Global POV: At the Intersection of Technology and Culture

Speedy no more

Attorney General "Speedy" Gonzalez has resigned. Following the departure of Karl Rove, that means sayonara to two of President Bush's death commandos. Of course, that still leaves the Prince of Darkness himself, "Dick" Cheney.

Bush is beleaguered, besieged and as always bewildered. He is truly the lamest of the ducks. Without Gonzalez, Congressional scrutiny must of necessity, be transferred to the Dickmeister. It will be interesting to see who Congress goes after next. Scooter Libby took the first spear and the other Lieutenants have resigned. I expect to see the laser-like light of Congressional glares aiming at the Veep.

Posted on August 28, 2007

You looking at me?

by Suzanne

New York City cab drivers are getting ready to strike in less than two weeks. The issue? Driver privacy. The Taxi and Limousine Commission uses Global Positioning System (GPS). The New York Taxi Workers Alliance claims about 10,000 members and says it will start striking on September 5th. Their leader argues that the Commission will use GPS data to audit drivers' income and to report illegal immigrants who are driving cabs. The other union, New York Federation of Taxi Drivers, says its near 7,000 members will not strike. Their leader, Fernando Mateo, lauded the use of GPS citing its tracking benefits . Mateo went as far as saying, "We don't have to be radicals about privacy in a cab. If you want privacy, you don't drive a cab."

You might not even drive in a cab if you want privacy, New York cabs have transformed from driving billboards to mini-television commercials. Some of them have television screens built into the back of the driver's seat looping commercials.

Why does the Commission feel the need to track each taxi? This is part of the larger national trend to spy on employees in the name of "safety", security's little brother. This issue also brings the question of "Do employees check their right to privacy at the employers' door?" Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is increasingly, yes.

Posted on August 27, 2007

Cowards queue for candidacy

I was disturbed by reading a Washington Post article this morning about the military background of the major presidential candidates--there is none. Except for John McCain, not a single leading candidate for President has served in the military. The Post charitably gives George Bush credit for his frat boy flying days in the National Guard--I do not.

As a veteran, I am appalled. I don't think that military service is an absolute litmus test for political office, but come on, none of them? War mongerers like Fred Thompson and Romney have not served and as the Post also points out, none of Romney's 5 sons have deigned to be in the military either. Although Romney disengeniously suggests that their helping him run for office is equivalent.

Really.

I'll give Hillary Clinton a pass on this because there weren't many women in the military when she could have gotten involved, but the hell with the rest of them.

As the Iraqi war rages on, it becomes clearer that war is something that you send someone else's kids to. The problem here is gradual rise of the professional politician class in America where public service means being the head piglet sucking at society's teat. What happened to giving back to society?

Posted on August 24, 2007

The real Pirates of the Caribbean

A very interesting case is moving through the halls of International statesmen. Two Caribbean countries, Antigua and Barbuda have been actively pursuing their right to sell online gambling services to Americans by filing legal actions with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Two WTO panels have ruled in favor of the tiny islands leaving the Bush administration with a difficult decision to make: comply or not. If they comply, then they're throwing open the window for all forms of Internet gambling to come in. If they do not, the islands' lawyer, Mark Mendel, has asked for a clever form of compensation to pay off the $3.4 billion in damages that he's requested--the right for the Islanders to copy American content, software, music and video, to pay off the USA's debt.

Since America has exhausted their WTO appeals, they're going to have to deal with this one. There's no great way out of this for the Bushies, but I'm tickled and eagerly waiting the outcome. If they make Internet gambling legal, then great. This will get government out of the business of legislating morality. If they balk and the islands start selling illegal copies of movies (totally legal within their own countries and internationally sanctioned by the WTO), also great.

From my limited libertarian perspective, it's a win-win.

Posted on August 23, 2007

Intellectual Property

Check your package

Packaging is really getting on my nerves. It seems as if every year the material gets thicker and more cumbersome. I find that a substantial portion of my daily garbage is packaging material. Clamshell packages are dangerous--I've gotten cut several times trying to cut through the plastic. I recently bought an SD memory card that was in a package roughly the size of a shoe box.

