Back in June, the state of Ohio said it had lost the personal information of some 64,000 state employees, after a storage device was stolen from an intern's car -- which, apparently according to its security protocols, was a suitable off-site storage location. The state dutifully followed the usual plan of releasing another announcement raising the number of people whose information was lost, putting it at 500,000. Turns out that was a little conservative; the state now says the figure is closer to one million, nearly 16 times the original claim. The governor and his staffers claim that nobody appears to have used the stolen information yet, and that it would take somebody with "special knowledge and understanding" to access it. Of course, coming from a place where storing stuff in an intern's car is regarded as secure and safe, that claim doesn't carry a lot of weight -- nor does it make up for the egregious breach that occured.

An anonymous reader writes "You probably already knew that the FBI was data mining Americans in the "search" for potential terrorists, but did you know that they're also supposed to be looking for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity that is not really supposed to be the province of the federal government? Now the feds are alleged to be data mining for insurance fraudsters, identity thieves, and questionable online pharmacists. That's what they're telling us now. What else could they be looking for that they are not telling us about?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cory Doctorow: Copyfighting law prof Michael Geist and filmmaker Daniel Albahary have put together a great short film called "Putting Canadian 'Piracy' in Perspective." It's a great, systematic debunking of of the claims that Canada is a haven for piracy, demonstrating that these claims are just scare-tactics from American corporate and government interests looking to change Canadian law to favor American firms to the detriment of the Canadian public. Link (Thanks, Robbo!)

Mark Frauenfelder:

Greg of Gama-Go says:

Last Thursday was my girlfriend's (Ericka) daughter's (Noa) 15th birthday. An exciting day filled with challenges. Not the least of which was getting Noa a decent present. I picked up a gift certificate to Aquarius Records, but it seemed like I should get her something else. Something from the heart.

Why not tap into her natural teenage angst & go for a piñata effigy of her mom?

I checked with Ericka, she was a good sport and down with the concept of letting her daughter wack the bejezus out of her paper clone.

Next stop -- San Francisco's renown Piñata Art Studio (located at Mission and Silver). I had met Romeo Osorio some years back when I needed a couple piñatas for a company party. Romeo's soft spoken demeanor belies his tremendous talents. He's a veritable maestro of maché.

I brought him a couple of photos & he set to work. A scant two days later I was picking up a gigantic version of my girlfriend's head. Sure, it was a bit of a simplified portrait -- but the resemblance was striking.

The day of the party arrived and soon it was whacking time. We congregated at the appointed piñata hanging tree. The audible buzz of teenage excitement filled the air. We got Noa blindfolded, spun her around, gave her a broom & started taunting her with the ancient, traditional piñata-busting chants. Chants like: "Hit it!" and "It's behind you!"

Somehow Noa zeroed in on the enormous head with the sure guidance of a JDAM bunker-buster & hit it with a sickening smack. Candy spilled everywhere. Noa stayed focused on the task at hand, landing blow after blow. A cry of savage joy escaped her lips as she wound up and delivered the final strike.

It was a smashing good time for us all. Our only remaining challenge is to figure out what to do with the creepy beat-up giant head sitting on our dining room table. Seems a bit disrespectful to toss it in the compost bin.

amigoro writes "Scientists have, for the first time, conclusively discovered the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System, according to an article appearing in Nature. They made the discovery by analysing the transit of the gas giant HD 189733b across its star, in the Infrared using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. HD 189733b is a 'hot jupiter', a gas giant that is roughly the size and mass of Jupiter but orbits very close to the star, so no chance of life there."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Northern Ireland's health minister has apparently met with social-networking site Bebo, mobile phone operator Vodafone and Google to ask them what they're going to do to help stop the growing number of teen suicides there. He says the suicide rate in Northern Ireland has grown significantly over the last year, and "the internet has been cited as a contributory factor in some cases." Certainly a growth in teen suicides deserves some action, but a more prudent step to take would be to examine the root causes of the problem, rather than taking the easy way out and blaming the internet. It's not clear what the minister wants of Vodafone, but it would seem pretty safe to assume he wants Bebo and Google to try and block or limit posts and information about suicide, as has been done before. Again, this seems rather pointless and a way to just distract people from the real, underlying issues that are causing suicides. Furthermore, some people think that trying to force suicide-related content offline can actually lead to more suicides. Blaming the internet for suicides, then working to get suicide-related content offline, is nothing more than attempting to gloss over the problem -- and shouldn't be mistaken for actually doing anything about it.

