By John Ozimek via The Register, 15th December 2009 13:38 GMT
Details of Australian ISP blocking now public
The Australian government announced new laws today – or yesterday in local time – that will force all Australia-based ISP’s to block dodgy material entering the country from overseas, or face swingeing penalties if they fail to do so.
The announcement came in an official statement from the Department of Communications which made clear the Government’s intention to "introduce legislative amendments to require all ISPs in Australia to use ISP level filtering to block overseas hosted Refused Classification (RC) material on the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) RC Content list".
They added: "Content defined under the National Classification Scheme as Refused Classification includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act."
This represents a retreat from initial hazy plans to introduce a great state-run firewall to shield the country from the tidal wave of "unsuitable material" that lurked just outside its shores. Insofar as the scheme is actually workable, it is viewed by many as a dangerous assault on freedom of speech in Australia.
The Register spoke to Colin Jacobs, Vice-Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA). He confirmed the gradual evolution of government thinking, from the technologically unfeasible through to the solution advocated today. He explained that the present government were elected on a platform that included protecting the nation from child abuse on the internet. This quickly translated into vague plans for some sort of shield, and a long drawn-out testing process to "prove" that filtering based on the Australian Communications and Media Authority [ACMA] blacklist would not excessively degrade internet speed.
According to the Communications Department, the tests carried out have shown that this can be done. Mr Jacobs said: "The real problem was never technical, but political. Although the government rhetoric is all based on child abuse, only about a third of existing RC material could be considered to be child abuse: the RC classification is notorious for including all manner of material on grounds it might incite crime."
That is the presumed reason why a Youtube film site on euthanasia has been included on the RC list. The Australian ratings system is also notorious for not having an R18 categories for games, which means that many games passed for play in the UK and the rest of the world are simply banned in Australia. In recognition of this, the announcement from the Communications Department highlights an ongoing consultation on the status of RC as classification. Mr Jacobs added: "It is not at all clear why the RC list includes many gambling sites – as well as that of an Australian dentist, who suffered the misfortune of having his site hacked some years previously".
The Australian government is keen to draw parallels between this list and the IWF scheme in the UK. EFA Supporter and Register reader Cameron Watt explained: "A key difference is that it is mandatory, leaving little leeway for ISP’s to make mistakes. That is likely to create a need for greater network complexity and add to the cost overhead. "It will also be state run, leaving the suspicion that even if people agreed 100% with what is on the list now, a future government might block more widely. There are already suspicions that [Communications Minister] Stephen Conroy is anticipating the result of a landmark copyright case and is thinking of using filtering as a means to block piracy."
Not unsurprisingly, the Australian Sex Party is spitting feathers. Their official blogger writes: "I have just started reading the Enex report into mandatory filtering and my blood is already starting to boil." More seriously, their concern is that if filtering ends up being applied at site level, almost every X-rated site to which Australians have access now will eventually be blocked.
Equally unsurprisingly, the Australian Christian Lobby were supportive of the government announcement, and are nudging already for the principle to be extended further to "deal with other harmful X and R-rated material on the internet".
Further links:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/15/china_domain_regs/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8413377.stm
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Video games linked to ADD? Say it ain't ooh butterfly
By Austin Modine in The Register
Pay attention now
Pity the brain that plays video games. Whether or not avid gaming turns one into bloodthirsty monster is a matter of open dispute among researchers, but one concession often observed is that video games at least trains mind and body to react faster. Alas, a new study from Iowa State University not only disputes this claim, but offers a sideways indication that there's "relation" between frequent video game playing and ADD. That ought to get them media hacks riled up.
Here's how gaming was shown to dull the wits. Hawkeye State boffins set up a test designed to quantify the effects of playing video games on two types of cognitive activity: proactive and reactive attention. Proactive attention is described as a "gearing up" mechanism, such as anticipating what action is needed next to progress in a game. Reactive attention is described as a "just in time" response, like to monster jumping out in front of the player. The test used a basic visual task on both "frequent" video game players (those who play four hours or more per day) and occasional players while measuring their brain waves and behavioral responses. Individual subjects were asked to identify the color of a word when it was sometimes written with a different color than what the word represents. For example, the word "RED" could be written in the color red, or it could be written in color blue.
The idea is that because we have a tendency to read words automatically, a person must concentrate harder in order to quickly name the actual color when it's different than the word. This cognitive gag is known as the Stroop Task among academics. While reactive control was similar in the two groups of gamers, brain wave and behavioral measures of proactive attention was found to be "significantly diminished" in frequent video game players according to the media release. It then takes an interesting leap in logic: These data reveal a reduction in brain activity and disruption of behavior associated with sustained attention ability related to video game experience, which converges with other recent findings indicating that there is a relation between frequent video game playing and ADD.
The study itself will be published in the upcoming October issue of the journal, Psychophysiology. We emailed the co-author of the study, Kira Bailey, to ask if the release's throwaway gaming-to-ADD link is a fair conclusion of the research, but have not received a response as of publication. Regardless, expect the ADD link to be added to the anti-gaming advocate tool chest. That noise you hear is Jack Thompson cackling manically in Florida.
Update
We received a response from two of the study's authors, Kira Bailey and Robert West on October 15: The statement from the press release is partially correct. A recent study by Dr. Douglas Gentile, one of our colleagues at Iowa State University*, found that youth that were pathological gamers (i.e., addicted to video games) were 2.77 times more likely to report being diagnosed with an attention deficit (ADD or ADHD) than youth who were not pathological gamers. So there does seem to be some relationship between increased or high levels of video game experience and difficulties with attention in daily life.
The practical meaning of our findings is that playing lots of action video games may bias individuals away from a proactive or plan full mode of responding in situations that do not naturally hold attention and possibly toward a reactive mode of responding. At this point in time we don't know whether this effect is a direct cause of playing video games or whether it is a characteristic of folks who like to play a lot of video games.
*Gentile, D. (2009). Pathological video-game use among youth ages 8 to 18: A national survey. Psychological Science, 20, 594-602.
