Ripe for abuse

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If you're related to a felon or just happen to have similar DNA, the Police may come knocking at your door.

This is just one more reason why we need to fight and fight to prevent any type of collection and storage of DNA information from innocent people. I know that targeting relatives doesn't initially require DNA, but the obvious next step once they find that relative is to force a DNA sample for comparison.

I'm not certain I'm against that in some cases, but the primary question that comes to mind is, what do they do with the DNA evidence once the relative has been ruled out? Does it stay forever even though they were innocent?

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In a smart move, the Phillipine government is asking hackers far and wide to break their system. In a move that's sure to provide a lot of free publicity and free security testing at worst, the Phillipines prove they can do the job much better then our guys.

Stories like this give all police a bad name.

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Tantrum turns to police record.

She flailed away at the teachers who tried to control her. She pulled one woman’s hair. She was kicking.

Unless the kid has a knife or some other kind of weapon, nothing they can do could be counted as dangerous.

Desre’e was charged with battery on a school official, which is a felony, and two misdemeanors: disruption of a school function and resisting a law enforcement officer. After a brief stay at the county jail, she was released to the custody of her mother.

So your kid has a felony and two misdemeanors on record from the time they're 6? What was wrong with the normal way, calling her mother? So now this poor girl, her mother, the community, and most of the Internet all have less respect and trust for police officers. Great work Florida.

People shouldn't be tagged like animals

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California is working on a bill to ban RFID chipping kids.

Legislation approved Monday would prohibit public schools from requiring the implementation of radio-wave devices that broadcast students' personal identification and monitor their movement around campus — information the mechanical horrors could theoretically use to turn our children into livestock.

…

More RFID bills led by Simitian are currently being sent through California committees. One bill places a similar temporary ban on RFID technology in California driver's licenses. Another will place privacy safeguards on any existing RFID-enabled government IDs. Simitian also has led a bill that would restrict forced RFID chip implants in people.

Microsoft dirty trick: installing stuff you don't need or want

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The Windows Updater is supposed to patch your system against critical flaws and exploits. To make things easier for normal users, there's an "Express Install" button where you don't have to review each update one at a time and can just trust Microsoft to install only the most security critical patches.

Enter the Windows Genuine Advantage notification tool. It tool doesn't protect you or do anything at all to help your system, it collects data about your computer and declares your copy of Windows legal or not. In millions of cases, it wrongly identifies systems as being "pirated" and nags users repeatedly about having an illegal copy and how to contact Microsoft for a legitimate one. Even worse, it locks you out of further security updates until you do.

To make sure that you don't miss WGA, they slipped it into IE7, Windows Defender, and Windows Media Player 11. But the worst of all was issuing it as a "critical update" on Windows updater. This way, anyone who clicked the "Express Install" button would get it by default without knowing better.

It's because of practices like this that geeks don't like Microsoft. They slipped a tool onto your machine that spies on your system and disables functionality. Sounds like a virus to me.

So why am I posting such old news now? First, I haven't talked about this before and it really ticks me off. Second, the WGA made PC World's 20 all time most annoying tech products (at number 9).

Annoying. Yup

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For it's incessant prompts to "allow or continue", it's terrible compatibility with older software, and for Aero not working on most machines even though Microsoft marketing always shows the Aero experience (which so many people don't actually get to see). PC World puts Vista as #8 on the top 20 most annoying tech products of all time.

Real ID rejection is the right choice

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According to the The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) newsletter, Washington state has also rejected REAL ID. More info on REAL ID and why it's bad here.

Yarr!

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From the "thank gosh the hackers are on our side" department, it appears that the encryption scheme used on HD DVDs has nearly been broken. The copy protection scheme is supposed to prevent pirates from making and distributing copies of movies, but it also prevents normal users from exercising their fair use rights.

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For those who weren't paying attention, fears of child abduction and abuse are fairly overblown.

Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it's not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.

Why is this important? Because companies that want humans to accept RFID implantation will try to use fears of child abduction to sell their products. The industry wants this badly (and possibly the government too), because once people begin implanting children, no one will get them removed as adults and eventually, every citizen will have them. Once we are all tagged, we can be tracked wherever we go and whatever we do.

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From the "don't forget we're people, not products" department, North Dakota is the second state to ban forced RFID implantation. However, even if this is a step in the right direction, does it do enough? It doesn't ban voluntary implantation and last I checked a lot of things that aren't really "voluntary" are treated such under law:

But Michael Shamos, a professor who specializes in security issues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, believes the law is too vague to do much good. For instance, it only addresses situations where a chip is injected, even though RFID tags can also be swallowed. And it doesn't clearly define what a forced implant really is; someone could make chipping a requirement for a financial reward.

"Suppose I offer to pay you $10,000 if you have an RFID [chip] implanted?" he asked. "Is that 'requiring' if it's totally voluntary on your part?"

It's a poor example, but the right idea. Instead, what if you are offered a high paying job and move your family to a new state, get settled and begin the orientation process for your new job. You find out that they require RFID implants for "security" (which has been proven to weaken security). How much free will do you have in this instance? Can you really afford not to take the job now?

Another example, perhaps not so drastic. Companies push and push and finally get most everyone to use RFID implants as identification and method of payment. Because you're smart enough to know what a bad thing this is, you refuse, but find yourself inconvenienced everywhere. You can only shop at certain stores that still have non-RFID checkout. You pay an extra "cash handling" fee for not using the new methods. You have to drive 20 miles away to the only gas station around that's equiped to take non-RFID transactions.

Is it still a choice?

Note that both Spychips.com and Privacy.org are carrying this story and that Spychips lists Ohio, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Florida as more states with anti-implantation bills in the works. The first state to pass such a bill was Wisconsin (note the same flaw as the ND bill).