Comments for PogoWasRight.org

Comment on PRISM, and MAINWAY, and MARINA – and what else didn’t we know about? by Dissent

Dissent — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:46:24 +0000

In 1975, in response to abuses by the Nixon administration, a Senate committee headed by Senator Frank Church was formed to investigate what appeared to be illegal domestic surveillance and other activities by government. Their work led to a permanent intel oversight committee and the original FISA law, which was an attempt to rein in some of the surveillance activities. Wikipedia has a summary, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

The Church committee really exposed a lot of what had been going on, which is why some people are calling for that kind of committee again.

Comment on PRISM, and MAINWAY, and MARINA – and what else didn’t we know about? by Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:35:22 +0000

In recent weeks, there have been calls for a Church-style commission. Sooner would be better than later.

How would this help, exactly?

Comment on Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind by Dissent

Dissent — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:39:52 +0000

I don’t think Congress has the authority to do that, do they?

Comment on Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:51:10 +0000

It’s time Congress woke up and fired these corrupt inept judges.

Comment on Dark clouds loom over Google in the EU as Swedish data regulator kills a Google Apps deal by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:33:50 +0000

Soorry Google. Sweden doesn’t trust you anymore because of US Law…

And NSA PRISM.

Comment on Dark clouds loom over Google in the EU as Swedish data regulator kills a Google Apps deal by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:49:13 +0000

Soorry Google. Sweden doesn’t trust you anymore because of US Law…

Comment on Boulder woman disturbed by police policy to enter unsecured residences by Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:26:55 +0000

So, what do they do when they discover an aggressive dog waiting for them? No, not the type that would go wondering outside either, silly.

Comment on Employers and Schools that Demand Account Passwords and the Future of Cloud Privacy by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 19:14:38 +0000

Workplaces have been demanding Facebook passwords for a while, but now schools are demanding them too? I guess their parents really should teach the kids to say “I dont use Facebook” The school cannot prove either way so it ends in a stalemate and the school is forced to just forget about it.

Im not sure the same can be used for employment though, they could refuse to hire you because you are too shady for having no presence on there.

Comment on Who’s tracking your children? by bd

bd — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 12:30:50 +0000

Oh my…I never thought that I would agree with Malkin so completely as well. Let me relay a personal tale. Over a decade ago I worked for an education software company. Our flagship learning management system was sold to the Miami-Dade school system. This was a huge deal for us as they were one of the largest school systems in the nation. I was the database developer on the project. As such one of my tasks was to improve the function which imported student data into our software as it currently took entirely too long and Miami-Dade had over 300,000 students. I came up with the improved tool, but I needed a way to test it. I asked for a sample set of files from Miami-Dade so that I would know what to expect. Well, they kindly supplied the real set of files to me in Excel spreadsheets via email. When I looked at the files that they cavalierly sent to me I had a moment where I wanted to slam my forehead against a wall. Included in that data was the student’s name, address, phone number, parent’s name, etc. Also included was the student ID number. You may have guessed already…the student ID number was their social security number. Did I mention these spreadsheets were sent via email unencrypted?

Comment on Warning lands Batavia teacher in hot water (CORRECTED) by Dissent

Dissent — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:38:20 +0000

Sounds like your district does a decent job of this. But we need more info about this district/school. Did the instructions tell the students they didn’t have to complete it? And if they’re keeping identified responses over the years to track/compare, that’s risky.

Comment on Warning lands Batavia teacher in hot water (CORRECTED) by LossofPrivacy

LossofPrivacy — Wed, 29 May 2013 13:55:31 +0000

The school district I work in does a similar survey each year at the junior high. No one is required to fill them out and the students are told specifically to not put their names on it. I’m sure if you really wanted to, you could sort through it all and match penmanship, but everyone in our district is far too lazy to do that. Our school also doesn’t keep the papers after the data has been collated. They are shredded and the paper is recycled. While the final graphs and totals are compared year to year, there isn’t a way to identify students from the survey.

I know that one of the things they do with the results is to gauge what types of speakers the school will concentrate on bringing in (don’t do drugs, safe sex, bullying, etc) and how to better combat whatever is the biggest concern amongst the students.

Comment on What Google Glass Reveals About Privacy Fears by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 26 May 2013 14:42:17 +0000

Theres the two pronged fear here.

1. It enables never before seen insight into the wearers personal life, as well as that of others, you are no longer limited to explaining what you saw when you basically have a CCTV on your glasses.

2. The fear of big bad Google itself, it is no accident that their Google maps cars were caught snooping on peoples Wi-Fi traffic, they are also one of the biggest ad marketing companies out there, if you ain’t worried yet, then there’s something mentally wrong with you.

Comment on Euclid Analytics And Retailers: How Stores Like Nordstrom Track You Via Your Smartphone’s Wi-Fi Signal by William Merrick

William Merrick — Thu, 23 May 2013 20:10:50 +0000

I work at a company called SOLOMO Technology. Our approach to this is that trust is paramount, and the way a brand builds trust with their customers is by being transparent about the data being collected. Take that a step further – don’t ever ‘collect’ data at all. Introduce customers to a platform for owning their data, then ask them to share their data. Check out http://solomotechnology.com to learn more about how this approach is poised to change the conversation about data rights and consumer-brand relationships.

Comment on “Big Brother” is big business? by joe

joe — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:56:48 +0000

(Video) A Face in the crowd: Say goodbye to anonymity
60 Minutes: Even if your picture isn’t on the Internet, computerized facial recognition makes it virtually impossible to keep your “faceprint” private.

Over the last 10 years, the ability of computers to identify faces has gotten 100 times better, a million times faster, and exponentially cheaper.

Yet facial recognition technology is still a work in progress. While investigators in the Boston marathon bombing had multiple images of both suspects, the technology did not come up with a match. They were not identified by their faces, but by their fingerprints! Authorities won’t say what went wrong. One possibility is that government data banks – through which the photos would’ve been searched – are not big enough.

As we discovered, the FBI is working on expanding its database. Businesses are tapping facial recognition to sell us stuff and computer scientists are upgrading the technology.
Watch the video: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147158n

Comment on The fridge has eyes by FED UP WITH MY RIGHTS BEING TAKEN AWAY

FED UP WITH MY RIGHTS BEING TAKEN AWAY — Fri, 17 May 2013 23:29:01 +0000

DEAR JASON………..GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!! LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!!!! IN OUR DAMN HOMES!!!!