Pay attention now
Pity the brain that plays video games. Whether or not avid gaming turns one into bloodthirsty monster is a matter of open dispute among researchers, but one concession often observed is that video games at least trains mind and body to react faster. Alas, a new study from Iowa State University not only disputes this claim, but offers a sideways indication that there's "relation" between frequent video game playing and ADD. That ought to get them media hacks riled up.
Here's how gaming was shown to dull the wits. Hawkeye State boffins set up a test designed to quantify the effects of playing video games on two types of cognitive activity: proactive and reactive attention. Proactive attention is described as a "gearing up" mechanism, such as anticipating what action is needed next to progress in a game. Reactive attention is described as a "just in time" response, like to monster jumping out in front of the player. The test used a basic visual task on both "frequent" video game players (those who play four hours or more per day) and occasional players while measuring their brain waves and behavioral responses. Individual subjects were asked to identify the color of a word when it was sometimes written with a different color than what the word represents. For example, the word "RED" could be written in the color red, or it could be written in color blue.
The idea is that because we have a tendency to read words automatically, a person must concentrate harder in order to quickly name the actual color when it's different than the word. This cognitive gag is known as the Stroop Task among academics. While reactive control was similar in the two groups of gamers, brain wave and behavioral measures of proactive attention was found to be "significantly diminished" in frequent video game players according to the media release. It then takes an interesting leap in logic: These data reveal a reduction in brain activity and disruption of behavior associated with sustained attention ability related to video game experience, which converges with other recent findings indicating that there is a relation between frequent video game playing and ADD.
The study itself will be published in the upcoming October issue of the journal, Psychophysiology. We emailed the co-author of the study, Kira Bailey, to ask if the release's throwaway gaming-to-ADD link is a fair conclusion of the research, but have not received a response as of publication. Regardless, expect the ADD link to be added to the anti-gaming advocate tool chest. That noise you hear is Jack Thompson cackling manically in Florida.
Update
We received a response from two of the study's authors, Kira Bailey and Robert West on October 15: The statement from the press release is partially correct. A recent study by Dr. Douglas Gentile, one of our colleagues at Iowa State University*, found that youth that were pathological gamers (i.e., addicted to video games) were 2.77 times more likely to report being diagnosed with an attention deficit (ADD or ADHD) than youth who were not pathological gamers. So there does seem to be some relationship between increased or high levels of video game experience and difficulties with attention in daily life.
The practical meaning of our findings is that playing lots of action video games may bias individuals away from a proactive or plan full mode of responding in situations that do not naturally hold attention and possibly toward a reactive mode of responding. At this point in time we don't know whether this effect is a direct cause of playing video games or whether it is a characteristic of folks who like to play a lot of video games.
*Gentile, D. (2009). Pathological video-game use among youth ages 8 to 18: A national survey. Psychological Science, 20, 594-602.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
The 'youngest headmaster in the world'
Around the world millions of children are not getting a proper education because their families are too poor to afford to send them to school. In India, one schoolboy is trying change that. In the first report in the BBC's Hunger to Learn series, Damian Grammaticas meets Babar Ali, whose remarkable education project is transforming the lives of hundreds of poor children. At 16 years old, Babar Ali must be the youngest headmaster in the world. He's a teenager who is in charge of teaching hundreds of students in his family's backyard, where he runs classes for poor children from his village. The story of this young man from Murshidabad in West Bengal is a remarkable tale of the desire to learn amid the direst poverty.
Babar Ali's day starts early. He wakes, pitches in with the household chores, then jumps on an auto-rickshaw which takes him part of the 10km (six mile) ride to the Raj Govinda school. The last couple of kilometres he has to walk. The school is the best in this part of West Bengal. There are hundreds of students, boys and girls. The classrooms are neat, if bare. But there are desks, chairs, a blackboard, and the teachers are all dedicated and well-qualified. As the class 12 roll-call is taken, Babar Ali is seated in the middle in the front row. He's a tall, slim, gangly teenager, studious and smart in his blue and white uniform. He takes his notes carefully. He is the model student. Babar Ali is the first member of his family ever to get a proper education."It's not easy for me to come to school because I live so far away," he says, "but the teachers are good and I love learning. And my parents believe I must get the best education possible that's why I am here."
Raj Govinda school is government-run so it is free, all Babar Ali has to pay for is his uniform, his books and the rickshaw ride to get there. But still that means his family has to find around 1,800 rupees a year ($40, £25) to send him to school. In this part of West Bengal that is a lot of money. Many poor families simply can't afford to send their children to school, even when it is free. Chumki Hajra is one who has never been to school. She is 14 years old and lives in a tiny shack with her grandmother. Their home is simple A-frame supporting a thatched roof next to the rice paddies and coconut palms at the edge of the village. Inside the hut there is just room for a bed and a few possessions. Every morning, instead of going to school, she scrubs the dishes and cleans the homes of her neighbours. She's done this ever since she was five. For her work she earns just 200 rupees a month ($5, £3). It's not much, but it's money her family desperately needs. And it means that she has to work as a servant everyday in the village. "My father is handicapped and can't work," Chumki tells me as she scrubs a pot. "We need the money. If I don't work, we can't survive as a family. So I have no choice but to do this job."
But Chumki is now getting an education, thanks to Babar Ali. The 16-year-old has made it his mission to help Chumki and hundreds of other poor children in his village. The minute his lessons are over at Raj Govinda school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village. At four o'clock every afternoon after Babar Ali gets back to his family home a bell summons children to his house. They flood through the gate into the yard behind his house, where Babar Ali now acts as headmaster of his own, unofficial school. Lined up in his back yard the children sing the national anthem. Standing on a podium, Babar Ali lectures them about discipline, then study begins. Babar Ali gives lessons just the way he has heard them from his teachers. Some children are seated in the mud, others on rickety benches under a rough, homemade shelter. The family chickens scratch around nearby. In every corner of the yard are groups of children studying hard. Babar Ali was just nine when he began teaching a few friends as a game. They were all eager to know what he learnt in school every morning and he liked playing at being their teacher. “ Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate ”
Now his afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working, like Chumki, as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work labouring in the fields. "In the beginning I was just play-acting, teaching my friends," Babar Ali says, "but then I realised these children will never learn to read and write if they don't have proper lessons. It's my duty to educate them, to help our country build a better future." Including Babar Ali there are now 10 teachers at the school, all, like him are students at school or college, who give their time voluntarily. Babar Ali doesn't charge for anything, even books and food are given free, funded by donations. It means even the poorest can come here. "Our area is economically deprived," he says. "Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate."
