Impetuosity! Thy name is Marie!

It sounds like a sit-com plot: A woman opens the morning paper to the Help Wanted section and sees a job that bears a remarkable resemblance to hers, with her bosses phone listed as the contact number! Well, natch, she begins to fear that perhaps the jig is up. “How dare that bastard try to replace me without giving me any sign, not one solitary sign that my performance was down, that I was on my way out!”, she thinks to herself. “Well, I’ll show him! I’ll sneak into the office and delete everything in the companies computer files! That’ll teach him to mess with me!”, continues her inner monologue.

So, late one Sunday night, she does just that. She goes to the office and destroys about $2.5 million worth of company files! And, golly, does she feel better! A load lifted, a blow struck. Revenge never tasted so sweet!

There’s only one teeny-weeny problem: The job in the paper? Well, turns out was a position in her bosses wife’s company! Oops.

You can read about Marie Lupe Cooley and her impetuosity, right here.

IP addresses and personal information Part 2

A couple of days ago I posted an article about the drive in Europe to classify IP addresses as personal information. While I certainly understand the desire to keep ones personal information, well, personal, one also has to keep in mind that we’re dealing with the Internet here where, unless your surfing with Tor or some other IP blocker, your IP address is readily available to anyone and everyone. (I’ve never tried to block my IP address using any available method so I can’t speak as to how well they do or do not work, or even if they work at all.)

But here’s something that needs to be kept in mind when talking about IP addresses and personal information: In a very real and perhaps very important way (as we shall see shortly) the IP address identifies individual computers not the individual user(s)! (Note the plural of that last word!) This is the point being made by the defendant in a Copyright Infringement suit filed by the RIAA. A computer has been identified not a user!

Now this may seem like the finest of lines, a razor’s edge if ever there was one, but that only serves to underscore the importance of the issue. In the above mentioned case as it stands right now, all the RIAA can prove is that a certain, very particular computer was used to transfer copyrighted material. Period. They cannot prove who did the uploading and downloading, nor is it possible for them to know. However, if the IP address is claimed as personal information then the dynamic shifts dramatically. In this particular case it shifts in the RIAA’s favor. They have an IP address assigned to a specific computer, that is being claimed by a specific person as personal information, that was used to illegally download/upload copyrighted material. Since the law was broken the idea of personal information gets thrown out the window and it becomes usable in court. (Check out my post from yesterday, “Is that a cellphone in your pocket?” and follow the link.)

Every time you open up your browser and surf the Web your computer’s IP address gets logged. Ever click on a Google ad? Your IP address is logged. Sign into a chat client? Your IP address is logged. Do you belong to any forums, chat rooms, BBs? Do you blog? Your IP address is logged. It’s readily available and traceable. Welcome to the Internet!

So what does all of this mean? Do we really want to treat the IP address as we do medical records? Is it important in the same way as, say, keeping one’s SSN or bank account information private is important? And if so, how do we go about doing that? Thoughts, anyone?

Where’d the money go?

Let’s see…you’re walking down the street, minding your own business, when all of a sudden a speeding car goes by. Out of the car comes a small, rectangular bundle which lands at your feet. “Is that a bundle of twenty-dollar bills?”, you ask yourself. “Why, yes, I think it is!”, comes the reply. “Well, hell, this must be our lucky day!” the voices cry in unison.

That, my friends, is where the money went.

My favorite Martian

Some very very cool pictures , taken by one of the Mars Rovers, of a rock formation that maybe, perhaps, almost looks like some sort of creature. It isn’t, though, because everybody knows that we Earth-dwellers are all there is. Right?

Is that a cellphone in your pocket…?

An interesting article over at Gizmodo giving a “Cliffnotes version” of an academic paper written by an Assistant Prof. at South Texas, Adam Greshowitz that “explains that because many traffic violations are arrestable offenses, just as a cop could search your pockets for drugs, said cop can also search your pockets for a smartphone and go through all its contents.”

My first reaction is: Don’t break the law and this won’t be a problem. However, what about a simple traffic violation? I mean, face it, we all speed at one time or another, or perhaps while in a hurry we fail to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection and, woops!, flashing red and blue lights in our rear-view mirror. Now I personally do not keep any content on my phone that I would be ashamed to let my Mom see but, the point is that it’s my content and I don’t want Barney Fife going through my cellphone content because I’m a lazy driver.

Don’t leave home without it!

Yes, by all means bring the correct ticket with you!

Thompson officially out of race

Fred Thompson has officially dropped out of the race for the presidency. I hate to see him go but, as I said earlier, he didn’t seem to be all that into the whole thing to begin with.

Unfortunately, we aren’t left with any real clear-cut choices, IMHO.

Ringo’s boots were made for walkin’

Apparently, Ringo Starr walked off the set of the Regis and Kelly Show today due to a miscommunication with the show’s producers as to the length of Ringo’s performance.

According to the article, Ringo did shorten the song, just not enough to make the producer happy, and then refused to shorten it further.

Sleeping well?

It seems that using a cell phone right before going to bed can disrupt your sleeping pattern. This could explain a lot, actually. What I want to know is this: Can this be used as a disability claim?

IP adresses and personal information

An interesting article over at Ars Technica about a push in Europe to make IP addresses regarded as personal information. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Thoughts?

The article can be found here.