WA - Arrested for a crime? Automatic alert would go to your employer

Original Article (Video Available)

So basically if someone accuses you of something, and you are arrested, an alert will be sent to your employer and you will probably be fired, even if you are not convicted. How is that justice? Welcome to 1984!

05/08/2013

By Hana Kim

SEATTLE - The Washington State Patrol performed 800,000 background checks just last year.

It’s a system in place to promote safety. But many say the state needs to do more.

A state audit is now recommending fingerprint background checks so that employers can get an automatic alert anytime an employee is arrested for a crime.
- So much for being innocent until proven guilty!

Linda Gleason’s job everyday is to keep other people’s kids safe as the owner of Agape Child Care in Ballard.

“It’s important you know who works for you,” said Gleason.

The state requires a background check with a follow up every 3 years for child care employees but Gleason says that’s not enough.
- If you don't think that's enough, then why not do it more often?  You don't need another law to force you to do that.

“We need to be proactive that’s the problem we are dragging our feet,” said Gleason.

The State Auditor’s Office agrees now backing what’s called a “rap back” service which would automatically in real time notify an employer if someone is arrested. Fingerprints would have to be stored in a database for that to happen.

“That is how the system is supposed to work can I guarantee that it will work that way in every case, no, but again that is what we are trying to do here we are trying to close loopholes,” said Washington State Auditor Troy Kelley.

For example in 2012 parents at Garfield High School found out the janitor was a sex offender. He had been working at the school for nearly a decade unnoticed because he was convicted of voyeurism after his initial background check.
- So in that decade of him working there, did he commit another sex crime?  Doesn't sound like it.

The state also looked into the criminal history data of 800,000 applicants from 2005 to 2012.

They determined 500 people would have triggered a notification for offenses such as child molestation, assault and drug crimes after they would have been hired.

“I think it will weed out the people you don’t want taking care of our children,” said Gleason.

Department of Social and Health Services pays for background checks on foster parents every 3 years.

“We support any concrete steps to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children and vulnerable adults, including background checks that are as comprehensive and up to date as possible,” said spokesperson Thomas Shapley.

DSHS however said they had some lingering questions about how much the rap back service could cost. Meanwhile others worry about those stored fingerprints.

“If they look at it as an invasion of privacy well they are not looking at the welfare of our children,” said Gleason.

Right now 29 other states already have automatic background checks in place.

Washington state lawmakers would have to change the rules first before all fingerprints can be stored in a national database.

The rap back service would cost about $300,000 to start up and $350,000 annually to keep it going.

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How to Commit Internet Suicide and Disappear from the Web Forever

Sick of horribly embarrassing things showing up when potential employers Google your name? Tired of everyone knowing you live in a garden level dungeon apartment? Perhaps you just don't like the fact the internet makes you easy to find. Thankfully, it's not that hard to delete yourself entirely. Here's how to do it.

For mildly famous (or infamous) individuals, disappearing is essentially impossible, but for the average person it's surprisingly easy. It just depends on much info is already out there.

Click the image to read the article

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Canada kills controversial internet surveillance bill, US should follow suit

Original Article

Now the USA needs to follow suit, and stop trampling on peoples privacy, freedom of speech, and other constitutional issues, but, the US government doesn't care what the American people think.

02/12/2013

The Conservative Canadian government is abandoning its much-criticized internet surveillance bill, which would have allowed the government to keep tabs on its citizens and was disguised under the cloak of fighting child pornographers.
- Any time the government wants to pass a bill to "protect the children," you'd better read the bill, because you can almost always guarantee that it will affect you.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced that Bill C-30, which caused public ire over privacy, is dead.

“We’ve listened to the concerns of Canadians,” Nicholson told reporters. “We will not be proceeding with Bill C-30 … including the warrantless mandatory disclosure of basic subscriber information, or the requirement for telecommunications service providers to build intercept capabilities within their systems”.

Bill C-30 or otherwise known as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act was introduced in Parliament less than a year ago, and it was presented as a choice that Canadians must make: to either support the bill or be on the side of child pornographers.
- It's called "For the children politics," and has been used by America and others for many years, and needs to stop, things are not always black or white!

"He can either stand with us or stand with the child pornographers," argued Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in Parliament while attacking the opposition last February.