Seated on a rough bench squeezed in with about a dozen other girls, Chumki Hajra is busy scribbling notes. Her dedication to learning is incredible to see. Every day she works in homes in the village from six in the morning until half past two in the afternoon, then she heads to Babar Ali's school. At seven every evening she heads back to do more cleaning work. Chumki's dream is to one day become a nurse, and Babar Ali's classes might just make it possible. The school has been recognised by the local authorities, it has helped increase literacy rates in the area, and Babar Ali has won awards for his work. The youngest children are just four or five, and they are all squeezed in to a tiny veranda. There are just a couple of bare electric bulbs to give light as lessons stretch into the evening, and only if there is electricity. And then the monsoon rain begins. Huge drops fall as the children scurry for cover, slipping in the mud. They crowd under a piece of plastic sheeting. Babar Ali shouts an order. Lessons are cancelled for the afternoon otherwise everyone will be soaked. Having no classrooms means lessons are at the mercy of the elements. The children climb onto the porch of a nearby shop as the rain pours down. Then they hurry home through the downpour. Tomorrow they'll be back though. Eight hundred poor children, unable to afford an education, but hungry for anything they can learn at Babar Ali's school.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm
Babar Ali's day starts early. He wakes, pitches in with the household chores, then jumps on an auto-rickshaw which takes him part of the 10km (six mile) ride to the Raj Govinda school. The last couple of kilometres he has to walk. The school is the best in this part of West Bengal. There are hundreds of students, boys and girls. The classrooms are neat, if bare. But there are desks, chairs, a blackboard, and the teachers are all dedicated and well-qualified. As the class 12 roll-call is taken, Babar Ali is seated in the middle in the front row. He's a tall, slim, gangly teenager, studious and smart in his blue and white uniform. He takes his notes carefully. He is the model student. Babar Ali is the first member of his family ever to get a proper education."It's not easy for me to come to school because I live so far away," he says, "but the teachers are good and I love learning. And my parents believe I must get the best education possible that's why I am here."
Raj Govinda school is government-run so it is free, all Babar Ali has to pay for is his uniform, his books and the rickshaw ride to get there. But still that means his family has to find around 1,800 rupees a year ($40, £25) to send him to school. In this part of West Bengal that is a lot of money. Many poor families simply can't afford to send their children to school, even when it is free. Chumki Hajra is one who has never been to school. She is 14 years old and lives in a tiny shack with her grandmother. Their home is simple A-frame supporting a thatched roof next to the rice paddies and coconut palms at the edge of the village. Inside the hut there is just room for a bed and a few possessions. Every morning, instead of going to school, she scrubs the dishes and cleans the homes of her neighbours. She's done this ever since she was five. For her work she earns just 200 rupees a month ($5, £3). It's not much, but it's money her family desperately needs. And it means that she has to work as a servant everyday in the village. "My father is handicapped and can't work," Chumki tells me as she scrubs a pot. "We need the money. If I don't work, we can't survive as a family. So I have no choice but to do this job."
But Chumki is now getting an education, thanks to Babar Ali. The 16-year-old has made it his mission to help Chumki and hundreds of other poor children in his village. The minute his lessons are over at Raj Govinda school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village. At four o'clock every afternoon after Babar Ali gets back to his family home a bell summons children to his house. They flood through the gate into the yard behind his house, where Babar Ali now acts as headmaster of his own, unofficial school. Lined up in his back yard the children sing the national anthem. Standing on a podium, Babar Ali lectures them about discipline, then study begins. Babar Ali gives lessons just the way he has heard them from his teachers. Some children are seated in the mud, others on rickety benches under a rough, homemade shelter. The family chickens scratch around nearby. In every corner of the yard are groups of children studying hard. Babar Ali was just nine when he began teaching a few friends as a game. They were all eager to know what he learnt in school every morning and he liked playing at being their teacher. “ Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate ”
Now his afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working, like Chumki, as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work labouring in the fields. "In the beginning I was just play-acting, teaching my friends," Babar Ali says, "but then I realised these children will never learn to read and write if they don't have proper lessons. It's my duty to educate them, to help our country build a better future." Including Babar Ali there are now 10 teachers at the school, all, like him are students at school or college, who give their time voluntarily. Babar Ali doesn't charge for anything, even books and food are given free, funded by donations. It means even the poorest can come here. "Our area is economically deprived," he says. "Without this school many kids wouldn't get an education, they'd never even be literate."
Seated on a rough bench squeezed in with about a dozen other girls, Chumki Hajra is busy scribbling notes. Her dedication to learning is incredible to see. Every day she works in homes in the village from six in the morning until half past two in the afternoon, then she heads to Babar Ali's school. At seven every evening she heads back to do more cleaning work. Chumki's dream is to one day become a nurse, and Babar Ali's classes might just make it possible. The school has been recognised by the local authorities, it has helped increase literacy rates in the area, and Babar Ali has won awards for his work. The youngest children are just four or five, and they are all squeezed in to a tiny veranda. There are just a couple of bare electric bulbs to give light as lessons stretch into the evening, and only if there is electricity. And then the monsoon rain begins. Huge drops fall as the children scurry for cover, slipping in the mud. They crowd under a piece of plastic sheeting. Babar Ali shouts an order. Lessons are cancelled for the afternoon otherwise everyone will be soaked. Having no classrooms means lessons are at the mercy of the elements. The children climb onto the porch of a nearby shop as the rain pours down. Then they hurry home through the downpour. Tomorrow they'll be back though. Eight hundred poor children, unable to afford an education, but hungry for anything they can learn at Babar Ali's school.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm
Friday, 2 October 2009
Newsy: The News Is Broken, But We Can Fix It
It’s old news that news consumers shield themselves from pesky dissenting viewpoints by patronizing only those outlets which present a comfortably conforming world view. The right religiously watches Fox News and the left MSNBC, a pattern that tends to emphasize differences rather than the things we have in common - especially when it comes to politics. The web and iPhone service Newsy, now in beta, hopes to help remedy the situation by creating short, original video clips with their own reporters highlighting how various sources reported the same news item. The sources comprise a gamut of news organizations and blogs around the world, including CNN, Al-Jazeera, BBC, ABC, The New York Times and Fox News.
http://www.newsy.com/
pp
[via]
http://www.newsy.com/
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Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com
[via]
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
Click here to download the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education--- this is a "must-read" little document that will open up the power of fair use!
