Wael Ghonim: Power of the People is Stronger than the People in Power...

Need News From Egypt? Try Twitter:

Full article here:

Update: Egypt’s Internet is suffering major outages, the Associated Press is reporting. A major Internet provider in the country is saying no Internet traffic is going in or out of the country.

Protests in Egypt are expected to intensify with opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei’s return to Cairo, and reports of Twitter and Facebook being blocked inside the country by Egyptian authorities continue to surface through the social networks themselves, and according to HerdictWeb. Users are also reporting that SMS – short message service – is being blocked as well.

Though it does appear that both Twitter and Facebook are still being blocked, many users are bypassing the blocks through proxy servers and third-party apps. Here is how they’re doing it.
Mobile & Third-Party Apps

Social mobile applications like Blackberry for Twitter or UberTwitter are still working for users in the country. Also, users are employing third-party apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite to update their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

HootSuite Chief Technology Officer Simon Stanlake said that though prior users are able to access Twitter and Facebook from their site, new users wouldn’t be able to authenticate new accounts because it requires hitting Twitter.com. He said their iPhone application doesn’t require a web authentication, so new HootSuite users are accessing the site through their mobile app.

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Geotags in Web Photos Reveal Secrets about You

Finding information on Geotags off pictures that an investigator retrieves from sites like Facebook and MySpace can be useful when the exact location of where the picture was taken needs to be known.

 

KATE MURPHY, New York Times

When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program "MythBusters," posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was "Now it's off to work," potential thieves knew he would not be at home.

Security experts and privacy advocates have recently begun warning about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smart phones and digital cameras. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online.

Savage said he knew about geotags. (He should, as host of a show popular with technology followers.) But he said he had neglected to disable the function on his iPhone before taking the picture and uploading it to Twitter.

"I guess it was a lack of concern because I'm not nearly famous enough to be stalked," he said, "and if I am, I want a raise."

Still, Savage has since turned off the geotag feature on his iPhone, and he isn't worried about the archived photo on Twitter because he has moved to a new residence.

But others may not be so technologically informed or so blase about their privacy.

"I'd say very few people know about geotag capabilities," said Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, "and consent is sort of a slippery slope when the only way you can turn off the function on your smart phone is through an invisible menu that no one really knows about."

Indeed, disabling the geotag function generally involves going through several layers of menus until you find the "location" setting, then selecting "off" or "don't allow." But doing this can sometimes turn off all GPS capabilities, including mapping, so it can get complicated.

The website ICanStalkU.com provides step-by-step instructions for disabling the photo geotagging function on iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm devices.

A person's location is also revealed while using services like Foursquare and Gowalla as well as when posting to Twitter from a GPS-enabled mobile device, but the geographical data is not hidden as it is when posting photos.

A handful of academic researchers and independent Web security analysts, who call themselves "white hat hackers," have been trying to raise awareness about geotags by releasing studies and giving presentations at technology get-togethers like the Hackers On Planet Earth, or Next HOPE, conference held last month in New York.

Their lectures and papers demonstrate the ubiquity of geotagged photos and videos on websites like Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Craigslist, and how these photos can be used to identify a person's home and haunts.

Many of the pictures show people's children playing in or around their homes. Others reveal expensive cars, computers and flat-screen televisions. There are also pictures of people at their friends' houses or at the Starbucks they visit each morning.

By downloading free browser plug-ins like the Exif Viewer for Firefox (addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3905/) or Opanda IExif for Internet Explorer (opanda.com/en/iexif/), anyone can pinpoint the location where the photo was taken and create a Google map.

Moreover, since multimedia sites like Twitter and YouTube have user-friendly application programming interfaces, or APIs, someone with a little knowledge about writing computer code can create a program to search for geotagged photos in a systematic way. For example, they can search for those accompanied with text like "on vacation" or those taken in a specified neighborhood.

"Any 16-year-old with basic programming skills can do this," said Gerald Friedland, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He and a colleague, Robin Sommer, wrote a paper, "Cybercasing the Joint: On the Privacy Implications of Geotagging," which they presented on Tuesday at a workshop in Washington during the Advanced Computing Systems Association's annual conference on security.

The paper provides three examples of so-called cybercasing that use photos posted on Twitter and Craigslist and a homemade video on YouTube.

By looking at geotags and the text of posts, Sommer said, "you can easily find out where people live, what kind of things they have in their house and also when they are going to be away."

"Our intent is not to show how it's done," he said, "but raise awareness so people can understand their devices and turn off those options if they want to."

ICanStalkU.com, developed by the security consultants Larry Pesce of the NWN Corporation in Waltham, Mass., and Ben Jackson of Mayhemic Labs in Boston, uses a more direct approach to warning about the potential dangers of geotags. The site displays a real-time stream of geotagged photos posted on Twitter; the person who posted the photo also gets a notification via Twitter.