A little interview with the fine folks of An Event Apart, where I'll be speaking again in Chicago next month. #

Cory Doctorow: Ryan Singel of the 27-Stroke-B blog sez, "Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune that his 'gut' was telling him the country might be hit by another big attack this summer. Now THREAT LEVEL has found the new Homeland Security Advisory System. Heaven help us if the country ever gets to Danger Dog level." Link (Thanks, Ryan!)

Cory Doctorow: Instructables has a great HOWTO for building a hidden door/bookcase. I have always wanted one of these -- indeed, I can't conceive of any good reason not to have every door of my house be one of these. Even the kitchen cupboards. Link (Thanks, Britt!)

Cory Doctorow: Last week, I blogged about how the Electronic Frontier Foundation had prised 1,000+ pages' worth of FBI docs loose with a Freedom of Information Act request. These docs document the FBI's abuse of power after the PATRIOT Act. Now, 1,000+ pages is a LOT of material, and EFF needs your help.

We've already started scouring newly-released documents relating to the misuse of National Security Letters to collect Americans' private information. But don't let us have all fun — you, too, can dive into the docs and help uncover the truth about the FBI's abuse of power. All 1138 pages are freely downloadable (with searchable text) from EFF’s website, and we'll be posting a new batch every month.

We've had over 8000 downloads so far, and the blogosphere is starting to light up with feedback and analysis of the documents, which were disclosed after EFF sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this year. Over at Wired, Threat Level reports that much of the mischief at the FBI seems to be emanating from a mysterious “Room 4944”, and this anonymous blogger is asking questions about who knew what when.

Link

See also: EFF publishes 1,000+ pages of FBI docs on PATRIOT Act abuses

Saw a report on CNN today saying that there's still a chance that OJ Simpson's confessional book might still come out.

I don't think the fact that the book has already been published "On The Internet" has gotten through to the professional news organizations. Or are they deliberately ignoring it?

athloi writes "Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq, geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad and plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan are among the items accidentally left online by government agencies and contractors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Frauenfelder: MAKE contributor and pal Colin Berry did a radio piece last week for The California Report about how a school in Santa Rosa, CA is training dogs to identify vineyard insect pests by scenting their sex pheremones.

A very different kind of environmental damage is found each year in California Wine Country. The damage doesn't come from fire, but from bugs. From root lice to sharpshooters, California’s $45 billion wine industry has had its share of insect pests. Recently, the tiny vine mealy bug has taken hold, threatening up to 40,000 acres of grapes. Now researchers have found a new tool in the fight against the mealy bug: a friendly, four-legged ally with a keen sense of smell. The program reports from Sonoma County. (Photo by Dani Vernon)

Link

The rise of online real estate services like Zillow and Redfin has been a thorn in the side of real estate agents, who have voiced displeasure at the affront to their cartel. The basic tension stems from the fact that these services attempt to get around the professionals' control over real estate information. Now Zillow is looking to attack the industry from another angle. For various legal and ethical reasons, real estate agents aren't supposed to talk about certain details of a neighborhood, like demographics or crime rates, even though this stuff is pretty pertinent to would-be buyers. So in addition to its basic real estate data, Zillow plans to launch 6,500 new sites based around specific communities, where users can exchange information that they can't get from real estate agents. Going in this direction clearly makes a lot of sense, since it's a weak spot for real estate agents. If Zillow can use its existing position to become a home base for this kind of information, it should prove useful to people in the real estate market.

Xeni Jardin: Daniel Freed says,

As the recent UK airport shakedown of Metallica's James Hetfield has shown us, it's way too easy to mistake a guy with a beard for a member of a terrorist organization.

One blog has been courageously pointing out this fact since way before authorities in London questioned Hetfield. That blog is mine and it's called Jam Band Fan or Taliban.

If you think airport security officials have an easy job separating terrorists from dudes with beards, you should give it a try.

knoll99 writes "Scientists unveiled the discovery Wednesday of a baby mammoth found in the permafrost of north-west Siberia. The remains of the six-month-old female mammoth were discovered in a remarkable state of preservation on the Yamal peninsula of Russia in May, a Reuters report said. The specimen is believed to be the best of its kind to date."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz:
This Friday, Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery presents a dual show of artists Nicoletta Ceccoli and Kukula. Ceccoli is best known in her native Italy as a children's book illustrator. This is her first major US show. (Seen here at left, Ceccoli's "Tree Girl," acrylic on paper, 11" x 17".) San Francisco artist Kukula's paintings for this show explore the "last hour before death." Most of the pieces are 5" x 7" in size, representing a final "snapshot" of the character. (Seen here at right, Kukula's "One Last Tea Cup," acrylic on birch panel, 5" x 7".) The show runs through August 4. Link to Ceccoli gallery, Link to Kukula gallery

Took my iPhone up to Grizzly Peak.