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	<title>All About Gadget &#187; university</title>
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		<title>AT&amp;T gearing up for rare antitrust fight with DOJ 
    (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/att-gearing-up-for-rare-antitrust-fight-with-doj-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:24:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Selers</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.allaboutgadget.com/att-gearing-up-for-rare-antitrust-fight-with-doj-ap/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; The Justice Department's rejection of AT&#038;T's proposed purchase of T-Mobile USA will test new federal guidelines on challenging mergers and the companies' resolve in forming the nation's largest wireless carrier. A courtroom battle is likely and could wring out information that the companies would prefer to keep private. Still, AT&#038;T Inc. has a big incentive to fight: If the deal is called off, the company has to pay a $3 billion breakup fee and surrender some of its unused spectrum for wireless communications. AT&#038;T is promising to fight the Justice Department's decision. The department filed a lawsuit Wednesday to block the $39 billion deal, saying it would reduce competition and lead to price increases for customers. If AT&#038;T follows through on that, it could produce the biggest antitrust showdown since business software maker Oracle Corp. squared off with the federal government seven years ago. That dispute, triggered by the government's decision to block Oracle's proposed purchase of rival PeopleSoft Inc., exposed several well-kept corporate secrets and required Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to testify before a packed courtroom. In the end, Oracle pulled off something few companies have done in the past 30 years: It persuaded a federal judge that the Justice Department didn't have grounds to block its PeopleSoft deal. Oracle closed its $11.1 billion takeover four months after getting the favorable court ruling. Usually, not even the most powerful companies bother to fight government regulators in an antitrust dispute. Google Inc., for example, backed off in 2008 when the Justice Department threatened to sue to block a proposed Internet search partnership with Yahoo Inc. Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, pulled out of a deal to buy Intuit Corp. in 1995 after the Justice Department objected. The Justice Department filed 138 antitrust cases in federal courts from 1999 to 2008 and lost just four of them, according to the latest breakdown from the agency. One reason that the Justice Department has such a good track record is because it rarely challenges a deal unless it's very confident it can win, said Joseph Bauer, a University of Notre Dame law professor and antitrust expert. Knowing AT&#038;T would probably go to court, the Justice Department may have wanted to signal that it intends to get tougher on corporate marriages between rivals in markets with few other competitors. A union between AT&#038;T and T-Mobile USA would leave Verizon and Sprint as the only other major cellphone carriers in the U.S. T-Mobile, a subsidiary of German telecom company Deutsche Telekom AG, is currently the No. 4 wireless carrier, while AT&#038;T is second. Combined, AT&#038;T would be the largest. In a sign of its confidence, the Justice Department decided to strike down the deal even though it could have taken about three more months to study the pros and cons. The timing stunned AT&#038;T, which said it didn't get any advance warning. "It was an aggressive and impressive move by the DOJ to take the battle right at AT&#038;T," said Daniel Wall, a San Francisco attorney who represented Oracle in its 2004 fight to win the right to buy PeopleSoft. "It sent a statement that the DOJ intends to fight this one all the way to the finish line." Wall said AT&#038;T may have a tougher time proving its case than Oracle did against the Justice Department. In the PeopleSoft deal, Wall said, antitrust enforcers seemed to be manipulating the definition of the business software market. "This time, it looks to me that they have a pretty solid market definition," Wall said. "They don't appear to be playing games." University of Iowa law professor Herbert Hovenkamp said the Justice Department is being guided by a set of new guidelines, issued late last year, which make it clearer when mergers should be challenged on antitrust grounds. "I don't think they are overreaching here," Hovenkamp said. "If there is a broader message here, it's that the government intends to enforce these new guidelines." Besides being forced to divulge potentially damaging information, AT&#038;T will face other risks if it doesn't settle with the Justice Department. Going to trial will take months, or even years, leaving the company in a legal limbo that could depress its stock price and cause customers and key employees to defect. There's another risk to going to trial: as they try to prove their case, antitrust lawyers sometimes obtain confidential e-mails that contain embarrassing snippets and present other evidence that can make companies look bad. Those are some of the reasons why AT&#038;T mayl try to reach some kind of settlement with the government. If AT&#038;T persists, antitrust experts said that it's better off going up against the Justice Department than the Federal Trade Commission, which also handles antitrust reviews. That's mainly because lawsuits with the Justice Department are contested in federal courts. By contrast, the threshold for the FTC to block deals is generally lower, and the ensuing legal skirmishes occur in administrative law proceedings that drag on longer. "The merging parties usually have a better shot when they are going up against the DOJ than the FTC," said D. Daniel Sokol, a University of Florida professor specializing in antitrust law. Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>This undated photo provided Aug. 8, 2011 by the National Center ...</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/this-undated-photo-provided-aug-8-2011-by-the-national-center/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:39:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Selers</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ (AP) - This undated photo provided Aug. 8, 2011 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois shows the National Petascale Computing Facility on the campus in Champaign, Ill. IBM has backed out a project with the university to build a new supercomputer on campus, a move that leaves the university looking for a new builder to complete the $300 million-plus project, which includes this new building, designed to house the new computer. (AP Photo/National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois) ]]></description>