This comment led to public outrage, raising privacy concerns across the nation.

What made the legislation dangerous was that it forced Internet service providers to have systems that allowed police to intercept and track online communications.

Also, it would have permitted authorities to have warrantless access to Internet subscriber information, including name, address, telephone number, email address and Internet protocol address.

But, activists viewed the proposed bill as a huge infringement on privacy.

“This is a great day,” critic of the bill, Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Couvukian told The Globe and Mail, “This is a victory for privacy and for freedom.”

International hacktivist movement Anonymous also hailed the killing of the bill.

The killing of the bill in Canada is a major win for Canadians supporting privacy and internet freedom.

But, the battle over internet surveillance and wiretapping continues inside the country, with Bill C-12 still remaining before Parliament and if passed it would allow Internet service providers, email hosts and social media sites to voluntarily share personal information about their clients with the police.

Also, as was announced on Monday, Canadian authorities will be permitted to tap people’s phones without warrants in emergency circumstances or imminent harm such as in bombings or kidnappings.

Nicholson said that under the new guidelines, people whose phones were tapped in emergency situations would be notified within 90 days.

US’ similar privacy concerns still stand

The US is facing similar privacy debacle with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

The bill is supposed to help the US government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyber attack.

Opponents say it would allow companies to hand over a user’s private browsing information to the government, allowing authorities to spy on American citizens rather than simply track down cyber threats.

Unable to reach a deal with Congress, President Obama plans to use his power to exert executive actions against the will of lawmakers.
- Of course he will, that is what dictators do.

The order is a direct response to Congress’ refusal to pass CISPA last year, as members of Congress who opposed the legislation cited serious privacy concerns over giving the government greater access to Americans’ personal information that only private companies and servers might have access to.

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Now you can encrypt your calls, texts to protect them from being spied on

Original Article

02/06/2013

By Liz Klimas

There are those who might be concerned about spying — by the government, hackers or someone else — on their phone calls and text messages. Well, now there’s an app for that.

According to Slate, the firm Silent Circle has released a smartphone app that encrypts data. As Ryan Gallagher for Slate puts it, “that means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.”

The company’s press release stated the Silent Phone app is available for both Apple and Android devices. It is described as the first peer-to-peer encryption tool for smartphones and tablets, which means information doesn’t pass through a third-party.

“Senior corporate executives and government officials are using work-issued smartphones and their own personal devices under BYOD for sensitive discussions, despite their increasing susceptibility to eavesdropping and other surveillance threats across all communication mediums,” Silent Circle CTO, co-founder and former PGP Corporation co-founder Jon Callas said in a statement . “Silent Phone is an easy to use, yet powerful smart phone application that leverages state of the art technology and is now available for iOS and Android, the two most popular smart phone platforms.”

Read the entire article here

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A Mouse Click Away: Porn's Insidious Business Model

Original Article

It will find you only if you visit porn or other sites, which are probably infested with viruses, scams, spyware, etc, or if you install an application that is not from a trusted source.  Don't forget, there are also criminals out there stealing your private information as well, so don't post any of your personal information online, period! You should have a program that protects you from all this.  We recommend Zone Alarm, but there are many others as well.

10/02/2012

By Mark Martin

The United States is the number one producer and distributor of illegal pornography. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, and you may be surprised by what's behind the hard core business boom.

While innocently surfing the net, your child can come face to face with a sexually explicit pop-up ad.

"Even if you're not looking for it, you could be innocent," 15-year-old Zach said. "If you go on the computer, on the Internet, and you're looking for something good, it will find you."

"It is deviant," Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said. "It's aberrant. Kids are seeing content that no 12 or 13 year old is mentally, psychologically, or emotionally prepared to deal with."
- Well parents should install software to block those types of sites.  It can be done, if you take the time to do it, or get a professional to do it.  And that is also why porn sites, in our opinion, should be behind an .XXX domain, so it can easily be blocked.

A Mouse Click Away

If parents don't know what to look for or how to protect their kids online, a click of the mouse can usher in a nightmare.

Take for instance, "Rene," whose 11-year-old son is victim of Internet pornography.

"Through a minimized porn site and our computer's history button, we discovered that our precious 11-year-old son had been to hundreds of Internet pornography sites in the middle of the previous few nights," Rene told CBN News.

