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It seems that online predators are getting tired of savvy kids that know better than to be lured (or they're just getting lazy/impatient). Either way, one police group is warning that predators are shifting to a strategy of blackmail instead.

As always, be aware of what your kids are doing online and know who their friends are. Make sure they know what to do when threatened by someone online.

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Here's an article listing (and rating) the various ways to watch download/watch TV legally.

DRM

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Spore, the long-awaited video game from the creator of Sim-City and the Sims has finally been released, but with a catch. It includes invasive Digital Rights Management (DRM) that has resulted in a movement by gamers to keep the Amazon.com score at the absolute bottom.

I hate to see a good game go down, but no company has the right to try so hard to control how we use our legally purchased software.

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The website includes very loose information about what makes this chip so "uncloneable", but I highly doubt that it's true. An RFID chip is read by radio waves and as long as you can make a chip, computer, or anything else that transmits replicate the signal that the original chip did, you can clone it.

If they mean that you can't make one of these chips copy the data from another of these chips, I can see that as being possible, but what difference does that make in the end if I can use a different brand chip to open your secure door or travel the world in your name?

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An equalizer made of pure flame, music played with pure electricity, and others. You should really check this out.

To the movies!

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Ghostbusters has become the first movie to be distributed on a USB drive. It includes a strong form of DRM that they hope will prevent people from copying it. Whether that proves more effective than the DRM they've tried on DVDs remains to be seen.

Digital Pickpocketing

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There's a small device that when plugged into many cellphone brands (and the list is growing) that can copy all data on the phone. In other words, if someone wanted to know every bit of data you have on your phone, they could ask to "borrow it for second", plug this thing in when you weren't looking and hand it back.

While designed for law enforcement, this device is available to the public for only ~$200

The rule: if your phone contains sensitive data, do not leave it unattended. If you loan it to someone to use because they tell you theirs is not working, make sure you actually see them using the phone and there is nothing connected to it.

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Katherine Albrecht has written has written an article for Scientific American that everyone should read. For those who don't already know her, she's the leader of CASPIAN and one of the world's foremost experts on RFID privacy issues.

Here is a mini summary of some of the major points:

• Companies intend to replace barcodes with RFID
• Unlike barcodes which identify a product type (i.e. a can of soda), RFID will identify an INDIVIDUAL product (i.e. can of coke #48377625376)
• RFID tags can be read secretly from long distances (30 or more feet).
• RFID tags in licenses have minimal security (and even passports that have more security have been hacked already many times)
• IBM filed a patent that was granted in 2006 for a system of scanners at “shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, restrooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, [and] mu­­se­­ums ? to track the movements of people by their RFID tags
• Alton Towers (an English amusement park) issues RFID wristbands to visitors and tracks their movements through the park. While they use it to create a keepsake "where you went" map for their customers, they prove that the system works in practice

Read the terms, don't like what you see.

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As I suspected, a product from a company like Google shouldn't be trusted without scrutiny. They've developed a new open-source Internet browser to compete with Firefox and Internet Explorer, but if you read carefully, you might notice this:

You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

So anything you submit through the Google browser can be stored and used for either promotion purposes or for selling to 3rd parties. In other words, Google browser is nothing more than the most sophisticated data-brokering device yet created (or spyware in other words).

Google may have the best search engine around, but their privacy policies are and have always been complete crap.

2008 Sept, 04 Update

Well that was fast. Google has updated it's EULA to remove any reference to them holding rights to what you own. It looks like they just cut-and-pasted their EULA from Google docs (which still has that problem). Now it reads like this:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

Surprisingly forward thinking.

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Though they originally blamed it on anti-virus software on the machines, Diebold has admitted that it was coding error that leads its machines to drop votes. Hopefully that will help in the lawsuit against Diebold and encourage others states to recoup their losses as well.