I have a question for my readers. My local public library has recently installed a gateway to its public wifi that asks you to accept their user agreement before you can use it. So far no problem, but after you have gotten on there is now a small toolbar that goes across the top of the page that is promoting links that point to library resources. Unfortunately the tech in my branch has no details and didn't even know about this toolbar till I pointed it out to them. [ Read more ... ]

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy New Year !!

Have fun but drive safe.

[ Read more ... ]

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

Here's hoping that next year is even better than this one. [ Read more ... ]

Santa's Naughty–Nice Database Hacked: Via Schneier on Security.

This is very serious.

Read Original Article:(Via Schneier on Security.)

NORAD TRACKS SANTA 2008 - International (English, Deutsch, Espanol, Italiano, Francais, 中文, 日本語, ): Via The North Pole

All the preparations for this year are in place! Return on Christmas Eve to track St. Nick on his magical flight around the world!

Until then, come back each day to receive updates from the North Pole and to discover new surprises in the Kids' Countdown.

And you can get a little history about this from Wikipedia. And for those of you who prefer making phone calls the official hotline: 1-877-HI-NORAD Google Analytics also has some details about this tracking program. [ Read more ... ]

Behind the scenes: NORAD's Santa tracker: Via Geek Gestalt - CNET News.

All joking aside, NORAD has been taking its Santa tracking project seriously for decades. But it actually began in 1955 with a wrong number.

One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command--NORAD's predecessor--got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office (see video below). This was no laughing matter. The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis.

Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, "Is this Santa Claus?" [ Read more ... ]

A short video - http://RebelChristmasCard2009.com/

Hope your holiday is going better than his.

DIFRWEAR.

RFID Blocking Wallets can ensure that cards with RFID tags within the wallet can NOT be read while the wallet is closed. This gives you the ability to control when, how and by whom your cards are accessed. To allow the RFID tag in the card to be read, simply open the wallet and direct it towards the reader. [ Read more ... ]

TO: Coles Online Customer Service online.customercare@coles.com.au
CC: The world

It looks like the idiots(in my opinion) at Coles(in Australia) can't seem to figure out how to actually remove someone from their mailing list. Their little legal disclaimer claims they need 5 days to take you off their mailing list, I've given them MUCH more time then that following each of the multiple requests I have made. [ Read more ... ]

Hello folks !! For those of you in the USA, I hope that you have had a good Fourth of July(and Canadians enjoyed Canada day on July 1) and didn't each to much BBQ.

Sorry for the shortage of updates over the last few days, but I've been a bit busy recently and have also been working on upgrading the site.

Besides being the birthday of the United States, July 4th was also the 10th Anniversary of Privacy Digest. I started the site back in 1999 after migrating some material from an old general blog. I had hoped to have the upgrade completed by the Fourth, but it turned out to be a bit more involved than I had originally expected.

It is also two major parts. The first was upgrading the base CMS that I use, and the second part will involve adding some interesting new functionality that I think you will appreciate. I don't have much time this week, but I hope to have the base CMS upgraded in the next few days. I will then start phasing in the new features over the rest of the month. [ Read more ... ]

The upgrade to the site that I had planned for our Tenth Anniversary has been postponed till at least Friday. It seems that I am temporarily stuck behind a firewall that won't let me have access to one of the third-party sites that I need to use as part of my switchover. So until I am out from behind this firewall the upgrade will be on a temporary hold.

I should warn you that when the upgrade happens, all the posts I made since last weekend will have to be re-entered.(I already created the new database with all the content) Unfortunately that will temporarily confuse things if you follow the RSS feed since all those posts will then have the current date and be incorrectly displayed as new. But things should go back to normal immediately afterwards. [ Read more ... ]

You probably won't notice to many changes up front, but if you can see this then I am running on the new version of the site. 99.9% of the archive should be accessible(except for the last few days - since July 4th). I have a few small issues that I am working on. The missing recent posts should be recreated shortly, and hopefully I will also be adding new items. [ Read more ... ]

IRAN ELECTION 2009 | Gathering the news about Iran's 2009 National election in one place.: Via IRAN ELECTION 2009.

IRAN ELECTION 2009 Gathering the news about Iran's 2009 National election in one place.
http://IranElection2009.com/

I just wanted to point out a site that is coming together to try and give a central place to get information about Iran's recent election. [ Read more ... ]

Sorry for the second outage in two days.

The data center I currently use (but may move when my contract is up. Any recommendations? Good network and a reasonable price.) is going thru a network upgrade. [ Read more ... ]

Open Government Advocates Urge Senate to Move on CRS Report Access: Via Center for Democracy and Technology.