Is it all to stop shoplifting? Is it inventory control? Is it to make it easier to shelf-stack the packages?

So often you buy digital goods that come in thick, hefty garbage--software in huge boxes, DVDs in great big marketing blisters and even small, plastic gift cards sold in great big honking packages.

I'm not particularly eco-conscious. My recycling bone is worn to a nub---but retailers have to be stopped.

Posted on August 22, 2007

Bitches

Doggie bags

The Malaysian government has trained dogs to sniff out illegal copies of DVDs. Really. In fact, the dogs do so well that they've been given a medal. Lucky and Flo, two black Labs, have been trained to sniff out the chemicals used in DVD manufacture. Apparently angry video pirates have put out a $28K reward on the dogs, but they've been protected so far.

The Reuters article ends on the laughingly absurd figure of $6 Billion annual losses to the movie industry from piracy. This number is predicated on the ridiculous assumption that the millions of copies of movies watched by college kids on 14" computer monitors are a substitute for actual purchases.

Posted on August 21, 2007

Intellectual Property

I curse thee, E*Trade

I had an interesting dispute with E-Trade recently that I'm still disturbed about. I was trying to move some funds and of course they asked me to identify myself. Okay that's reasonable, I thought, as I began answering the standard questions like name and address. Then the weirdness began. A piece of land was bought last year by a Mrs. Holtzman...could I tell them the details? Well, the problem was that the person in question was an ex-wife and I didn't know (or care). The service rep huffily informed me that E-Trade had bought 3rd party information on me from a database provider and was using that info to "validate" me.

Ugh. How creepy is this? After several phone calls and a flat-out refusal on my part to even participate in id'ing myself to those bastards with any information that I had not given them myself, they begrudgingly gave me my own money.

The arrogance of this company is remarkable. I also wonder what else they're doing with purchased information since their privacy policy says that they might buy info for "marketing purposes."

I don't believe in voodoo, but I have made a doll anyway and named it E-frigging-Trade. If you're an investor, sell the stock now before the curse hits. Internet brokerages are for consumer convenience only, and when they cease to become convenient (because they're a pain in the privacy ass), they will wither and die.

Posted on August 20, 2007

The benefits of unplugging

I am currently enjoying a short, unplugged vacation. I don't answer cell phones. I don't watch television. I watch movies and usually junky ones, too. I don't use IM. I pay attention to the weather and go to sleep after a nice breath of sea air and a brandy.

I dread going back to the city and getting my day time-sliced and being responsive to signals emanating from the wire stuck up my butt.

Yet, I'm typing this on my computer and when I look up the weather on my computer and I watch DVDs on my A/V setup. Some gadgetry is beneficial and relaxing. Some is demanding and intrusive. I think that the secret of life in the digital age is knowing which is which.

Posted on August 16, 2007

Bitches

Do not pass Go, Collect $225 million

In my book, Privacy Lost, I talk about a privacy problem which is caused by unintended consequences of legislation. Big sweeping, identity-related procedures creates a dragnet that often catches many fish. A classic example was how tax returns were linked to student loan payments, enabling the government to snatch refund checks from scofflaws.

A new variation of this falls out of the cross-border passport rules that have kicked into effect this year. The State Department checks passport applications for people who owe child support and refuse to issue a passport until the money is paid back. $225 million has been collected so far this year.

Here's an unpopular opinion--I don't like this one bit. The easier that you make it for an identification system to be used for an alternative purpose, the less the scrutiny that is placed on its validity as well as oversight that it's being run appropriately. And of course, each additional organization involved in a database increases the likelihood that it will be rendered unsecure, ie; some 3rd party will snab the data.

I worry about this continued trend of cross data matching for any purpose, no matter how noble. This cavalier usage of data is why we have identity theft problems today.

