Privacy advocate has ally in Social Security numbers fight

A fight by the Virginia government to stop a privacy advocate from republishing Social Security numbers obtained legally from public records on government sites on her Web site is attracting the attention of some privacy heavyweights. In its brief, EPIC noted that Ostegren's advocacy work is focused on getting state and local governments around the country to stop posting unredacted public records containing Social Security numbers and other private data on their Web sites. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a friend of the court brief asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to uphold privacy advocate Betty Ostergren's First Amendment right to publish the numbers.

As part of an effort to highlight the problem, Ostergren has taken the Social Security numbers of prominent people she has found in public records and republished them on her Web site. Over the past seven years, she has chronicled dozens of cases where local and state governments have inadvertently exposed thousands of Social Security numbers and other personal data on their Web sites, making them attractive targets for identity thieves. When a person publishes lawfully obtained and truthful information, that action is "pure free speech," said John Verdi, senior counsel at the Washington-based EPIC. "It is exactly the type of speech that is protected by the First Amendment." Ostergren runs the Virginia Watchdog Web site, which she has used to highlight identity theft risks that can result from the posting of unredacted public documents, such as land and tax-lien records posted on government Web sites. As part of the campaign, Ostergren routinely posted the Social Security numbers of high-profile individuals that she obtained from county and state government Web sites. Jeb Bush, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, former Missouri Sen.

The list includes former Florida Gov. Jean Carnahan and several county clerks in Virginia. In August, Ostergren provided links to an image of a mortgage document containing the Social Security number of Iowa Secretary of State Mike Mauro. Over the years, her campaign has succeeded in forcing state and county governments to revise images of public records that were posted online or to break online links to document images containing Social Security numbers. She removed the link only after Mauro agreed to take down images of corporate documents that contained Social Security numbers from the state's Web site. Violators are subject to fines of up to $2,500 plus $1,000 in court costs for each Social Security number posted.

Largely in response to her campaign, Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in 2008 that prohibits the dissemination of any records that contain Social Security numbers, no matter how the records were obtained. Lawmakers said the law was needed to prevent even wider dissemination of the numbers obtained from public records. The Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberites Union promptly filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ostergren challenging the constitutionality of the law. The law would have required Ostergren to remove Social Security numbers from her Web site or face punitive fines. Last August, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the commonwealth of Virginia to force Ostergren to remove the numbers from her site.

That ruling in turn was appealed to the Fourth Circuit court by Virginia's attorney general. While the court did not say the law itself was unconstitutional, it ruled that it would be an unconstitutional application of the law in Ostergren's case. In it, the government said that the case raised the issue of "crime facilitating speech." The Social Security numbers posted by Ostergren on her Web site exposed the individuals assigned those numbers to a serious risk of identity theft, the appeal claimed. EPIC's Verdi, however, said that Ostergren was simply republishing information that was already made public by the state, and even then, only in a highly targeted manner. First Amendment rights do not protect speech that exposes public officials to the "the very real prospect of devastating criminal predation," the appeal read.

Meanwhile, Ostergren, who has temporarily removed documents containing the Social Security numbers of Virginia public figures from her Web site, plans to put the documents back up after she removes any data that might belong to the individuals' spouses or children. Any time she finds such documents, she will post them, she said. "It's amazing that I still have to be at this after seven years," she said. Speaking with Computerworld today, Ostergren said that local governments in Virginia and elsewhere are continuing to post documents containing sensitive data on their Web sites.

Intel connects PCs to devices using light

Intel is working on a new optical interconnect that could possibly link mobile devices to displays and storage up to 100 meters away, a company official said on Wednesday. The technology uses light to speed up data transmission between mobile devices and connected devices like storage, networking and audio devices, the company said. The company is researching the Light Peak optical interconnect technology, which could communicate data between systems and devices associated with PCs at speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second, said David Perlmutter, vice president and general manager of Intel's mobility group. For example, Light Peak could help improve the quality of high-definition video on displays, Perlmutter said during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum trade show in San Francisco.

Data was transmitted from the PC using Light Peak technology to the monitor, which retained its video quality despite the long distance. Company officials demonstrated a thin cable that connected a monitor to a gaming PC many meters away. The technology could help transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds, according to an entry about the technology posted on Intel's site. It could also lead to thinner and fewer connectors on mobile devices, Perlmutter said. Light Peak can run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling mobile devices to perform tasks over multiple connected devices at the same time. "Optical technology also allows for smaller connectors and longer, thinner, and more flexible cables than currently possible," according to the Intel entry.

