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Yowie! |
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OK … everyone who’s ever viewed a video on YouTube, raise your hand. Thank you. Put ‘em down now. Yesterday a federal judge ordered Google to violate your privacy. Big time. Judge Louis L. Stanton of the federal court for the Southern District of New York ordered Google to turn over, on “a few ‘over-the-shelf’ four-terabyte hard drives” its YouTube logging database, which contains: “for each instance a video is watched, the unique ‘login ID’ of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet protocol address other devices connected to the internet use to identify the user’s computer (’IP address’), and the identifier for the video.” The plaintiff in the case, Viacom, is suing Google over copyrighted videos uploaded to YouTube. They want this data to prove that copyrighted content is viewed more often than user-generated stuff. But they don’t need login IDs and IP addresses in order to do that. So why does Viacom want them? They’re taking a page out of the RIAA’s book. I bet they’re going to pick a few high-profile individuals or firms and then sue ‘em. (”Dear [insert name of prestigous law firm]: It has come to our attention that employees of your firm have viewed [insert ridiculously large number here] copyrighted videos from Comedy Central on YouTube during business hours.”) It’ll scare the snot out of a lot of folks. I hope Google resists this. It worries me. I love the Web. Heck, my job title is “Internet Librarian”. But all of this technology — and especially content aggregators such as Google — makes it so easy to slowly-but-surely erode my personal liberties. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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Comments (0)May 8, 2008
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You may want to start thinking about Encrypting |
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“Lose a laptop and you’re out $500 to $600. Lose your client’s sensitive information — well, that’s a different story.” If you find the encryption process a little daunting, attend Dan’s new ethics CLE class, Practical Encryption for Attorneys. |
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Submitted by: Ida Weingram, Head of Outreach Services
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Are your usual accessories these days a flash drive, laptop, BlackBerry, etc.? Do these devices have your personal information on them i.e. social security number, financial data, etc? Most importantly, do you carry around your clients’ information on them? Then you need to read March 10, 2008
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Ban anonymous internet posting in Kentucky??? |
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According to Kentucky Action News:
First of all, I’m ok with anonymous posters as long as it’s not malicious. Secondly, this bill is ridiculous in every aspect and will probably never go into effect. How would they even enforce this? It’s just like trying to enforce age restrictions on accessing certain websites — almost impossible. And how would they be able to tell if a poster uses their real name? As such, there’s no difference between posting anonymously and posting incognito. Some blogs are authored completely anonymously (ie. the Annoyed Librarian) and are meant to be enjoyed that way. I don’t think this Kentucky Representative has any idea what the internet is. I understand that he’s just trying to curb online bullying but it’s quite a utopian goal, wouldn’t you say? Might as well shield our kids from the internet until they’re 19. |
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Submitted by: RayAna Park, Former Web Developer
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February 12, 2008
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Hi. My name is ______ and I’m addicted to Facebook. |
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But not all is well in fb-land. A recent article from the NYT mentioned that Facebook users should be wary of the fact that their deactivated account is actually still somewhere in the system and you can bring it back from the dead rather easily:
Basically, Facebook is so confident in their stickiness that they almost expect you to come back to reactivate your account, if you ever delete it. I admit I’ve done this a couple times before, and I felt more thankful than violated that they kept my info instead of completely removing it. What’s the big deal if they keep your wall posts and favorite quotes? It’s not like they’re keeping your home address and cell phone number. And if they are, then it’s the user’s fault for putting up that stuff on their profile page in the first place. |
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Submitted by: RayAna Park, Former Web Developer
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Web sites that want their site to be sticky can learn a thing or two from January 15, 2008
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Won’t Somebody Think of Steve Jobs’ Children?!?! |
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According to the New York Times, MySpace has teamed up with 49 states (the rogue 50th state is not mentioned in the article) to announce a new safety initiative to protect minors from the potential dangers of using their social network.