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		<title>SF cell shutdown: Safety issue, or hint of Orwell? (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/sf-cell-shutdown-safety-issue-or-hint-of-orwell-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 14 Aug 2011 09:40:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Drew</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute? The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials' decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday. Commuters at stations from downtown to near the city's main airport were affected as BART officials sought to tactically thwart a planned protest over the recent fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man by transit police. Two days later, the move had civil rights and legal experts questioning the agency's move, and drew backlash from one transit board member who was taken aback by the decision. "I'm just shocked that they didn't think about the implications of this. We really don't have the right to be this type of censor," said Lynette Sweet, who serves on BART's board of directors. "In my opinion, we've let the actions of a few people affect everybody. And that's not fair." Similar questions of censorship have arisen in recent days as Britain's government put the idea of curbing social media services on the table in response to several nights of widespread looting and violence in London and other English cities. Police claim that young criminals used Twitter and Blackberry instant messages to coordinate looting sprees in riots. Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government, spy agencies and the communications industry are looking at whether there should be limits on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook or services like BlackBerry Messenger to spread disorder. The suggestions have met with outrage &#8212; with some critics comparing Cameron to the despots ousted during the Arab Spring. In the San Francisco instance, Sweet said BART board members were told by the agency of its decision during the closed portion of its meeting Thursday afternoon, less than three hours before the protest was scheduled to start. "It was almost like an afterthought," Sweet told The Associated Press. "This is a land of free speech and for us to think we can do that shows we've grown well beyond the business of what we're supposed to be doing and that's providing transportation. Not censorship." But there are nuances to consider, including under what conditions, if any, an agency like BART can act to deny the public access to a form of communication &#8212; and essentially decide that a perceived threat to public safety trumps free speech. These situations are largely new ones, of course. A couple of decades ago, during the fax-machine and pay-phone era, the notion of people organizing mass gatherings in real time on wireless devices would have been fantasy. BART Deputy Police Chief Benson Fairow said the issue boiled down to the public's well-being. "It wasn't a decision made lightly. This wasn't about free speech. It was about safety," Fairow told KTVU-TV on Friday. BART spokesman Jim Allison maintained that the cellphone disruptions were legal as the agency owns the property and infrastructure. He added while they didn't need the permission of cellphone carriers to temporarily cut service, they notified them as a courtesy. The decision was made after agency officials saw details about the protest on an organizer's website. He said the agency had extra staff and officers aboard trains during that time for anybody who wanted to report an emergency, as well as courtesy phones on station platforms. "I think the entire argument is that some people think it created an unsafe situation is faulty logic," Allison said. "BART had operated for 35 years without cellphone service and no one ever suggested back then that a lack of it made it difficult to report emergencies and we had the same infrastructure in place." But as in London, BART's tactic drew immediate comparisons to authoritarianism, including acts by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year. He left office shortly thereafter. "BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website. Echoing that comparison, vigorous weekend discussion on Twitter was labeled with the hashtag "muBARTek." Aaron Caplan, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in free-speech issues, was equally critical, saying BART clearly violated the rights of demonstrators and other passengers. "We can arrest and prosecute people for the crimes they commit," he said. "You are not allowed to shut down people's cellphones and prevent them from speaking because you think they might commit a crime in the future." Michael Risher, the American Civil Liberty Union's Northern California staff attorney, echoed the sentiment in a blog: "The government shouldn't be in the business of cutting off the free flow of information. Shutting down access to mobile phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here in San Francisco." On Saturday at a station where cell phone service was disrupted, passenger Phil Eager, 44, shared the opinion that BART's approach seemed exaggerated. "It struck me as pretty strange and kind of extreme," said Eager, a San Francisco attorney. "It's not a First Amendment debate, but rather a civil liberties issue." Eager said many of his friends riding BART on Thursday were upset with the agency's actions, some even calling it a "police state." Mark Malmberg, 58, of Orinda, Calif., believes that BART could've used a different approach instead of shutting down cellphone usage. "Even though it sounds like they wanted to avoid a mob gathering, you can't stop people from expressing themselves," Malmberg said. "I hope those who protest can do so in a civil manner." The ACLU already has a scheduled meeting with BART's police chief on Monday about other issues and Thursday's incident will added be to the agenda, spokeswoman Rebecca Farmer said. But others said that while the phone shutdown was worth examining, it may not have impinged on First Amendment rights. Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center, a nonprofit educational organization, said freedom of expression can be limited in very narrow circumstances if there is an immediate threat to public safety. "An agency like BART has to be held to a very high standard," he said. "First of all, it has to be an immediate threat, not just the mere supposition that there might be one. And I think the response has to be what a court would consider reasonable, so it has to be the minimum amount of restraint on free expression." He said if BART's actions are challenged, a court may look more favorably on what it did if expression was limited on a narrow basis for a specific area and time frame, instead of "just indiscriminately closing down cellphone service throughout the system or for a broad area." University of Michigan law professor Len Niehoff, who specializes in First Amendment and media law issues, found the BART actions troublesome for a few reasons. He said the First Amendment generally doesn't allow the government to restrict free speech because somebody might do something illegal or to prohibit conversations based on their subject matter. He said the BART actions have been portrayed as an effort to prevent a protest that would have violated the law, but there was no guarantee that would have happened. "What it really did is it prevented people from talking, discussing ... and mobilizing in any form, peaceful or unpeaceful, lawful or unlawful," he said. "That is, constitutionally, very problematic." The government does have the right to break up a demonstration if it forms in an area where protests are prohibited and poses a risk to public safety, Niehoff said. But it should not prohibit free speech to prevent the possibility of a protest happening. "The idea that we're going to keep people from talking about what they might or might not do, based on the idea that they might all agree to violate the law, is positively Orwellian," he said. ___ Associated Press reporters Tom Murphy in Indianapolis; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Jonathan Cooper in Portland, Ore.; and Cassandra Vinograd and David Stringer in London contributed. Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>Your smartphone: a new frontier for hackers (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/your-smartphone-a-new-frontier-for-hackers-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:39:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Selers</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ LAS VEGAS &#8211; Hackers are out to stymie your smartphone. Last week, security researchers uncovered yet another strain of malicious software aimed at smartphones that run Google's popular Android operating system. The application not only logs details about incoming and outgoing phone calls, it also records those calls. That came a month after researchers discovered a security hole in Apple Inc.'s iPhones, which prompted the German government to warn Apple about the urgency of the threat. Security experts say attacks on smartphones are growing fast &#8212; and attackers are becoming smarter about developing new techniques. "We're in the experimental stage of mobile malware where the bad guys are starting to develop their business models," said Kevin Mahaffey, co-founder of Lookout Inc., a San Francisco-based maker of mobile security software. Wrong-doers have infected PCs with malicious software, or malware, for decades. Now, they are fast moving to smartphones as the devices become a vital part of everyday life. Some 38 percent of American adults now own an iPhone, BlackBerry or other mobile phone that runs the Android, Windows or WebOS operating systems, according to data from Nielsen. That's up from just 6 percent who owned a smartphone in 2007 when the iPhone was released and catalyzed the industry. The smartphone's usefulness, allowing people to organize their digital lives with one device, is also its allure to criminals. All at once, smartphones have become wallets, email lockboxes, photo albums and Rolodexes. And because owners are directly billed for services bought with smartphones, they open up new angles for financial attacks. The worst programs cause a phone to rack up unwanted service charges, record calls, intercept text messages and even dump emails, photos and other private content directly onto criminals' servers. Evidence of this hacker invasion is starting to emerge. &#8226; Lookout says it now detects thousands of attempted infections each day on mobile phones running its security software. In January, there were just a few hundred detections a day. The number of detections is nearly doubling every few months. As many as 1 million people were hit by mobile malware in the first half of 2011. &#8226; Google Inc. has removed about 100 malicious applications from its Android Market app store. One particularly harmful app was downloaded more than 260,000 times before it was removed. Android is the world's most popular smartphone operating software with more than 135 million users worldwide. &#8226; Symantec Corp., the world's biggest security software maker, is also seeing a jump. Last year, the company identified just five examples of malware unique to Android. So far this year, it's seen 19. Of course, that number pales compared with the hundreds of thousands of new strains targeting PCs every year, but experts say it's only a matter of time before criminals catch up. "Bad guys go where the money is," said Charlie Miller, principal research consultant with the Accuvant Inc. security firm, and a prominent hacker of mobile devices. "As more and more people use phones and keep data on phones, and PCs aren't as relevant, the bad guys are going to follow that. The bad guys are smart. They know when it makes sense to switch." When it comes to security, smartphones share a problem with PCs: Infections are typically the responsibility of the user to fix, if the problem is discovered at