From the orange country register

Kids who skip school are tracked by GPS


ANAHEIM – Frustrated by students habitually skipping class, police and school officials in Anaheim are turning to GPS tracking to ensure they come to class.

The Anaheim Union High School District is the first in California to test Global Positioning System technology as part of a six-week pilot program that began last week, officials said.

Seventh- and eighth-graders with four unexcused absences or more this school year are assigned to carry a handheld GPS device, about the size of a cell phone.

(To read why the devices are not strapped onto the children, and learn other facts about the program, click here for a Q. and A. with an expert.)

Each morning on schooldays, they get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time.

Then, five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m.

The students are also assigned an adult coach who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to class on time.

Students and their parents volunteer for the monitoring as a way to avoid continuation school or prosecution with a potential stay in juvenile hall.

"The idea is for this not to feel like a punishment, but an intervention to help them develop better habits and get to school," said Miller Sylvan, regional director for AIM Truancy Solutions.

The GPS devices cost $300-$400 each. Overall, the six-week program costs about $8 per day for each student, or $18,000.

The program is paid for by a state grant. Students who routinely skip school are prime candidates to join gangs, police say.

Because schools lose about $35 per day for each absent student, the program can pay for itself and more if students return to class consistently, Miller said.


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THE RAW STORY

Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your "friends" are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my "friends" even real people?

In the continuing saga of data security firm HBGary, a new caveat has come to light: not only did they plot to help destroy secrets outlet WikiLeaks and discredit progressive bloggers, they also crafted detailed proposals for software that manages online "personas," allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people as they'd like.

The revelation was among those contained in the company's emails, which were dumped onto bittorrent networks after hackers with cyber protest group "Anonymous" broke into their systems.

In another document unearthed by "Anonymous," one of HBGary's employees also mentioned gaming geolocation services to make it appear as though selected fake persons were at actual events.

"There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas," it said.

Government involvement

Eerie as that may be, more perplexing, however, is a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, that solicits providers of "persona management software."

While there are certainly legitimate applications for such software, such as managing multiple "official" social media accounts from a single input, the more nefarious potential is clear.

Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel suspicions. As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent."

It continues, noting the need for secure virtual private networks that randomize the operator's Internet protocol (IP) address, making it impossible to detect that it's a single person orchestrating all these posts. Another entry calls for static IP address management for each persona, making it appear as though each fake person was consistently accessing from the same computer each time.

The contract also sought methods to anonymously establish virtual private servers with private hosting firms in specific geographic locations. This would allow that server's "geosite" to be integrated with their social media profiles, effectively gaming geolocation services.


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From the Telegraph

Facial recognition passport gates shut down

Border gates at Manchester Airport that rely on facial recognition technology had to be shut down after they failed to recognise that a couple had swapped passports.

The incident occured on 8 February and the gates were out of action for three days while immigration authorities investigated.

It is understood that the couple accidentally mixed up their passports and did not deliberately attempt to breach security. They were stopped by an official who was supervising the system and released after their immigration status was verified.

Brodie Clark, head of Border Force, the part of the UK Border Agency responsible for passport control, said: "There was no breach of security or immigration control.

"The E-gates were temporarily suspended whilst an investigation was carried out."

"The gates have now re-opened and we will continue to monitor their performance to ensure they operate safely and securely."

The gates are designed to speed up passport control, and work by comparing travellers' faces to photographs stored on a microchip embedded in every UK passport issued since 2006.

Since the first trials at Manchester Airport in 2008, they have been rolled out to other major airports including Heathrow and Gatwick. Mr Clark said that Border Force's investigation of the failure concluded that other installations were not affected.

The three-day shut down is just the latest problem to face the gates.

In December by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency urged a rethink on facial recognition. His inspection found that the system often broke down and that the "effectiveness of the facial recognition gates is in danger of being compromised both by the unreliability of the technology and the frustration of staff towards their use".


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That new Facebook friend might just be a spy

(lets get real now facebook itself is the spy, but carry on!!)

The war between security firm HBGary and Anonymous reveals a new tactic: using fake social network profiles to gather information.


Is that new friend really your friend, or just someone pretending to be your friend so he can spy on you? No, I’m not just being more paranoid than usual. This really does happen – especially if you’re a member of an anonymous collective determined to do battle with the forces of corporate evil (not to mention Tom Cruise, Soulja Boy, and your mom).

The ongoing battle between Anonymous and the security wonks who are trying to take it down has revealed a new weapon: Creating fake profiles on social networks to trace out the connections between you and your comrades.


In what proved to be a colossally dimwitted move, HBGary Federal executive Aaron Barrbragged to the Financial Times about his success in infiltrating Anonymous:

Mr Barr said he had collected information on the core leaders, including many of their real names, and that they could be arrested if law enforcement had the same data… But he does not plan to give specifics to police, who would face hurdles in using some of the methods he employed, including creating false Facebook profiles.

In other words, to “catch” Anonymous, Barr had to resort to methods the police could not – violating Facebook’s terms of service in the process.

OK. Maybe sometimes you need to bend the rules to get the bad guys (assuming you consider Anonymous the bad guys – in this scenario it’s increasingly unclear.) But bragging about it?

Barr might just as well have smeared peanut butter all over his body and jumped into the elephant cage at the San Diego Zoo.


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FROM PHYSORG

Yap.TV lets viewers chat as they watch


Yap.TV software for Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch devices lets show watchers engage in real time on Twitter, Facebook or the firm's own social network.

"We mated the television program guide with the Twitter stream and social networks to basically allow you to see what everyone in the world is talking about right now," Yap.TV co-founder Shawn Cunningham told AFP on Friday.

"So when you zap into a show, you are immersed in the experience."