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Australian Mediatheque
Opening to the public Friday 18 September 2009
A collaboration between the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Film and Sound Archive.
The Australian Mediatheque is the new national screen culture resource centre. Drop in to explore a wealth of Australian and international screen culture history, spanning film, television, digital culture, video art and sound materials.
Located in Melbourne, the Australian Mediatheque lets you access the nation's premier moving image collections - held by ACMI and the National Film and Sound Archive. It also showcases work from Australia's television networks, screen culture bodies and film schools.
From early footage of the Melbourne Cup and the landmark feature film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), to the latest award-winning animations and DIY digital filmmaking, you can access the moving image in all its diversity for research, learning and entertainment.
http://www.acmi.net.au/australian_mediatheque.htm
A collaboration between the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Film and Sound Archive.
The Australian Mediatheque is the new national screen culture resource centre. Drop in to explore a wealth of Australian and international screen culture history, spanning film, television, digital culture, video art and sound materials.
Located in Melbourne, the Australian Mediatheque lets you access the nation's premier moving image collections - held by ACMI and the National Film and Sound Archive. It also showcases work from Australia's television networks, screen culture bodies and film schools.
From early footage of the Melbourne Cup and the landmark feature film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), to the latest award-winning animations and DIY digital filmmaking, you can access the moving image in all its diversity for research, learning and entertainment.
http://www.acmi.net.au/australian_mediatheque.htm
Saturday, 22 August 2009
How to Handle Facebook Privacy Settings for Your Kids
by Leslie Harris, CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology.
The explosive growth of the social media site Facebook now boasts a user demographic so diverse that at least one family member in nearly every internet-savvy household is on it. The popularity and reach of Facebook represents an anomaly among today’s technology landscape: Households with children, parents and grandparents all using the same online service. This generational ubiquity provides several intriguing story lines, but perhaps the most relevant is the “teachable moment” that allows us to provide our kids with valuable life lessons on protecting their personal privacy in a digital world. Facebook is now a kind of “social hub” for teens. As the social network has increased its offerings and integrated more with third-party applications and software, it now functions as their main portal to all online communications including e-mails, news and chatting with friends. The convenience and functionality is the main pull for teens and, let’s face it, for adults, too. With such a strong reliance upon a relatively new technology, how can we ensure that our kids know how to stay safe as they integrate more and more of their lives onto Facebook?
The first step is to make sure you and your teen are making full use of the privacy controls that Facebook provides. Those controls allow users to decide whether and how personal information is distributed and to whom. Facebook users do not always make full use of privacy controls, perhaps because they do not have a full understanding of what personal information may be widely exposed when privacy is not taken into account. Now is the time to instill the privacy habit in your kids. If they make a habit of setting privacy controls on social networks, that lesson will carry over as they move into the workforce and begin to use the internet and other technologies for work and an increasing number of sensitive uses. Compared with other social networks, Facebook offers arguably some of the most extensive privacy-control settings out there (Allfacebook.com did an extensive post on the best ones), so it’s advisable to pick a few critical areas that are most relevant to your kids rather than bury them with a laundry list of do’s and don’ts. It’s also important that teens know there’s a difference between information that’s appropriate for casual friends (and later, “work friends”) and that better suited for “family” and probably other reserved only for their BFFs. Explaining the importance of grouping friends into lists to control information output is vital to a teen’s understanding of how big a shadow they cast online.
Now that you’ve set up the “who sees what” of the nuts and bolts of their personal lives, it’s a good time to tie in the photo privacy settings so your kids are aware that if they post it on Facebook and it’s embarrassing, the world can see it. Another key privacy setting is the level of connection another Facebook user needs to have with you in order to contact you. Controls can be set to allow only those who know you to send you messages or comments, which helps protect them from spammers and potentially dangerous interactions. Kids also need to know how to set contact information privacy settings to make their e-mail, phone number, screen name and even home address unavailable for public view. Since Facebook has begun to integrate more and more with third-party websites and applications, there is potentially a whole new arena of individuals and organizations that have access to the information stored in a Facebook profile. A key privacy setting that is often overlooked by even the most advanced social media users is the option to not allow your public profile to be accessible in search results outside of Facebook (i.e. Google or Yahoo searches). Your teens must be educated on how much of their information is out there and that they have a right, the ability and the responsibility to keep personal information private.
The responsibility to protect privacy does not rest with social network users alone. Industry must adopt strong privacy policies and the government must vigorously police those privacy promises. And Congress needs to step up to enact a baseline consumer privacy law to give users more information and a bigger say in whether there personal information is collected and how it is used. But the first line of defense in protecting privacy rests with the user. The privacy controls are getting better and more granular, now it’s your responsibility as a Geek Dad to make sure your kids use them.
See also: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/#comment-25000
The explosive growth of the social media site Facebook now boasts a user demographic so diverse that at least one family member in nearly every internet-savvy household is on it. The popularity and reach of Facebook represents an anomaly among today’s technology landscape: Households with children, parents and grandparents all using the same online service. This generational ubiquity provides several intriguing story lines, but perhaps the most relevant is the “teachable moment” that allows us to provide our kids with valuable life lessons on protecting their personal privacy in a digital world. Facebook is now a kind of “social hub” for teens. As the social network has increased its offerings and integrated more with third-party applications and software, it now functions as their main portal to all online communications including e-mails, news and chatting with friends. The convenience and functionality is the main pull for teens and, let’s face it, for adults, too. With such a strong reliance upon a relatively new technology, how can we ensure that our kids know how to stay safe as they integrate more and more of their lives onto Facebook?