Rene's son became hooked.

"We have spent the last 10 years trying to keep our son away from this "drug," with little success, seeking counselors who could help him and being frustrated and angry that we were unable to protect our child," she said.
- So did you get a professional to install software to block all this?  Apparently not!

Immoral Cash Flow

Morality in Media President Patrick Trueman told CBN News the $120 billion porn industry blankets the Internet with millions of websites.

The young aren't the only victims. Adults also become intensely addicted while porn executives become incredibly wealthy.

"The bulk of the commercial pornography industry is a relative handful, 60 to 80 companies that control most of those commercial sites," Trueman said.

"So they're looking for revenue, and you don't just get revenue when someone buys your video or buys time on your website for either a live performance or to view a video," he said.

Simply clicking on a pop-up ad fills the pockets of the porn industry without the Internet user even buying anything.

"What you in fact get money for is the clicks," Trueman said. "It's the business model that Google has, and so the more you click the more money they make."

"Some people think, 'Well, I just look at it a little bit,' he continued. "Yes, every time you do, the porn industry makes money."

"Then you multiply that individual by millions of people in the United States that do the same thing; the porn industry's getting rich off you," Trueman said.

Safeguarding Your Family

Internet safety experts say a strong defense at home is the only way to stop this immoral cash flow.

Families need to block content and establish safety rules for kids and adults. This can be done through filtering and monitoring software and through accountability partners.
- Yes, families need to do this, or get a professional, or else "Big Brother" will step in and start regulating the Internet for you.

"So that every website that that individual goes to, you get an email giving you an update of where they've been," Trueman explained. "That's accountability, and you need that."

"Know what your kids are doing online, and stay engaged with them, and recognize that you can't do it alone," Donna Rice Hughes, executive producer of Internet Safety 101, told CBN News. "You need some help."

It's timely advice, especially with research showing porn's effect on the family.

Four out of five 16-year-olds now regularly access the illicit material online, and more than half of divorces name Internet pornography as a primary reason for the breakup of the marriage.

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Did you know you can request your home address be removed from online mapping services?

Did you know you can request your home address be removed from Google, Yahoo, Bing and other mapping services?

Well you can, and we recommend you do it for your own safety, especially if you are wearing the "sex offender" label.

Many online registries use these mapping services, and if you request yours be removed, then it will also be unmappable from the many registries as well.

Below is a link for Google Maps, but other mapping services have a similar process:

http://tinyurl.com/9tsedws

01) Enter your home address, then enter street view. Once you do, you will see a REPORT A PROBLEM link, click that.

02) You will then need to click the PRIVACY CONCERN link and follow the instructions.

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How Facebook catches would-be child molesters by analyzing relationships and chat content (i.e. Spying without a warrant!)

Original Article

If they have this technology and they are using it, it's basically like entering your home and searching without a warrant! If it was found constitutional by the SCOTUS, then use it, stop deny ex-offenders from using your site because of some perceived danger? Stop discriminating against people! If someone is doing something they should not be, report them!

07/16/2012

By Lisa Vaas

Law enforcement is hailing Facebook for using its little-known data monitoring technology to spot a suspicious conversation about sex between a man in his early thirties and a 13-year-old girl from Florida.

According to Reuters, Facebook software on March 9 raised the red flag when it picked up on a conversation about sex between the man and the girl.

The two had only a loose relationship on the network.

The man was chatting about sex with the girl and planned to meet her after middle-school classes the next day, according to Reuters.

The conversation was automatically flagged for Facebook employees, who read it and quickly notified the police.

Police took over the girl's computer and arrested the man the following day, Special Agent Supervisor Jeffrey Duncan of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told Reuters.

The alleged predator has pleaded not guilty to charges of soliciting a minor.

Facebook doesn't talk much about this technology, which scans postings and chats for criminal activity.
- Imagine if, while on the streets, you had someone following you around monitoring everything you do and say.  This is no different, it's just being done in cyberspace where no warrant is needed!  Maybe we should bring the laws up to date and require someone to have a warrant before entering someone's online home?

In what Reuters called the company's "most expansive comments on the subject to date", Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan said that the monitoring software analyzes relationships to find suspicious conversations between unlikely pairings, i.e., between people of widely varying ages who only have loose and/or newly formed relationships, for example.

