Posts by slfisher

If you ever had a big brother, you know that the same guy who gave you noogies could also protect you from a bully at school -- but you had to take the bad with the good.

'Big Brother,' in surveillance, is the same way.

Government surveillance is getting easier and closer. In Arizona, police are photographing, scanning, and georeferencing license plates, ostensibly to help locate stolen cars -- the state is reportedly one of the top five in auto thefts.

But with the data -- more than 1.6 million plate images since 2006 -- Arizona police could do much more. "Investigators talk about using the cameras to create a virtual Arizona crime map, widening the scope beyond stolen vehicles. By logging the daily location of thousands of registered automobiles, investigators may be able to narrow down the locations of people they are looking for."

Oh goody. Do I *want* my car's location recorded daily?

Moreover, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which is emerging as the repository for the data, has yet to establish guidelines on how to use the data and how long that information would be saved. A legislative bill directing the agency to destroy information within 24 hours if not part of an ongoing investigation died.

Police say the system helps them recover stolen cars, and reduces the number of stolen cars by capturing the thieves. No doubt this is true. But any stored data could …

It seemed too good to be true: A Britax Marathon child car seat, the top rated seat from Consumer Reports, usually with a price tag of nearly $300, on sale at Target for $43, with free shipping.

It was.

The news spread like wildfire between members of the wired mommy community, and many people reported placing orders -- only to have some of them receive messages from Target saying the listing was an "error" and that their orders were being canceled. Oddly, some other people, particularly those who ordered the "Cowmooflage" pattern, received their seats without incident, though it may have been people who ordered early.

The same moms who had passed on the deal to each other were quick to let each other know about the about-face and compare notes. "It is my understanding that they have canceled all orders for the Britax seats at the $42.99 and $59.99 prices they had listed yesterday," said one. "According to someone online who contacted customer service they are taking up to 48 hours to decide whether or not to honor the listed price (they have a disclaimer on their site which covers their butts on pricing errors). But they said they are taking customer complaints into consideration. So if you ordered it and it has now been canceled you should contact customer service to let them know you expect them to honor the price they had listed. Here's a link with their contact info: …

Yes, I've seen a lot of IT people comment on the 15-30 minute aspect. But keep in mind that some organizations have older, slower computers, and also load them up with all sorts of security systems, keystroke monitors, "net nanny" programs, etc. By the time you get logged into the various networks, get the email up....I can see it taking that long.

Is the time that it takes to boot up and power down a computer at the beginning and the end of the day work?

A number of lawyers are trying to settle that question. On the one hand, users start rebooting the computer and then spend up to 15-20 minutes chatting, getting coffee, and so on during the process, which adds up to a lot of unproductive time for the employer, contends one side. On the other hand, the bootup process -- which may be required due to security or power concerns, and can include a variety of programs required by the employer -- needs to be performed by the employee before they can work, and it can add up to a lot of unpaid time for the employee.

There is, of course, a long history of requiring employees to contribute unpaid time to the employer, ranging from George Orwell to Upton Sinclair. But unlike that era, employees are now fighting back.

During the past year, the article described, several companies -- including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp. -- have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. One respondent to the article said she had worked for MBNA and had been required to show up 15 minutes early, and received …

In response to a letter signed by 40 state attorneys general, the popular classified ad site Craigslist has taken additional steps to keep sex workers from using its site.

Left unsaid, though, is that Craigslist had little choice, unless it wished to risk being made a party to illegal activity.

The 40 attorneys general had written Craiglist earlier this year, asking the company to deal with the issue of people posting ads for prostitution on the site. For example, in recent months, there have been two cases in Idaho of female teens used for prostitution and advertised on Craigslist.

The San Francisco-based organization said in March it had implemented a telephone verification system for the "erotic services" section of the site, requiring a working phone number for advertisers, and enabling blacklisting of phone numbers for those who post inappropriate ads. Phone verification resulted in an 80% reduction in ad volume, and significantly increased compliance with site guidelines, Craigslist said.

In addition, Craigslist said it will soon require credit card verification and a small fee per ad for posting in "erotic services," to further encourage compliance with site guidelines. Paid ads that violate site guidelines will be removed without refund. The company intends to donate the net revenue generated from these ads to charity, with net revenue to be verified by an external auditor.

The company also said it had filed 14 lawsuits and was sending "cease and desist" demands …

People looking for examples of how social media can be leveraged to create a brand typically think of cutting-edge technology companies, not housewives exchanging cleaning tips. They haven't heard of Flylady.

Which is getting increasingly hard to do these days, especially now that Flylady -- the nom de mop of Marla Cilley -- has joined Twitter, as @theflylady. While Cilley's cleaning system was based on the Sidetracked Home Executive books, her fame has far eclipsed the original books, starting with a mailing list in 1999 that now boasts 502,704 members, and a website in 2001.

The system isn't perfect. Anyone who's come to my house can attest to that, and I've been on her mailing list long before she ever had her website -- long enough to remember when she hit 100,000 members. But it's insidious. I still think about cleaning using her terminology, and I'm still subscribed to the list, even though I haven't checked it for months.

At this point, Flylady is like the Oprah of the online networking world. Whereas Oprah has spawned Dr. Phil and Bob Greene, and launched a book club empire, Flylady has launched the Saving Dinner Leanne Ely and a host of cleaning and household management products, as well as a radio show. Not to mention a whole new way of talking about and looking at the household, which transcends cleaning to become a whole new way of life.

(For example, if you …

If you like the Google Earth mapping application, there's now an application that works with it and provides information on "Marine Protected Areas" on the Earth.

Installing the application shows all the various marine protected areas (MPAs); clicking on them provides some information, including a link to more detailed information.

Depending on the MPA, users may be able to see photos and video as well.

Around 4,500 spots scattered around the world's oceans have been designated as marine protected areas, which means activities such as commercial or recreational fishing are restricted or banned to protect dwindling stocks of fish and other marine species, according to Google, which developed the software along with the World Commission on Protected Areas and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a grouping of more than 1,000 government and nongovernment organizations and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.