"The reaction from people is either anger, like 'I'm going to punch you out,' or 'No duh, like I didn't already know that' or 'Oh my God, I had no idea,'" Pesce said.

In the latter category was Cristina Parker of El Paso, Texas, who sells appliances part-time at Kmart and also manages social media for small companies. ICanStalkU.com notified her last week that a photo she had posted on Twitter of her Chihuahua, Zipp, also revealed where she lived.

"I immediately tweeted back to find out what I can do about it," said Parker. The site sent her a Web link to instructions on how to turn off the geotag function on her LG Ally smart phone. "It's definitely good to know for me personally and because of my social media work, too," she said

Because of the way photographs are formatted by some sites like Facebook and Match.com, geotag information is not always retained when an image is uploaded, which provides some protection, albeit incidental. Other sites like Flickr have recently taken steps to block access to geotag data on images taken with smart phones unless a user explicitly allows it.

But experts say the problem goes far beyond social networking and photo sharing websites, regardless of whether they offer user privacy settings.

"There are so many places where people upload photos, like personal blogs and bulletin boards," said Johannes B. Ullrich, chief technology officer of the SANS Technology Institute, which provides network security training and monitors the Internet for emerging security threats.

Protecting your privacy is not just a matter of being aware and personally responsible, said Sommer, the researcher. A friend may take a geotagged photo at your house and post it.

"You need to educate yourself and your friends but in the end, you really have no control," he said, adding that he was considering writing a program to troll the Internet for photos with geotags corresponding to users' home addresses.

"I'm beginning to think there may be a market for it."

Facebook Discovery Tips

Handy discovery tips for Facebook from Law and Technology News:

Facebook has over 500 million active users.

Twitter users are recording an average of 55 million tweets a day.

If an employee files suit against your client, what are the odds the employee uses social media? I'd say they're pretty good. Just imagine missing the Facebook post:

"I'll do whatever it takes to get back at my employer."

The first thing I do after I receive a copy of an employee-filed complaint -- before I read the complaint -- is check the plaintiff-employee out on Facebook and other social networking sites.

I print any information that employee has made publicly available. I save any pictures the employee has published online and I send a list of the employee's friends to my employer-client to cross-check against a list of current and former employees. I do this because, generally, a Facebook user will allow friends greater access to online content.

Why do I want this information? Because many social media users do not filter what they publish online -- they find social media cathartic. So, for every couple of banal "I'm going to the movies with John tonight" online posts, you'll find an "I just had the worst day in the office because …" post.

Don't believe me? Check out this, this, this, and this blog post from Delaware labor and employment attorney Molly DiBianca, who writes about how a waitress lost her job for a complaint made on Facebook.

WHAT IF THE PLAINTIFF RESTRICTS FACEBOOK ACCESS?

Recently, in EEOC v. Simply Storage Management, a federal court permitted an employer to obtain discovery of an employee's social networking activity that, through privacy settings, the employee had made "private" and not available to the general public.

That makes sense, right? I have yet to see a tweet or a Facebook status update appear on a privilege log.

So, as part of discovery, an employer should consider requesting:

All online profiles, postings, messages (including, without limitation, tweets, replies, retweets, direct messages, status updates, wall comments, groups joined, activity streams, and blog entries), photographs, videos, and online communications that:

1. refer or relate to the allegations set forth in the complaint;

2. refer or relate to any facts or defenses raised in the answer;

3. reveal, refer or relate to any emotion, feeling, or mental state; or

4. reveal, refer, or relate to events that could reasonably be expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state.

IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, BRING OUT THE BIG GUNS: SUBPOENAS, SPOLIATION

If the responding employee no longer has access to responsive information, then go right to the source with a subpoena. To guide you, here is a list of internet service provider mailing addresses for service of subpoenas. (Just be prepared to pay some hefty fees, such as those Facebook charges for processing a third-party subpoena). And make sure you obtain a written consent (such as this one from LinkedIn) from the employee. As labor and employment attorney John Hyman explains in a recent blog post, many social networking sites use the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq., to aggressively protect the privacy of user content.

Feds May Send Agents Undercover On Social Networking Sites

By Rick Whiting, ChannelWeb
Federal law enforcement agencies are considering putting undercover agents on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace for investigative and data gathering purposes, according to a U.S. Department of Justice document.

The confidential, 33-page DOJ presentation was obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights advocacy group, which made it public Tuesday. The document was prepared by the DOJ's Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are all within the DOJ.

One slide in the presentation is titled "Undercover Operations: Legal and Practical Issues." The slide included the question "Why go undercover on Facebook, MySpace, etc.?" and in bullet points suggested agents could "communicate with suspects/targets," "gain access to non-public info," and "map social relationships/networks."