The first step is to make sure you and your teen are making full use of the privacy controls that Facebook provides. Those controls allow users to decide whether and how personal information is distributed and to whom. Facebook users do not always make full use of privacy controls, perhaps because they do not have a full understanding of what personal information may be widely exposed when privacy is not taken into account. Now is the time to instill the privacy habit in your kids. If they make a habit of setting privacy controls on social networks, that lesson will carry over as they move into the workforce and begin to use the internet and other technologies for work and an increasing number of sensitive uses. Compared with other social networks, Facebook offers arguably some of the most extensive privacy-control settings out there (Allfacebook.com did an extensive post on the best ones), so it’s advisable to pick a few critical areas that are most relevant to your kids rather than bury them with a laundry list of do’s and don’ts. It’s also important that teens know there’s a difference between information that’s appropriate for casual friends (and later, “work friends”) and that better suited for “family” and probably other reserved only for their BFFs. Explaining the importance of grouping friends into lists to control information output is vital to a teen’s understanding of how big a shadow they cast online.
Now that you’ve set up the “who sees what” of the nuts and bolts of their personal lives, it’s a good time to tie in the photo privacy settings so your kids are aware that if they post it on Facebook and it’s embarrassing, the world can see it. Another key privacy setting is the level of connection another Facebook user needs to have with you in order to contact you. Controls can be set to allow only those who know you to send you messages or comments, which helps protect them from spammers and potentially dangerous interactions. Kids also need to know how to set contact information privacy settings to make their e-mail, phone number, screen name and even home address unavailable for public view. Since Facebook has begun to integrate more and more with third-party websites and applications, there is potentially a whole new arena of individuals and organizations that have access to the information stored in a Facebook profile. A key privacy setting that is often overlooked by even the most advanced social media users is the option to not allow your public profile to be accessible in search results outside of Facebook (i.e. Google or Yahoo searches). Your teens must be educated on how much of their information is out there and that they have a right, the ability and the responsibility to keep personal information private.
The responsibility to protect privacy does not rest with social network users alone. Industry must adopt strong privacy policies and the government must vigorously police those privacy promises. And Congress needs to step up to enact a baseline consumer privacy law to give users more information and a bigger say in whether there personal information is collected and how it is used. But the first line of defense in protecting privacy rests with the user. The privacy controls are getting better and more granular, now it’s your responsibility as a Geek Dad to make sure your kids use them.
See also: http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/#comment-25000
Friday, 21 August 2009
CBS Embeds a Video Playing Ad in a Print Magazine
In the latest example of finding media innovation where you’d least expect it, CBS is embedding a video player in a print ad in Entertainment Weekly that will serve up a buffet of its fall TV lineup.
The CBS foray into a print-digital alliance plays full-motion video at a crisp resolution. The ad, dubbed by CBS and partner Pepsi Max “the first-ever VIP (video-in-print) promotion,” works like one of those audio greeting cards. Opening the page activates the player, which is a quarter-inch–thick screen seen through a cutaway between two pages concealing the larger circuit board underneath.
The audio quality is equally good (extremely poor video shot by this reporter notwithstanding), but beware: There are no volume controls, and in a quiet environment, it’s quite loud. This is surely a intentional design feature, aimed at getting the attention of people nearby. Unlike the wholly unsatisfying debut of the e-ink cover in Esquire magazine last year, this works.
The video-enhancement will appear in the September issue of Entertainment Weekly, but only in what sounds like a relatively small subset of the circulation: The promo itself will be in every copy, but the video portion only in some subscriptions delivered to New York and Los Angeles. It was released Tuesday to media outlets.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/cbs-embeds-a-video-playing-ad-in-a-print-magazine/
Saturday, 8 August 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman
When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day. He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book. When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade - a bland grey.
LISTEN UP TEENAGERS... THE CLASSIC WALKMAN EXPLAINED
Sony Walkman
1: Clunky buttons
2: Switch to metal (that's a type of cassette, not heavy rock music)
3: Battery light - usually found flickering in its death throes
4: Double headphone jack (not to be found on an iPod)
5: Door ejects - watch out for flying tapes and eye injuries
Walkman v iPod: Scott's verdict
So it's not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else. From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed. As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: "No-one uses them any more." Another said: "Groovy." Yet another one quipped: "That would be hard to lose."
My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic. It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down 'rewind' and releasing it randomly Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.
Digital relief
Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player. You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.
Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis. Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Having said all that, portable music is better than no music. Now, for technically curious readers, I've directly compared the portable cassette player with its latter-day successor. Here are the main cons, and even a pro, I found with this piece of antique technology.
SOUND
This is the function that matters most. To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod. When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman. The warbling is probably because of the horrifically short battery life; it is nearly completely dead within three hours of firing it up. Not long after the music warbled into life, it abruptly ended.
CONVENIENCE
With the plethora of MP3 players available on the market nowadays, each boasting bigger and better features than its predecessor, it is hard to imagine the prospect of purchasing and using a bulky cassette player instead of a digital device. Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those?), which added even more bulk. As well as this, the need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod. Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology? "I remembered it fondly as a way to enjoy what music I liked, where I liked," he said. "But when I see it now, I wonder how I carried it!"
WALKMAN 1, MP3 PLAYER 0
But it's not all a one-way street when you line up a Walkman against an iPod. The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter. Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you're not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.
Scott Campbell co-edits his own news website, Net News Daily.
LISTEN UP TEENAGERS... THE CLASSIC WALKMAN EXPLAINED
Sony Walkman
1: Clunky buttons
2: Switch to metal (that's a type of cassette, not heavy rock music)
3: Battery light - usually found flickering in its death throes
4: Double headphone jack (not to be found on an iPod)
5: Door ejects - watch out for flying tapes and eye injuries
Walkman v iPod: Scott's verdict
So it's not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else. From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed. As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: "No-one uses them any more." Another said: "Groovy." Yet another one quipped: "That would be hard to lose."
My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic. It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down 'rewind' and releasing it randomly Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.
Digital relief
Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player. You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.
Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis. Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.
