32522207
submission
betterunixthanunix writes:
The New York City Department of Education has issued rules covering student-teacher interactions on social networking websites. Following numerous inappropriate relationships between students and teachers that began on social networking sites, the rules prohibit teachers from communicating with students using their "personal" accounts, and requires parental consent before students can participate in social networking for educational purposes. The rules also state that teachers have no expectation of privacy online, and that principals and other officials will inspect teachers' profiles. Oddly, the rules do not address communication involving cell phones, which the Department of Education's own investigations have shown to be even more problematic.
22250170
submission
betterunixthanunix writes:
A mortgage-fraud case may have widespread implications for criminals who use cryptography to hide evidence. The US Department of Justice is pushing for the defendant to be forced to decrypt her hard drive, claiming that if they cannot force such decryptions that law enforcement will be unable to gather important evidence. The defendants lawyer and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have made the claim that forcing such a decryption would be a violation of the defendant's fifth amendment right not to self-incriminate. The prosecutor in the case has insisted that the defendant would not be forced to disclose her passphrase, but only to enter the passphrase into a computer to decrypt the drive.
21595660
submission
betterunixthanunix writes:
The New York Times is reporting that the new FBI operations manual suggests a broad increase in surveillance. Denoted the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the manual officially lowers the bar of acceptability when it comes to engaging in surveillance activities, including allowing agents to perform such surveillance on people who are not suspected terrorists without opening an inquiry or officially recording their actions. The new manual also relaxes rules on administering lie detector tests, searching through a person's trash, and the use of teams to follow targeted individuals. It should be noted that these guidelines still fall within the general limits put in place by the attorney general.
13447230
submission
betterunixthanunix writes:
Another lawsuit has been filed against Limewire, this time by the National Music Publishers Association. They claim that Limewire also damaged them, and seek $150000 per infringement, putting the maximum possible damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Limewire seems to have become the latest music industry punching bag.
