[government] Forum Topics

A company has been awarded a patent for providing episodic media downloads, which essentially gives it a patent on all forms of podcasting. The company, VoloMedia, calls itself the "leading provider of advertising and reporting solutions for portable media, extending the reach of video and audio from the PC to …

Can anyone top this: the Ministry of Defence here in the UK has admitted that last year it managed to lose a server. A whole one, and get this, it was meant to be located in a secure government building for good measure. Over the years I have become more …

With some [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3427.html"]11.5 million subscribers[/URL] playing it worldwide, there is no denying that World of Warcraft is one popular online game. Nowhere more so than in China, where it has been reported around 5 million of those subscribers are based. It should [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4434.html"]come as no surprise[/URL] that not everyone in …

President Barack Obama's administration made two announcements Monday about improved transparency in government: one about IT projects in general, and one about improving broadband access. The announcements were made at the [URL="http://personaldemocracy.com/pdf-conference/personal-democracy-forum-conference"]Personal Democracy Forum[/URL], in New York. Tuesday, White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and White House New Media …

If Richard Posner, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, gets his way, blog postings like this one could be illegal. On his [URL="http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2009/06/the_future_of_n.html"]blog[/URL], Posner recently suggested that copyright law might need to be expanded. "Expanding copyright law to bar online access …

The privacy invading nonsense that is the controversial UK ID Card Scheme could be scrapped by this time next year. With the chances of the Labour Party being returned to power looking very slim indeed, the chances are that a Conservative Government will be voted in. Which is good news …

Raising privacy and civil liberties issues, job applicants to the city of Bozeman are not only required to list all their social media accounts, but their passwords as well. “Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs …

Following the lead of John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps, President Barack Obama had mentioned in his campaign platform a "Craigslist for Service" (which met with the [URL="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-newmark/a-craigslist-for-service_b_150924.html"]full approval[/URL] of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark). It has now come to fruition with what Obama is calling "[URL="http://serve.gov/"]the summer of service[/URL]." "This summer, …

[I]"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." [URL="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore"]John Gilmore[/URL], founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in 1993.[/I] In the same way that people in Mumbai used Twitter last fall to [URL="http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/28/mumbai-twitter-sms-tech-internet-cx_bc_kn_1128mumbai.html"]publicize[/URL] news of terrorist attacks in that Indian city, Iranians are using Twitter to let the world …

I guess that is what you might call a turn up for the books, as the US [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1506.html"]Department of Homeland Security[/URL] announces the 16 members which have been sworn in to serve on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Especially when you consider that one of them, Jeff Moss, is best …

Isn't it amazing just how attached so many people are to Windows XP given that it is relatively old and [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25484/53/"]relatively insecure[/URL]? I will even admit to having a netbook which runs very nicely on XP thank you very much, and have no plans to 'upgrade' this to Vista or …

Some people are complaining that the company hoping to map the availability of broadband Internet is too closely tied to the same major telecommunications and cable companies that stand to benefit from the more than $7 billion in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known …

Remember the 14 million missing email messages from the White House under President George W. Bush? [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3815.html"]Remember[/URL] the (albeit flawed) court order (issued days before President Barack Obama's inauguration) directing the Bush White House to figure out what happened to them? Never mind. A federal appeals court recently ruled that …

Busy this weekend? President Barack Obama and his IT staff are [URL="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/05/21/Opening/"]asking for ideas[/URL] through June 3 to help make government more open. The call for ideas first went out on May 21. So far, there's [URL="http://opengov.ideascale.com/"]1171[/URL]. People can vote thumbs up or thumbs down on the ideas. "Then on …

As [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4304.html"]expected[/URL], Representative Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, has introduced [URL="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2267:"]legislation[/URL] that would roll back a ban on Internet gambling enacted when Republicans led Congress. The legislation would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that serve American customers, according to the [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/us/politics/26cong.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimespolitics"]New York Times[/URL]. Under the current …

"Universal service" should encompass broadband Internet access in the same way that it originally encompassed telephone access, according to a new report from the Federal Communications Commission to Congress. The [URL="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-291012A1.pdf"]report[/URL], [I]Bringing Broadband to Rural America: Report on a Rural Broadband Strategy[/I], is written by Michael Copps, acting chairman of …