Existing cable technology uses electricity to transfer data, which has limits in speed and length, according to the entry on Intel's site. The platform includes a controller chip and an optical module that performs the conversion from electricity to light and vice versa. Light Peak uses light to transfer data, which can reach longer distances compared to electricity. The new technology could compete with connector technologies like USB and Firewire, which are used to connect PCs to storage and audio devices. It is intended to be a complementary technology.

However, Light Peak is not intended to replace current technologies, an Intel spokesperson said. Components based on the optical technology could ship in 2010, and Intel is working with optical component manufacturers. Intel is trying to making the technology a standard by working with the industry, which could help boost its adoption in mobile devices, consumer electronics and PCs. Sony has already expressed an interest in the technology, Perlmutter said.

Bookmarks for iPhone

Question: When are 2.6 million bookmarked Web sites not enough? It's a great big Web out there-worldwide, they say. Answer: When you can't find the site you're looking for, of course.

When everybody has a niche interest, why, even a collective brain sometimes falls just short of omniscient. The Open Directory Project, if you are unfamiliar, claims the title of the largest, most comprehensive, human-edited directory of the World Wide Web. And so, odds are, the 2.6 million Web sites listed by the Open Directory Project won't be enough for everyone. It's Wiki-like, curated by a globe-spanning community of volunteers. Lukas Renggli'sBookmarks for the iPhone and iPod touch aims to put the Open Directory Project in the palm of your hand. And it's mighty big, with close to 3 million sites catalogued under 410,000 categories, give or take.

The app is more flawed than the Open Directory Project itself. You can browse thousands upon thousands of categories at your leisure or use the app's integrated search engine to look for specific pages or topics. Bookmarks features a spare and unlovely but perfectly straightforward user interface. You can view any site through the app's internal browser, or launch the page in Safari where you can, of course, save the page to your own list of bookmarks. And the app lets you separate your favorites-or, rather, your favorites among that narrow and limited group of 2.6 million sites.

You can also e-mail any URL or copy the address to your device's clipboard. Naturally, the app requires a Wi-Fi, 3G, or EDGE connection to function. I was surprised to discover in the virtual infinity of the Open Directory Project, the Infinite stopped at the letter H. Turns out, the limits of the Infinite appears to constrain only the Bookmarks application. An app such as Bookmarks is not so much a Web browsing utility, as it is a dare to those of us whose favorite pastimes include finding omissions and poking holes. A search at www.dmoz.org returned 305 sites beginning with the word "Infinite," compared with just 50 in a search through the app.

Bookmarks suffers from a dearth of options-and not just the number of sites that a search returns. If it looks like a bug and acts like a bug, it's usually a bug. The watchword for anyone developing an iPhone application such as this one should be "customizable." That isn't the prettiest word in the English language, but as a technical matter, users should be free to add and subtract content as they see fit. But why make that kind of commitment? Sure, you could join the cadre of Open Directory Project editors and fill in the holes you discover.

The Bookmarks app could simply include a feature that lets you add your own bookmarks to your own list of favorites. Feel free to e-mail him.] Honestly, how difficult would that be? [Ben Boychuk is a columnist and freelance writer in Rialto, Calif.

Microsoft opens Outlook format, gives programs access to mail, calendar, contacts

Microsoft Monday said it will provide patent- and license-free use rights to the format behind its Outlook Personal Folders opening e-mail, calendar, contacts and other information to a host of applications such as antimalware or cloud-based services. The written documentation would explain how to parse the contents of the .pst file, which houses the e-mail, calendar and contact contents of Outlook Personal Folders. Five fantastic open source tools for Windows admins7 Reasons Not to Use Microsoft Outlook for Company E-mailDocumenting and publishing the .pst format could open up entirely new feature sets for programs such as search tools for mining mailboxes for relevant corporate data, new security tools that scan .pst data for malicious software, or e-discovery tools for meeting compliance regulations, according to Microsoft officials.

The documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. This would allow the cloud service developers to write code on the server so someone could upload their .pst and have it read on the server rather than needing Outlook to be running on the client and somehow get the data that way." Microsoft plans to publish in the first half of next year documentation outlining the .pst format. The effort is designed to give programs the knowledge to read Outlook data stored on user desktops. "You could also imagine this being used for data portability possibly into the cloud," said Paul Lorimer, group manager for Microsoft Office interoperability. "A user might have data on a hard drive that they would like to migrate to a cloud service. The information will be released under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP), which began in 2006. That year, Microsoft dropped intellectual-property and patent claims to 35 Web services protocols it developed mostly for use in its identity infrastructure. In 2008, Microsoft added its Interoperability Principles and promised to support data portability in its most popular "high-volume products," including SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007. Once the documentation of the .pst format is public, programmers can get into .pst files and read the contents without the need for Outlook.

