Monday, January 02, 2006

What National DNA Databases are for. So I was on the "Docklands Light Railway" in London, reading the ads above the passengers' heads. Here, by far, is my favorite: Abuse, Assault, Arrest: Our staff are here to help you. Spitting on DLR staff is classified as an assault and is a criminal offence. Saliva Recovery Kits are now held on every train and will be used to identifty offenders against the national DNA database. [Lessig Blog] 8:18:32 PM    comment []

Stabilized Zapruder film? High quality hoax or the real deal?. Mark Frauenfelder: From WFMU's always excellent "Beware of the Blog" Here's the alleged stabilized Zapruder film that's been making the rounds. Is it a hoax? A hoax of a hoax? The truth revealed? You decide. Real or not, this is impressive work. Link [Boing Boing] 8:18:32 PM    comment []

yahoo netrospective [unmediated] 11:50:38 AM    comment []

Time-lapse 2005 out a window in Norway. Eirik sez, "For all of 2005 I have been taking a picture out of our living room window at random intervals. I have found a place in the window where the framing is almost identical for each picture. Now I have finished a video that runs through one year outside our window. All of it in about one and a half minute. "Norway is a country with huge differences between the seasons. It's kind of cool to start the new year with this little run through of 2005." Eirik's right -- the contrasts here are breath-taking, especially the rapid blooming of the greenery and the sharp dropoff to skeletal autumn. Link (Thanks, Eirik!) [Boing Boing] 11:49:00 AM    comment []

Escalation of the Resource Wars. Stirling Newberry writes on Daily Kos:“The march of Iran to deterrent state status are prompting "use it or lose it" pressures for preventative - that is aggressive - strikes against Iran and its atomic weapons program, as Iran declares that it has a right to enrich Uranium on its own soil. The Ukraine-Russia gas stand off escalates as Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing Natural gas. In Iraq insurgent threats keep a major refinery shut down in Iraq. On this, the first working day of the New Year, we are already getting a good stiff taste of the running theme of 2006. If 2004 and 2005 saw resource inflation, 2006 is the year when resource rich countries begin using those resources as weapons, and resource poor countries begin taking aggressive steps to secure resources. The current world market approach to energy is going to break down, as more and more nations are forced to jostle for position. Somewhere in the next two years it will dawn on the American public that we live in the pre-war, not post-war, era, and that Iraq was a foreshock. [Follow Me Here...] 11:48:35 AM    comment []

Sousveillance and antisurveillance in Berlin. A European technology and civil liberties group presented some antisurveillance projects this week. Quintessenz appeared at the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress, showing anti-CCTV techniques including descrambling recordings, altering facial data, and physically blinding devices with lasers. (via /.) [Smart Mobs] 11:47:04 AM    comment []

Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence. (Via Doors of Perception) SWAMI, which apparently stands for "Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence," is a EU-funded project, now working on a set of deliverables to forecast, forewarn, and suggest policy options for the coming era where everything is intelligent, nothing works quite right, and nobody knows why: Project Summary This project aims to identify and analyse the social, economic, legal, technological and ethical issues related to identity, privacy and security in the forecasted but not yet deployed Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment. Work package 1 (WP1) consists of a state of the art review of existing AmI projects, studies, scenarios and roadmaps. Work package 2 (WP2) deals with developing "dark" (adverse) scenarios, the aim of which will be to expose key socio-economic, legal, technological and ethical risks and vulnerabilities related to issues such as identity, privacy and security. Work package 3 (WP3) develops legal and policy options which could serve as safeguards and privacy-enhancing mechanisms for Ambient Intelligence. Work package 4 (WP4) focusses on dissimination of project results, continuously throughout the project. There are two validation and awareness-raising workshops foreseen. A final conference at the end of the project is also planned. FP6 Project: IST Priority 8.1: Policy-oriented research (SSP): Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area. Start date of contract: 1 February 2005 Contract duration 18 Months [Smart Mobs] 11:46:23 AM    comment []

