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Comment Mozilla Stability (Score 1) 3

by Chromium_One (#46226137) Attached to: Mozilla will start showing ads in Firefox
Each of the last several releases has fallen down rendering more sites than the previous. That alone had me switching somewhere around 23 or 24. Ads on the new user / new tab page might not be that bad, but if it becomes too intrusive or is badly handled, I'll probably do my best to forget the Mozilla Foundation even exists.

Comment Re:Not only no ... (Score 1) 359

by Chromium_One (#45988959) Attached to: Obama Announces Surveillance Reforms
Eh, that's part of the problem when you feel you have to keep the lunatics out at all costs. Aside from the guarantee of more erosion on some social issues, I'm now having a hard time seeing how the opposition could have been worse. No, no, seriously, we really do need at least a viable third party.

Submission + - Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks The Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone," he told attendees.

Rather, he said, he imagined a day when the data might be used anonymously and in aggregate to help other marketers with traffic related problems. Suppose a stadium is holding an event; knowing how much traffic is making its way toward the arena might help the venue change its parking lot resources accordingly, he said.

Submission + - Charles Stross cancels trilogy: the NSA is already doing it 1

Submitted by doom
doom writes: Charles Stross has announced that there won't be a third book in the 'Halting State' trilogy because reality (in a manner of speaking) has caught up to him too fast. The last straw was apparently the news that the NSA planted spies in networked games like WoW. Stross comments: "At this point, I'm clutching my head. 'Halting State' wasn't intended to be predictive when I started writing it in 2006. Trouble is, about the only parts that haven't happened yet are Scottish Independence and the use of actual quantum computers for cracking public key encryption (and there's a big fat question mark over the latter-- what else are the NSA up to?)."

Submission + - Experian sold social security numbers to ID Theft Service

Submitted by realized
realized writes: Experian — one of the three national US credit bureaus — reportedly sold SSNs through its subsidiary, Court Ventures, to the operators of SuperGet.info who then offered all of the information online for a price. The website would advertise having "99% to 100% of all USA" in their database on websites frequented by carders.

Hieu Minh Ngo, the website owner, has recently been charged with 15-count indictment filed under seal in November 2012, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, substantive wire fraud, conspiracy to commit identity fraud, substantive identity fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and substantive access device fraud.

Comment Re:Nothing new - Anyone remember Echelon? (Score 1) 337

Furthest back I can personally say anything about for the ramp up of ubiquitous surveillance was seeing the 1999-ish Echelon report the the EU:

http://www.duncancampbell.org/content/echelon

While the scope was somewhat more limited (and more narrowly targeted) than current programs (targets being things like interception of spillover from point-to-point microwave relays, etc etc) similar questions were raised. Handling of info derived from phone call relays involving US citizens only vs mix of citizens and foreign nationals vs foreign nationals only. Scope of activity vs. charter of organization(s) doing the data handling.

Anyone have some discussion of the downward slide starting earlier?
Government

Submission + - Albright: There's a place in Hell for women who don't help one another (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Speaking at the CIA Women's History Month Celebration this week former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered a number of career advancing suggestions for women in the workforce. Albright said her storied career — which really began at age 39 after raising three children and obtaining her Ph.D. — owes its success to making the most of opportunities presented. "I never imagined that I would one day become secretary of state," she said. "It's not that I lacked ambition. It is just that I had never seen a secretary of state in a skirt.""

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