The San Francisco-based firm is working on versions of the "social TV" platform for computer Web browsers and smartphones or tablets running on Google's Android software.

Yap.TV backers include former Apple executive David Austin, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is an advisor to the startup.

"We thought we could create a social world for television content, which people love to talk about almost more than anything else," Cunningham said.

"It was really things like the iPad that opened the gateway," he added. "A second-screen device perfect for this type of activity."

Yap.TV lets people lounge comfortably with shows on their televisions and cherished social networks in their laps in the form of iPad, iPhone or iPod touch devices.

The free software gathers "tweets" and comments from Facebook friendswatching the same shows. A custom Yap social network also lets viewers share what they enjoy or hate about what is on-screen.

"TV watching is inherently social; people love to talk about what movies or shows they watched," Cunningham said.

"We figured out millions of people were already talking about this stuff but didn't have a place to go," he added.


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FROM YAHOO NEWS

Activists on Facebook need protection: senator


WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facebook has become an important tool for democracy and human rights activists and it needs to do more to protect them, including allowing the use of pseudonyms, a US senator said Thursday.
"Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia have again highlighted the significant costs and benefits of social networking technology like Facebook to democracy and human rights activists," Senator Dick Durbin said in a letter to Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

"I commend you for providing an important tool to democracy and human-rights activists," the Democrat from Illinois said.
"However, as millions of people around the world use Facebook to exercise their freedom of expression, I am concerned that the company does not have adequate safeguards in place to protect human rights and avoid being exploited by repressive governments," Durbin said.

"Facebook has facilitated efforts by activists to organize demonstrations and publicize human-rights abuses," he said.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]

"At the same time, the Egyptian and Tunisian governments have reportedly used Facebook to monitor activists, which is surely aided by Facebook's refusal to allow activists to use pseudonyms," the senator said, citing Belarus, China, and Iran as other countries using social networking to track activists.

Durbin repeated a call for Facebook, which has nearly 600 million users, to join the Global Network Initiative (GNI), which has drafted a voluntary code of conduct to protect human rights and whose members include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!
Responding to the senator's letter, Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said "the trust people place in us is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.


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You can find this post here


PLEASE READ - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO EVERYONE WHO USES FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS OR PERSONAL REASONS.

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately? Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you? 

Don't worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can't see anything you post and here's why:

The "New Facebook" has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you've recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa - you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE'S THE FIX: On the homepage click the "Most Recent" title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click the drop down arrow and select "Edit Options", click on "Show Posts From" and change the setting to "All Of Your Friends and Pages" (you can also access the "Edit Options" link at the very bottom of the facebook homepage on the right) 
Note: This is the fix for personal pages but I am unsure of whether or not the business pages are set up the same way.

Simply posting an update about it won't do any good because lots of your friends/fans already can't see your posts by default. You'll either have to send out a message to everyone on your list (which I'm not even sure business pages can do and is a rather tedious method) or post an event like this one explaining the situation and invite your entire fan base and/or friend list. Feel free to invite them to this event since it is open to the public. You can also tweet about it, create a blog post or send out an email to your subscribers in hopes of reaching them all.

I've alerted some of the big facebook security sites and they are working on finding an easier solution for companies to let their customers know about the situation.

Shame on facebook for altering the default setting and not telling people about it! Just think about how many companies posted Christmas sales and discounts without having any idea that their customers couldn't see the updates.

ps. Welcome back to my newsfeed facebookers :)

NOTE: THERE WILL STILL BE SOME BUSINESS PAGE UPDATES THAT WON'T SHOW UP IN YOUR NEWSFEED. TO VIEW THE MISSING POSTS YOU MUST CLICK ON THE "MESSAGES" MENU LINK ON THE TOP LEFT OF THE HOMEPAGE, THEN CLICK THE "UPDATES" LINK THAT MAGICALLY APPEARS BELOW IT. 

*** A great tip while you're altering default settings is to make sure your fans can comment on your posts. To do this you must go to your Privacy Settings, then click on "Customize Settings >Can Comment On Posts >Everyone 
(Hat tip to Natacha)

Can Startup Bubbli Turn Geotagged Photos Into Matrix-esque Augmented Reality?

BY KIT EATONWed Feb 9, 2011

Startup Bubbli just raised $2 million in funding from August Capital, which will help it in its mission to build "the Matrix (minus the sentient AI)." What's it all about?

Bubbli's home page is mystical, to say the least. It really does say its mission statement is to build the Matrix, but there's a string of text that gives us some big clues: "Take a look in your pocket," it suggests, "You probably have a smartphone. You're looking at something that governments used to pay millions of dollars to launch into space. You presumably launched your device into your back pocket for merely a few benjamins." So we know this is smartphone-centric. But then the text goes on:

While you were out shopping: Thousands of brilliant papers have been published in computer vision about understanding the world around you through a camera chained to a workstation in a basement. The algorithms need to be set free. Why liberate the algorithms? The better we understand reality through a camera lens, the better we can replicate it elsewhere. After all, our eyes are just light sensors, what does it matter that the light that goes into your eyes is reflected off of an object from the sun or comes from a digital display?The company is trying to recruit three programmers, including a computer-vision expert, and will soft launch at the upcoming TED event.

Bubbli's site has resulted in some speculation online thanks to this mystery, and the fact that some of the site's support has come from John Doerr, who injected massive amounts of cash into Twitter--a venture that has done pretty well. Doerr noted he'd seen Bubbli, and thus had "seen the future."

But what can we infer from Bubbli's site? It seems the firm is planning something pretty impressive. Bubbli has realized that when all of us, by the million, snap photos and videos (by the billion) of our daily events, we're recording a rich digital story of the world--with accurate GPS locations, angular information and digital compass data (in some cases), so that it's possible to work out precisely where the images were created.


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