By Angela Gunn and the Betanews Staff, Betanews
Privacy advocates on Monday applauded plans by the Obama administration to kill a spy satellite program that would have pointed the cameras at domestic targets. Meanwhile, the company running the nation's biggest "Registered Traveler" program, intended to whisk customers through TSA lines, is out of business.
DHS shelves domestic spy satellite program
Afternoon of June 22, 2009 • The US Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday it's dropping the planned National Applications Office after asking state and local law enforcement how useful they'd find such imagery, and hearing back not really.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Los Angeles police chief William Bratton, writing on behalf of the 64-member Major Cities Chiefs Association, told DHS head Janet Napolitano, "Were the program to go forward, the police chiefs would be concerned about privacy protections and whether using military satellites for domestic purposes would violate the Posse Comitatus law, which bars the use of the military for law enforcement in the US."
The LA Times spoke with Rep. Jane Harman (D - Cal.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee's intelligence and terrorism risk assessment subcommittee, who cited grave privacy concerns with the proposed surveillance.
Brill is less content, and the future is less "Clear"
Monday, June 22, 2009, 11:00 PDT • Clear, formerly known as Verified Identity Pass, posted a notice on its site stating that the service would cease operations.
Grant Martin, who reviewed the service earlier this year for Gadling.com, is sorry to see it go: "It's always sad to see a company fail, but in this case, it seems a bit more personal." Over at Wired, Ryan Singel was more arch, commenting that co-founder Steven Brill had already moved on to the Journalism Online project: "If Brill can't get enough corporate travelers to pay for airport convenience, it's not clear how he thinks he'll get enough people to pony up online news subscriptions to save online journalism." And Scott McCartney at The Wall Street Journal shrugged that the service didn't amount to much of a convenience for anyone in the end.
Biggest CAN-SPAM case yet elicits guilty plea
Morning of June 22, 2009 • Guilty pleas in a Detroit federal court Monday from five men facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act settled the largest CAN-SPAM prosecution to date, according to the Department of Justice. Alan M. Ralsky, Scott K. Bradley, John S. Bown, William C. Neil, and James E. Fite were accused of running a "pump-and-dump" stock-inflation operation in conjunction with several other men, three of whom have already pled guilty. Three more people await trial.
The takedown of Ralsky, called by some a "spam king," sat well with the Detroit Free Press' Ben Schmitt, who wrote, "On Monday, Alan Ralsky took on the new title of convicted felon." The 64-year-old could face up to six years in prison, as might Bradley, his son-in-law. (Happy Father's Day?) Much of the tech underpinnings of the scam were based in Fresno, and the Fresno Business Journal has its own take on events.
Dunkin' Donuts releases iPhone app
Around coffee break • The office pastry run is to be made easier for patrons of Dunkin' Donuts, who now have an iPhone app for coordinating their trips to that shop. Being at the epicenter of the Dunkin-Donuts-is-edible cult, Boston reporters went predictably hysterical over the app, with Kerry Skemp at Bostonist hyperventilating that "The new Dunkin Run web site and iPhone app will change your life." (Your reporter speaks for all of Seattle when she says it's cute that you East Coasters think that's coffee. You people cook with Betty Crocker ovens too?)
Jennifer Van Grove takes a calmer look at the new offerings, and Matthew Shear at the Christian Science Monitor advises us all not to bother.
Palm's WebOS SDK won't be finalized 'til late summer
August or so > Though Palm Pre users are expected to download their 1,000,000th application from the Apps Store late this week, developers are still waiting for the release of the software development kit. A post on the Palm Network Developer Blog confirms rumors that Palm hopes to make the SDK available to everyone by the end of summer, with a push starting now to get more people into the early-access program.
Meanwhile, Palm's encouraging the faithful to "explore other public WebOS resources, including the Rough Cuts edition of Mitch Allen's upcoming book and the sites run by our great community of enthusiasts."
Sascha Segan notes that in the meantime, Palm is remaining calm about various "jailbreak" efforts, making the geekish case that formal offerings will be technically superior. IntoMobile caught the Palm team in another moment of candor over the weekend, spotting a tweet that acknowledged the Pre's slightly annoying habit of adding apostrophes to whatever it thinks is a contraction.
FTC looks into blogger 'payola'
Later this summer, maybe > The Federal Trade Commission is reported to be working out a set of guidelines that would give bloggers legitmacy on a level with other publishers -- by requiring that they, too, abide by rules concerning false claims, conflicts of interest, or "gifts" from companies seeking coverage.
Peter Kafka at All Things D made the phone call, and the answer to the obvious question is yes, this does includes affiliate relationships. (In other words, if a site runs a book review and provides a link to Amazon, and if buying the book through that link would earn the review site a few cents, they have to say so. Which, frankly, a lot of sites already mention as an encouragement to potentially supportive readers.) Aaron Brazell is likewise interested in what it all means for affiliates, but points to a fiery Queen of Spain post by Erin Kotecki Vest spotlighting recent drama over the tendency of some bloggers to accept freebies without telling their readers they've done so. And One Fine Jay took a look at recent developments and is doing what a lot of bloggers are apt to do in the next few days and weeks: Write and post a disclosure policy.
The pain of regeneration, but all for a good cause
November 2009...and beyond! > All eleven Time Lords -- yes, including the new guy; yes, including the newer guy; yes, including Hartwell, Troughton, and Pertwee -- will appear in a new Doctor Who special benefiting charity.
As the Daily Mirror first reported, "Viewers will see the Time Lords regenerating and emerging one by one from the Tardis, each with their own quirky opening line." Sort of like the way John Madden used to introduce his picks for the "All Madden Team," only with time lords. Even the late actors' lines will be recreated using earlier footage.
AFTER THE JUMP: Tech headlines from around the Net...
Tuesday's tech headlines
Ars Technica
• The prospect of a German law requiring mandatory ISP-level filtering for child porn sends a Bundestag member of the Social Democrats into the arms of the Pirate Party, sort of. But don't wave the flag just yet; Jörg Trauss has a complicated history with CP.
• Jacqui Cheng tests the iPhone 3GS and says the camera's not great, but the speed is all Apple has claimed.
• Kevin Timmons makes the jump from Yahoo, where he was vice president of operations, to Microsoft, where he'll be a general manager of the Global Foundation Services team.
TechCrunch
• And there goes the other shoe at MySpace: Michael Arrington reports that the company will lay off 2/3 of its international staff.
• Is the iPhone's screen more crack-prone than those of other phones? No, says Jason Kincaid, examining the statistics. Are falls a particular menace to the device? Signs for to yes.
• MG Sigler noticed a former Bush administration official suggesting that the founders of Twitter ought to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for what the service has helped accomplish for Iran. Say it with us, Laugh-In fans: Very interesting, but...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Beware of e-mail concerning an alleged critical update to Microsoft outlook and Outlook Express: It's a more-convincing-than-average malware attempt.
• Nick Eaton opines on the "Microsoft subsidy bill" just passed by the Washington state legislature, which would give international workers at some companies the right to in-state tuition rates at universities. Thirteen other states have similar measures on the books.
• A blogger in Connecticut with a history of suggesting to readers that they "take up arms" against lawmakers has been arraigned on a felony charge of inciting injury to persons. Is it free speech, or is it yelling "fire" in a crowded (albeit virtual) theater?
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009