The application was demonstrated at at IUCN conference earlier this month.

Fox News is ominously warning about the potential of Twittering terrorists.

The U.S. Army's 304th Military Intelligence Battalion released in mid-October a report describing how a number of social media and other technologies, including Twitter, could be used by terrorists.

After all, “Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,” according to the report.

Not to mention Presidential candidates and Republicans.

This is not news; Clay Shirky's book Here Come Everybody talks about how people were using Twitter to track government actions. Protesters used Twitter to help them evade police at the Republican National Convention, the Army report warned.

The report also gave a number of examples of soldiers in the Middle East using Twitter to talk about their day's activities -- potentially providing information to terrorists or other groups -- and listed several scenarios of how terrorists could use Twitter.

Other technologies with potentially dangerous applications include voice-changing technology to disguise people's voices, GPS and mapping, and surveillance using mobile phones, the report said.

In another case of a potentially rogue government programmer, the investigator found more than he bargained for: tens of thousands of pornographic images of children.

As with San Francisco city government computer engineer Terry Childs earlier this year, Marc Young, computer applications manager for Canyon County, Idaho, was under investigation in September, 2006, for allegations that he planned to sabotage the county's computer network, such as by making law enforcement databases inoperational.

Instead, Idaho State Police Detective Brent Kessinger found the pornographic images on the county-owned computers -- which Young claimed had been planted there by a co-worker. Moreover, there was evidence that someone had tried to delete the images.

The result was five charges of possession of exploitative materials and four charges of destroying evidence, but not until Young -- who, incidentally, was the son of the county prosecutor at the time -- had been placed on administrative leave at full salary for more than a year, for more than $60,000.

Young pleaded guilty to one of each charge under an Alford plea, which does not admit guilt but acknowledges there is enough evidence to convict him. He has been sentenced to up to six years in prison but could be released in as little as 120 days after evaluation.

Moreover, the county limited further paid leaves to 90 days.

Young was never charged in connection with the initial allegations.

Just months after Google purchased the entire online rights to a new satellite's imagery, the U.S. government, citing budget concerns, has canceled plans to launch two more commercial satellites.

According to the Associated Press, the House and Senate intelligence appropriations committees cut approximately $1.7 billion in funding for 2008 and 2009.

The National Reconnaissance Office was supposed to buy and launch two commercial-like satellites around 2012 under the program called the Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection satellite system, or BASIC, the article continued. Instead, approximately $300 million has been set aside for the Pentaon to determine whether it needs additional satellite imagery, and, if so, to help start a new program.

Imagery from satellites lets scientists literally get the "big picture" of what's happening in large-scale environments, such as weather and pollution. In addition, by looking at imagery using different spectrums, such as infrared, scientists can also study pollution, amount of water in an area, and changes in vegetation such as deforestation. Not to mention, law enforcement personnel can use it to bust marijuana-growing operations. The BASIC system in particular was meant to spy on enemy troop movements, spot construction at suspected nuclear sites or alert commanders to militant training camps. The still images, which would be obtained multiple times per site per day, would be pieced together with higher resolution secret satellites into one large mosaic, the AP said.

The two satellites were intended to replace the canceled spy …

In recent weeks, both American Airlines and Delta Airlines have announced that their in-flight wireless Internet services will include a filtering service to keep passengers from viewing porn on their laptops.

I admit it, I'm torn.

Porn proponents such as Violet Blue, in the San Francisco Chronicle, make all the correct points -- that nothing's stopping people from looking at pornography they bring on their hard disks now, or even books and magazines; that imperfect filtering systems can block access to legitimate sites; and who's to say what's pornography anyway. And all these are valid.

On the other hand, I think about being in a middle seat, pressed up against two businessmen with their respective laptops and poor control of their personal space...ewww.

Other fans of the plan include flight attendants, who otherwise would have to referee the situation, and parents, who are concerned about what their children might see. And while I'm typically not a fan of the But Think of the Children rhetorical device, it has some validity
in this case, where it could be difficult to prevent children from seeing what's on their neighbors' screens.

While the plans for wifi service themselves have received some press attention, it's difficult to find official information about the bans. American Airlines talks about wifi on three of its New York flights, but doesn't mention the ban. Aircell, the provider of the service for American and Delta -- as …

Federal, state, county, and city governments and agencies are beginning to use Twitter to update constituents on what's going on.

A recent post on Silicon Alley Insider listed a number of federal Twitter sources (with more added in the comments), but a casual Twitter search for other government entities are using the social media service as well.

State:

Coloradogov: Provides Internet-based, electronic government services to state and local Colorado governments.

RSSNewsmaster: Government Information Coordinator and digital services leader at the Utah State Library

UtahHive: We are the Utah State Library Digital Library Services Team and the community of publishers of government information.

Nebraskagov: The Official State Government Website for Nebraska

County:

RichlandSC: Official twitterer for Richland County government, SC (state capital)

City:

Shepherdsville: Shepherdsville (Ky.) City Government Updates

The group Stop Internet Predators, claiming that the Street View 360-degree technology can be used by pedophiles to help stalk their victims, is recommending that municipalities "an Street View from your neighborhoods until it is safeguarded to ensure children's safety and privacy."

How Google is supposed to do that, the organization doesn't say.

"Street View could make it simple, for example, for anyone to map the most likely route your child walks to school, calculate the distance between your front door and the school bus stop, view images of the different entrances to community parks, and even find the location of your families’ bedroom windows," the organization's website warns.

The technology, used in Google Maps, is thus far available in about 17 cities. Similar technologies are used products from other vendors, such as Microsoft, but Google's is for some reason the one primarily targeted.

Newspapers in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Manchester, N.H., have run articles on the group -- most often to derision by readers.

"Why does this help child predators?" said 'Sabrina' from St. Louis. "If they live in the same town, they are likely well aware children play in parks. It they don’t live in the same town, they can get the same location information for parks that is already available in online maps."