The technology also relies on archives of real-life chats that preceded sexual assaults, Sullivan told Reuters.

It's easy to see why Facebook doesn't talk about it much: the last thing the company wants is for its users to feel like they're being eavesdropped on, Sullivan said:
- Well, they are, and all without a warrant!

We've never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it's really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate.

- Then why did you set it up?

To avoid coming off as eavesdroppers, Facebook also avoids probing what it interprets as pre-existing relationships, Sullivan said.
- You expect us to believe anything they say?

Reining in its monitoring technology is understandable in light of not wanting to be perceived as Big Brother, but as Reuters pointed out, a low false-positive rate has the serious downside of letting many dangerous communications go through unflagged.

Duncan estimates that for every predator the police intercept due to tips from Facebook and other companies, another ten get through the system undetected.

And while Facebook limits how visible children are to its adult users - minors don't show up in public searches, only friends can chat with them, and only friends' friends can send them messages - children are all too capable of lying about their age and pretending to be adults.

The converse is true: adults can lie about their birth dates and pretend to be minors.

One example can be found in Skout, a location-based social networking mobile app and website that in June barred minors from using its service, following three separate incidents in which children were allegedly sexually assaulted by adults posing as teenagers.

At the time, the New York Times reported that Skout was fully aware that minors were using its site.

Skout had, in fact, put safeguards in place to protect those minors. Last year, after noticing minors using its service, Skout put together a separate service for 13- to 17-year-olds with safety features such as parental controls.

In addition, Skout devoted a quarter of its staff to monitoring activity to flag nudity, and to check chats for inappropriate sexual messages, profanity, spamming, copyright infringement and violent behavior. The service also banned tens of thousands of infringing devices every month.

In spite of Skout's efforts, three children were allegedly targeted, raped or molested.
- No amount of spying or passing of draconian laws will prevent someone from committing a crime.

There's no lack of security to protect against the type of age falsification that creates problems on Facebook and sites such as Skout.

Reuters pointed to one such provider, Aristotle International Inc., which offers methods such as having a parent vouch for a child with a token credit card payment.

The problem is, nobody's buying.

The downsides of such technology: it bleeds away sites' profits because it costs money, and it drives away children who crave unfettered freedom of communication.

Children's natural development includes the need to break away from their families as they seek independence.

Tragically, there are no end of online venues that have the look and feel of sanctuaries where it's safe to do that in the presence of peers.

It's crucial to somehow get through to them that those sanctuaries can be smoke and mirrors, and that those supposed peers can all too easily be dangerous predators.

Parents, law enforcement, you have my sympathy. The task seems overwhelmingly daunting.

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PETITION - Celebrate freedom. Support a free and open Internet

Original Article

More than any time in history, more people in more places have the ability to make their voices heard.

Just as we celebrate freedom, we need to celebrate the tools that support freedom.

Add your voice in support of a free and open Internet.

Video Link

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UK - Digital Surveillance / Big Brother Plans to be announced by Queen Elizabeth Speech

Video Link

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VA - Virginia Supreme Court hears appeal in case over police use of GPS tracking

Original Article

06/07/2012

RICHMOND — A lawyer for a sex offender asked the Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse his client’s conviction, arguing police failed to obtain a search warrant before using an electronic tracking device to monitor his whereabouts.

Amid a series of sexual assaults in northern Virginia, Fairfax County police put a tracking device on a van [name withheld] drove for work because they suspected him in the attacks. He was a suspect in part because of his past sexual assault conviction.

GPS data indicated the van was at the scene of a sexual assault in February 2008, so police deployed officers to follow him. Later that month, they saw [name withheld] knock a woman to the ground and try to unbutton her pants. The officers intervened and arrested [name withheld], who was convicted of abduction with intent to defile and sentenced to life in prison.

In arguing Thursday to overturn the conviction, [name withheld]’s attorney Christopher Leibig cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in January that police cannot install GPS technology to track suspects without a warrant.

Virginia Theisen, a lawyer with the state attorney general’s office, argued that there was a gap in time between the GPS monitoring and the attempted assault, which makes the officers’ testimony admissible.

Police gathered evidence by “old-fashioned” surveillance that helped them identify [name withheld] and ultimately stop his attempted assault, she said.

