatically, do we really think the lack of a law would keep the government from doing whatever it could in such a situation?

3. Lest we forget (or lest we be too damn young to remember), the government started the Internet in the first place, and then insisted that it pay its own way and become commercial -- which a number of people thought would mean its death. (If anyone can find an online copy of "Whither NREN?" from Byte, July 1991, it lays out the issues pretty well, if I do say so myself -- though it has this sidebar by some obscure Senator from Tennessee for some reason.) Anyway, the Internet survived that just fine. Remember, the Internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack. FOX News aside, there's not going to be a big red button that says "Internet" that someone can push to shut it down.

By all means, let's follow this bill and examine it critically. But let's keep it in perspective. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220776.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220772.html Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:46:43 GMT The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that not only threw out other cases, but has more broadly set a limit upon the use of data seized in a computer search.

The ruling has to do with the "plain view" doctrine, which allows law enforcement to take steps to pursue a crime when the evidence of it is in plain view. Prosecutors in an investigation of steroid use in baseball were using the entire contents of a spreadsheet to look for players who had tested positive, even though only about ten players were actually under investigation.

"After obtaining an electronic spreadsheet from the drug testing lab, though, the government reviewed the records of hundreds of players and many other people," explained the website law.com. "In the years since, drug dealers, athletes and coaches have been prosecuted for perjury, and the names of other baseball players who tested positive for steroids were leaked to the media."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unusual instance of the entire court hearing the case rather than a subset of three judges, ruled that this was improper, both for the steroid case and in general.

The government should not be able to keep anything one of its agents happened to see while performing a forensic analysis of a hard drive, the finding read.

"The government should, in future warrant applications, forswear reliance on the plain view doctrine or any similar doctrine that would allow it to retain data to which it has gained access only because it was required to segregate seizable from non-seizable data," said the court. "If the government doesn’t consent to such a waiver, the magistrate judge should order that the seizable and non-seizable data be separated by an independent third party under the supervision of the court, or deny the warrant altogether."

Moreover, the government should not be allowed to go on a fishing expedition with the data, such as looking for pornography on a seized hard disk unless there was some reason to believe it was there.

"[T]he government has sophisticated hashing tools at its disposal that allow the identification of well-known illegal files (such as child pornography) without actually opening the files themselves," the ruling said. "These and similar search tools may not be used without specific authorization in the warrant, and such permission may only be given if there is probable cause to believe that such files can be found on the electronic medium to be seized."

The court also chided investigators for not using computer personnel to look at the file first in order to retrieve just the data needed for the case. "The government doesn’t need instruction from the court as to what kind of employees to use to serve its own purposes; the representation in the warrant that computer personnel would be used to examine and segregate the data was obviously designed to reassure the issuing magistrate that the government wouldn’t sweep up large quantities of data in the hope of dredging up information it could not otherwise lawfully seize," the justices scolded.

The 9th Circuit is typically thought of as being more liberal than other courts, and it is possible that the ruling will be overturned. ]]> Internet Marketing Job Offers slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220772.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220768.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:17:43 GMT As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, states were required to set up websites in a specific format to explain to citizens how the money was spent. The first look (http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/ARRAwebreport.pdf) at how states have... As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, states were required to set up websites in a specific format to explain to citizens how the money was spent.

The first look at how states have done has come out, and it isn't pretty.

According to a report by Good Jobs First, a national policy resource center for grassroots groups and public officials, promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families, most states are not doing a very good job so far at explaining how they're spending the money. On a scale of 1 to 100, the average of all the state scores for ARRA sites is only 28.2, and the median is 25, though scores specific to highway funding are slightly higher.

"Only six states score 50 or better for their ARRA website: Maryland (80), Colorado (68), Washington (63), West Virginia (60), New York (53) and Pennsylvania (50)," the group found. "Thirteen do so for their highway reporting, led by Maryland (75), Washington (73), Colorado (65), Nebraska (60) and California and New York (each at 58). Only four states (Colorado, Maryland, New York and Washington) score 50 or better on both measures."

Factors in each state's grade included:

• Planned spending totals by broad categories (energy, housing, transportation, etc.) as well as more specific programs;
• Data on the distribution of spending among the state’s counties (or other geographic divisions);
• The inclusion of maps showing the location of the projects;
• Descriptions of specific spending projects and the contracts associated with them;
• Contract details, including dollar amounts, the name of the contractor and the text of the contract;
• Data on the jobs created or retained by the project;
• The status of the project (portion completed and expected duration).
• Whether they include all ARRA project information (as opposed to having it spread out among various agency web pages)
• How up to date that information is.

The report also gives states advice about information to include, as well as links to all the states' sites.

States that didn't do so well were quick to come up with explanations. Idaho, for example, which scored 28th, said its site would improve in October, when it got more information.

At the bottom, with a score of zero? Utah and....Illinois, the home state of President Barack Obama.