Or paper maps, even. Like the kinds that some cities actually give out.

Google spokespeople are typically also quoted …

Last Saturday, Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin held a rally in Los Angeles in the Home Depot Center, and the California Democratic Party rented a giant electronic billboard during the event, and solicited questions from people, via texting, to display during the presentation (exhorting submitters to be family-friendly).

You can see the results here.

With today's flash mobs and almost-instantaneous ability to transmit information, at what point are there going to be limits put on the sorts of contacts that people can make with one another? At what point does it become harassment? We've already seen the FBI become involved when someone used social engineering to hack into Governor Palin's Yahoo email account; how many other tricks might involve the FBI? When will someone go too far?

Similarly, in 2004, MoveOn solicited tv ads from people to run on YouTube, and a furor arose when one of the ads compared President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, noted Nate Wilcox, author of Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics.

It isn't clear whether the billboard was visible to Governor Palin while she spoke, but it got me thinking of the sorts of (family friendly!) things that could have been displayed via such a system that could really mess up a speaker.

1. YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY. VERY, VERY SLEEPY.

2. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE …

The initial model for looking at Twitter was horizontal -- see everything that all the people you follow are thinking about. Now the model has been turned on its head 90 degrees -- see everything that anyone says, whether you follow them or not, that has to do with a particular topic: in this case, the U.S. presidential election.

Twitter users have been able to do this themselves for some time using hashtags, or tagging a conversation using the # sign. However, that required everyone to agree upon and use the same hashtags. Now there's better ways that require less work on the part of participants.

Election 2008 is an amalgam of all the Twitter feeds having to do with the election, automatically -- no hashtags required. "We’re filtering hundreds of Twitter updates per minute to create a new source for gathering public opinion about the presidential election and a new way for you to share your thoughts," explains the site. It also keeps a running list of "hot election topics" -- at this moment, for example, Katie Couric, Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, MOMocrats, Alaska, SNL, Supreme Court, CBS, CNN, and GOP.

Unlike a standard Twitter feed, it constantly updates -- in fact, the scroll can be dizzying to watch during an event such as the Presidential debate. You can also choose to watch all candidates, or just one of the four presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Adding another layer of abstraction,

Effective Wednesday, October 1, each business in Nevada must encrypt customers’ personal information when it is transmitted outside the business’ secure network, such as when it's transmitted over wifi. Initially passed in October 2007, it was said to have been the first law of this type.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has also instituted a rule through its Office of Consumer Affairs, effective January 1, 2009, that requires encryption of any personal data that is "portable," such as on a laptop or a USB card.

A similar bill, 1022, but one which required all such stored data to be encrypted, was considered in Michigan, but it died in committee. Similarly, Senate Bill 6425, in the state of Washington, would have "effectively require encryption for payment card data in transit and require either encryption or other data-masking measures for payment card primary account numbers while they are in storage," but it also died in committee.

"Most state data breach notice laws do not require businesses to notify their customers when customers’ digital personal information has been stolen or lost if the information was encrypted," reported the web site of Davis Wright & Tremaine, LLP. "The Federal Trade Commission encourages but does not mandate that consumers’ personal data be encrypted." In comparison, the European Union required encryption of personal data as far back as 1998.

Within the U.S. federal government itself, the Office of Management and Budget required in …

Evoking Internet ads that some people wondered might be a clue to Republican presidential nominee John McCain's vice presidential pick, the campaign is now reportedly running ads claiming that McCain has won tonight's debate -- not only before the debate had occurred, but before the candidate had even announced he had decided to participate.

"'McCain Wins Debate!'" declares the ad which features a headshot of a smiling McCain with an American flag background," reported the Washington Post. "Another ad spotted by our eagle-eyed observer featured a quote from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis declaring: 'McCain won the debate-- hands down.'"

The ad ran in the online version of the Wall Street Journal.

The Post article also included a screenshot of the ad.

McCain's campaign has been cited by the Journal for its success in using Internet ad targeting, though it did not mention his success at time travel.

Buddhist writer Scoop Nisker used to close out his news reports on a San Francisco radio station by saying, "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."

Now, if you don't like political advertising, you can go out and make some of your own.

Using Google AdWords, anyone can develop their own Internet ads for any campaign, based on the keywords users select, and how much the person is willing to spend -- as little as $10 a day or so.

"[T]he ads will be viewed by exponentially more people and, because of the keywords I chose, only by people looking for information on the campaign," said Chris Bowers, who described the technique. "Further, as I learn what messages work and which ones don't, if I want to fit daily talking points or the latest scandal, I can easily change the ad. Also, I can change the locations where I am targeting on a moment's notice."

The other advantage of the system -- which, admittedly, only targets Internet users -- is that it can be used on local campaigns and issues that might not otherwise garner advertising.

"To get started, just go to http://www.google.com, and log into Google," Bowers described. "Then, click Advertising programs, which is clearly visible on Google's homepage. From that point, click "sign up now" for Google Adwords on the bottom left of the screen. From that point, Google has an easy-to-use, …

We were all treated this week to a lovely example of why it's a good idea to use standard email for government business (or corporate business, for that matter).

First, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin mentioned that she used Yahoo Mail for some of her email, which is a problem in and of itself. Second, her email was promptly hacked, using information she and her husband had provided to the media.

Gosh. Where to start.

In general, it's a good idea to have all the business operated through the email system of the business. It helps make clear what's business and what's personal. It makes sure that email is backed up properly in case of a problem. It makes it easier to track what happened, especially after the fact if there's some sort of issue. It helps protect the security of the information.

This is particularly true in the case of government, where there are laws about making certain information public, keeping other information private, and restrictions on which people can do what sorts of things, such as government employees working on campaigns.

This became even more of an issue in 2006, when the rules for electronic evidence in civil judiciary proceedings changed. Judges are now a lot more stringent on making electronic information available, and heavy fines can be levied on organizations that don't comply. And lest people say, "Oh, that's government, that's different," that's not at …

You have no friends named "palin".