“He was already a suspect,” she said. “This was why they used GPS.”

Leibig, however, argued police relied on the three hours of GPS surveillance to help build the case against [name withheld].

Theisen acknowledged the police acted illegally when using the tracking device, but argued that officers’ eyewitness evidence was admissible.

Judges asked whether it mattered that [name withheld]’s employer, and not [name withheld] himself, was the owner of the van being tracked.

Leibig said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said there’s no distinction based on vehicle ownership, because it’s the person inside the vehicle, not the vehicle itself, being tracked.

Courts in several states are addressing the GPS tracking issue in light of the high court’s ruling.

The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled in March that police must get a warrant from a judge before using GPS technology to track a suspect over an extended period. The ruling overturned the drug convictions of [name withheld], who was charged after GPS tracking led to drugs and other evidence in a storage locker.

In Kentucky, a federal judge last month ruled that police illegally used a GPS device on a suspect and barred prosecutors from using the discovery of 150 pounds of marijuana as evidence.

While the Supreme Court ruled police need warrants to employ GPS tracking devices, it didn’t specify whether law enforcement agencies need warrants to track suspects by their cell phone signals, which also transmit geolocation information.

Federal lawmakers are considering legislation that would require law enforcement officials to obtain court warrants to collect cell phone data.

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Google Problems? BrandYourself Helps You Control Search Results Of Your Name

Original Article

This all sounds good, but the same problem exists. What if 15 people all have the same name, and they all use this service? They will all be fighting on who gets top spot. So it may be good for some, but not everyone, IMO.

03/22/2012

Peter Kistler used to have a Google problem.

In college, he discovered a startling reason why so few employers were responding to his resume on job boards: The first result that showed up when someone Googled Kistler's name was an article about a convicted sex offender who had used drugs and done jail time. But Kistler's record was clean. The article was about another man with the same name and a long rap sheet.

"I am not a drug dealer," reads the message on the sign that Kistler holds in a promotional photo for the startup he co-founded after this discovery. The company, BrandYourself, aims to help people control what shows up when others Google their name.

On BrandYourself's website, users can submit three web pages that they would like to appear in the top spots of their name's Google search results, along with any content they wish to bury. BrandYourself analyzes each piece of content and provides tools and tactics to increase or reduce its visibility on Google, all at no cost to the user. Boosting or burying more than three pieces of content through BrandYourself's site costs a subscription fee, with pricing that starts at $9.99 a month.

That's less than what most online reputation firms charge for such services. Online reputation firms tend to target businesses with marketing budgets or doctors and lawyers willing to pay relatively hefty fees for others to polish their Internet image. Reputation.com, one such reputation firm, charges its customers at least $1,000 a year, or $83 a month.

"We hated that these firms overcharged customers for something they could easily do themselves if they simply had a platform that educated and empowered them to do so," BrandYourself's site states.

But does BrandYourself really work? After all, there's a ton of value in controlling the top spots of your Google results. A recent study found that more than 94 percent of users click on the first page of results, while less than 6 percent visit the second page and select a result displayed there.

To find out, I decided to try out BrandYourself for myself by submitting two articles that I'm particularly proud of. The site instructed me to follow some basic steps to boost the pages' rankings. Then about a week later, I received an email alerting me to the fact that the two articles now reside in the No. 2 and No. 3 spots of Google search results for my name.

Thankfully, I have nothing too damning to bury (save a few spring break Facebook photos). Turns out, the same goes for the average BrandYourself user, according to Patrick Ambron, one of the company's three cofounders. "Most of our users aren't on the platform to fix a Google problem," he said. "They simply want to be more visible, which is why the product is free, to help those people as well."

According to a 2010 study by the research firm Cross-Tab Marketing Services, 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human resources professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about their candidates. And 70 percent of the surveyed recruiters said they have rejected candidates because of information found online.

"The first few results of your name are all you've got," said Dan Schwabel, managing partner of Millenial Branding LLC, a personal branding agency.

"Searchers -- whether they're recruiters or consumers -- have little time to gather information about who you are," Schwabel said. "They're increasingly relying on Google and social networks, and if you can't put your best foot forward there, or if you don't appear at all, they're going to go with someone else."