all. The emergence in early July of a previously unknown security hole in Apple Inc.'s iPhones and iPads cast a spotlight on mobile security. Users downloaded a program that allowed them to run unauthorized programs on their devices. But the program could also be used to help criminals co-opt iPhones. Apple has since issued a fix. It was the second time this year that the iPhone's security was called into question. In April the company changed its handling of location data after a privacy outcry that landed an executive in front of Congress. Researchers had discovered that iPhones stored the data for a year or more in unencrypted form, making them vulnerable to hacking. Apple CEO Steve Jobs emerged from medical leave to personally address the issue. The iPhone gets outsize attention because it basically invented the consumer smartphone industry when it was introduced in 2007. But Apple doesn't license its software to other phone manufacturers. Google gives Android to phone makers for free. So, Android phones are growing faster. As a result, Google's Android Market is a crucial pathway for hacking attacks. The app store is a lightly curated online bazaar for applications that, unlike Apple's App Store, doesn't require that developers submit their programs for pre-approval. Lookout says it has seen more unique strains of Android malware in the past month than it did in all of last year. One strain seen earlier this year, called DroidDream, was downloaded more than 260,000 times before Google removed it, though additional variants keep appearing. Lookout says about 100 apps have been removed from the Android Market so far, a figure Google didn't dispute. Malicious applications often masquerade as legitimate ones, such as games, calculators or pornographic photos and videos. They can appear in advertising links inside other applications. Their moneymaking schemes include new approaches that are impossible on PCs. One recent malicious app secretly subscribed victims up to a service that sends quizzes via text message. The pay service was charged to the victims' phone bills, which is presumably how the criminals got paid. They may have created the service or been hired by the creator to sign people up. Since malware can intercept text messages, it's likely the victims never saw the messages &#8212; just the charges. A different piece of malware logs a person's incoming text messages and replies to them with spam and malicious links. Most mobile malware, however, keep their intentions hidden. Some apps set up a connection between the phone and a server under a criminal's control, which is used to send instructions. Google points out that Android security features are designed to limit the interaction between applications and a user's data, and developers can be blocked. Users also are guilty of blithely click through warnings about what personal information an application will access. Malicious programs for the iPhone have been rare. In large part, that's because Apple requires that it examine each application before it goes online. Still, the recent security incidents underline the threat even to the most seemingly secure devices. A pair of computer worms targeting the iPhone appeared in 2009. Both affected only iPhones that were modified, or "jailbroken," to run unauthorized programs. And Apple has dealt with legitimate applications that overreached and collected more personal data than they should have, which led to the Cupertino, Calif.-based company demanding changes. "Apple takes security very seriously," spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said in July. "We have a very thorough approval process and review every app. We also check the identities of every developer and if we ever find anything malicious, the developer will be removed from the iPhone Developer Program and their apps can be removed from the App Store." A criminal doesn't even need to tailor his attacks to a mobile phone. Standard email-based "phishing" attacks &#8212; tricking people into visiting sites that look legitimate &#8212; work well on mobile users. In fact, mobile users can be more susceptible to phishing attacks than PC users. The small screens make it hard to see the full Internet address of a site you're visiting, and websites and mobile applications working in tandem train users to perform the risky behavior of entering passwords after following links, new research from the University of California at Berkeley has found. The study found that the links within applications could be convincingly imitated, according to the authors, Adrienne Porter Felt, a Ph.D. student, and David Wagner, a computer science professor. They found that "attackers can spoof legitimate applications with high accuracy, suggesting that the risk of phishing attacks on mobile platforms is greater than has previously been appreciated." A separate study released earlier this year by Trusteer, a Boston-based software and services firm focused on banking security, found that mobile users who visit phishing sites are three times more likely to submit their usernames and passwords than desktop PC users. Mobile users are "always on" and respond to emails faster, in the first few hours before phishing sites are taken down, and email formats make it hard to tell who's sending a message, Trusteer found. Still, mobile users have an inherent advantage over PC users: Mobile software is being written with the benefit of decades of perspective on the flaws that have made PCs insecure. But smartphone demand is exploding, with market research firm IDC predicting that some 472 million smartphones will be shipped this year, compared with 362 million PCs. As a result, the design deterrents aren't likely to be enough to keep crooks away from the trough. "It's going to be a problem," Miller said. "Everywhere people have gone, bad guys have followed." Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>Report: Facebook users more trusting, engaged (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/report-facebook-users-more-trusting-engaged-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:58:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Drew</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ NEW YORK &#8211; Facebook, it turns out, isn't just a waste of time. People who use it have more close friends, get more social support and report being more politically engaged than those who don't, according to a new national study on Americans and social networks. The report comes as Facebook, Twitter and even the buttoned-up, career-oriented LinkedIn continue to engrain themselves in our daily lives and change the way we interact with friends, co-workers and long-lost high school buddies. Released Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the report also found that Facebook users are more trusting than their non-networked counterparts. When accounting for all other factors &#8212; such as age, education level or race &#8212; Facebook users were 43 percent more likely than other Internet users to say that "most people can be trusted." Compared with people who don't use the Internet at all, Facebook users were three times more trusting. The reason for this is not entirely clear. One possible explanation: People on social networks are more willing to trust others because they interact with a larger number of people in a more diverse setting, said Keith Hampton, the main author of the study and a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania. When all else is equal, people who use Facebook also have 9 percent more close ties in their overall social network than other Internet users. This backs an earlier report from Pew that, contrary to studies done earlier in the decade, the Internet is not linked to social isolation. Rather, it can lead to larger, more diverse social networks. Social-networking users also scored high in political engagement. Because LinkedIn users (older, male and more educated) fall into a demographic category that's more politically active than the general population, they were most likely to vote or attend political rallies. But after adjusting for those characteristics, Facebook users, especially those who use the site multiple times a day, turned out to be more politically involved than those who don't use it. Overall, the average American has a little more than two close confidants, 2.16 to be exact, according to the report. This is up from an average of 1.93 close ties that Americans reported having in 2008. There are also fewer lonely people: 9 percent of respondents said they had no one with whom they could discuss important matters. That's down from 12 percent in 2008. The report didn't try to dig into cause and effect, so it's not clear whether the widening use of social networks is causing less loneliness. But it did find that people who use the Internet are less socially isolated than those who don't. Those on social networks, even less so &#8212; just 5 percent said they had no one to talk to about important stuff. The researchers also got numbers to back up what's in the mind of many Facebook users past a certain age: Yes, all your old high school classmates really are coming out of the woodwork and "friending" you. The average Facebook user has 56 friends on the site from high school. That's far more than any other social group, including extended family, co-workers or college classmates. Facebook's settings let users add the high school they attended to their profile, along with the year they graduated. Other users can then search for their classmates and add them as friends for a virtual reunion. "It's really reshaping how people maintain their networks," Hampton said. In the past, when people went to college or got jobs and moved away from their home towns, they left those relationships behind, too. This was especially true in the 1960s, when women not in the work force would move to the suburbs with their husbands and face a great deal of isolation, Hampton said. Now, with social networks, these ties are persistent. "Persistent and pervasive," Hampton said. "They stay with you forever." The survey was conducted among 2,255 adults from Oct. 20 to Nov. 28, 2010. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points for the full sample. ___ Online: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Technology-and-social-networks.aspx Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>States weigh relaxing penalties for teen sexting (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/states-weigh-relaxing-penalties-for-teen-sexting-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:51:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.allaboutgadget.com/states-weigh-relaxing-penalties-for-teen-sexting-ap/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ PROVIDENCE, R.I. &#8211; A congressman who sends an X-rated photo of himself jeopardizes his reputation and his job. But in many states, teens caught doing the same thing can risk felony charges, jail time and being branded sexual offenders. That's because a minor who transmits a sexually explicit photo of themselves according to many state laws, is manufacturing and distributing child pornography. Lawmakers across the country, however, now say the problem of teen sexting didn't exist when they enacted harsh punishments for child porn and are considering changes that would ensure minors don't face jail time for youthful mistakes. "Let's just call this what it is: stupid," said Rhode Island state Rep. Peter Martin, a Democrat from Newport who is sponsoring a bill to downgrade teen sexting from a felony to a juvenile offense. "These are kids we're talking about. I don't think minors should face these severe punishments just for being stupid." Legislatures in Rhode Island and 20 other states have considered bills this year to adjust penalties for teen sexting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California lawmakers are considering legislation that would enable schools to expel students caught sexting. Florida lawmakers voted to punish teen sexting with a $60 fine and community service. Lawmakers in New York, where U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner is embroiled in a sexting scandal, have introduced legislation that would allow judges to send teens who send explicit photos to counseling instead of jail if prosecutors agree they meant no harm. Studies show that one in five teens has electronically transmitted explicit photos of themselves, and one third say they have received such photos. It's a 21st century update of "I'll show you mine" with one critical difference: lewd photos can be passed on with the push of a button