Another slide entitled "Utility in Criminal Cases," stated that evidence from social networking sites can "reveal personal communications," "establish motives and personal relationships," "provide location information," "prove and disprove alibis," and "establish crime or criminal enterprise."

Most of the document, entitled "Obtaining and Using Evidence from Social Networking Sites," includes profiles of leading social networking sites and examines which ones are most prominent in different geographies of the world.

The Facebook profile, for example, outlined its history and includes information on whether subscribers use real names, how data is organized, what privacy policies it follows, and whether the company is "cooperative with emergency requests."

The document also examines some of the legal issues federal agents face when assuming fake identities on social networking sites. One slide specifically refers to a court ruling in the case of Lori Drew, a Texas woman acquitted of cyber-bullying a girl who committed suicide.

The document was prepared by John Lynch, deputy chief of computer crime, and Jenny Ellickson, trial attorney, both with the DOJ Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section. The EFF obtained the document through the Freedom of Information Act.

MySpace Subpoena Information

Rosita Martinez, Custodian of Records
Compliance@myspace-inc.com
407 N. Maple Drive
Beverly Hills, California 90210
888-309-1314

In order to get the profile's info you'll need a FRIEND ID # or a SPECIFIC URL. Locating either of these will be simple if the account is still active. Visit MYSPACE, locate the correct account, click on the link, and the URL containing the friend ID # will be in web address bar. Eg. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=6221, the friend ID # is 6221.

As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up

From the New York Times:

Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.

Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.

“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”

It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.

Last week, a building products company asked an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment, claiming that a juror used Twitter to send updates during the civil trial.

And on Monday, defense lawyers in the federal corruption trial of a former Pennsylvania state senator, Vincent J. Fumo, demanded before the verdict that the judge declare a mistrial because a juror posted updates on the case on Twitter and Facebook. The juror had even told his readers that a “big announcement” was coming on Monday. But the judge decided to let the deliberations continue, and the jury found Mr. Fumo guilty. His lawyers plan to use the Internet postings as grounds for appeal.

Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system’s complex rules of evidence. They can also tell their friends what is happening in the jury room, though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.

Full article here.

The Officer Who Posted Too Much on MySpace

From the New York Times:

In pictures, Vaughan Ettienne is a champion bodybuilder of surreal musculature. In conversation, he is polite and thoughtful.

And in the looking glass of his computer screen, he becomes a man of fierce, profane views on how to keep law and order. A few weeks ago, he posted a description of his mood on a MySpace account. “Devious,” he wrote.

The next day, a man accused of carrying a loaded gun would go on trial in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn — and in large part, the case rested on the credibility of Vaughan Ettienne, bodybuilder, Internet user and arresting officer.

What seemed like a simple gun possession case became an undeclared war over reality: Was Officer Ettienne a diligent cop who found a gun after chasing an ex-convict weaving through traffic on a stolen motorcycle? Or was his story a “devious” facade in keeping with the ruthless character he revealed on social network Web sites?

“You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.”

Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena. The man on trial, Gary Waters, claimed that Officer Ettienne and his partner stopped him, beat him and then planted a gun on him to justify breaking three of his ribs.

Suddenly, Officer Ettienne was being held to the words that he wrote in cyberspace.

Besides the “devious” mood setting, the jurors learned that a few weeks before the trial, the officer posted this status on his Facebook page: “Vaughan is watching ‘Training Day’ to brush up on proper police procedure.”

That referred to a 2001 movie starring Denzel Washington as a narcotics detective who pillaged and plundered Los Angeles. “The defense lawyer brings up ‘Training Day’ — like I was trying to emulate Denzel,” Officer Ettienne said. “He ties the defense to the story in the movie. It was a masterful piece of fantasy — but it was one that the jury bought.”

Mr. Waters, on parole from a burglary conviction when he was arrested, beat the most serious charge, the felony possession of a 9 millimeter Beretta and a bagful of ammunition. He was convicted of resisting arrest, a misdemeanor.

When the case started, the defense was going to focus more on what was in the officer’s body than on his mind. Officer Ettienne had been suspended for using steroids — legally, he says, with a doctor’s prescription. The defense lawyer, Adrian Lesher of the Legal Aid Society, argued last year that steroids might have created irrational rage in Officer Ettienne.

Full article here.

Due Diligence With Social Networks

From Law.com:

Gone are the days when due diligence, or a litigation background check, amounted to reviewing a resume and examining public records -- or even Googling!

Today, a witness, juror, expert or potential business partner is more likely to have a social networking site than a criminal conviction. Many painstaking attorneys would be sure to check for court records, but they might miss out on the additional benefits of this new information arena.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that 66 percent of Internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile. CareerBuilder.com found that 37 percent of employees they surveyed did too. By contrast, only 9.5 percent of potential hires have criminal convictions.