Too bad this new measure won’t actually help the issue. Any net-savvy teen/tween/toddler will take all of 5 minutes to set up another email account on one of the many, many free services out there. Attempts at stopping them is futile, parents should instead supervise their children or make sure they’re aware of the (overly-publicized) dangers of the internet and how to avoid them. I think my feelings on the whole matter are best summed up by this Slashdot member’s comment:
On a completely unrelated note, the Macworld keynote speech by Steve Jobs is now over. It was a live blogger’s dream. Here’s the quick and dirty: 4 million iPhones sold since launch, iPhone & iPod Touch will be getting software upgrades, iTunes movie rentals, upgraded Apple TV, and last but not least the new MacBook Air. |
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Submitted by: Anne Baynes, Assistant Network Administrator
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December 11, 2007
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Why I Like AskEraser |
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Go to Ask.com this morning and you’ll see a new link in the upper right-hand corner of the page: AskEraser. Click on it and Ask will no longer log your search activity — the terms you search for, the links you click, your IP address, and any user or session identifier. Boom … just like that. And that’s why I like it. It’s not buried in the preferences, you don’t have to download a toolbar, and you don’t have to remember to activate it for every search. Now I know that Ask has like 5% of the share of the search market. And AskEraser isn’t retroactive — your previous search data will be kept for 18 months. But it’s at least a baby step towards giving us some sort of privacy in a world where it’s constantly slipping away. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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December 5, 2007
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Facebook’s Beacon: Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse |
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On Monday TechCrunch reported more shady business with Facebook’s Beacon advertising system. I’ll sum it all up:
Let’s just think about that last item for a minute. Beacon advertising partners are basically dumping all their purchase data on Facebook so that Facebook can data-mine it. Does that seem right to you? I didn’t think so. Facebook claims that they are deleting all the data that isn’t relevant to news alerts that members have explicity okayed. But they also claimed that “as long as you are logged out of Facebook, no actions you have taken on other websites can be sent to Facebook” until they were outed by a security researcher at Computer Associates. Update: Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology about the whole Beacon mess on the Facebook Blog today. More importantly, he said that you can now opt-out of Beacon permanently. Unfortunately, the partners are still going to give Facebook all their purchase data: “If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook.” (my ephasis) |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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November 2, 2007
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The Party’s Over (After Only 10 Months) |
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This year we waved adieu to Windows and switched to a Mac. (Two, actually.) How liberating! No hardware upgrades just to be able run the bare-bones version of Vista. Viruses? Thing of the past. I became like the guy who zooms by you in the next lane, gloating, while you’re stuck behind a trash truck. I should have known it was too good to last. This week the first Trojan Horse for Mac OS X was reported. It’s a bogus video plug-in that hijacks the infected Mac’s DNS settings, so that a page request for, say, bankofamerica.com is redirected to a non-legit Web site. It’s phishing, taken to the next level. Currently the Trojan has only been found on a few porn sites. So I’m safe. (Really. Trust me. No, I’m serious.) But if it migrates to other sites, then that’s another thing. Why did it take so long for a Mac Trojan to appear? The Mac market for viruses wasn’t very promising when 34 people in America were actually using them. But Mac sales are way up. And the million-and-a-half people surfing on their iPhones powered by OS X are just too much of a tempting target to ignore. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
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October 9, 2007
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Antivirus Misconceptions and My Favorite Vestigial Organ |
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A recent study completed by McAfee and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) shows major discrepancies between what users believe they have and what they actually have when it comes to their computer’s security. From the article: “With more than 90% of respondents indicating that they were maintaining daily / weekly coverage from their antivirus software, it might be somewhat of a surprise to see that 49% of respondents were actually not running any antivirus software, or antivirus software that was not updating definitions on a daily or weekly basis.” There is also a PDF of the results of the study if you wish to read further. For those of you who woefully leave your computer out in the internet unprotected I suggest downloading a copy of AVG Antivirus Free Edition and setting up weekly updates & full system scans. You should also read and follow the Ten Commandments for Your Computer Sanity. And in completely unrelated news, scientists have apparently found the real purpose of the appendix. |
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Submitted by: Anne Baynes, Assistant Network Administrator
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September 11, 2007
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What is the First Freedom? |
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Religious liberty is often referred to as the “First Freedom” because the Framers placed it first in the Bill of Rights. Check out these three internet resources to learn more about this fundamental right. “The First Freedom Project” was created in response to the increase in religious discrimination charges, brought by workers over questions of time off for observance, wearing of religious garb and symbols, and prayer in the workplace. The U.S. Justice Department has created an educational program, with nationally held seminars and a website, to teach employers and others their rights and responsibilities. The First Freedom Center, on the Council for America’s First Freedom website has a wealth of information on religious freedom including educational programs, resources for teachers, and newsclips. The Council’s mission is to increase understanding and respect for religious freedom in diverse communities worldwide, through education about this core human value: the freedom of thought, conscience and belief. For historical research, make sure you take time to browse or search The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia - A comprehensive Collection of the views of Thomas Jefferson. This is part of the Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive collection hosted at the University of Virginia Library. |
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Submitted by: Kathy Coon, Deputy Director
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