Tech Talk

It is important to understand the risks of the gadgets you are bringing into your home — and bedroom.

A lawsuit alleging that officials from a high school in an affluent area in Pennsylvania watched a 15-year-old at home on a school-issued laptop’s webcam has raised awareness of a relatively unknown risk.  Many laptops sold today have webcams built into the monitor creating for the potential of increased voyeurism.

According to an article on philly.com:

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the family said the school’s assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had “engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district.”

The Lower Merion School District, the suit alleged, was able to turn on the webcams and illegally invade students’ privacy.

According to the publication:

A statement on the district Web site said the lawsuit’s allegations “are counter to everything that we stand for as a school and a community.”

Stephen Henderson, a law professor interviewed for the story, told philly.com that using such a camera for home surveillance “would violate wiretap laws, even if done to catch a thief.”

It is important for folks with webcams to understand how the popular device works. Some have lights that illuminate when activated, while some do not.  Many have the potential to be activated remotely.  To preserve one’s privacy, users with webcams could simple place a small Post-it note over the camera’s hole to avoid any unexpected or undesired exposure.

It is important to remember to always think of the worst-case scenarios with any piece of technology you bring into your home, because chances are someone else already is.

Bank of America’s Web site was reportedly down for the vast majority of its customers Friday afternoon.

An estimated 80 percent of customers were not able to access their accounts at 5 p.m. ET as a result of a “major Internet outage,” the Boston Globe reports.  Issues were first reported to the nation’s largest bank around noon.

The bank tweeted early Friday afternoon: “Our website is available. However, some customers are having intermittent issues with access. We are working to determine the root cause.”

By 6 p.m., the bank was personally assuring users that “[t]here should not be any impact to the use of your debit card,” and that “[we] are working to resolve [the issue].”

A bank spokesman told the paper a cause was still not yet known, but a cyber attacked had been ruled out.

By 7 p.m., Tech Talk was able to access bankofamerica.com, although other users still reported outages.

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it would charge frequent visitors to its Web site to view content.

Visitors to the most popular newspaper site in the country will only be permitted to view a still to be determined number of articles at no cost beginning in January 2011, according to the Times. Readers wishing to view additional articles will have to pay a yet to be announced flat fee for unlimited access.

Print subscribers to the Times need not reach for their checkbooks.  They will continue to enjoy full access to the site at no additional charge, the newspaper reported.

The Times will be among but a few major newspapers in America to put a considerable amount of content behind a pay wall.  The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Newsday are among the few other large papers in the country that currently charge for content.

However, like the Journal, readers who find an article on a search engine will not face reader fees, according to the Times.

Tech Talk applauds the Times’ decision to charge. While some analysts and readers may criticize the decision, Tech Talk recognizes that newspapers need to find additional revenue to continue to consistently provide comprehensive coverage.  We hope additional newspapers follow suit.

The American justice system is facing a threat that could result in the incarceration of the innocent and freedom of the guilty.

Graphic courtesy of California Court System

For years, judges have instructed juries to refrain from reading newspapers or watching local television news to preserve each defendant’s right to a fair trial.  However, the Internet threatens to strip our society from that inherent right of all men, women and children.

As Americans, and particularly folks from Southwestern Connecticut, become increasingly connected, it is becoming more difficult to avoid tainting a jury pool.  Countless blogs, tweets and Facebook statuses are disseminated everyday on a variety of topics — in an unpredictable manner.  As an example, a Tech Talk post from last week reported that almost 100 million words a day were posted in Facebook status updates at the beginning of the year.  It is impossible to anticipate the information one will find by logging onto the net.

For this reason, judges need to instruct juries to not just avoid – but stop visiting blogs and social networking sites – during their service as a juror.  Who knows, as was mentioned in a Tech Talk post earlier this week, it might even do the jurors some good to cut their digital leash for a little while.

The Internet also allows people, jurors included, to find supplemental information.  Jurors should be banned from using the net to find more information on the case they have been selected to offer a judgement on.