Here are six easy steps -- based on Ambron's advice -- to adopt so you can start taking control of your own results:

1. Google yourself. Most people find that the top search results for their name fall into one of three categories: negative, irrelevant and the "hey that's not me" sort. Once you know the results for your name, you can take action.
2. Claim your domain name. Visit a site like GoDaddy.com and purchase all domains containing your name (yourname.com, yourname.me, etc.). It's the most important thing you can do for 10 bucks. These show up high in searches for your name. So even if you're not planning to create a personal website, you'll prevent others from hijacking Google search results of your name.
3. Build a personal website. With free tools like Wordpress and Tumblr, anyone can quickly build a website. This will be an important hub of information about you that shows up high in results.
4. Set up profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Search engines tend to rank these social networks' links high, so you should definitely have a presence on them. Even if you don't plan on using your accounts much, it keeps other people from hijacking search results of your name.
5. Do some basic search engine optimization. Use your name wherever possible (Patrick Ambron not Pattyboy22, say), and link all your various pieces of online content to one another. This gives your content a huge boost.
6. Sign up for alerts. When your name ­appears in a news article or blog post, Google.com/alerts will let you know about it. Socialmention.com also provides alerts that will inform you when your name pops up in a tweet or is tagged in a photo on Flickr or ­Facebook.

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SOPA replacement uses child porn as excuse to spy on 99.7 percent of Americans

View the video here

Video Description:
The SOPA and PIPA bills that went down in flames earlier this year for their unbearable intrusiveness, used content piracy as an excuse to give the government powerful tools with which to censor Internet content.

For 2012 the primary author of those bills has switched to a fallback tactic: using child porn as an excuse to create a vast surveillance network from which the government can demand data on every email sent, site visited or link clicked on by all but a fraction of one percent of the U.S. population.

Internet anti-censorship advocates including Anonymous are calling for the ouster of Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, who is following his co-sponsorship of the failed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) with a bill critics call "Big Brother" disguised as an effort to curb child porn and sexual abuse.

Last May Smith, a Texas Republican credited as primary author of both SOPA and PIPA, the Senate version, also introduced H.R. 1981, a bill called the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″ (PCFIPA).

The anti-child-porn provisions in the bill are a "fig leaf for its true purpose: A sweeping data retention requirement meant to turn Internet Service Providers and online companies into surrogate snoops for the government's convenience," according to Julian Sanchez, Internet privacy and censorship researcherat the center-right Cato Institute.

Smoke and mirrors concealing observers watching you from behind the smoky mirrors

The bill amends existing laws empowering the U.S. Marshals Service to issue subpoenas and chase fugitives.

The amendments expand the Marshals' ability to issue subpoenas and adds online pornographers to their list of top targets.

The important, though administrivia-looking part of the bill is this: "A provider of an electronic communication service... shall retain for a period of at least 18 months the temporarily assigned network addresses the service assigns to each account... records retained pursuant to section 2703(h) of title 18, United States Code..." -- FCPIFA, H.R. 1981 ISPs are already required to keep some customers' activity records for 180 days, so this doesn't look like a big change.

Except, PCFIPA, HR 1981, requires ISPs keep track of every single IP address they assign (except to wireless users) and all the activity flowing across that link.

It doesn't limit itself to just ISPs, either. By addressing the bill to cover any company providing "electronic communications" or "remote computing" services, the bill effectively covers any site offering services online.

PCFIPA, HR 1981, reverses that point of view (as did PIPA and SOPA), to create a vast database of every action of ever American online -- a deep pool of data on the activity of millions of Internet users, through whose private activity they can sift at will until they find something that looks like evidence of a crime.

That's exactly the opposite of the intent of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment prevents police from searching, questioning, holding or otherwise harassing suspects unless a judge agrees there's a good reason to investigate a specific person for a specific crime.

View the video here

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Disposable email - An excellent tool for advocates

NOTE: We have also placed a link to these services on the left of this blog, so you can get to them later, if you do not add them to your favorites.

10 Minute Mail:

By clicking on the link below, you will be given a temporary e-mail address. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them. The e-mail address will expire after 10 minutes.

Why would you use this? Maybe you want to sign up for a site which requires that you provide an e-mail address to send a validation e-mail to. And maybe you don't want to give up your real e-mail address and end up on a bunch of spam lists. This is nice and disposable. And it's free. Enjoy!