Having said all that, portable music is better than no music. Now, for technically curious readers, I've directly compared the portable cassette player with its latter-day successor. Here are the main cons, and even a pro, I found with this piece of antique technology.
SOUND
This is the function that matters most. To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod. When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman. The warbling is probably because of the horrifically short battery life; it is nearly completely dead within three hours of firing it up. Not long after the music warbled into life, it abruptly ended.
CONVENIENCE
With the plethora of MP3 players available on the market nowadays, each boasting bigger and better features than its predecessor, it is hard to imagine the prospect of purchasing and using a bulky cassette player instead of a digital device. Furthermore, there were a number of buttons protruding from the top and sides of this device to provide functions such as "rewinding" and "fast-forwarding" (remember those?), which added even more bulk. As well as this, the need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod. Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology? "I remembered it fondly as a way to enjoy what music I liked, where I liked," he said. "But when I see it now, I wonder how I carried it!"
WALKMAN 1, MP3 PLAYER 0
But it's not all a one-way street when you line up a Walkman against an iPod. The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter. Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you're not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.
Scott Campbell co-edits his own news website, Net News Daily.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
SYN MEDIA LEARNING WEEK
SYN MEDIA LEARNING WEEK: Teacher Professional Development Series AUGUST 24 – 28
Presented by SYN in partnership with the State Library of Victoria.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Mark Pesce - Young People, Digital Media and Your Classroom
Mark Pesce, one of Australia’s top ICT and social networking experts will address the value of new media as a learning tool and discuss how we can continue to keep up with shifts and trends in online technologies.
Thursday 27 August: 1:30 – 2:30pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
PANELS
Media Careers and Training Pathways: Panel Discussion
A diverse panel of media professionals and industry experts will discuss the many media pathways and opportunities available for young people. This is essential information to pass on to your students who are interested in the media and journalism, as well as related fields like the music industry, theatre, technical fields and ICT.
Monday 24 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
Gaming and Learning: Panel Discussion and Play
Games Industry and IT experts will help you learn and experience the educational potential of video games and gaming culture. Starting with a panel discussion on how games help students learn useful skills and ending with a chance to get your hands on some gaming consoles and play!
Friday 28 August: 1:00 – 4:00pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
WORKSHOPS
SYN Radio Tour
Take the tour that hundreds of Victorian students take every year and learn about youth media.
This is a hands-on opportunity to learn how to make a radio program from writing to producing. All participants will be provided with a CD copy of their radio program.
Monday 24 August: 3:00 – 4:30pm
House of SYN - 16 Cardigan St, Carlton.
Videoblog Workshop
Sample a taste of SYN’s Videoblogging Workshop, regularly delivered as a one day in school workshop. Learn how students can use Videoblogging to explore and present their ideas, from curriculum-based concepts to personal passions. There will also be plenty of opportunity for hands-on experience using the digital video recording and editing software.
Tuesday 25 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Computer Lab at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
WebSmarts Workshop
Looking at online safety and privacy using some of the resources developed by young people through the SYN Websmarts project. We’ll talk about issues such as social networking habits, bullying, illegal downloading and pornography and sexuality online. SYN’s Websmarts project is a multimedia project that seeks to create discussion about how young people interact with the
Internet through the mediums of radio, television and the web.
Wednesday 26 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Computer Lab at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE / BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL
to book online go to*: syn.org.au/education
e training@syn.org.au
p 03 9925 4693
Sponsored by ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media), Vic Health and IDEA (Institute for Design Entertainment and the Arts)
Presented by SYN in partnership with the State Library of Victoria.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Mark Pesce - Young People, Digital Media and Your Classroom
Mark Pesce, one of Australia’s top ICT and social networking experts will address the value of new media as a learning tool and discuss how we can continue to keep up with shifts and trends in online technologies.
Thursday 27 August: 1:30 – 2:30pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
PANELS
Media Careers and Training Pathways: Panel Discussion
A diverse panel of media professionals and industry experts will discuss the many media pathways and opportunities available for young people. This is essential information to pass on to your students who are interested in the media and journalism, as well as related fields like the music industry, theatre, technical fields and ICT.
Monday 24 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
Gaming and Learning: Panel Discussion and Play
Games Industry and IT experts will help you learn and experience the educational potential of video games and gaming culture. Starting with a panel discussion on how games help students learn useful skills and ending with a chance to get your hands on some gaming consoles and play!
Friday 28 August: 1:00 – 4:00pm
Experimedia at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
WORKSHOPS
SYN Radio Tour
Take the tour that hundreds of Victorian students take every year and learn about youth media.
This is a hands-on opportunity to learn how to make a radio program from writing to producing. All participants will be provided with a CD copy of their radio program.
Monday 24 August: 3:00 – 4:30pm
House of SYN - 16 Cardigan St, Carlton.
Videoblog Workshop
Sample a taste of SYN’s Videoblogging Workshop, regularly delivered as a one day in school workshop. Learn how students can use Videoblogging to explore and present their ideas, from curriculum-based concepts to personal passions. There will also be plenty of opportunity for hands-on experience using the digital video recording and editing software.
Tuesday 25 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Computer Lab at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
WebSmarts Workshop
Looking at online safety and privacy using some of the resources developed by young people through the SYN Websmarts project. We’ll talk about issues such as social networking habits, bullying, illegal downloading and pornography and sexuality online. SYN’s Websmarts project is a multimedia project that seeks to create discussion about how young people interact with the
Internet through the mediums of radio, television and the web.
Wednesday 26 August: 1:00 - 3:00pm
Computer Lab at State Library of Victoria: 328 Swanston St, Melb.
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE / BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL
to book online go to*: syn.org.au/education
e training@syn.org.au
p 03 9925 4693
Sponsored by ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media), Vic Health and IDEA (Institute for Design Entertainment and the Arts)
Monday, 4 May 2009
Access Nano
AccessNano is a unique, cutting-edge nanotechnology educational resource designed to introduce accessible and innovative science and technology into Australian secondary school classrooms. AccessNano provides teachers with 13 ready-to-use, versatile, web-based teaching modules, featuring PowerPoint presentations, experiments, activities, animations and links to interactive websites. Topics covered fit into current Australian curricula requirements, and include teaching units for Years 7-11
http://www.accessnano.org/teaching-modules
http://www.accessnano.org/teaching-modules
Friday, 1 May 2009
Plan to monitor all internet use
By Dominic Casciani BBC News home affairs reporter, 2009/04/27 13:50:15 GMT
Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics. The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services. The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites. The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database. Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database. “ Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime ” Jacqui Smith Home Secretary. But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.