Illinois, however, pointed out that after the report's deadline of July 29, it had improved its site, which Good Jobs First acknowledged in a press release. ]]> Internet Marketing Job Offers slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220768.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220765.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:55:47 GMT As predicted (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3596.html), a number of cyberbullying laws were put into effect after the suicide of Megan Meier last fall, which left prosecutors unable to charge the Missouri woman who created a fake MySpace person to mock the 13-year-old girl with anything other... As predicted, a number of cyberbullying laws were put into effect after the suicide of Megan Meier last fall, which left prosecutors unable to charge the Missouri woman who created a fake MySpace person to mock the 13-year-old girl with anything other than violating MySpace's terms of service.

Not surprisingly, Missouri was one of the states, and now Elizabeth Thrasher has been the first person charged with felony cyberbullying, for allegedly posting photos and personal information of a teenage girl on the "Casual Encounters" section of Craigslist

According to a story by the Associated Press, the victim is the 17-year-old daughter of Thrasher's ex-husband's girlfriend.

Thrasher's Craigslist posting included the teen's picture, employer, e-mail address, and cell phone number. The girl, who has not been named, received calls, e-mails, text messages, and pornographic photos to her cell phone, and contacted police.

Thrasher, who is currently out on a $10,000 bond, could face up to four years in state prison, or up to a year in county jail, and a $5,000 fine.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times called the arrest, and the law on which it was based, an overreaction. "[I]t seems absurd that Thrasher faces up to four years in state prison for committing the online equivalent of writing "For a good time, call ... " in a well-used bathroom stall," the Times said. "The problem is with prosecutors who think that transgressions are automatically magnified if they occur in cyberspace."

An attempt is also being made to make cyberbullying a crime on the Federal level, the LA Times wrote, though HR 1966 has been languishing since April. That bill "is so shoddy that I just wonder why this happened," wrote constitutional scholar Eugene Volokh in his blog, listing a number of examples that could become illegal should that law pass. ]]> Tech / IT Consultant Job Offers slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220765.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220736.html Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:56:10 GMT As feared (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4412.html), the Administration has caved to telecom industry restrictions on mapping the availability of broadband Internet, making it less likely that $7 billion in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the... As feared, the Administration has caved to telecom industry restrictions on mapping the availability of broadband Internet, making it less likely that $7 billion in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package, will actually help improve broadband access to people who don't have it.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday that companies such as Verizon Communications Inc, Comcast Corp., and AT&T Inc do not have to share how much money they make from each Internet subscriber. Nor must they say how fast their Internet connections typically run. Instead, they will provide data by the block -- not by the address -- which is usually about a dozen homes, depending on the size of the block. They also will share the speed of Internet service that they advertise -- not that they can actually provide.

One of the first steps in the process of expanding broadband Internet access in rural areas of the U.S. is for the Federal Communications Commission to produce a map of the areas that already have service -- and those that don't. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) came under criticism earlier this year for making $1.35 billion in loans that primarily added broadband Internet service to areas that already had it, rather than by bringing it to areas without it.

In fact, the funding had included $350 million to create such a map, though the Commerce Department is now saying only $240 million will be needed, according to the Post. Where that money is going to go -- since the map will be less detailed and will be apparently created using marketing material from the telecom vendors -- is not yet clear.

There had been concern earlier this year that Connected Nation Inc. was angling for that mapping contract, because Connected Nation is backed by big telecommunications companies such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T that potentially stand to benefit from the stimulus funding. ]]> Domains and DNS slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220736.html http://www.daniweb.com/news/story220733.html Mon, 10 Aug 2009 03:10:14 GMT Want to do a public records search on email messages from your state legislator?

Chances are, you won't be able to, even with the recent move toward transparency in government.

Even states that do have an email retention policy in state government -- and many of them don't -- often don't require legislators or members of the executive branch to comply with it. (We already know that's the case for members of the executive branch in federal government.)

The National Conference of State Legislatures, the go-to people on comparative state legislative policies -- doesn't have anything written on email retention policies. In fact, the most recent work on the subject appears to be from 2006. "[T]here are still no truly uniform standards for the retention and management of email messages among the states," that article said. "[A] look at individual policies in the 50 states will find that they are, quite literally, all over the map. An accompanying list of such state policies as existed looked woefully outdated even then, with policies dating back to 1996, and a somewhat more recent list still shows many gaps. There isn't even a standard organization that governs the development and management of such policies.

This becomes a problem because citizens can't find out what their legislators are doing in email. There are no "Watergate tapes" when someone can eliminate entire conversations by pushing a button. "[L]arge numbers of messages, including those that qualify as public records with historical, documentary, and legal value, can be deleted in seconds," the 2006 article said.

In addition, to evade discovery, government officials have been known to use non-government vehicles for email, which has its own problems.

Even when email records are retained, they can be hard to search or sort electronically. In fact, some policies permit or even recommend archiving email messages by *printing* them. ]]> Network Security slfisher http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread220733.html