A TIME article reported that one juror doing research led to a mistrial in Miami.  This juror should be imprisoned.  It may seem harsh, but such actions threaten the very integrity of this country’s jury system — it’s that simple.  Think that juror’s actions were an isolated incident?  Think again! It was determined that at least nine of the 12 jurors Googled after hours.  America needs to get serious on this issue.

In another instance cited in the same article, a New York City juror sent a Facebook friend request to a witness during deliberations.  Following a guilty verdict, the defense team tried to get the verdict overturned, according to the article.  If the request had been granted, a potentially guilty person could have gone free and threatened the innocent.  If this person was innocent, someone who should not have been jailed was. How would you like to be imprisoned for something you did not do because of Facebook?  Either way, it is clear that judges need to prohibit jurors from utilizing social networking sites entirely during trials — and make clear that any use of the Internet, or any other means, to get supplemental information or to connect with people involved in the case will be a jailable offense.

How great would it be if you were connected to someone who could offer you some really neat perks — like free travel, for I don’t know, a year?

JetBlue Airways is doing just that.

Presumably to increase the number of fans it has on its Facebook page, the airline has offered really generous perks that will increase as the number of its “friends” do.  Currently, JetBlue only has 63,863 fans, which isn’t very many for a corporation with the exposure it has.

Among the prizes offered:

• A pair of roundtrip flights given away to any JetBlue destination from Dec. 9 through Jan. 31.
• A team prize of a 5-day/4-night getaway package for four
• A one year “All-You-Can-Jet” pass valid for travel in 2010

Of course, in order to enter these amazing deals, you must give the airline access to your profile information, become a fan and share your phone number, e-mail address and postal code.

Now talk about buying your friends.  But with that said, JetBlue, if you’re listening, I think I could be friends with you for unlimited travel for a year.

Has social networking become part of your daily routine at work?  If so, you might soon have to go through withdrawal.

Wired.com reports:

According to a study commissioned by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing company, 54 percent of U.S. companies say they’ve banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, while on the job. The study, released today, also found that 19 percent of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16 percent allow limited personal use.

Workers should anticipate more employers to follow suit to avoid a slowdown in productivity and Internet access.

However, companies could suffer as a result of employees who are not as in tune with current industry news and information as their competition.

It’s not as clear-cut an issue as it might appear.

The only known video footage of Anne Frank has been posted on YouTube, the Guardian newspaper reports.

The video, posted by the Anne Frank Museum, shows the then-13-year-old girl leaning over a balcony to catch a glimpse of a nearby wedding starting about nine seconds into the clip.

Frank was captured on the film on July 22, 1941.  Her family went into hiding from the Nazis just a year later, the Guardian reported.  She died in a concentration camp in March 1945.

According to the newspaper,

The museum has had the footage for some time, but thought YouTube would be a good platform to show the film and the other films about her life. It’s another way to bring the life of Anne Frank to the attention of younger people, and all people worldwide.

Anne became widely known a decade later when the diary she was keeping was published.

I was reading a story recently when a term I had never read before popped out at me: The Fifth Estate.

The term, which was used in a Poynter column, encompassed bloggers and aggregators.

“Don’t be dismissive of the bloggers and aggregators who make up the Fifth Estate. Those nontraditional journalists may be the next generation’s Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow,” the article advised.

The article got me thinking.

For years, some people have criticized the media for lacking accuracy, credibility and ethics.  The claim was bolstered by the argument there’s no one there to keep an eye on the watchdogs of government.  However, now there is a group that is not afraid to speak up. 

If the mainstream media makes a mistake or becomes entangled in corruption, the folks in power or the reporting of mistruths, there is a sizeable and independent segment of society that could sound the alarm. 

I believe this entity, made possible with the latest developments in technology, could ultimately push the collected press to produce stronger, deeper and more accurate stories — and allow the public to rest assured knowing someone is keeping an eye on their sources for news and information.