The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism. Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do. "Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said. "Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm. "It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."
'Contact not content'
Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.
REASONS TO CHANGE WHAT CAN BE KEPT
# More communication via computers rather than phones
# Companies won't always keep all data all the time
# Anonymity online masks criminal identities
# More online services provided from abroad
# Data held in many locations and difficult to find Source: Home Office consultation
But, recognising that the internet has changed the way people talk, the CSPs will also be asked to record some third party data or information partly based overseas, such as visits to an online chatroom and social network sites like Facebook or Twitter. Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects. The plan expands a voluntary arrangement under which CSPs allow security services to access some data which they already hold. The security services already deploy advanced techniques to monitor telephone conversations or intercept other communications, but this is not used in criminal trials. Ms Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page. "What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other - and how they are communicating," she said.
Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force. The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "I am pleased that the Government has climbed down from the Big Brother plan for a centralised database of all our emails and phone calls. "However, any legislation that requires individual communications providers to keep data on who called whom and when will need strong safeguards on access. "It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous, or a politician's partner is arranging to hire a porn video? "There has to be a careful balance between investigative powers and the right to privacy."
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "The big problem is that the government has built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime. Too many parts of Government have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that's really got to change. "It is good that the home secretary appears to have listened to Conservative warnings about big brother databases. Now that she has finally admitted that the public don't want their details held by the State in one place, perhaps she will look at other areas in which the Government is trying to do precisely that." Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: "Just a week after the home secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history. "Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious. "Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant." The consultation runs until 20 July 2009.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8020039.stm
Communications firms are being asked to record all internet contacts between people as part of a modernisation in UK police surveillance tactics. The home secretary scrapped plans for a database but wants details to be held and organised for security services. The new system would track all e-mails, phone calls and internet use, including visits to social network sites. The Tories said the Home Office had "buckled under Conservative pressure" in deciding against a giant database. Announcing a consultation on a new strategy for communications data and its use in law enforcement, Jacqui Smith said there would be no single government-run database. “ Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime ” Jacqui Smith Home Secretary. But she also said that "doing nothing" in the face of a communications revolution was not an option.
The Home Office will instead ask communications companies - from internet service providers to mobile phone networks - to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism. Ministers say they estimate the project will cost £2bn to set up, which includes some compensation to the communications industry for the work it may be asked to do. "Communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers, paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Ms Smith said. "Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who seek to do us harm. "It is essential that the police and other crime fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job, However to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."
'Contact not content'
Communication service providers (CSPs) will be asked to record internet contacts between people, but not the content, similar to the existing arrangements to log telephone contacts.
REASONS TO CHANGE WHAT CAN BE KEPT
# More communication via computers rather than phones
# Companies won't always keep all data all the time
# Anonymity online masks criminal identities
# More online services provided from abroad
# Data held in many locations and difficult to find Source: Home Office consultation
But, recognising that the internet has changed the way people talk, the CSPs will also be asked to record some third party data or information partly based overseas, such as visits to an online chatroom and social network sites like Facebook or Twitter. Security services could then seek to examine this data along with information which links it to specific devices, such as a mobile phone, home computer or other device, as part of investigations into criminal suspects. The plan expands a voluntary arrangement under which CSPs allow security services to access some data which they already hold. The security services already deploy advanced techniques to monitor telephone conversations or intercept other communications, but this is not used in criminal trials. Ms Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page. "What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other - and how they are communicating," she said.
Existing legal safeguards under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act would continue to apply. Requests to see the data would require top level authorisation within a public body such as a police force. The Home Office is running a separate consultation on limiting the number of public authorities that can access sensitive information or carry out covert surveillance. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "I am pleased that the Government has climbed down from the Big Brother plan for a centralised database of all our emails and phone calls. "However, any legislation that requires individual communications providers to keep data on who called whom and when will need strong safeguards on access. "It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous, or a politician's partner is arranging to hire a porn video? "There has to be a careful balance between investigative powers and the right to privacy."
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "The big problem is that the government has built a culture of surveillance which goes far beyond counter terrorism and serious crime. Too many parts of Government have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that's really got to change. "It is good that the home secretary appears to have listened to Conservative warnings about big brother databases. Now that she has finally admitted that the public don't want their details held by the State in one place, perhaps she will look at other areas in which the Government is trying to do precisely that." Guy Herbert of campaign group NO2ID said: "Just a week after the home secretary announced a public consultation on some trivial trimming of local authority surveillance, we have this: a proposal for powers more intrusive than any police state in history. "Ministers are making a distinction between content and communications data into sound-bite of the year. But it is spurious. "Officials from dozens of departments and quangos could know what you read online, and who all your friends are, who you emailed, when, and where you were when you did so - all without a warrant." The consultation runs until 20 July 2009.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8020039.stm
Saturday, 25 April 2009
ABC Gallipolli: The First Day
http://www.abc.net.au/gallipoli
Gallipoli: The First Day is a new online 3D Flash interactive by the ABC exploring the events of the first 24 hours of the landing of the ANZACs at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. Explore events (from both Anzac and Ottoman perspectives) via a 3D terrain of the Gallipoli peninsula. Watch the story unfold via 3D diorama animations and animations showing troop movements across the terrain. There's also archive photos, videos and diary entries, and a summary and historical analysis of the overall campaign.
You'll need the Flash 10 plugin installed on your computer to view this, and a solid broadband connection. There's also a small Google Earth component for those with slower connections - this gives an overview of the key events of the day and features a selection of media included in the Flash site, but contextualised within the Google Earth globe. You'll need Google Earth 5.0 for this.
