CAN-SPAM Act in action

23 year old Russian spammer pleaded not guilty against spam related charges today. It's estimated that he was responsible for up to a third of the world's spam mail.

He's being charged with laws implemented by the CAN-SPAM Act. I think it'll be interesting to see how his trial lasts.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idCATRE6B25FW20101203

see what information is collected about you

starting in January, we will be able to see what advertising/data-mining companies know about us based on our online movements.



http://betteradvertising.com/

New York professor installs camera in head

 We had a really interesting last CS430 lecture today talking about what we think the future may look like and how this would impact society. While this isn't exactly state of the art technology, I came across this article where a professor (Bilal) implants a camera on the back of his head.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/02/new.york.camera.head/index.html?hpt=C1

There are obvious privacy concerns and university authorities require a cover  over the lens when Bilal is teaching on campus.

WikiLeaks 9/11

I am pretty sure many people have read or heard about this today.
Just want to share to people who have not realize this.

A brief summary of this is about 250000 highly confidential US diplomatic documents have been leaked out. I think this is related to our security topic.

http://wikileaks.org/

Another side of technology and society

I thought I'd share this article on biotechnology and society. It touches on a lot of issues that can be relevant to technology and society in general, and indeed there is a brief discussion of AI and computing towards the end of the article: http://www.matnat.uio.no/forskning/utdanning/forskerkurs/MNSES/host2009/midgley.pdf

Can you go to jail because of your tweets?

Few days ago, South and North Korea had a military confrontation. Amidst the flood of news articles on that subject, one article caught my eyes. It was saying that the South Korean police is arresting anyone who are spreading false rumors.

A few people were arrested because they either send cell phone text messages to random people or wrote on their social network services (such as Facebook wall or Twitter) false information such as Kim Jong-il is dead or North Korean army officially invaded the South.

There have been some people saying because of the wide reach of technology and especially wide reach of the social networking services it has become so easy for rumors to spread out. There was a study saying that most people spread the rumor over Facebook or Twitter without even checking whether the rumor is true or not.

So, here's my question. If I get arrested based on what I post on my Facebook wall, is that a violation of my freedom of speech? Also, am I responsible to check everything I post is true? Are my posts weigh as important as official news articles from professional journalists (like those work for CBC or CNN)?

PS Here's a Washington Post's article on a similar topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112302121.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

PS Here's a Telegraph's article on a similar topic as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8143878/Chinese-woman-sentenced-to-hard-labour-after-satirical-Twitter-comment.html

Judge Bars ‘Fair Use’ Defense in Xbox Modding Trial

Just came across this earlier... found it very interesting as we specifically discussed what is and isn't fair use in class, and I was under the assumption that this WOULD be fair use. However, the judge apparently doesn't think so. Maybe the definition needs to be revamped in this new era?

Thoughts?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/crippen/