While this is barely legal (if it IS legal), I don't particularly have a problem with cell phone companies opening their data to police to help find a person reported as missing. That is, of course, assuming that they don't abuse the power and that missing persons are defined correctly.

As with most government powers, as long as there is independent oversight and proper consequences for abuse, who cares what powers they actually have?

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

There's a bill winding it's way through the muck in the capitol building. If this bill becomes law, it would preemptively prevent DNA-based discrimination, get this: before it becomes a problem. In the past, congress has been reluctant to pass laws that would prevent a problem before it gets out of control because they lack foresight or because their pockets were so full of cash that they couldn't concentrate on upholding the rights of the little people.

GINA would make it illegal for health insurers to raise premiums or deny coverage based on genetic information, and would prohibit employers from using such information for decisions on hiring, firing, promotions or job assignments.

That aside, something good this way comes and let us pray, offer sacrifice, or speak in tongues
(whatever suits you) that this becomes a law.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

Oh, and if you're not familiar with the concept of discrimination through DNA, check out Gattica

If you didn't already know, TV is going fully digital by February 2009. That means that all TVs, VCRs, etc that don't speak digital will be left in the lurch. You'll need to buy a converter and fortunately, the government is offering $40 coupons to all families (one per household) to defray the costs of conversion. Better yet, sometime this summer there should be a digital converter that you can buy for about $40 (making your net cost $0).

There have been some problems with the coupons though.

First the FBI was going to put the DNA of innocent people on permenant file, but now they're going to drag in the DNA of any relatives to the offenders as well.

He was a church-going father of two, and for more than 30 years Dennis Rader eluded police in the Wichita area, killing 10 people and signing taunting letters with a self-styled monogram: BTK, for Bind Torture Kill. In the end, it was a DNA sample that tied BTK to his crimes. Not his own DNA. But his daughter's.

Investigators obtained a court order without the daughter's knowledge for a Pap smear specimen she had given five years earlier at a university medical clinic in Kansas. A DNA profile of the specimen almost perfectly matched the DNA evidence taken from several BTK crime scenes, leading detectives to conclude she was the child of the killer. That allowed police to secure an arrest warrant in February 2005 and end BTK's murderous career.

The sad thing here is that the practice could be used to do great good, but we can't let the FBI ever have the power to do this because they can't be trusted to use it properly.

Privacy.org

Lifelock is that company run by the dude who boasts, "Here's my Social Security Number! I can't be hurt by ID Theft Man, I'm In-VINCIBLE!!!!" or some such nonsense.

First of all, he was robbed by some guy in texas which proves the point I've been trying to make all along: Lifelock doesn't PREVENT ID theft. But more important than that is how this company advertises. Besides having ads just damned everywhere on the web, I've found a wealth of fake sites that pretend to be 3rd party recommendations, but have little to no content other than Lifelock ads disguised as reviews. Whether this is the direct result of Lifelock marketing or the fault of over-zealous users of a Lifelock affiliate program, but either way, having sites like this really damage what little reputation Lifelock has.

This is getting dull so here are some more listed in no particular order

lifelock-promo.com
lifelocktv.net
safeidentityreview.com
getlifelock.net
identitytheftsecrets.com
reviewsonlifelock.com
www.f1racing.ws/

And the following are sites that have other posts, but at least one on lifelock that pretends to be a review, but isn't:

http://www.brokencode.us/finance/lifelock-scam/ (3 articles)
http://brinformatica.alojagratis.org/2008/04/06/lifelock/ (3 articles)
http://mbaonlinedegree.biz/2008/04/10/lifelock-review-for-the-id-prevention/ (1 article)
http://dmnewexpress.com/?p=128 (4 articles)
http://infinitum-media.com/ (4 articles)
http://www.drcopa.com/index.php?s=lifelock&x=&y= (1 article)
http://www.ginolopez.com/?p=43 (1 article)
http://abshome.blogspot.com/2008/04/value-of-life-lock_13.html (18+ articles)
http://msteenybopper.multiply.com/journal/item/146/Lifelock_Promo_Codes (1 article)

And a million more. Just do a search for Lifelock and you'll find them everywhere.

In some slightly overblown reporting online, Microsoft has been caught downloading updates to its software without user knowledge or consent. In this case, they were just updating the Windows Updater, but the key complaint here is that the users didn't get to choose.

In the past many people delay updating (or avoid it altogether) because the updates can sometimes cause less security or add features that we don't want.

(H/T to Schneier's Blog for the link)

Wasn't it nice that Bush decided after he was caught breaking the law to put the spying program under FISA oversight (which is where it belonged by law before)? The best part of this story is that the FISA court has blocked certain parts of the program as a result. It's no wonder Bush is trying to have FISA amended.

This was all so much easier for him when the program was still secret and he didn't have to follow the rules.