Gallipoli: The First Day is a new online 3D Flash interactive by the ABC exploring the events of the first 24 hours of the landing of the ANZACs at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. Explore events (from both Anzac and Ottoman perspectives) via a 3D terrain of the Gallipoli peninsula. Watch the story unfold via 3D diorama animations and animations showing troop movements across the terrain. There's also archive photos, videos and diary entries, and a summary and historical analysis of the overall campaign.
You'll need the Flash 10 plugin installed on your computer to view this, and a solid broadband connection. There's also a small Google Earth component for those with slower connections - this gives an overview of the key events of the day and features a selection of media included in the Flash site, but contextualised within the Google Earth globe. You'll need Google Earth 5.0 for this.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Girl arrested for texting in class...$298 bail
By Christopher Dawson ZDNet.com | February 18, 2009, 7:19pm PST
I can’t decide if I should be applauding a school in Wauwatosa, WI, for taking a tough stand on student discipline or appalled at a lack of reason in the case of a girl arrested for texting in class on February 11th. I think I’m appalled.
I’ve been in the classroom. Texting is a problem. Any teacher who denies that students text in class is either blind, old to the point of senility, or simply not that smart. However, when I caught students sending texts in class, I used our zero tolerance policy, confiscated the phone, and sent it to the office. The kid got Saturday school or a 3-day suspension for repeat offenses. If the kid refused to turn over the phone or denied it, I sent them to the office for an automatic suspension. Piece of cake. No muss, no fuss, just straight-forward discipline outlined in our student handbook.
This was obviously not the case in Wauwatosa. According to the police report published by The Smoking Gun, the 14-year old in question repeatedly denied using a cell phone to send text messages in class. In a brilliant bit of investigative police work, the school resource officer spoke to the girl’s friends and teachers and determined that she had, in fact, been using a phone in class, after he had been called to remove her from the room when she refused to stop texting. The police report borders on the absurd at points:
[Student's name obscurred] was advised that she was under arrest for disorderly conduct. She was told her disruption in class with the phone out, the refusal to obey the teacher, and her not telling us the truth is what got her arrested. [Student's name obscurred] was asked again about the phone and she was told that she would be searched incident to the arrest. She stated she did not have a phone and she was not going to stand up to be searched. These words alerted me with her zipper open and he [sic] refusal to stand up and be searched she was concealing the phone under her pants
He’s sharp isn’t he? A female officer later retrieved the phone from her “buttocks area” and confirmed that she had sent a text message to her father. Bail was set at $298. Give her a detention, suspend her, whatever, but arrest her? Really? Around here, we save our arrests for bomb threats, teacher assaults, and drug dealing. Maybe we’re just too liberal here in Massachusetts.
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Kids turn "teen repellent" sound into teacher-proof ringtone
Kids in the UK have co-opted an annoying noise sold to retailers as teenager-repellent and turned it into a ringtone. Mosquito is a high-pitched sound "audible only to teenagers" sold by Britain's Compound Security. It is sold to shopkeepers to use as a teenager repellent -- the idea is to play it loudly in and around shops and "chase away those annoying teenagers!!!" The kids have reportedly converted the high-pitched noise and turned it into a ringtone, which, being inaudible to grownups, can then be used to receive texts and calls in class without alerting teachers.
This is either a magnificent hoax or just plain magnificent -- either way, I love this Little Brother Watches Back parable. Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology. Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on. A secondary school teacher in Cardiff said: 'All the kids were laughing about something, but I didn't know what. They know phones must be turned off during school. They could all hear somebody's phone ringing but I couldn't hear a thing.
Update: JS sez, "Considering that such high tones are virtually unattainable for the cell-phone loudspeakers I find the story highly suspect. Besides, the sound used as a ringtone would be compressed in some way (maybe not in the newer models, but would all kids have them?), further reducing the possibility that such high frequency content is preserved. I did little research and found this link where cell-phone audio capabilities are presented in detail. According to them the cell-phone's piezoelectric speaker caps its frequency response about at 10khz, while the Teen Buzz plays at 18khz to 20khz." I had similar doubts -- which suggests that these kids have done something even more subversive than creating an adult-proof ringtone: they've convinced adults that there's an inaudible sound that they can all hear.
Link to original article
Update 2: James sez, "I found this article about the mosquito system. It includes a link to an MP3 of the sound. I'm 18 and I can hear it, but neither my mom nor my step dad (both in their 50's) could distinguish the sound. It's worth noting that my step dad is a country music singer who has a very well trained ear. Since the sound carries over to MP3, and most new phones can play MP3s as ringtones, it would seem likely that students could use the mosquito sound as an adult proof ringer."
Update 3: Gregory sez, "Here's a data sheet for a piezoelectric speaker for cell phones, and shows frequency response measured out to 20kHz. The link that JS found did not say that frequencies above 10kHz were unattainable, but said "The frequency response of piezoelectric speakers is similar to small geometry moving coil speakers up to ~10 KHz bandwidth." As you can see by the data sheet at the URL listed above, small piezoelectric speakers are quite capable of being driven at frequencies above 20kHz. In fact, piezoelectric speakers are commonly used as tweeters in some sound systems; high frequencies are easy, it's the lows that give small speakers problems. A far more important question is the frequency response of the amplifiers that are driving the cell phone speakers. Amplifiers are typically band-limited to reduce noise and increase stability. What is the band limit for the phones in question?"
Update 3: Tony sez, "I've just had a look at 'Mosquito'. It's recorded at a low level, a sort of 'European siren', switching between two high tones at 2Hz. There are some giggles & rumble present (cells would probably not pass these audibly), but the high tones measure around 15,000 to 17,000 Hz. Interested geezers should pitch-shift the sound down an octave. That's exactly the same range as old TV flybacks used to emit ... which I *used* to be able to hear walking by someone's house."
Monday, 23 February 2009
Some great new technology articles
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
I'm still here
Sorry about the lack of posts recently, but I've been overseas in London and Paris, so I haven't posted much of late.
I have found heaps of great stuff to add to the blog soon, but I'm concentrating on finding a job before I use up my internets...
I have found heaps of great stuff to add to the blog soon, but I'm concentrating on finding a job before I use up my internets...
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