New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Top officials at the Interior Department’s scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency’s public relations staff.
“This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way,” Barbara Wainman, the agency’s director of communications, said Wednesday. “I don’t have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow.”
Some agency scientists, who until now have felt free from any political interference, worry that the objectivity of their work could be compromised.
Category: Electronic Rights
Udell Chat with U of Michigan’s Wilkin regarding the Google Scanning Deal
My guest for this week’s podcast is John Wilkin. He’s the director of the University of Michigan Library’s technology department, and coordinator of the library’s joint digitization project with Google. It’s been two years since Google began partnering with the University of Michigan and with other libraries, including Harvard and the New York Public Library. In this conversation we talk about the UM’s earlier (and still-ongoing) efforts to digitize its 7-million-volume library, about how the partnership with Google has radically accelerated that process, and about what this is all going to mean for libraries, for publishers, for Google, and for all of us. …
The Google Library deals have been controversial (rightly so). The UW-Madison also has a deal with Google.
Cringely on VOIP Privacy
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA — I’ve written about this one before) requires “managed” VoIP operators to provide law enforcement agencies a point of interception so they can tap your VoIP calls. What’s a “managed” VoIP service? Packet8, Vonage, Comcast, and AT&T all certainly qualify, but does Skype? Yes, if you think of billing as management, now that there is SkypeOut and SkypeIn. And given the current management at the U.S. Department of Justice, “managed” could mean pretty much anything.VoIP interception is usually done at the SBC/proxy. The network operator’s SBCs perform decryption/encryption on the “secure” packets as they go through the node. It is a matter of “trust,” as they say in the industry. If you want to encrypt you must also be willing to trust an SBC/proxy in China, Russia, wherever. That’s the attack point.
Our Lobbyist Friends, the MPAA
A few months back, of course, you’ll recall the big scandal over HP’s use of “pretexting” to spy on various people to figure out who leaked some information from the board of directors. Pretexting is a nice way of describing a basic form of social engineering identity theft. Basically, you call up a company pretending to be someone in order to get their information. It seems pretty clear it should be illegal, and while Patricia Dunn was eventually charged with crimes over the practice, there were plenty of questions as to whether or not California laws actually made pretexting illegal. This surprised many people, who then started trying to push through such laws, which haven’t really gone very far. In fact, there were similar laws that politicians had tried to put in place earlier that had failed as well.
A bunch of folks have submitted this morning that a Wired News investigation found out that the California law to make pretexting illegal had strong (nearly unanimous) support… until the MPAA killed it. Apparently, MPAA lobbyists explained to California politicians that they need to use this identity theft method to spy on file sharers. This isn’t an idle threat either.
A New Take on Net Neutrality
The debate over net neutrality1 has often focused on video as the dominant medium that made the prioritization of packets either crucial or harmful. However, video is not the offering that will suffer the most if net neutrality becomes a wistful memory. Rather, the users that are likely to be most materially disadvantaged are those that utilize the Net for interactive communications – particularly voice over IP (VOIP) and online gaming. Of these two finalists for the dubious title of “innovation most likely to be stifled to the detriment of everyone by loss of net neutrality,” gaming is by far the more irreplaceable and senseless loss.
Unlike video and voice, ISPs are unlikely to have or be able to obtain a viable material stake in the gaming business and have no replacement for the service. As a result, consumers stand not only to lose their choice of the source of this product, but the very value of the gaming service itself.
More Controversy Over Web Tracking Cookies
Specifically, the groups want the FTC to require advertisers to alert consumers when tracking cookies and other such files are present on sites, and then let consumers choose whether they are willing to be monitored. “Most consumers have no idea of the extensive system of online data collection and targeted marketing that has evolved,” says Chester. “They need to know that data is being collected about their viewing, that data is being sent back to a computer based on their tastes…there needs to be an opt in.” Some companies that specialize in behavioral advertising are already getting the message.