Sob.

I had been so proud, the day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose her as his running mate, to be her friend on Facebook. I hadn't even done it cold, either; a friend of mine had recommended to me that I friend her, and I was happy to see that she allowed the connection later that day so I could read her status updates and see that she was excited, tired, shopping for shoes, and so on.

I thought at first it had been something I said. But in doing a search on Facebook, it appeared that her entry was gone completely. And while there were still some Sarah Palins listed, they weren't the same ones. Two were listed as being in Anchorage but they had only one friend each. For a number of the Sarah Palins listed, you could no longer click on their name and go to their page.

I also checked the person who had recommended that I friend her in the first place, and she's no longer his friend, either.

There's plenty of other places on Facebook where you can talk about Sarah Palin. There's three pages -- including the official campaign page -- and more than 500 Sarah Palin groups, ranging from One Million Strong for Sarah (26,294), One Million Strong Against Sarah (23,278), I Have More Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah (91,417), and so on.

But I can …

If you like using Google Maps and Google Earth in your applications, you're about to get better access to imagery.

GeoEye Inc. of Dulles, Va., launched last Saturday a satellite intended to provide high-resolution black-and-white and multispectral imagery. GeoEye and Google announced in August that Google had purchased the online commercial rights to all the images.

Currently, Google uses imagery from another GeoEye satellite, IKONOS, but GeoEye-1 offers higher resolution -- .41m for monochromatic compared to 1m on IKONOS. However, due to U.S. security restrictions, a resolution of only .5m can be offered commercially. In other words, the images will show something on the ground that's only half a meter long.

Imagery from satellites such as GeoEye-1 lets scientists literally get the "big picture" of what's happening in large-scale environments, such as weather and pollution. In addition, by looking at imagery using different spectrums, such as infrared, scientists can also study pollution, amount of water in an area, and changes in vegetation such as deforestation. Not to mention, law enforcement personnel can use it to bust marijuana-growing operations.

The $502 million satellite, originally scheduled to launch in April, also helps improve the state of commercial remote sensing in the U.S. Some imagery applications depended on the LANDSAT satellites, but LANDSAT 5 was taken offline due to battery problems and LANDSAT 7 was having data reliability problems -- making it difficult for commercial users to gain access to environmental-scale …

No sooner had the echoes of “Sarah *who*?” faded than the blogosphere was on the job, showing that even for an unknown person from a remote area, there was plenty of readily accessible information available – and not only perhaps doing a better job of vetting than the McCain campaign itself had done, but beating out the mainstream media as well.

In a sort of open-source research group, people quickly started collecting the following:

Pictures: Discussion of the Vice Presidential nominee's pulchritude often included examples and more examples. Pictures were also displayed of Wasilla, including its imposing City Hall.

People from Alaska : Alaskans who were familiar with Palin were quick to express their views about her.

Wiki : Sarah Palin's Wikipedia entry was reportedly heavily edited -- on the order of 100 changes -- just before McCain announced his choice, and since then, the page has come under so many modifications that all changes have been frozen for two weeks.

Video and newspaper articles of her past performances: such as why she wouldn't endorse McCain for President, laughing at an opponent with cancer, and calling Hillary Clinton a whiner. People also researched and brought up her attempts (and, in some cases, successes) at firing other government workers, such as law enforcement personnel and librarians, as well as her positions on sex education (abstinence only) …

If you were one of the just seven people in the first half of the year who went to the Washington State Department of Transportation web page using free wifi from the rest areas along its highways, you're out of luck -- the state dropped the little-used service as of September 1.

The state implemented the service at 28 of its 42 rest areas two years ago. While highway signs promoted it as "free" wifi, in reality only access to the Washington State Department of Transportation website was free; access elsewhere cost $6.95 per day, $29.95 per month, or $2.95 for 15 minutes.

The way it was set up, Parsons Transportation Group and Road Connect Inc. paid for the service, and WSDOT would share a portion of the revenue generated by subscriptions. Because so few people were using the service, the two companies stopped providing it. Parsons also provides wifi on VIA Rail Canada. Road Connect announced in July that it was providing a similar service to two rest areas along California's Highway 99.

Twenty million people visit Washington's rest areas, WSDOT said. The department, which owns the system hardware, said it is looking into how it might use the system in the future to provide electronic messaging at rest areas for road conditions and travel alerts.

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal today did a story on how the McCain campaign is targeting Internet ad buys.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121988099541678063.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox

Why prebuying Google sponsored ads might be a bad idea.

Google "lieberman mccain." Or, click here.

The result, at least as of this writing?

Sponsored Link
Lieberman & McCain
JohnMcCain.com/lieberman Senator Lieberman Joins McCain's Team. Learn Why You Should Join!

Clicking the link takes one to "Citizens for McCain," an area on the official McCain website dedicated to encouraging Democrats and Independents to vote for Republican John McCain for President.

It is not clear whether this is on purpose or is some sort of slip through unfamiliarity with Google ad buying, but it's very interesting.

In fact, one site reports seeing an actual ad with a photo of the two men.

Incidentally, there are not similar sponsored ad buys for Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, all of whom are said to be on McCain's short list.

Searching for the text "Joins McCain's Team. Learn Why You Should Join!" comes up with a couple of other possibilities: Tom Coburn, an anti-pork Senator from Oklahoma, and....actor Sylvester Stallone! The former results in a 404; he latter links to a McCain ad, focusing on McCain's military service and imprisonment by the Vietnamese.

When one thinks about high-tech states, one typically thinks of places such as California and Massachusetts. But....Alabama?

The Southern state was the only state government on CIO Magazine’s top 100 institutions for excellence in information technology. According to CIO, the state provides more than 130 e-government applications through the state's portal site. The magazine Government Technology also praised the state earlier this year.

Other projects sponsored as part of Gov. Bob Riley's "Plan for Change" include using Google Earth's Geographic Information System technology for viewing a "virtual Alabama."

