In this remarkable 30 minute speech captured from CSpan, Sentator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) speaks eloquently and rationally about the risk to America and its people should Congress pass the new FISA wiretap law, which will forgive phone companies for participating in the NSA's illegal warrantless spying on the entire nation. While Constitutional non-believers like Harry Reid are calling for a swift passage to the bill -- so that he can jet off to Davos and play with the hedge fundies before they all commit seppuku -- Dodd is vowing to fight it and fight it and fight it. It's time to call your Senators and let 'em know that you believe in the rule of law and freedom and security.

Pointing out that not all telecoms complied with the request from the Bush administration to listen in on private conversation of American citizens unless they were given a court order to do so, Dodd also questioned where such violations would end, and warned the notion of Americans giving up rights in order to be safe was a "false dichotomy that is dangerous."

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ancientribe writes "Microsoft issued a year-one security report on its Windows Vista operating system today, and it turns out Vista logged less than half the vulnerabilities than Windows XP did in its first year. According to the new Microsoft report, Vista also had fewer vulnerabilities in its first year than other OSes — including Red Hat rhel4ws, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, and Apple Mac OS X 10.4 — did in their first years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pre-PMA 2008: Fujifilm has today annouced a new range of affordable FinePix digital cameras. The 'J' Series kicks off with two new models, the J50 and J10. Both sport 8MP CCD sensors, with the J10 a slim 3x zoom compact with a 2.5" screen and the J50 adding a 5x zoom and a slightly larger 2.7 inch LCD. Both feature Li-Ion rechargeable batteries, scene modes and Fujifilm's 'Picture Stabilization' mode (aka high ISO).

Pre-PMA 2008: Fujifilm's second new camera is an upgraded version of the Z10fd, featuring four new color schemes, 10MP sensor and an improved face detection system with automatic red-eye removal. The Z20fd now also features MPEG-4 movie recording and a variety of novel features designed to tickle the fancy of its intended 'generation Z' market.

Pre-PMA 2008: Fujifilm has unveiled what it is calling the 'ultimate F Series' digital camera, the F100fd. Positioned as the flagship model (above the recently announced F50fd), the 12 megapixel F100fd sports a 5x 28-140mm zoom lens, Face Detection 3.0 and sensitivity settings of up to (cough) ISO 12800. More interestingly the F100fd is claimed to offer Wide Dynamic Range capabilities similar to those found on the S5 Pro digital SLR.

Pre-PMA 2008: Next up from Fujifilm is another addition to the FinePix 'S' range of budget-priced SLR-styled 'big zoom' compacts. The S1000fd is claimed to be the world's smallest digital camera with a 12x optical zoom (33-396mm equiv.), though there's no optical stabilization (only high ISO). Other features of note include a 2.7-inch LCD, electronic viewfinder, face detection, 2cm macro, sensitivity up to ISO 3200 (of course) and a new panorama shooting mode.

Pre-PMA 2008: The second new camera from Fujifilm today is the FinePix S8100fd, a minor update to the FinePix S8000fd (itself only announced 6 months ago). The main differences are an increase in pixel count (from 8 to 10 megapixels), some new continuous shooting modes and an increase in the maximum sensitivity to ISO 6400 (at reduced resolution). The other changes and new features are all relatively minor.

Pre-PMA 2008: Today is the day Fujifilm has chosen to reveal the new models it is launching at the PMA show next week. There's 7 models in total, but the most intersting is undoubtedly the FinePix S100FS, which the company is describing as its most advanced consumer digital camera to date and its latest attempt to offer a viable DSLR alternative. Headline features include a large 2/3 inch 11 megapixel Super CCD sensor, all-new optically-stabilized 14.3x (28-400mm) manual zoom lens and a version of the 100-400% wide dynamic range and film simulation (hence 'FS') options seen on the FinePix S5 Pro SLR.

Pre-PMA 2008: We had a quick chance to get our hands on Canon's latest DSLR, the EOS 450D (Rebel XSi). It's a bigger step forward than the 400D was from the 350D, adding a host of useful improvements as well as the predictable feature tweaks. Based on our brief look at it, here's a rundown of the new features.

Pre-PMA 2008: Canon's Powershot A-Series of digital compacts today swelled with the addition of three new models featuring brand new technology for 2008. The A470 is a $149 7.1 megapixel, 3.4x zoom entry-level digicam whilst the $179 A580 and $199 A590 IS (basically the same camera with lens-shift stabilization) pack 8.0 megapixels and 4x optics with the practical, ergonomic body shape we've come to expect from a Canon 'A'. The Powershot A470, A580 and A590 IS should be in stores from late February /early March.

Pre-PMA 2008: Canon today announced another addition to its stylish ELPH/IXUS range of ultra compact digital cameras. The Canon Powershot SD1100 IS DIGITAL ELPH (DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS in Europe, IXY DIGITAL 20 IS in Japan; can you spot the hidden logic in Canon's global camera naming strategy?) comes with all the features you would expect from a camera of such a pedigree. It sports a 8MP sensor, 3x zoom, Face Detection and optical Image Stabilization, all nicely wrapped up in Canon's 'perpetual curve' design.

Pre-PMA 2008: Canon has today announced a new compact digital SLR, the twelve megapixel EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi). On the surface a very similar camera to the EOS 400D, however there are a range of significant improvements; twelve megapixel CMOS sensor, 3.0" LCD monitor, Live View with both AF modes (contrast-detect and passive), 14-bit processing and RAW, spot metering, improved AF, 3.5 fps continuous shooting, a larger viewfinder, SD/SDHC storage and a new higher capacity battery. All in all a fairly impressive range of usage oriented improvements and refinements.