Social networking activity can be quite revealing -- a kind of informal resume and kitchen table chat, not tailored to a specific event or situation, and very likely full of unguarded admissions.
Even if preparation of an Internet profile isn't your primary objective, regularly check these sites, particularly if you will be preparing a due diligence declaration. These days, judges know the value of a Google search and have begun to expect that as a standard practice in locating people.

Here's the scoop on the kinds of information to be gleaned from social networking sites. In general, people participate in interactive Web sites with their friends, co-workers, school and professional colleagues, as well as Internet-only acquaintances. The self-generated content, along with comments from other participants, provide insight into a person's values, activities, biases and self-image. Most people mention past education and employers, as well as other people in their network, interest organizations and leisure activities. A breezy reflection on a summer vacation spot may point to a place to search for state and county court records.

Full article here.

Facebook Twitter Effective Emergency Management

Before many people check the news, they check their twitter or facebook account. Researchers at the University of Colorado recently published a study that found that blogs, maps, photo sites and instant messaging systems were better at providing warnings, help and lists of how individuals were affected than traditional sources. The research, published in the New Scientist, suggested that sites such as Twitter and Google Maps were able to assist residents of California, during wildfires in 2007, exchange information and track the fires' progress even when the residents did not have access to traditional news sources. Because anyone with a mobile phone that has an internet connection could access these services, researchers found that the information exchanged was often more complete and reliable than information available through traditional means.

Click here for full article.

Facebook Aims to Extend Its Reach Across the Web

From the New York Times:

Facebook, the Internet’s largest social network, wants to let you take your friends with you as you travel the Web. But having been burned by privacy concerns in the last year, it plans to keep close tabs on those outings.

Facebook Connect, as the company’s new feature is called, allows its members to log onto other Web sites using their Facebook identification and see their friends’ activities on those sites. Like Beacon, the controversial advertising program that Facebook introduced and then withdrew last year after it raised a hullabaloo over privacy, Connect also gives members the opportunity to broadcast their actions on those sites to their friends on Facebook.

In the next few weeks, a number of prominent Web sites will weave this service into their pages, including those of the Discovery Channel and The San Francisco Chronicle, the social news site Digg, the genealogy network Geni and the online video hub Hulu.

Full Story Here.

Everyone is on Facebook...

All a Twitter

Twitter is a social networking and “mircoblogging” site that allows its users to send and read other users' updates, also known as tweets.  Twitter is becoming a popular medium to share information in a similar, but more concise, manner as MySpace and Facebook. 

An interesting example of how Twitter is becoming a social justice tool, in April of this year, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at the University of California at Berkeley, and his translator were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. After being arrested and on the way to the police station, Mr. Buck used his phone to send the message “Arrested” to his followers on Twitter. Those contacted the university, the United States Embassy and a number of press organizations on his behalf. While being detained, Mr. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his "followers". As a result of the message and the efforts of his Twitter friends, he was released the next day from jail after the university hired a lawyer for him.

Twitter is another resource that can be used in an investigation to gather information about individuals and their social networks.

Facebook Subpoena Information

If it is necessary that information on Facebook site be preserved, a preservation order is required by mail or fax to the following address:

Facebook
151 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
Attn: Security Department

Fax Number (650) 644-3229

Provide as much of the following information as possible to expedite the request:
- Full contact information (name, physical address, phone and email):
- Response date due (please allow 2-4 weeks for processing):
- Full name of user(s):
- Full URL to Facebook profile:
- School/networks:
- Birth date:
- Known email addresses:
- IM account ID:
- Phone numbers:
- Address:
- Period of activity (specific dates will most likely expedite your request).

Be sure that the contact information is valid, so that Facebook can contact the requestor with updates on the request status.

Although providing this information will enable Facebook to identify the account in question so that Facebook can preserve available information, Facebook will also need a valid subpoena or other court order in order to provide this information to the requestor. This subpoena or court order should be mailed or faxed to the above address.

Civil Matters:

For information being requested in a civil matter, a valid California or New York subpoena is required.

Don't drink and drive, then post on Facebook

Something to keep in mind...

From MSNBC and the AP:

"Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunken driving crash that seriously injured a woman, the 20-year-old college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner. Pictures from the party showed him in a black-and-white striped shirt and an orange jumpsuit labeled "Jail Bird."

In the age of the Internet, it might not be hard to guess what happened to those pictures: Someone posted them on the social networking site Facebook. And that offered remarkable evidence for Jay Sullivan, the prosecutor handling Lipton's drunken-driving case.

Sullivan used the pictures to paint Lipton as an unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital. A judge agreed, calling the pictures depraved when sentencing Lipton to two years in prison."

Full Story Here.

Facebook

Facebook Article

"I despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the people around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub..."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook/print