CIO cited a number of specific examples of how Alabama is making e-government work. For example, in 2007, 64 percent of home-builder licenses were renewed online with the Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board. In June 2007, the Alabama Department of Revenue had 336 users file for tax extensions online, which resulted in payments totaling more than $7.2 million, compared with 49 users filing $804,000 in payments in 2006.

Currently, the state is testing a "media portal" to provide information about the state, including videos.

The state was also cited for its distance learning program, which lets Alabama public high school students take Advanced Placement (AP), elective and other courses to which they may not otherwise have access. Such distance learning programs are particularly useful in rural states that might have trouble getting certified teachers in some areas.

Alabama has also consolidated its email system, making it easier for …

With gas still hovering at $4 a gallon, the Arctic ice caps melting, and our waistlines expanding, walking is more important than ever. But how to figure out whether a particular home or work location is a good one for walking?

Well, there's a way. www.walkscore.com is another one of those wonderful Google Map applications. You give it an address, and it looks at the various businesses in the area and calculates a "walkability score" based on the availability of common services within walking distance.

Needless to say, cities tend to be more walkable than the country, and a number of cities have been trumpeting their "walkability score" numbers since the company released its list of the 40 most walkable cities. Not surprisingly, my old places in San Francisco range from 82 to 91 to 94 to 98, while my Idaho addresses are a dismal 15 and 37. My childhood home, in upstate New York -- where, as I tell my daughter, I had to walk to school uphill both ways in summer heat through snow up to here -- scored 57.

Noting that the "number of nearby amenities is the leading predictor of whether people walk," the Walk Score algorithm awards points based on the distance to the closest amenity in each category, the website explains. "If the closest amenity in a category is within .25 miles (or .4 km), we assign the maximum number of points. The number of points declines …

Wups. In my test, the first speed is my download speed, not my upload.

A website purporting to encourage improved broadband Internet access in the U.S. runs the risk of undercutting its argument by playing games with statistics.

www.speedmatters.org, a project of the Communications Workers of America, has released its second survey of broadband Internet speeds in the U.S., noting that there has been little improvement since last year, comparing the U.S. unfavorably to other countries, and recommending a national high-speed Internet policy. The website also enables visitors to check their own connection speeds and perform comparisons.

My DSL results, 812kbps upload, are even lower than those of Idaho as a whole -- 1224k bps -- as well as lower than those of the U.S. -- 1242kbps. In comparison, the site notes, users in Canada get 7782kbps, users in France get 18022kbps, users in Finland get 22221kbps, users in South Korea get 50688kbps, and users in Japan get 65126kbps. (The good news is that my upload speed, 723kbps, is better than all of those areas except Canada and Japan.)

The media was quick to jump on the report as evidence that the U.S. was losing ground technologically. "The U.S. ranks 15th among industrialized nations in average Internet speed," reported a worried USA Today article.

Now, it is indeed true that the U.S. is behind other developed countries in terms of providing high-speed Internet access, but the technique the website is using is comparing apples and oranges -- and ironically might make U.S. availability look better than …

Yes, here's a more detailed story on what the two Presidential campaigns have been doing with new social media: http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2689.html

Both the Democratic and Republican national conventions -- scheduled for next week and the following week, respectively -- will feature major roles for bloggers, giving them the same access as traditional press.

Hundreds of bloggers are slated to attend the Democratic convention in Denver -- 500 alone paid $100 for access to an 8,000-square-foot Google-sponsored blogging facility -- and 200 are slated to attend the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where Google will be providing a similar facility.

Moreover, in keeping with the 50-state strategy espoused by Democratic National Committee chairman and former Presidential candidate Howard Dean, the Democratic National Convention Committee chose 55 official state blogs -- one from every state and territory -- and gave press credentials to up to eight bloggers from each state. A total of 120 blogs received credentials, according to the DNCC.

"This is really about tearing down the walls of the convention so that ordinary people can see inside through the eyes of an ordinary person," Dean said in a May announcement of the program -- appropriately published on YouTube.

Other technology advances at the Democratic convention include gavel-to-gavel high definition streaming (using the same Microsoft Silverlight technology used to stream the Olympics), daily webcasts, Spanish-language video streaming, and a partnership with YouTube to enable attendees to upload video and photos, even from camera phones.

The Republican National Convention has not yet provided that level of detail about its technology plans but …

Ever wondered how the U.S. diplomatic corps keeps track of all of its quickly changing information? Turns out, the same way all the rest of us do -- through Wikipedia.

The diplomatic wikipedia, Diplopedia, is not available to the public, though examples of pages are included in a publicly available presentation. Started in September, 2006, it has 4,400 articles, 1,000 registered users, 650,000 total page views, and 20,000 new page views a week, according to Eric M. Johnson of the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy (aka "eDip") in Washington, D.C., said the New York Times.

In order to prevent jokesters from starting World War III by making erroneous entries, anonymous changes are not allowed.

In addition to descriptions of various diplomatic cohorts in other countries and so on, Diplopedia -- which is populated by everyday people working in the State Department, not just high-level people -- also contains articles on a more mundane, practical level, such as how to obtain a building pass or order lunch.

The department is using Wikipedia technology to change its reputation as "a profoundly hierarchical organization," according to one paper on the subject.

As an example, there are 360 articles on abbreviations and acronyms (such as "OBE'd" -- Overtaken By Events), 171 articles on embassies, 260 articles on the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, 17 subcategories of Office Descriptions, and 200 articles on Information Technology.

The state of Maine has found an innovative way to find funding to supports its technology industry – the state issued $50 million in bonds and just awarded $30 million in grants, with the remaining $20 million to be allocated this fall.

Funding for the Maine Technology Asset Fund was arranged and made through the Maine Technology Institute, a state-funded nonprofit founded in 1999 that offers early-stage capital and commercialization assistance for the research and development of innovative technology-based projects that create new products, processes and services and generate high-quality jobs across Maine, and announced by Democratic Governor John Baldacci. The organization claims that for every $1 the state invests in technology, $12 are leveraged in additional private and public financing for Maine. In addition, the technology companies it funds buy 32% of their materials and 42% of their services from other Maine companies.