In 2008, Microsoft added the Office file formats to OPS even while critics said the formats were incomplete and the submission was designed to boost Office Open XML (OOXML) in the eyes of standards bodies. In fact, there will be no requirement for any Microsoft software. Data in the .pst file is available to developers today via Microsoft's Messaging API (MAPI) and the Outlook Object Model, but Outlook needs to be installed on the desktop. Users are free to choose any platform, including Linux and any development language, such as Java or Ruby on Rails. Microsoft Monday was entertaining a number of customers and partners on its Redmond campus to help gather feedback on the documentation. Critics such as the Software Freedom Law Center have warned that inconsistencies are possible between Microsoft formats available under OPS and with the open source GPL license.

The technical documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. Microsoft last year added language to OPS on patent/copyright coverage and information on how OSP interacts with GPL-based software development. Follow John on Twitter: twitter.com/johnfontana

Wireless charging to go mainstream in 2010, maker says

The company behind the new Dell Latitude Z laptop's wireless power charger predicts that its technology will go mainstream next year, with cell phones, MP3 players and Bluetooth headsets featuring the technology at the coming Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Inductive charging, which creates a small-area electro-magnetic field around devices to recharge their batteries, will be slower to emerge on other computers besides Dell Inc.'s new ultra-thin, ultra-premium business notebook, said Bret Lewis, director of Fulton Innovation LLC in Ada, Mich. The long-term vision is for wireless charging pads to become as ubiquitous as electrical plugs are today, enabling users to place their cell phone or laptop down on any pad for quick "snack charges," Lewis said. "You could just charge your device on a pad built into a conference room table, or on a pad you carry [and plug into the wall]," Lewis said. He confirmed that the company is talking to a number of other PC manufacturers. On the cutting edge of the emerging wireless power industry, Fulton is a subsidiary of Alticor Inc., the parent company of direct-selling company Amway Corp.

Fulton is working closely with electronics maker Texas Instruments, which plans to build the charging coils for devices as well as the charging pads. Fulton, which employs about 25 scientists at its central Michigan headquarters, created its "eCoupled" technology several years ago as an outgrowth of research into UV (ultraviolet) -based water treatment systems, Lewis said. The coils could be integrated into devices, which Lewis said shouldn't be much more expensive than conventional power chargers once volumes rise. Fulton's technology is not used in the Palm Pre smartphone, apparently the first cell phone to offer the option of an inductive charger. Or they could embedded into the protective nylon or plastic sleeves for cellphones or MP3 players. Dell said yesterday that the $199 laptop charging stand add-on kit for its Latitude Z was 70% efficient, making it better than other inductive charging systems.

Moreover, plug-in chargers continue to seep between 10% and 20% of a device's normal power draw even when the devices are fully charged or turned off, Lewis said. Fulton's Lewis added to that, saying its technology also compares well with conventional plug-based systems, which he said also run somewhat inefficiently as the electricity travels through its circuits. This well-known "vampire effect" doesn't happen with Fulton's inductive chargers, he said. Fulton's chargers can use other "pinging" technology to turn charging systems off. The Dell laptop's wireless charger turns off completely when an infrared-based controller signals that the battery is full or the laptop is off, Lewis said. Taking all of that into account, Lewis said that Fulton's charging systems today (download white paper) are "already equal or slightly more efficient" than plug-charging systems.

Not only is the energy too weak to harm people, he said, it also eliminates the risk of electrical shocks present from cable-based power. "This is the same technology as your wireless toothbrush. Inductive charging systems also do not hurt electrical components in devices or laptops, Lewis said. We don't think there are any stray fields that will harm you or your devices," he said. Lewis acknowledged there is no standards group for medium-power devices such as laptops, or high-power devices such as kitchen appliances or electric cars. The company, which also partners with Energizer Battery Inc., is a leading member of the Wireless Power Consortium, which is trying to draw up standards for charging low-power devices (8 to 10 watts) such as cellphones. The electric cars could eventually be recharged by simply parking them over a special pad-equipped parking space while the driver is at work or a meeting, he said.

He added, however, that the lack of standards bodies could slow the realization of universal, interchangeable wireless power charging stands that are as omnipresent as wall plugs. "When we still can't figure out whether to put the gas cap on the right or left side of the car, there's a reason to be skeptical" about universal power standards quickly emerging, he said.