CDT is among more than 40 organizations and advocates that signed on to a letter today urging the Senate Rules Committee to hold hearings on open government issues and move on Sen. Lieberman's (I-CT) resolution to open Congressional Research Service reports to public access. [ Read more ... ]

We had a short network outage during lunch(Eastern-USA) today. It was not an attack on us but a problem with the router at the hosting company I use. Things look to be back in shape and will hopefully stay that way.

Paul

Sorry or the lack of updates the last few days, but I am on my low-tech solution for a week and forgot the cable to my external hard-drive and couldn't find a replacement. I still don't have one, but I was able to reinstall the software I needed to get me moving again without access to the hard-drive. Things may be a bit out of order, but I'll try and include some of the news I missed along with anything new.

I don't have all the links to my favorite news sources handy, but I'll what I can with what I've got till I get back home later in the week and get full access to my tools again.

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

Here's hoping that next year is even better than this one. [ Read more ... ]

Just in case you were thinking of getting me a present for the holiday, I thought I'd pass along a few ideas. For quick access to a few books I could really use, there is the Amazon Wishlist in the left column. Besides being something I want, the Drupal books will help me improve the site. But if you are thinking of going for a bigger present(s), just choose "Wishlist" from the links at the top of the page. This shows a larger Wishlist from Amazon and also links to my photography wishlist over at B&H (a great photography sore here in NYC). [ Read more ... ]

NORAD TRACKS SANTA 2008 - International (English, Deutsch, Espanol, Italiano, Francais, 中文, 日本語, ): Via The North Pole

All the preparations for this year are in place! Return on Christmas Eve to track St. Nick on his magical flight around the world!

Until then, come back each day to receive updates from the North Pole and to discover new surprises in the Kids' Countdown.

And you can get a little history about this from Wikipedia. And for those of you who prefer making phone calls the official hotline: 1-877-HI-NORAD Google Analytics also has some details about this tracking program. [ Read more ... ]

It has nothing to do with Privacy, but a non-profit I work with, Sunflower Children, is having an event on Friday November 21st,2008. If you are in the city, I hope you can come.

Reserve your tickets online now for the Sunflower Children Poker Benefit on Friday, Nov 21 at Gotham Hall.

The 2nd Annual Sunflower Charity Poker Event hosted by Helena Houdova, Roberta Armani, Russell Simmons, Lane Carlson and MC for the evening the 2006 WSOP Champion and Highest Poker Stakes Winner in History, Jamie Gold will benefit Sunflower Children of the World Fund. The event will be held on November 21, 2008.

The event will include cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, live DJ and poker playing Celebrity Guest Players include: Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps, Miss World 2006 Tatana Kucharova, Laura Bell Bundy, Poker Pro Lee Childs, actors Michael Kelly, "Changeling", Ben Bailey "Cash Cab", Ana Ortiz "Ugly Betty" Mark Indelicato "Ugly Betty," Malinda Williams "First Sunday" and David Zayas "Dexter".

All public proceeds will benefit Sunflower Children of the World Fund. [ Read more ... ]

This doesn't have anything to do with privacy, but since I just finished the upgrade to my server I wanted to test one of the new function that I can now do. The software that I use to support Sunflower Children (the non-profit I work with) has a few new capabilities now that we are on a current version o PHP.

Instead of just running a banner on a remote site, we can now display a widget that will be dynamically updated as the donation campaign receives money. I am testing it here before inserting it in my sidebar and on the sites of others that support us. If you like the organiztion and would like to donate, please do. The widget is Live and all donations go directly to Sunflower Children. They of course do NOT keep your credit card number on file. It is just used to process the transaction and then forgotten. [ Read more ... ]

Hello Readers,

Well despite all the fun I had with upgrading my iBook(not my best day), I am upgrading the server that the Privacy Digest site runs on. I am increasing the RAM & Hard-drive. Getting a faster CPU and upgrading lots of the system software. In the near future I also have some site upgrades planned that required the new software that this upgrade is giving me. [ Read more ... ]

First the good news. I got it back and it now has a nice big new hard-drive installed. So now I can use my normal setup to make my posting more streamlined. And since it has no camera, I have a laptop I can take with me to the client who does not allow any type of camera onsite.

Now the bad news. Unfortunately somewhere during the process my motherboard's RAM connections got hosed(a technical term). It seems that if I have anything other than the minimum 256meg installed I lose all access to the video. So instead of upgrading from 768meg to 1.2 gig, I have been dropped down to only 256meg ... ARGH!!! [ Read more ... ]