MTI received 66 applications for grants for a total of $113 million, and technologies chosen were built on traditional Maine industries including agriculture, forestry, and aquaculture. In addition, grants were awarded in genetics, nanotechnology, global positioning, high-resolution imaging, and ceramics/composites.

The bond issue was on the November ballot and received 51% of the vote.

Awarded grants include:

Advanced Nanocomposites for the Renewable Energy and Transportation Industries, University of Maine, $5 million

Forest Bioproducts Research Technology Center, University of Maine, $4.8 million

Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, $4.7 million; the lab specializes in studying human diseases and in reproducing …

It's been a long-running joke that Republicans don't understand technology, what with United States Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) trying to describe the Internet as a "series of tubes" and President George W. Bush referring to "the Internets."

However, a new generation of Republicans is not only learning to use technologies such as Twitter and YouTube, but is doing so to attack the Democratic-led Congress after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) adjourned it last Friday.

The #dontgo movement -- as in "don't go home" -- is now tagging its Twitter posts with #dontgo so they can be found more easily. The movement also has a website with news, links to videos, a FaceBook page, and all the other requisite information and links that one would expect to find on a Democratic activist page, such as one against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"The #dontgo Revolution all started on Friday when House Republicans refused to go home after the Democratic Majority shut down the House for a 5 week recess," the website explained. "Going on without microphones, cameras, and sometimes even lights, Republicans have been demanding that the House reconvene to vote on offshore drilling. Republicans gave speeches until 5pm on Friday and are continuing all week on the Floor."

But the actual issues involved -- whether offshore drilling would actually help Americans at the pump -- and Pelosi's adjournment without a vote on the …

If you sent out a Twitter or email message after Tuesday's Southern California earthquake, you had a lot of company. As is typical in technology-heavy California, the moderate earthquake generated a following seismic wave of Internet messages of people checking in with each other.

In fact, one study indicates that tracking Internet earthquake reports is nearly as accurate as seismographs in detecting earthquakes.

Scientists at the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre's (EMSC) have tested using software to map visitors to its site after an earthquake by their IP addresses. The technique accurately located an earthquake in February 2007 near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean within 15 minutes, according to an article in New Scientist.

The technique could help record small quakes that are nonetheless worrying for residents, scientists said.

Earthquakes that are particularly severe could also be tracked via the software, by noting areas with no Internet reports -- due to, presumably, losing Internet access from the quake.

Currently, reports are on the order of within 10km (6 miles) accuracy, and the organization hopes to improve that this year, the 2007 report said.

Meanwhile, ubiquitous Internet access meant many images of the quake itself quickly became available, as well as Twitter reports that came in even before official stories -- including one woman who reportedly was in the stirrups in the gynecologist's office. Using services such as Twitter to make reports also takes a load …

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, swept to the role of presumptive nominee through support from fans on the Internet, is learning that the Internet can just as easily be mobilized against him, even after he has already voted on an issue.

The issue is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a law that explicitly gives President Bush's administration the right to perform certain types of warrantless electronic surveillance that some people had believed was illegal. Obama, while dissatisfied with the final version of the bill, found it an improvement over earlier versions, and without the passage of something, foreign surveillance would have been halted altogether. So in early July, he voted for it, helping pass the bill.

Obama had already telegraphed his intention to vote for the bill, leading net activists to form groups such as "Senator Obama - Please, No Telecom Immunity and Get FISA Right" on Facebook, which currently boasts 2,291 members -- not to mention a group on Obama's own website, My.Barack.Obama, with more than 20,000 members. An issue like warrantless electronic surveillance was tailor-made for the Internet.

But even after he voted for the bill and it passed, Obama supporters who disagreed with him on this issue stayed busy. Now they have a website with more than 200 members, a television ad on YouTube, a discussion forum with 1,032 posts among 169 entries, links to MySpace and Obama's website, and so on. The group said it hopes to …

In an example of throwing the bathwater out with the baby, a number of ISPs are dropping the alt.* hierarchy, or Usenet altogether, ostensibly to comply with a demand from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that they rid the Internet of child pornography.

Some observers, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believe that the ISPs are actually making the move to help save money on servers and bandwidth, and are using Cuomo's demand as a convenient excuse.

Verizon and Sprint are taking down the alt.* hierarchy, AT&T will block all alt.binaries.* groups, while Time Warner Cable and AOL are shutting down their Usenet service entirely, the EFF said.

The action was in response to a June ageement between Cuomo and three ISPs after his office threatened charges of fraud and deceptive business practices, because the ISPs told their customers that transmitting child pornography was not allowed but did not enforce it.

While, thus far, only New York is threatening ISPs -- though California is also reportedly working on it -- the companies are dropping the Usenet groups across the country. Verizon and Time Warner Cable are two of the nation’s five largest service providers, with roughly 16 million customers between them, according to the New York Times. Some smaller ISPs -- such as panix.com in the New York area -- still offer Usenet, including the alt.* hierarchy.

The EFF said that while the …

While the full story behind San Francisco city government computer engineer Terry Childs hasn't yet come out, one thing is certain: the mainstream media is ignorant about technology.

Moreover, either the city government and prosecutors are deliberately painting things in as negative a light as possible in order to force Childs out -- as he had reportedly claimed -- or they are as ignorant as his defense team is portraying them.

This is not to condone Childs' actions; obviously, he should not have been the only one with a password to the network, and he should have given the password to his superiors when they asked him, even if he did fear what they might do to "his" network. But some of the newspaper coverage of his actions has bordered on the ridiculous.