Posted on August 15, 2007

Espresso exorcism

Girl overdoses on espresson. Yes, it's true. 17 year old British teenager, Jasmine Willis was taken to the hospital after drinking seven (7) double espressos at her family's sandwich shop, mistakenly believing that they were single servings. She hyperventilated, got the shakes and ran a fever.

I do that.

Posted on August 14, 2007

General

Pimps 'n chimps

It's official--Bush's brain has resigned; allowing it to float above the quicksand into which the rest of the body politic is rapidly sinking. Karl Rove, George Bush's longterm friend, Svengali, political confidante and Rasputin has decided to throw in the extra-large K-Mart beach towel and beat a hasty retreat out of office after being told that if he did not leave by Labor Day, he would be expected to stay until the end of the President's term.

It's unfortunate that Bush will not be impeached; misery loves company and I would pay good coin of the realm to see Rove up there with the rest of the good ol' white boys who run this country clutching each other in the dock, tears drizzling down their blubbery cheeks as they testify in their best Sergeant Schultz voice, "I saw nothing, I did nothing!"

But alas it is not to be. Karl Rove will slip off quietly into that good night. The man who successfully derailed John McCain's 2000 presidential bid by spreading surreptitious slander about McCain's adopted children ("Pssst! John McCain has BLACK babies") has gotten away with it. The crafter of the hand-me-down Executive Privilege strategy keeping the soft moist little Bushies away from the dessication of a Congressional grilling will not, I'm sorry to say, ever have those self-same fires turned on him.

The mad monk of the GOP, Rove has always enjoyed a special status in the Bush White House, being as that he has had an unfair advantage because of his opposing thumbs. Rove is Bush's friend. He is Dubya's advisor. Although Condie Rice tells Georgie when to pee, it is Rove that tells George where.

For his brains and ingenuity, his scheming and strategy, Karl Rove, this Bud's for you. I hope that the next monkey in the white house has a dumber master turning the crank while he grins and grinds his organ.

Posted on August 13, 2007

A hell of her own--Pelosi has a nemesis

It seems like a long shot...Nancy Pelosi's short reign as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is being challenged by peace activist Cindy Sheehan. Ms. Sheehan gave Ms. Pelosi until the end of July to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush or Sheehan would challenge her for her seat. Ms. Pelosi has not done so.

The odds against Ms. Sheehan winning (as an independent no less) are roughly the same as of me winning the Kentucky Derby this year--as a horse. But, part of me wants to see her win. Not because I know enough about Sheehan to want her in office, but because I am sick and tired of the Democratic Congressional leaders, including most especially Nancy Pelosi.

These "career politicians" whined for years about how Bush was getting away with this or that. War in Iraq, blah, blah, Anthrax, blah, surveillance of Americans, blah, blah. Yet now that they've had a chance to do something about it, the well-dressed narcissistic little mommies' boys and girls are demurring. Too fastidious to fight and too self-serving to care, they have had their opportunity to reach up out of the fiery pit that's their personal hell and grab for the firmament of ethics that could save them, but no matter how loud that salvation knocks, they are deaf. The Democratic Congress are cowards. Their rubber stamp approval of Bush's warrantless wiretapping authorization this week damns them for what they are.

I do not demand or even expect an impeachment, but I am tired of politically motivated complaisance after six years of power tactics by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Rove so naked and on display that Gypsy Rose Lee would have blushed.

Perhaps they need a wakeup call. If Cindy Sheehan were to be elected, that might be an elbow in the sleeper's ribs. I'm afraid that what they really need is to be gone, gone, gone. We need to elect real leaders and show these puffing egomaniacs the door, or at least trap them in a room full of mirrors, where they would be unable to leave, constantly preening and posturing to their own graying reflection.

Posted on August 10, 2007

3 Comments

Bigger boobs exist than Anna Nicole

The indignities suffered by poor, dead Anna Nicole Smith never end. Most recently, a Texas doctor, Gerald Wayne Johnson, tried to shop a videotape of him performing breast augmentation surgery on Anna Nicole. He was blocked in court yesterday by Smith's former lawyer, Howard K. Stern. The tape was made by the good doctor, who routinely taped all his surgeries, assuring his patients that he would respect their privacy "while they were alive."