and live forever on the Internet. "It's an extraordinarily common behavior among kids, like it or not," said Amy Adler, a law professor at New York University who has studied how child pornography laws have been applied to sexting. "I hope lawmakers and prosecutors figure out quickly how to address it, because it's not going away." Parents and educators are the most likely to discover that a teen has sent or received lewd photos. Even when police or prosecutors get involved, most cases don't result in felony charges. But it has happened. Six Pennsylvania teens faced felony child pornography charges after police found underage boys swapping nude pictures of female classmates. Three girls were charged with manufacturing and distributing child porn, and three boys were charged with possession. The case ended up in juvenile court, where the teens were sentenced to community service and curfews. In another Pennsylvania case last year, a federal judge blocked a prosecutor from filing felony charges against teen girls caught in a sexting investigation. Last month, a Michigan prosecutor announced he had authorized felony charges against three 13- and 14-year-olds caught sexting. In Rhode Island, a 16-year-old avoided felony charges last summer but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and indecent exposure. The boy had shown friends an explicit phone video of himself with a female student. He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and prohibited from owning a cell phone with a camera for one year. Prosecutors and judges need more discretion to treat each cast of sexting differently, according to Sherry Capps Cannon, a former principal and high school administrator who recently graduated from Southern University Law Center in Louisiana, where she wrote a law review article examining laws surrounding teen sexting. There's a big difference, she said, between an adult who emails an explicit photo of a young teen and a 15-year-old who sends such a photo to a boyfriend. But laws in most states make no distinction. "The law has to acknowledge the intent of the person sending the photo," she said. "Right now, laws designed to protect children are being used to punish them." The legislation working its way through the Rhode Island General Assembly would make sexting by minors a juvenile offense similar to truancy. The bill has passed the House and awaits a vote in the Senate. Under current law minors who transmit indecent photos of themselves could face criminal penalties including prison time and fines of up to $5,000. Teens who forward indecent photos of other minors, however, could still face child pornography charges. State Sen. John Tassoni led a state task force examining cyberbullying and other problems caused by teens using technology in inappropriate ways. He said parents and schools can help stop sexting by reminding students that mistakes committed in cyberspace can have long-lasting, real-world consequences. But as Weiner's recent case shows, he said, there's no age limit for inappropriate Internet use. And Tassoni doesn't see the problem going away anytime soon. "I tell these kids that whatever they're putting out there will live forever," said Tassoni, D-Smithfield. "We need to discourage it, but charging them with felonies doesn't seem to be the way to do it." Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>University of Southern California students celebrate at the ...</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/university-of-southern-california-students-celebrate-at-the/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 17 May 2011 15:18:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Selers</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ (AP) - University of Southern California students celebrate at the end of commencement ceremonies on the USC campus Friday May 13, 2011 in Los Angeles. The commencement address was delivered by Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer. The event was expected to include 40,000 graduates and guests and will include satellite ceremonies held by 34 USC schools and academic units. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) ]]></description>
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		<title>Mircrosoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer listens to ceremonies ...</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 17 May 2011 15:18:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Brad Selers</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ (Reuters) - Mircrosoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer listens to ceremonies before receiving an honorary degree at the University of Southern California's commencement ceremony in Los Angeles, California May 13, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS EDUCATION SCI TECH) ]]></description>
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		<title>NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/ny-case-underscores-wi-fi-privacy-dangers-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:09:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ BUFFALO, N.Y. &#8211; Lying on his family room floor with assault weapons trained on him, shouts of "pedophile!" and "pornographer!" stinging like his fresh cuts and bruises, the Buffalo homeowner didn't need long to figure out the reason for the early morning wake-up call from a swarm of federal agents. That new wireless router. He'd gotten fed up trying to set a password. Someone must have used his Internet connection, he thought. "We know who you are! You downloaded thousands of images at 11:30 last night," the man's lawyer, Barry Covert, recounted the agents saying. They referred to a screen name, "Doldrum." "No, I didn't," he insisted. "Somebody else could have but I didn't do anything like that." "You're a creep ... just admit it," they said. Law enforcement officials say the case is a cautionary tale. Their advice: Password-protect your wireless router. Plenty of others would agree. The Sarasota, Fla. man, for example, who got a similar visit from the FBI last year after someone on a boat docked in a marina outside his building used a potato chip can as an antenna to boost his wireless signal and download an astounding 10 million images of child porn, or the North Syracuse, N.Y., man who