NewsCloud writes "Germany's data-protection commissioner, Peter Scharr told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP, or Internet protocol, address, 'then it has to be regarded as personal data.' Scharr acknowledged that IP addresses for a computer may not always be personal or linked to an individual. If the E.U. rules that IP addresses are personal, then it could regulate the way search engines record this data. According to the article, Google does an incomplete job of anonymizing this data while Microsoft does not record IP addresses for anonymous search."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some European politicians in charge of "privacy" issues have decided that your IP address should be considered personal info, along the lines of your name or address. This has various implications for how sites like Google store IP addresses -- but also should raise some questions about what sorts of information should be considered private. We've already talked about why you should just assume that any information you put online is already public info, but an IP address isn't exactly something that you "put" online. It's something that automatically identifies where you're coming from and is a necessary part of internet communications. While it is true that an IP address can often be used to trace back the identity of an individual, it seems a little odd to think that a bit of information that your computer announces to every site you visit should somehow be considered private. By it's very nature your IP address is rather public -- and if you want to "hide" that information there are various anonymity tools and proxy servers to do so. It seems like a rather artificial construct to suddenly claim that an IP address, which is used to announce where you're coming from, now needs to be considered private information.

In fact, this whole discussion raises an important (and all-too-often-ignored) issue: personal information and privacy isn't exactly a binary situation, where information either is, or is not, private. There's a whole spectrum -- and it depends very much on the circumstance. Your name is personal info, but most people are public enough with it. Your credit card information clearly is "private," but you share it with plenty of merchants as part of the transaction that you're making. Your phone number is personal information that you may keep private in some cases, but are willing to make public in others. So, the privacy of personal information varies a great deal based on the context and use -- and it seems a bit forced to suddenly declare that a particular piece of information is personal, and therefore must be kept private.

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An anonymous reader writes "Netcraft has written about a website offering free phishing kits with one ironic twist — they all contain backdoors to steal stolen credentials from the fraudsters that deploy them. Deliberately deceptive code inside the kits means that script kiddies are unlikely to realize that any captured credit card numbers also end up getting sent to the people who made the phishing kits. The same group was also responsible for another backdoored phishing kit used against Bank of America earlier this month."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ever since VoIP first came on the scene, there were fear mongering reports saying that you shouldn't use VoIP because it will get hacked. However, in all these years, we've yet to hear a serious report of VoIP getting hacked -- and, even the scary warnings about VoIP hackers have quieted down. Yet, here we are, with a security company now claiming that 2008 will be the year that VoIP gets hacked. Of course, that security company is also selling a solution to prevent VoIP systems from getting hacked, so perhaps you should take the prediction with a rather large grain of salt. So which is it: is hacking VoIP networks not that easy? Is the fear overblown? Or have we just been lucky?

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David Downs of the SF Weekly invited Electronic Frontier Foundation spokeshacker Peter Eckersly into his home to test claims that Comcast is blocking BitTorrent files:

Eckersley's BitTorrent controller flickers for a second, showing that his computer is "seeding" our file to the Melbourne computer. Then everything stops. The transmission fails, and to an untrained eye, the problem appears to be with BitTorrent.

But Eckersley is running a Net monitor application called Wireshark, which works like an online customs officer checking the packets going out of the computer here and into the one in Melbourne. What Eckersley finds is damning. Someone or something has interceded in the transmission and told the computers to stop talking.

And that something, experts have concluded, is Comcast.

The experiment Eckersley and I ran replicates private and public versions that emerged last fall through an Associated Press story. That story confirmed what many in software circles knew for most of 2007: Comcast has been looking at its users' Web traffic and secretly blocking some of the Internet, namely BitTorrent uploads, to users outside Comcast's network. The Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges that Comcast blocks BitTorrent with a classic hacker technique called "spoofing," where the hacker poses as someone he isn't, in this case another user. Eckersley describes it as if he and I were having a phone conversation, and then halfway through Comcast interrupts us and in my voice tells him to hang up, and in his voice tells me the same thing.

Link. Illustration for SF Weekly by Aaron Piland.

Anonymous Coward writes "Boosting the ranks of federal employees who telework is a slow, sometimes painful process, despite numerous incentives and legislative edicts lobbed at U.S. agencies over the years. Take the situation at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which last month was ordered by a federal arbitration panel to allow its legal instrument examiners to telework on a pilot basis. ATF was against letting these specialists telework because it says the material they need to remove from agency offices in order to telework posed a security risk. The Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) became involved at the request of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which successfully argued its case for allowing the examiners to telework on a pilot basis."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fantagraphics is hosting an art exhibition at its Seattle gallery to celebrate the release of its new book, LUST: Kinky Online Personal Ads From Seattle’s The Stranger, illustrated by Ellen Forney.

This festive event takes place on Saturday, February 9 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle’s lively Georgetown district.

LUST: Kinky Online Personal Ads From Seattle’s The Stranger takes a peek at the alluring deviance revealed in the alternative weekly’s “Lustlab” section. Each week for the past several years Forney has selected one ad to illustrate as a “Lustlab Ad of the Week” cartoon in both the print and online versions of the newspaper. LUST collects these images and includes fascinating interviews with several of the advertisers, with an introduction by former Stranger editor Dan Savage.

The exhibition, opening Saturday, February 9, will include more than two dozen seductive selections from the book. Creative custom LUST chocolate Valentine novelties will be dispensed by sensuous hostesses to an exotic mix of love songs by DJ David James. Forney will present a short multimedia performance based on the book’s contents.

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