Get my 10 Minute Mail e-mail address, or watch a tutorial video.

Guerrilla Mail:

Guerrilla Mail gives you a disposable email address which lasts for 60 minutes. There is no need to register, simply visit Guerrilla Mail and a random address will be set. You can also choose your own address.

You can give your email address to whoever you do not trust. You can view the email on Guerrilla Mail, click on any confirmation link, then delete it. Any future spam sent to the disposable email will be zapped by Guerrilla Mail, never reaching your mail box, keeping your mail box safe and clean.

Visit Guerrilla Mail

Video Link

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Privacy software, criminal use

Original Article

03/08/2012

By Jenifer B. McKim

Unintended consequence of Walpole firm’s technology

A Walpole nonprofit company, largely funded by the federal government, is inadvertently providing child pornographers, drug dealers, and other criminals around the world with software that allows them to remain anonymous on the Internet.

The little-known organization, Tor Project Inc., says its free program is designed to help people protect themselves from Internet surveillance. Users include those speaking out against oppressive political regimes in other countries, corporate whistle-blowers, law enforcement officials, and domestic abuse victims.

But the software, which can easily be downloaded from the Tor Project website, also is attracting a growing number of people who trade illegal pornographic material and buy and sell drugs on a part of the Web known as the “darknet,’’ according to federal authorities, advocates for children, and Internet specialists.

Its use for illicit purposes creates new challenges for law enforcement officials hunting increasingly technologically savvy criminals, and highlights the sometimes unwanted consequences of protecting free speech online.

The darknet is “a secret Internet,’’ said Chester Wisniewski, senior adviser at Burlington computer security company Sophos Inc. “It’s free speech to the extreme. It’s really tragic there are some sickos using this same technology for their purposes.’’

The Tor Project is widely considered the largest service in the world that allows users to navigate the Internet anonymously. Andrew Lewman, the organization’s executive director, said he is approached regularly by law enforcement officials whose investigations have been frustrated by Tor technology, which hampers authorities’ ability to identify suspected online criminals and masks the origin of child pornography and drug-dealing websites.

But Lewman said Tor Project and its software can’t be blamed for aiding crimes in the same way cellphone and computer makers should not be held accountable for the misuse of those devices. He has rejected informal requests by law enforcement agencies to create a way for them to identify Tor users, saying it would defeat the purpose of the software. But Lewman said he is willing to help investigators better understand the technology, and provides a link on the Tor website for anybody to report evidence of child pornography.

“I’m not going to compromise Tor,’’ said Lewman, who works out of a small storefront office on Main Street in Walpole. “‘Good’ is so relative around the world. I bet the Egyptian government didn’t think their activists were good.’’

Tor stands for “the onion routing’’ project, initiated by the US Naval Research Laboratory in the 1990s to camouflage government communications by sending messages through a system of computers. The project was expanded in 2001 by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who made the technology more accessible to civilians. An added feature called “hidden services,’’ launched in 2004, allows people to publish and visit websites without being identified.

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Tor - Anonymity Online

Click the image to visit the site

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Electronic Frontier Foundation introduces HTTPS Everywhere

Click the image to visit the site and install the plug-in

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Busting Myths About Online Safety

Original Article

12/14/2011

By Larry Magid

I’ve been working in the online safety field since 1993 when I wrote Child Safety on the Information Highway for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. That document was based on what we thought we knew at the time — before there was any research about the way kids and teens actually use the Internet. It’s still reasonably good advice for young kids, but it’s no longer what I’m telling people about pre-teens and teens. Unfortunately, some people are still using that advice from 1993 to apply to all kids.

Since then we have learned a great deal about online safety, including the fact that most kids are doing pretty well. Although there are risks, many of the things that adults worry about are far less likely than some imagine.

Though there have been some confirmed cases of children and teens being sexually molested by adults they meet online, the risk of a teen or child being harmed by an online predator is actually very low. It can be terrible when it happens, but it happens very rarely.

Even the risk of cyberbullying and sexting have been exaggerated. As I point out in this article, Cyberbulling is a serious problem, but it’s not an epidemic. Sexting, as a recent study from the Crimes Against Research Center just demonstrated, is far less prominent than some early reports have indicated.

