Technology & Civil Liberties News Roundup - March 12th, 2010

by Hari O'Connell (Mar 12, 2010 11:00 am)

A compilation of links to interesting technology, privacy, and free speech news stories of the day: 

Study: Social-Networking Privacy Exposed By Public Friend Lists [miller-mccune.com]

Researchers developed an algorithm to see if they could accurately infer attributes like high school or college, department of study, hometown, graduation year and even dormitory by dissecting these users’ friend lists.

Hate Blogger Wins Second Mistrial [Wired] 

Turner, of New Jersey, blogged at turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com that the three judges of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit of Appeals should be “killed” for upholding a Chicago handgun ban in June.

PG&E Smart Meter 'Rebellion' Growing [cbs5.com]

The new meter allows the utility to read your energy usage remotely, eliminating the need for meter readers.

Twitter knows where you are [sfgate.com]

Twitter Inc. on Thursday activated a location-tagging feature that tells the world where you are when you tweet about what you are thinking.

NZ internet filter goes live - gov forgets to tell public [The Register]

New Zealand’s internet filtering system went live last month – but the government forgot to mention this to its electorate until its hand was forced by online freedom campaign, Tech Liberty.

Pennsylvania CISO's dismissal not in good judgment [SC Magazine]

The information security industry took a step back this week with news that the CISO of the state of Pennsylvania, Bob Maley, lost his job, likely over remarks he made during a panel discussion last week at the RSA Conference.

Why no one cares about privacy anymore [CNet]

It's difficult to overstate how thoroughly today's youth--call them Generation X-hibitionist--have adjusted to living in a world of porn spam and Viagra ads that utterly lacks quaint 20th-century conceptions of privacy. (When dealing with the police, privacy is a Fourth Amendment right; when dealing with Blippy, it's a mere preference.)

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