Ugh.

The lack of sufficient privacy protection for Americans is a cradle-to-grave problem. This case emphasizes the need to shroud some legal support around the huge amounts of digital information floating out there on each and every one of us.

Posted on August 08, 2007

by Suzanne

We Know What You Did This Summer

Late Friday evening (August 3rd) the Senate buckled under White House Pressure and passed a Republican plan to temporarily expand the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws. By a vote of 60-28, the bill (Senate Bill number 1927) would immediately allow the administration to begin conducting warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, regardless of whether the target is communicating with someone in the United States. It would require the attorney general, in consultation with director, to write procedures on how the executive branch collects that information. Those procedures would be subjected later to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court for approval. The bill would expire after six months, giving Congress a window to work out a longer-term FISA overhaul in the fall. The Senate and the House each voted down competing Democrat bills that would have called for closer court supervision of government surveillance. According to the Washington Post , earlier this year a federal intelligence surveillance court judge ruled that a key part of the wiretap effort is illegal. The Washington Post says that this ruling is the motivation for this week's Congressional push to expand President Bush's spying powers. The House is expected to approve the Senate bill today. As of this writing, Saturday evening, a vote has not been taken.

Apparently, earlier in the day on Friday, President Bush threatened to hold Congress in session until its scheduled recess if it didn't approve the changes he wanted. Apparently, the thought of no vacation was enough for many Senators to roll over and play dead. If this bill becomes law, Americans making overseas phone calls will have no privacy.

Given all of the election year posturing of prominent Democrats regarding these wiretaps, you might think that one of them would have managed to kill this bill. The truth is that they care more about the President abrogating their responsibility (he didn't ASK them), then they do about protecting the privacy of Americans.

Posted on August 07, 2007

Buried by relationships

Wired has an interesting op-ed today that I agree with. They call for an opening of Social Networks, making them interoperable and based on open standards. Right now, of course, whatever data you put into them stays there.

Wired feels that the missing secret sauce in a roll-your-own social network is relationships.

At this point, "friend" relationships remain unique to the social networks. The web still lacks a generalized way to convey relationships between people's identities on the internet. The absence of this secret sauce -- an underlying framework that connects "friends" and establishes trust relationships between peers -- is what gave rise to social networks in the first place. While we've largely outgrown the limitations of closed platforms (take e-mail or the web itself), no one has stepped forward with an open solution to managing your friends on the internet at large.

I expect to see several companies pop up soon that do this. I'm working on one myself:)

We're not going to take closed systems much longer, I think, whether they're social networking sites, cellular telephones or windowing operating systems. The whole point of the information age is interoperable information. We buy CDs to put music on iPods. We painstakingly type in our lists of friends so as to capture all of our relationships. Any company that blocks the free-flow of customer data to further their own interests will eventually be smothered in their own dust.

Posted on August 06, 2007

Technology

by Suzanne

Candid Surveillance Camera

An ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans, by a nearly 3 -to-1 margin, are willing to give up their privacy in favor of crime fighting cameras in public areas. The media outlets conducted the poll in mid-July by telephone using a random sample of 1,125 adults across the U.S. They break down their subjects by demographics to reveal insights. For example, according to analysts, participants who are democrats, especially those who support Barak Obama, are less likely to approve London style surveillance cameras. A similar " Ring of Steel surveillance network will be in place at the lower end of Manhattan. By the end of 2007, 100 new cameras will be in place. By 2010, 3,000 public and private cameras will blanket the Big Apple. Chicago and Baltimore also plan expanded surveillance systems. The New York Civil Liberties Union is calling on the City of New York to use public input and external oversight on any planned cameras to prevent abuse.

I think the most notable thing about the poll is the comments section. Participants overwhelmingly disagree with the findings. My favorite entry is "The answer to 1984 is 1776".

Posted on August 02, 2007