Adults still need to be concerned about kid and teen safety but we need to take an approach that respects kids (especially as they start to mature) and recognizes that most kids have better judgement than we give them credit for.

Useful resources:

• Online Safety FAQ
• ConnectSafely.org*
• SafeKids.com*
• Online Privacy Primer
• Online Teens Actually Head Parents Advice
• Predator Panic: A Risky Distraction
• Norms Approach Beats Fear and Exaggeration for Motivating Behavior (a slideshow)

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org and founder of SafeKids.com.

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URGENT - The PROTECT IP Act Is Very Real and Very Bad — Call Now to Block It

Original Article

11/28/2011

By Parker Higgins

The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) is the evil step-sister of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the much-criticized Internet blacklist bill introduced in the House last month. They’ve got a lot in common — both bills would allow the government and private rightsholders to censor the Internet for Americans, and both bills have faced strong opposition from regular citizens, business leaders, and public interest groups.

In one way, though, PIPA is much worse: while SOPA is still in the House committee stage and has been the target of extraordinary public opposition, PIPA is already out of committee and poised for consideration of the full Senate. That means PIPA is a few dangerous steps further along in the process of becoming law. And with only a few weeks to go in this legislative session, the Senate may try to rush the bill through before the public has a chance to respond.

We're not going to let that happen. Despite their efforts to push this through under the radar, folks who care about the Internet and innovation are tracking this bill and getting the word out. You can help, in an old-school and very effective way: Pick up the phone.

Right now, the best response to this threat is to let your Senator hear your voice, explaining why you as a constituent think PIPA is such a bad idea. That’s why we’ve joined with many other public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, Fight for the Future, Demand Progress and others, in asking the public to call in to the Senate.

Even if you’ve already used our action alert (and thank you), please take a few minutes now and get on the phone with your Senator’s office. Let them know that Internet censorship is unacceptable.

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Lying on your Match.com profile could soon become a prosecutable crime

Original Article

Next we will be required to give our real names on all web sites, which is nothing more than an invasion of privacy.

11/16/2011

By Nina Golgowski

Single men and women may soon be able to release a sigh of relief before web browsing their next eligible date.

The U.S. Department of Justice proposed violations of a websites' terms and conditions as a prosecutable crime Tuesday.

While focused on crimes infringing national security, indirect beneficiaries to the proposal would be users of social media sites like Match.com, which advertises itself as a means of connecting single adult users through other users' profiles.

Often times, users' profiles are fabricated, however, casually disobeying the sites' stated rules of honesty by its users.

The amendments proposed to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by Deputy Section Chief Richard Downing, would mandate users to abide by all website conditions, such as Match.com's which restricts its users to: being at least 18 years of age, single or separated from their spouse and having never been convicted of a felony nor a registered sex offender.

In a statement delivered by Mr Downing to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, he expressed his concern of difficulty or impossibility in deterring and addressing 'serious insider threats through prosecution' without amending the act.

While married men and women browsing dating sites with fabricated profile information wasn't named specifically by Mr Downing as a rational to his arguments Wednesday, single, honest users would still benefit from his proposals, which was generally pitched to decrease abuse by employees and contractors to employer's secure online information.

'Through this ongoing work, it has become clear that our Nation cannot improve its ability to defend against cyber threats unless certain laws that govern cybersecurity activities are updated, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,' Mr Downing said in his statement.

The CFA Act had been previously used by the department in prosecuting a woman in 2008 who created a MySpace account pretending to be a teenage boy.
- Creating the profile wasn't the problem, it was the harassment and defamation, which are already crimes.

She was accused of using this account to fool and harass a 13-year-old girl to the point that she committed suicide.

The woman, Lori Drew, violating the site's terms of service which prohibits impersonation by its users, was found in violation of the act.
- This is just absurd, IMO.  So are we going to start prosecuting children and throwing them in prison for lying when they lie to get into a bar or purchase cigarettes?  Just someone posting something on their web site, doesn't make it a law or "act!"

Her case was thrown out, however, after the judge said that Drew's violation of a social network's terms of service would carry over to anyone else who has ever violated them, proving too broad of a decision.

The amendments to the act would find future violators guilty.

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