links for 2008-09-25
Posted by del.icio.us bot at September 25th, 2008
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Justice Lalande distinguished this case from R. v. Kwok, by pointing out that the user agreement with Bell Sympatico reduces if not destroys any reasonable expecation of privacy that the user may have. In order for a warrantless search to be reasonable, there has to be no reasonable expecation of privacy.
(tags: privacy surveillance police law politics)
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If you have ever wondered how security guards can possibly keep an unfailingly vigilant watch on every single one of dozens of television monitors, each depicting a different scene, the answer seems to be (as you suspected): they can’t.
Instead, they can now rely on computers to constantly analyze the patterns, sizes, speeds, angles and motion picked up by the camera and determine — based on how they have been programmed — whether this constitutes a possible threat.
(tags: privacy surveillance police cities)
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The cards partly replace a paper-based system of immigration stamps - but will now include the individual's name and picture, their nationality, immigration status and two fingerprints.
Immigration officials will store the details centrally and, in time, they are expected to be merged into the proposed national identity register.
(tags: privacy surveillance law politics security)
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Behind the lobby are AT&T, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America. Among other things, the lobby says "network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file-trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers."
(tags: privacy internet surveillance politics law)
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government agencies wrote that the proposal "could result in Department
of Justice prosecutors serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources. In effect, taxpayer-supported department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry." -
"For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans' rights to free speech and free expression," said Sinnar. "But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all."
(tags: privacy politics law security surveillance)
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"Specific information demonstrating that the alleged dragnet has not occurred cannot be disclosed on the public record without causing exceptional harm to national security," Mukasey wrote in a federal court filing in San Francisco. "However, because there was no such alleged content-dragnet, no provider participated in that alleged activity."
(tags: politics law surveillance privacy security)
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explores the history of copyright through this free speech lens, starting with the first copyright statutes in the 18th century and moving through the history of American publishing, the explosion in reproduction technologies at the start of the 20th century, and the horrible mess that is the 21st century.
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"We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level," Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek said. "Optical character recognition is our next roll out which will be coming out in a few months — probably about five months or so."
The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard drive space and the types of cameras installed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars.
(tags: privacy surveillance law security politics)
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In a tort claim notice to the city last week, attorney Benjamin Haile informed the city of Tabor's intent to sue for $100 and a written policy saying that citizens have the right to make video and audio records of police. Haile has taken on Tabor's case at no charge to Tabor. He says recording officers on the job is a fundamental part of holding police accountable that Haile believes is protected by the First Amendment.
(tags: police surveillance law politics privacy)
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Crows seem to be able to use causal reasoning to solve a problem, a feat previously undocumented in any other non-human animal, including chimps.
(tags: weird culture transhumanism)
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centralization is not only a mark of poorer countries, it is probably a cause of their poverty. … Even if the governments were saintly, and they are definitely not, the scale of money flowing through these centralizing nodes prohibits the distribution of resources, infrastructure, trade, and education. The more aid that arrives, the less development can actually happen.
Technology is the escape from this quandary. Quadir came to see that “technologies that connect” could liberate productivity.
(tags: wireless politics technology development future)
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industry lobbyists have access to the text and are influencing the negotiations. "The lack of transparency in negotiations of an agreement that will affect the fundamental rights of citizens of the world is fundamentally undemocratic. It is made worse by the public perception that lobbyists from the music, film, software, video games, luxury goods and pharmaceutical industries have had ready access to the ACTA text and pre-text discussion documents through long-standing communication channels."
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“It is capable of changing its operating modes in ways that maximise things that the user wants while staying within the rules … is capable of learning in the process and of developing configurations that its designer never anticipated.”
Adaptive, cognitive radios could enable techniques such as dynamic frequency sharing, in which radios automatically locate unused frequencies, or share channels based on a priority system.
(tags: wireless internet technology)
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(tags: privacy security surveillance politics law)
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As an aesthetic principle, quirk is an embrace of the odd against the blandly mainstream. It features mannered ingenuousness, an embrace of small moments, narrative randomness, situationally amusing but not hilarious character juxtapositions, and unexplainable but nonetheless charming character traits. Quirk takes not mattering very seriously.