The complaint says Microsoft (MSFT) and TACODA, the largest behavioral targeting ad network, are among companies that use behavioral targeting without sufficiently alerting Web surfers. A Microsoft representative didn’t return a call seeking comment. TACODA says it plans to be more upfront about targeting practices.
Interesting Data Mining Article: “I have Nothing to Hide”
But you need to understand the basic principles of data mining to understand why the world of spooks and the world of search engines are about to overlap, and why you should be nervous about this.
The lesson here is one I call “The Sainsbury’s Lesson” when doing presentations for technical audiences, because I was taught this by a data miner who worked for the giant British supermarket of that name.
The story, summarised, is that Sainsbury’s was spending an absurd amount of money sending people promotional coupons, money-off special offers, and other junk mail to encourage them to swing by the Sainsbury’s supermarket next time, rather than Waitrose or Safeway or Asda – and it was pretty hard to be sure it was actually doing any good.
The trouble was simple: they were sending girly shampoo promotions to households with six rugby-playing male students, or home improvement promotions to households with one elderly pensioner with osteoporosis, or bulk beer deals to households where they were all strictly teetotal. Not profitable stuff. And their IT staff heard about this and said: “But you don’t have to do that!”Worry about governments who will make “pre-crime” a reality.
Dane County Register of Deeds Race
I’m happy that we actually have a choice in tomorrow’s Dane County Register of Deeds race. This is unusual. I contacted both candidates recently and asked them for their views on Open Records and the Register of Deeds office.
I’ve been concerned over the years that some government agencies don’t follow (ignore?) the Open Records laws. Rather, they take the opportunity to charge taxpayers twice, once via taxes and a second time via various access fees for public information. There are no shortage of arguments over these questions.
Peter Ellestad responded via email (I’ve not heard from his opponent, Kristi Chlebowski). Peter’s response follows:
Sorry to take so long in responding — I’ve been driving around the county a great deal. Regarding my philosophy about records: I think priority should be given to maintaining and enhancing free access to all real estate records. At present, anyone who comes in to the register of deeds office may search all of these records at no charge, and will receive help from staff to find what they are looking for. I’ve been startled when I’ve been helping someone find something to be asked “Is there a charge for that?” and I think they’ve been surprised to hear “No, anyone can search these records for free.” I think that free access is appropriate and is the responsibility of our office to provide.
More on Yahoo’s Cooperation with the Chinese Government
hi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison after “illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities”.
His crime was to have e-mailed details of the Chinese government’s plans to handle news coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo! provided crucial information in the case, linking the message and e-mail account with Shi ‘s computer. Reporters Without Borders accused Yahoo! of acting as a “police informant”.
On Google’s Intentions
News: Internet privacy? Google already knows more about you than the National Security Agency ever will. And don’t assume for a minute it can keep a secret. YouTube fans–and everybody else–beware.
Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two former Stanford geeks who founded the company that has become synonymous with Internet searching, and you’ll find more than a million entries each. But amid the inevitable dump of press clippings, corporate bios, and conference appearances, there’s very little about Page’s and Brin’s personal lives; it’s as if the pair had known all along that Google would change the way we acquire information, and had carefully insulated their lives—putting their homes under other people’s names, choosing unlisted numbers, abstaining from posting anything personal on web pages.
That obsession with privacy may explain Google’s puzzling reaction last year, when Elinor Mills, a reporter with the tech news service cnet, ran a search on Google ceo Eric Schmidt and published the results: Schmidt lived with his wife in Atherton, California, was worth about $1.5 billion, had dumped about $140 million in Google shares that year, was an amateur pilot, and had been to the Burning Man festival. Google threw a fit, claimed that the information was a security threat, and announced it was blacklisting cnet’s reporters for a year. (The company eventually backed down.) It was a peculiar response, especially given that the information Mills published was far less intimate than the details easily found online on every one of us. But then, this is something of a pattern with Google: When it comes to information, it knows what’s best.