in December 2009 opened his door to police who'd been following an electronic trail of illegal videos and images. The man's neighbor pleaded guilty April 12. For two hours that March morning in Buffalo, agents tapped away at the homeowner's desktop computer, eventually taking it with them, along with his and his wife's iPads and iPhones. Within three days, investigators determined the homeowner had been telling the truth: If someone was downloading child pornography through his wireless signal, it wasn't him. About a week later, agents arrested a 25-year-old neighbor and charged him with distribution of child pornography. The case is pending in federal court. It's unknown how often unsecured routers have brought legal trouble for subscribers. Besides the criminal investigations, the Internet is full of anecdotal accounts of people who've had to fight accusations of illegally downloading music or movies. Whether you're guilty or not, "you look like the suspect," said Orin Kerr, a professor at George Washington University Law School, who said that's just one of many reasons to secure home routers. Experts say the more savvy hackers can go beyond just connecting to the Internet on the host's dime and monitor Internet activity and steal passwords or other sensitive information. A study released in February provides a sense of how often computer users rely on the generosity &#8212; or technological shortcomings &#8212; of their neighbors to gain Internet access. The poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry group that promotes wireless technology standards, found that among 1,054 Americans age 18 and older, 32 percent acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn't theirs. An estimated 201 million households worldwide use Wi-Fi networks, according to the alliance. The same study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 40 percent said they would be more likely to trust someone with their house key than with their Wi-Fi network password. For some, though, leaving their wireless router open to outside use is a philosophical decision, a way of returning the favor for the times they've hopped on to someone else's network to check e-mail or download directions while away from home . "I think it's convenient and polite to have an open Wi-Fi network," said Rebecca Jeschke, whose home signal is accessible to anyone within range. "Public Wi-Fi is for the common good and I'm happy to participate in that &#8212; and lots of people are," said Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that takes on cyberspace civil liberties issues. Experts say wireless routers come with encryption software, but setting it up means a trip to the manual. The government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends home users make their networks invisible to others by disabling the identifier broadcasting function that allows wireless access points to announce their presence. It also advises users to replace any default network names or passwords, since those are widely known, and to keep an eye on the manufacturer's website for security patches or updates. People who keep an open wireless router won't necessarily know when someone else is piggybacking on the signal, which usually reaches 300-400 feet, though a slower connection may be a clue. For the Buffalo homeowner, who didn't want to be identified, the tip-off wasn't nearly as subtle. It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn't immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They are screaming at him, 'Get down! Get down on the ground!' He's saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?'" Covert said. "One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he's got the cuts and bruises to show for it," said Covert, who said the homeowner plans no lawsuit. When he was allowed to get up, agents escorted him and watched as he used the bathroom and dressed. The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak. But this wasn't a case of officers rushing into the wrong house. Court filings show exactly what led them there and why. On Feb. 11, an investigator with the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees cybersecurity enforcement, signed in to a peer-to-peer file sharing program from his office. After connecting with someone by the name of "Doldrum," the agent browsed through his shared files for videos and images and found images and videos depicting children engaged in sexual acts. The agent identified the IP address, or unique identification number, of the router, then got the service provider to identify the subscriber. Investigators could have taken an extra step before going inside the house and used a laptop or other device outside the home to see whether there was an unsecured signal. That alone wouldn't have exonerated the homeowner, but it would have raised the possibility that someone else was responsible for the downloads. After a search of his devices proved the homeowner's innocence, investigators went back to the peer-to-peer software and looked at logs that showed what other IP addresses Doldrum had connected from. Two were associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo and accessed using a secure token that UB said was assigned to a student living in an apartment adjacent to the homeowner. Agents arrested John Luchetti March 17. He has pleaded not guilty to distribution of child pornography. Luchetti is not charged with using his neighbor's Wi-Fi without permission. Whether it was illegal is up for debate. "The question," said Kerr, "is whether it's unauthorized access and so you have to say, 'Is an open wireless point implicitly authorizing users or not?' "We don't know," Kerr said. "The law prohibits unauthorized access and it's just not clear what's authorized with an open unsecured wireless." In Germany, the country's top criminal court ruled last year that Internet users must secure their wireless connections to prevent others from illegally downloading data. The court said Internet users could be fined up to $126 if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected line, though it stopped short of holding the users responsible for illegal content downloaded by the third party. The ruling came after a musician sued an Internet user whose wireless connection was used to download a song, which was then offered on an online file sharing network. The user was on vacation when the song was downloaded. Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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		<title>San Francisco hopes tech success isn&#039;t Bubble 2.0 (AP)</title>
