AT&T announced on June 9th that hackers found a security hole in the iPad that allowed hackers to obtain thousands of customer’s email addresses, including White House staff, the mayor of New York, the chief executive at the New York Times, and military personnel. The latest breach provides startling evidence of corporations’ inability to guarantee protection of sensitive customer information. This incident highlights the fragility of the Internet and the malleability of notices posted on a website. With hackers compromising websites, due process is not being served if the information cannot be authenticated or provided permanence on the Internet.
Archive for category Internet issues
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s facebook account was hacked into by spammers on New Years Eve.
The Sidekick, marketed as a mobile messaging device, allows its user to: send SMS messages; IM friends; surf the Web; create an address book, calendar, to do list, or jot down notes — all while playing music, taking pictures, playing games or actually making a call. Sounds impressive right? What could possibly go wrong?
One million or so Sidekick users have now discovered the fragility of online storage of information…
Speed Matters, a project of the Communication Workers of America, released their third annual report on Internet Speeds this week. The results of the report, broadband penetration in the United States is generally “poor” and far behind other industrialized nations. According to the report:
“Only 20 percent of those who took the test have Internet speeds in the range of the top-ranked countries – South Korea, Japan and Sweden. 18 percent do not even meet the FCC definition for current-generation broadband: an always-on Internet connection of at least 768 kbps downstream.”
The report reveals useful information about the average download and upload speeds by state and county. For more information:
http://annarborchronicle.com/2009/08/18/column-a-charter-change-on-publishing/
The City wants to put its notices on its own website, hinting it may want to dispense with the newspaper publication altogether. An online editor explains why he thinks that’s not such a great idea.
Internet use in American farms was up 2 percent from 2007 to 2009–to a total of 59 percent, according to the National Agricultural Statistical Service. A state by state report on Internet access, by connection type, is available from NASS.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1062
Good Jobs First finds the web has been an inadequate tool to inform the public where their economic stimulus dollars have been spent. According to their press release:
“While some states have created impressive websites to disseminate information about their share of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), most are failing to make effective use of online technology to educate taxpayers about the impact of economic stimulus spending. This is the finding of Show Us the Stimulus, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC. ”
The full text of the report as well as state-specific appendices can be found on the Good Jobs First website at www.goodjobsfirst.org/stimulusweb.cfm.
Online public meeting notices may not be doing what lawmakers originally intended.
The Utah Legislature passed a new law in 2008 that requires all government entities to post all public meeting notices on a state-run Web site. The Utah public meetings Web site, utah.gov/pmn, was designed with public meeting notices in mind.
The Web site, the first of its kind in the nation, may be receiving some praise for being ahead of other states, but some say it is far from perfect.
“Is the public meeting notice system working? I don’t think it is. We have a way to go,” said, Joel Campbell, vice president of the Utah Headliners Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Campbell added, “People aren’t getting their meeting agendas when they need to be.”