For example, reportedly he kept the configuration information in short-term memory that might not be saved in the event of a power outage, because he wanted to keep other employees from gaining access to it. This is certainly not on the list of best practices for network administrators. However, in the hands of the local newspaper, this became evidence for a booby trap: "the ultimate revenge on his bosses, prosecutors say -- the meltdown of the city's computer network at the flick of a switch," the San Francisco Chronicle reported breathlessly.

Similarly, one of the other things Childs was criticized for was that he "had created an ability to …

Clarification: Childs was holding passwords to the network routers.

Claiming he was protecting San Francisco city government's computer system from incompetent coworkers, computer engineer Terry Childs changed the system's passwords and then for more than a week refused to give them to anyone, even after being arrested.

Childs was under four felony counts for blocking administrative access to the computers that handle 60 percent of the city's data systems, including law enforcement, payroll, and jail records. He was arrested July 13, and refused to give the passwords to anyone until July 21, with his attorney claiming his coworkers had, with both malice and incompetence, damaged the computer system and putting it in jeopardy. At that point, he agreed to give the passwords only to mayor Gavin Newsom.

According to a statement from his attorney Erin Crane, "He was the only person in that department capable of running that system. There have been no established policies in place to even dictate who would be the appropriate person to hand over the password to."

Bad grammar aside, what's wrong with this picture?

First, there's the aspect of not having processes and chain of command in place to take care of this problem. Second is the aspect of a single person having a password to any computer system, industry or government. Regardless of whether an organization needs to answer to constituents or stockholders, it's foolish to put that level of control in the hands of one person. Criminal activity aside, what if Childs had been hit …

Sean Tevis needed 3,000 people willing to donate $8.34 to his campaign for the Kansas state legislature. Instead, he's up to 5,298 -- and still going.

He did it with a single website in the style of XKCD, the geek comic strip that has replaced Dilbert on many office doors, and a simple calculation: he needed $26,000 to run for office -- which meant 3,000 people donating $8.34 each.

He got it in 37.25 hours.

Political fundraising on the Internet isn't new -- ironically, some sources mark its starting point in 2000 when John McCain raised $500,000 in a single day -- and candidates such as Howard Dean and Barack Obama have achieved success by asking for smaller donations from a larger pool of people. And both campaigns and organizations such as MoveOn have asked for donations for a certain amount, such as adding an extra cent to a donation to indicate that it came via the Internet and to show the power of the Internet as a fundraising tool.

However, Tevis' effort is unusual in that he is a candidate for the Kansas state legislature, and seekers for state office typically haven't made such an inroad outside their own state. His success is likely due to his use of the comic strip -- labeled as an homage to XKCD -- and widespread forwarding. The forwarding is so widespread, in fact, that he has had to add a note asking …

San Francisco is implementing a wireless network using transceivers on the ground that theoretically will help drivers find parking spaces in the congested city.

The technology, called Streetline from the company of the same name, uses wireless transceivers glued on the street in front of each parking space, which form a mesh network. Together, they offer the possibility of enabling drivers not only be able to find a vacant space, but also to change the time allowable to park in the space and pay for it using a smart phone, as well as monitor traffic flow in general.

Up to 30 percent of city traffic is said to be caused by people circling to find a parking spot.

Reportedly, 6,000 of the city's 24,000 metered parking spaces will be part of the test, and up to a dozen other cities are also considering the technology.

Lest there be privacy concerns, the company hastens to reassure people that "The sensing applications we build will never be able to deliver anything remotely like live audio, pictures or video."

After living in San Francisco for 20 years, though, I have some questions:

• How long before people decide to pry up the transceiver off the street in front of their house in an attempt to remove "their" parking space from the system?
  
• I thought we're trying to get people to stop using cell phones while driving? Do we really want a bunch of …

""I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."
-- Judge Potter Stewart, Supreme Court Justice, 1964

In the obscenity trial of Miller v. California, in 1972-3, the Supreme Court ruled that part of what determined whether an item was "obscene" was predicated on "contemporary community standards" -- in other words, what is considered racy in Boston might be different from what is considered racy in Salt Lake City. However, attempting to define what "contemporary community standards" are has always been problematic.

Now, in a Florida lawsuit, the defense attorney is turning to Google Trends search records in an attempt to demonstrate that, in terms of comparative popularity, the subjects of a pornographic Web site are indeed within the norm for that community.

Attorney Lawrence Walters, defending the website operator, plans to show that, in Pensacola, residents are more likely to search for "orgy" than for "apple pie" (as in, as American as...) or "watermelon" -- though they are less likely to search for "orgy" than for "surfing" -- therefore demonstrating that orgies are part of the contemporary community standard (though, perhaps, not as much so as surfing).

This is believed to be the first time that search engine information will be used for this purpose. Previously, …

Of course, it makes sense. After all, I'm following him (along with 43,485 people at this writing). But it still gave me a little thrill, a few minutes later, to get the message that he was now following me (along with the 42,084 other people he follows). Is it automatic somehow? Or does a campaign staffer have it in their job description to follow all the people who follow him? (And what about the 1,399 people who follow him whom he doesn't follow?)

It's not that his Twitter feed is all that amazing; he updates about every day and a half, on average; has submitted 139 updates; and typically sends people to his website to get the details. The amazing thing is that he's doing it at all. John McCain, for example, isn't, though there are a number of real and fake McCain feeds on Twitter.

Similarly, Obama is using Facebook -- where a week ago he crossed over the 1 million mark and now has 1,047,107 supporters as of this writing -- and LinkedIn -- where he has more than 500 connections but, though I'm a second-degree connection of his, it seems that he's not accepting new requests for introductions unless you know his email address. Awww.

Again, McCain doesn't seem to be using Facebook, though there's a number of spoof McCain entries, though he does have a LinkedIn profile.

What's different is how Obama is using …

Just weeks after EarthLink pulled out of a project to provide wireless Internet throughout the city of Philadelphia after the city refused to take over management of the network, a group of investors has agreed to run the project.

According to the Philadelpha Inquirer, a group of investors temporarily called Network Acquisition Company LLC has already turned the wifi back on in all the locations where it was before, and plans to add wired high-speed access to gain business and institutional paying subscribers.