The UK Government's communications agency GCHQ has issued a rare statement saying it has no plans to monitor every individual's emails. Instead, the Home Secretary says we should all be ready to have our ISPs record [URL="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8032367.stm"]all our Internet contacts[/URL]. I've met a few ISPs. They're going to be delighted, …

Along with a number of other changes brought forth by President Barack Obama’s administration, another one might be the re-legalization of online gambling -- particularly poker -- in the United States. Online gambling in the U.S. was made much more difficult, though not technically illegal, in 2006 by the Unlawful …

The [I]New York Times[/I] is [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/internet/29google.html?_r=1"]reporting[/URL] that the Justice Department is opening an antitrust investigation of Google’s settlement with authors and publishers over its Google Book Search service. In 2005, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers filed suit against Google, claiming that Google’s practice of scanning copyrighted …

Though the swine flu just began hitting the news media on Friday or so, there's already a number of sites and ways to help you keep track of developments (and give you nightmares, frankly, but forewarned is forearmed). 1. A [URL="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=106484775090296685271.0004681a37b713f6b5950&ll=30.977609,-98.789062&spn=53.686525,85.78125&z=4"]Google Map[/URL] of reported swine flu cases. It's not perfect …

The Department of Agriculture's Office of the Inspector General has issued a [URL="http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/09601-8-TE.pdf"]report[/URL] finding that the Rural Utilities Service continues to grant loans to areas that already have broadband service and to communities near major cities. For example, 77 percent of loans were said to have been made in areas …

Remember the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3821.html"]teenagers[/URL] getting charged with child pornography for taking revealing pictures of themselves with cell phones? They're fighting back. According to an [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26sextext.html?_r=1"]article[/URL] in the New York [I]Times[/I] by Sean Hamill, 17 students -- 13 girls and 4 boys -- accepted a plea bargain requiring them to attend 10-hour …

The non-technical world is starting to understand the concept of Twitter -- which means that they're starting to try to control it. Courtrooms have [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4148.html"]already begun dealing[/URL] with jurors Googling, Facebooking, and Twittering their way through the case. Now, some courtrooms are starting to set regulations ahead of time. The …

The digital generation brought up Googling, Wikipediaing, and Twittering their way through their lives is starting to have problems when it turns out they don’t see why they can’t do the same thing when they’re in a courtroom, according to the [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/18juries.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1"]New York Times[/URL]. In a recent case, it was …

Remember [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3344.html"]last fall[/URL], when people were terrified that pedophiles were using Google Streetview to find parks and schools so they could more readily find their young victims? Apparently a California legislator has been listening to them, or someone like them. Last month, California Assemblyman Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon, introduced a …

"Most Americans can easily find videos of water skiing squirrels on the Internet, but they’ll have less luck finding out whether their children's school buses and classrooms are safe, or if neighborhood gas stations are overcharging," said the Sunshine Week 2009 Survey of State Government Information online. Results ranged from …

The Maryland Court of Appeals has reversed a lower-court ruling that a website must reveal the names of anonymous posters during a defamation hearing, and has issued guidelines for how such requests should be made in the future. The court ruling laid out the following steps in its [URL="http://mdcourts.gov/opinions/coa/2009/63a08.pdf"]decision[/URL]: [LIST=1] …

It wasn't that long ago that we were thrilled when politicians started using Twitter. Now we kinda wish they'd stop -- except for the one who has, it seems, actually stopped. President Barack Obama, who [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2689.html"]began Tweeting[/URL] during his campaign last summer, has fallen silent since Jan. 19 -- the …

Though it hasn't gotten as much attention, one of the biggest recipients of largesse from President Barack Obama's stimulus package is the health care information technology industry. The bill requires utilization of electronic health care records for everyone in the U.S. by 2014, when only about 28 percent of health …

178 Web posters who thought they were anonymous are being [URL="http://www.connordemond.com/LESHER-OMEGA_PETITION.pdf"]sued[/URL], and the website where they made the offending posts has been ordered to release information to help identify them. A couple, Mark and Rhonda Lesher, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman, and the websites for [URL="http://www.topix.com/forum/city/mckinney-tx"]McKinney[/URL], [URL="http://www.topix.com/forum/city/clarksville-tx"]Clarksville[/URL], and …