		<link>http://www.allaboutgadget.com/san-francisco-hopes-tech-success-isnt-bubble-2-0-ap/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:02:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Peter Drew</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[ SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; A certain feeling is back in San Francisco. Murmurings of stock market riches. Twenty-something entrepreneurs as celebrities. Lamborghinis parked next to taco trucks. Driven by social media and mobile startups, the money is flowing in the city's tech industry again, a decade after the dot-com boom minted overnight millionaires and its crash fueled a local recession worse than anything San Francisco has seen in the latest downturn. A recent tax break for Twitter and other proposals show city officials are hopeful that this latest tech industry prosperity does not portend another bubble and another bust. "It seems to be the industry that's leading us out of the recession at the moment," said Ted Egan, the city's chief economist. Even so, he said, "it's certainly not yet another dot-com boom." At present, the signs do not point clearly to the same excess of optimism that led to the high perch from which the city had so far to fall. But some of the numbers swirling around the tech startup scene could stir a sense of deja vu. Along with Twitter, the San Francisco startup causing the most excitement is Zynga, maker of popular Facebook games like "FarmVille" and "CityVille." Estimates based on recent investments put the valuations of both companies at $7 billion or more. Yet unlike the first dot-com era, when companies with neither customers nor a clear way to make money raised millions in public stock offerings, both Twitter and Zynga have become major participants in the online economy. While Twitter is still tweaking its business model and keeps its revenue figures closely held, the company happily claims 175 million users on its way to becoming a global phenomenon. Zynga's popularity and approach to money-making are even clearer: It sells virtual goods that players use in the company's online games. Last year, the company made about $400 million doing just that, according to published reports. "It seems like they're doing things that people want rather than what they think they want," said market researcher Colin Yasukochi of today's startups versus those a decade ago. In a study for his employer, commercial real estate firm Jones Lange LaSalle, Yasukochi found that the number of tech jobs in San Francisco is nearing the peak set in 2000, the height of the dot-com boom. Yet the 32,000 tech workers today are occupying about half the commercial real estate space as their 34,000 counterparts before the crash &#8212; a possible sign that the estimated 500 tech companies in the city are taking a more conservative approach. During the first dot-com boom, technology companies were committing to large spaces with the intent of filling them with employees well ahead of their needs, Yasukochi said. "Obviously that growth never materialized," he said. "That had dire consequences." Those consequences included an office vacancy rate that shot from less than 5 percent to 25 percent in two years. Accompanied by the crushing blow of the 9/11 attacks on the city's tourism economy and housing prices that kept rising despite major job losses, the dot-com crash hit San Francisco harder overall than the recent recession, Egan said. As a result, San Franciscans have reason to fear the bursting of another bubble even as they enjoy the fruits of the tech industry's current good fortune. The hope is that companies, investors and the city itself have learned enough from past mistakes to avoid irrational exuberance. The possible signs of a different attitude include a much lower rate of venture capital investment. The greater Silicon Valley saw more than $8.5 billion poured into the software industry during the year 2000 alone, according to Thomson Reuters data. In 2010, the amount was less than $2 billion. Startups are still raising money, but running lean has become fashionable. Last year, Kevin Systrom, 27, co-founded a company that follows the typical lean San Francisco startup model, though with atypical success. The mobile photo sharing service Instagram launched in October. Since then, he says the service has grown to about 3 million registered users, or an average of a half-million new users each month. Right now the company has four workers &#8212; as Systrom puts it, one non-technical person and one engineer for every million users. Despite raising $7 million from investors, he says the company has no plans to go on a hiring spree or seek to cash in on a quick public stock offering, the stereotypical scenario during the first Internet boom. "It's about going after the best people in the world who want to build a world-class company," Systrom said. "We are pretty sold at staying lean for quite a while." Instagram got its start at Dogpatch Labs, a San Francisco workspace where as many as 25 small startups at a time occupy desks for a few months while they try to get consumers and investors interested in their ideas. Ryan Spoon, 30, oversees Dogpatch Labs for Polaris Venture Partners, a venture capital investment firm. During the first dot-com wave, he founded a company in his dorm room at Duke University to connect high school athletes with college coaches. The website, berecruited.com, is still around today, unlike many others that started at the time. Spoon says that a big difference between those early days and now is the speed with which social networks can give startups feedback on whether they have a good idea or not. Investors see that feedback, too, meaning they'll have a better sense before they pour money into a company whether it has a chance. "It's easier faster and cheaper to start and pursue an idea than it's ever been," Spoon said. "It's a fun time." Follow Yahoo! News on Twitter , become a fan on Facebook ]]></description>
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