Users might also have to look at ads to use the service, the Inquirer said.

The investors also said they plan to expand the wifi service to cover the 20-30% of the city that does not yet have wifi access. The company did not reveal information such as a business plan or how much revenue it expected to make on the service.

Derek Pew will serve as CEO; other members include Mark Rupp, Richard Rasansky and former mayoral candidate Tom Knox. Pew and Rupp are both members of the board of directors of Boathouse Communications; Rupp is the CFO and has worked for a number of companies to provide wireless and cellular, including Verizon. Both Pew and Rupp also work for the Pew Consulting Group. Rasansky is the head of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of Mobile Monday, a group dedicated to promoting wireless access.

The network reportedly cost EarthLink $17 million to build, and the …

Lee Chubb was ticked off.

As a year-round, 15-year resident of Ketchum, Idaho – the city associated with the tony Sun Valley ski resort, Chubb has watched a lot of efforts to over-develop the area in a way that would not only take away the small-town feel that he loved, but would end up hurting the city financially. But this was a whole different scale: Three enormous hotel developments -- including one on an area slated to be open space “in perpetuity” –- supported by a report from a supposedly independent analyst citing the city’s dire future without the developments.

Chubb had been fighting what he calls the “uncontrolled growth” crowd for most of his time in Ketchum, but this was different. Just a month later, he wasn’t just the maverick NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) no-growth advocate as his opponents tried to paint him, but the head of Sustainable Ketchum, a well-organized action committee with a website and mailing list that informed its members on the developers’ plans, media coverage, and opportunities for action.

Chubb’s experience – which has resulted in large crowds at local planning and zoning meetings, meetings with the developers, and editorial cartoons in the local paper – is an example of the sort of situation described by Clay Shirky in his recent book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, which describes how activists are using Internet applications such as Flickr, MoveOn, and …

Even on a slow day, I can have a three-way chat with two women at the same time
-- Brad Paisley, Cooler Online

But what if you work for the government? Particularly if you're a teacher?

A number of teachers in Palm Beach County, Fla. -- some of them 20somethings but at least one of them a 54-year-old -- discovered that their FaceBook pages weren't as private as they'd thought, with the newspaper doing a search on teachers' pages to reveal their interests went beyond Romeo & Juliet and algebra to drinking and sex.

Now comes the real question: So?

Teachers aren't the first instance of this happening; all over the Web, people have lost or not gotten jobs based on what's available about them online. Is it reasonable for employees of any kind to have to curtail legal activities in their private lives to get and keep their jobs? Is it reasonable for something someone posted at a drunken party their sophomore year to keep them from getting a job when they graduated?

And should public employees -- particularly teachers -- be held to a higher standard than ordinary mortals? As far back as Caesar's wife, who had to be "beyond reproach," up to Max Weber, the German sociologist whose 1922 essay Bureaucracy said that working in public service should be considered a "vocation" not so different from the priesthood, people have said they did.

But should they? …

The city of Santa Fe, N.M., is finding itself fighting a group that wants the city to ban wireless Internet signals from public buildings, claiming the signals are making them sick.

The group, calling themselves "electro-sensitive," say they are allergic to the waves generated, and say that Santa Fe's attempt to set up wifi hotspots in public buildings would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to USA Today, the group is led by Arthur Firstenberg.

But Firsternberg's been a busy boy. He led a similar effort in Mendocino, Calif., several years ago from which the city and county -- economically hampered by limited cellular and wifi service -- is still trying to recover. The 2002 Wired article also cites him as the head of the Cellular Phone Task Force, an organization that says it's been fighting similar efforts since 1997.

A recent survey of Mendocino residents, featuring 185 responses out of 800 surveys (a 23% response rate, which is pretty good for such things), noted that more than 90% of respondents agreed that high-speed Internet should be available to every home, and that more than 93% agreed that high-speed Internet would make Mendocino County stronger economically.

The Mendocino Coast Broadband Alliance, like many groups trying to bring wireless Internet to rural communities, said it is having enough trouble getting vendor interest and funding for the project, let alone dealing with organized protest groups.

Now, I'd …

Google told Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to pound sand Monday -- politely, of course -- after the Senator called on Google to remove all "Internet video content produced by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda" from YouTube.

"YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds," Google said in a statement on its public policy blog.

The former Democrat Lieberman -- what we here in Idaho would call a "DINO," or Democrat in Name Only -- had called on Google to remove all videos tagged with an Al-Qaeda logo, including those depicting "weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits" -- as well as ones showing injury or death, which do not comply with YouTube's Community Guidelines and which Google said it had indeed removed.

In fact, Lieberman's action may have served only to call more attention to the videos than they might have received in the first place (aka "The Streisand Effect"). To quote one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation pioneers, John Gilmore, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it," and even the threat of Google removing the videos may result in people mirroring them …

It had such promise -- a wifi network, treated like a city utility such as water or sewer, providing broadband Internet to everyone in the city, anywhere in the city, for a low monthly price.

Yet vendors in cities such as Portland, and even the municipal wireless flagship Philadelphia are telling the city governments that they're not making enough money, that they can't even sell the networks or give them away, and that the cities need to run them themselves or they'll be shut down.

It's ironic, because just a few years ago, major telecommunication vendors such as Comcast and Verizon were working with state legislatures to keep cities from starting up the supposedly lucrative municipal wireless networks in competition with private vendors.

Critics now are blaming the vendors -- Earthlink for Philadelphia and MetroFi for Portland, as well as for several California cities, from which it is also trying to pull out -- for using a business model where they knew they wouldn't make any money (but presumably would make it up on volume?) and for being overly dependent on advertising that didn't materialize -- and the cities themselves, for insisting that the vendors implement the networks using no taxpayer money, and without even committing to use the service themselves.

Dianah Neff -- the Philadelphia CIO who engineered the deal with Earthlink -- is no longer with city government; she joined the public broadband consulting firm of …