Top Ten Privacy Stories. The Electronic Privacy Information Information Center (EPIC) lists its Top Ten Privacy Stories of 2005: PATRIOT Act Reauthorization Falls Short Security Breaches on the Rise Defense Department Ignores Privacy Laws In Federal Court, a Good E-mail Privacy Decision Privacy for Voters State Department Drops Hi-Tech Passport Plan, But Problems Remain NSA Domestic Spying Disclosed Problems Remain with Travel Screening Plans Credit Freeze Laws on the Rise Surveillance of Activists Revealed And its Top Ten Issues to Watch in 2006: Nomination of Samuel Alito Future of REAL ID "Welcome to the US. Fingerprints, please." Workplace Privacy Student Privacy Location Tracking New Revelations About Government Datamining Wiretapping the Internet DNA Databases and Genetic Privacy Legislation Data Broker Regulation More information on each item behind the link. I don't think the lists are in any order. [Schneier on Security] 11:45:25 AM    comment []

Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #91. First, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! And now, here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Prime time for Missouri computing team A Central Missouri State University team using more than 700 computers has found the largest prime number so far, a gargantuan 9,152,052-digit numeral. The discovery, made Dec. 15 and confirmed Saturday, marked the second time this year that a cooperative computing project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has found a new largest prime. Source: Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com, December 26, 2005 Spy Kids The National Security Agency’s "CryptoKids" website uses cartoon characters to recruit future codemakers and codebreakers. Beyond cartoons, the website also gives clear definitions of codes (symbols used to represent words in a message) and ciphers (methods for making an encrypted message by substituting letters and/or rearranging their order). One section is also reserved for statistics on letter frequencies in the English language, a helpful technique for finding letter patterns that could help break ciphers. Source: Kate Greene, Technology Review, December 28, 2005 Kimberly-Clark Believes in the Future of RFID Kimberly-Clark has built a warehouse just to test how to build and use radio tags to greatest effect, even knowing the real impact won't come for a couple of years. Someday in the not-so-distant future, when you buy a box of Kleenex at the local pharmacy, it will trigger a chain reaction of events that will result, ultimately, in a tree being harvested in Canada. Call it the RFID Effect... Source: Michael Fitzgerald, ExtremeTech, December 27, 2005 Tracked by cellphone We know that technology can be used to track people's location via a cellphone, but how difficult is it for law enforcement to get a court order and do this legally? An old physics joke recounts that Werner Heisenberg (of the uncertainty principle) is pulled over by the police for speeding one night. The police officer asks the professor, "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies, "No, but I know exactly where I am." Source: Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus, December 22, 2005 Traffic Avoidance A new service from Kirkland, WA-based Inrix predicts traffic slowdowns by crunching road sensor data, weather, history, and local events. The Inrix software starts with a mass of data obtained from government agencies -- real-time traffic flow and incident information from gadgets installed on highways, including toll-tag readers, cameras, radar units, and magnetic sensors embedded in the pavement. Inrix then adds speed and location data from computers and Global Positioning System (GPS) units in vehicles owned by trucking and delivery companies. Source: Erika Jonietz, Technology Review, Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006 Spying on Digg Over the last few months, Digg has emerged as one of the biggest forces shaping Web traffic. The participatory technology news site lets registered users post links to new Web pages and "digg" or vote for their favorite pages posted by others -- thus raising them higher in the queue for each subject category, and (for the most popular stories) onto Digg's front page. [Note: Here is a pointer to Digg spy.] Source: Wade Roush, Technology Review, December 28, 2005 Beep, beep ... "u.o.us" Under plans outlined by the government Thursday, magistrates courts in England and Wales are to look at sending messages by text or email to fine evaders and those who fail to show up to court or for community service. The messages warn those that don't comply with their court orders that they could face further action. Source: Reuters, December 29, 2005 Human Chip Firm Plans IPO VeriChip files for a $45.8-million IPO, underwritten by 'chipped' banker. The company, which sells a first-of-its-kind radio frequency identification (RFID) tag for implantation, said the underwriters will be the investment banks Merriman Curhan Ford and Kaufman Brothers. In a publicity stunt last September, the chief executive of Merriman Curhan Ford, Jon Merriman, was publicly "chipped" by being injected with the rice-sized tag. Source: Red Herring, December 30, 2005 See you next week... [Smart Mobs] 11:44:37 AM    comment []

Chillits 2005 ambient DJ sets online. Every fall in Northern California, the Chillits music festival brings together a stunning line-up of DJs who spin mesmerizing sets of ambient and downtempo music under the sun and stars. (Previous Chillits post here.) Chillits organizer Scott Nelson Windels tells us that this year's sets are once again available online, as MP3s on the site and also via torrents. They're all great, but DF Tram's set is particular beautiful (as expected), as is Time Slips By's mix. Link [Boing Boing] 11:44:31 AM    comment []