Court could restore Word injunction, says i4i

Just a day before a crucial hearing in the patent infringement case between Canadian developer i4i and Microsoft, i4i's top executive said that the injunction that forbids Microsoft from selling Word could be reinstated. Microsoft was also hit with $290 million in damages in the case. "The wording of the court order - it said it was staying the injunction 'pending appeal' - is not a highly-specific order," said Loudon Owen, i4i's chairman, in an interview today. "We're awaiting its interpretation. Last month, a federal judge barred Microsoft from selling current versions of Word 2003 and 2007 as of Oct. 10, part of the punishment for losing the case brought by Toronto-based i4i in 2007. But after Microsoft warned that sales chaos would result, the U.S. Court of Appeals stayed the injunction earlier this month. Oweb said that it's unclear whether the wording could be taken to mean that the stay would hold until the end of the appeals process, or perhaps only until the three-judge panel hears oral arguments tomorrow. "This is the classic [phrasing] for a stay, but it leaves a great deal of discretion in the hands of the judges," Owen added.

Microsoft has had ample time. Owen declined to say whether i4i's lawyers would bring up the injunction or the wording of the stay order during the oral hearing slated for Wednesday in Washington D.C. But he dismissed Microsoft's warning that the injunction might force it to pull Word 2003 and Word 2007, as well as the associated suites, Office 2003 and Office 2007, off the market for months while it removed the "custom" XML feature that's at the center of the legal dispute. "If we look at the record, Microsoft has had extensive time to make modifications to Word," said Owen. "We filed [the lawsuit] in March of 2007, and said then that we would seek an injunction. The jury verdict was in May." Owen also declined to comment on how long i4i thought it would take Microsoft to revise Word. "We haven't seen the source code," he acknowledged. "But Microsoft's apocalyptic prediction was unfair." Two months ago, a long-time patent attorney said he thought Microsoft could easily make a technical fix to Word, then sell the new version in the U.S. According to the original injunction, Microsoft is not required to update copies of Word 2003 and 2007 already in customers' hands. The two OEMs, who asked to be granted "friend of the court" status in the appeal, said that changes to Word would "require extensive time- and resource-consuming retesting" on their part. Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the top-two PC makers worldwide, disagreed with the attorney's belief.

Many new computers come with Microsoft's Office or a trial version of the productivity suite; HP and Dell said they would have to rebuild the disk images they use to factory-install software on their new PCs. According to i4i, Microsoft began adding XML editing and custom XML features to Word shortly after meeting with the company in 2001. Microsoft has denied the charge, saying i4i distorted the facts. "After a handful of meetings there weren't fruitful, i4i and Microsoft went their separate ways and Microsoft later released the custom XML functionality for Word that it had told i4i it was developing," the Microsoft's lawyers said in a brief filed last week . Owen refused to speculate about what i4i hoped to get out of tomorrow's hearing, other than to say, "We expect a fair hearing." He also dodged questions about what i4i would do if the appeals court overturned the jury verdict. "It's hard to look past the appeal," he said, but promised that if Microsoft is granted a retrial - something the American developer has asked for at minimum - i4i would continue the battle. "This is certainly an important case to us," Owen said, "but it's also important to any inventor or entrepreneur who invents technology." Both Microsoft and i4i have promised to comment after tomorrow's hearing.

Senators want to end telecom immunity for spying program

Four Democratic U.S. senators will introduce a bill to repeal a provision protecting telecommunications carriers from lawsuits targeting their assistance to a controversial U.S. National Security Agency surveillance program. The program was illegal under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure, critics said. The new legislation, supported by Senators Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Jeff Merkley of Oregon would repeal telecom immunity provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, passed by Congress in July 2008. The FISA Amendments Act provides some additional court oversight to the NSA wiretapping program, which former President George Bush's administration launched after terrorist attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11. 2001. The FISA Amendments Act allowed the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, which targets electronic communication of some including phone calls and e-mail, to continue until the end of 2012. Critics of the NSA program said it illegally targeted U.S. residents' communications with people linked to terrorist groups without court-approved warrants. Current U.S. President Barack Obama supported the FISA Amendments Act, including telecom immunity.

The new legislation, called the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, would allow lawsuits against telecom providers such as AT&T to resume. "I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles," Dodd said in a statement. "We make our nation safer when we eliminate the false choice between liberty and security. Telecom immunity provisions were needed to protect companies that helped the U.S. government fight terrorism in a time of need, supporters of the immunity provision said. But by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, the Congress violated the protection of our citizen's privacy and due process right and we must not allow that to stand." Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was pleased to sponsor the bill. "Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration's decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant," he said in a statement. "We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans' access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws." The courts, and not the president or Congress, should determine whether the telecom carriers violated the law and rights of U.S. residents, the senators said in a press release.