Recently, an article crossed my path that made me smile. There’s not much in tech these days that does that, so I took a moment to savor this rare sensation. . The piece by Jack Wallen on ZDNet pitched Linux as a refuge from the desktop OS security pitfalls of its competitors. I’ve held this viewpoint for a while. What impressed me about the article, though, is that the author bothered to make the sell to an audience of mostly non-Linux-using consumer tech readers. As pro-Linux desktop arguments go, the author’s was easily comprehensible to neophytes. Beautiful. But if there was any shortcoming worth noting, it is that in places, it was a bit too light on detail for an article that, in the best case, is guiding users toward the serious undertaking of wiping their machine’s factory OS to install a new one that is handed out for free on the internet. I’m hoping a follow-up piece is in the works for those whose excitement generated by the initial article needs a bit of direction. But unless and until the sequel debuts, I wanted to start a dialog by offering a few points. . Linux offers a secure and flexible alternative to traditional desktop OS, boasting strong security benefits and a supportive community to ease the transition. Linux Security, Desktop OS Security, Open Source Advocacy. . Brittany Day
The U.S. Congress must act quickly on legislation that would make electronic data collection efforts by the U.S. National Security Agency more public, a group of tech firms, civil liberties groups and other organizations said Monday.. Internet and telecommunications companies that receive data collection and surveillance requests from the NSA should "have the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data," the coalition said in a letter to the judiciary committees in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The link for this article located at Network World is no longer available. . Technology companies petition U.S. lawmakers to expedite NSA accountability measures pertaining to data gathering methods.. NSA Transparency, Data Collection Legislation, Civil Liberties, Tech Firms Advocacy. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
Opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act, the bill that threatens to block large swathes of foreign websites for alleged copyright infringement, have complained that Congress has yet to hear their voice. In the initial hearing and markup of the bill in Congress, the only outside critic of the bill invited as a witness was Google, whose opposition to the act was largely dismissed as an isolated exception.. Now, it seems, the tech industry The link for this article located at Forbes is no longer available. . Advocates for online liberties are preparing to address lawmakers regarding SOPA's stringent regulations on international platforms and intellectual property.. SOPA Opposition, Digital Rights Activism, Internet Freedom, Tech Industry Response. . Alex
Chris Soghoian is an unlikely federal official. In 2006 he built a tool that let you print fake boarding passes for Northwest Airlines ( NWA - news - people ) to highlight a TSA security flaw. Unamused, the FBI raided his house (he was never charged with a crime). . A year later he mapped where California company Biofilm shipped tubes of its sexual lubricant Astroglide using data the company put online. He claimed Biofilm violated privacy laws, but authorities declined to investigate, saying no financial data was exposed. "Just names, phone numbers, addresses and the fact that you requested sex lube," grumps Soghoian. Given this history, he was surprised when the Federal Trade Commission offered him a job in 2009. Soghoian, 29, was the first of a handful of technologists the agency recruited to investigate corporations for violating consumers' privacy. The FTC needed tech geeks to help it understand privacy on the Web, and Soghoian, an Indiana University informatics-and-computing Ph.D. candidate fresh off a Harvard law and technology fellowship, accepted the offer for pragmatic reasons. "We have one privacy regulator at the federal level in this country--the FTC," says Soghoian. The link for this article located at Forbes is no longer available. . The path taken by Chris Soghoian sheds light on the critical concerns surrounding data protection and the role of government in monitoring personal information.. Privacy Issues, Consumer Data Protection, Government Regulation, Cybersecurity, Digital Privacy. . Alex
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