Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications

Thanks to the EFF for making all of us alert to such issues. Post below comes directly from EFF RSS.

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Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications: "
The New York Times reported this morning on a Federal government plan to put government-mandated back doors in all communications systems, including all encryption software. The Times said the Obama administration is drafting a law that would impose a new "mandate" that all communications services be "able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages" — including ordering "[d]evelopers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication [to] redesign their service to allow interception".

Throughout the 1990s, EFF and others fought the "crypto wars" to ensure that the public would have the right to strong encryption tools that protect our privacy and security — with no back doors and no intentional weaknesses. We fought in court and in Congress to protect privacy rights and challenge restrictions on encryption, and to make sure the public could use encryption to protect itself. In a 1999 decision in the EFF-led Bernstein case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals observed that

[w]hether we are surveilled by our government, by criminals, or by our neighbors, it is fair to say that never has our ability to shield our affairs from prying eyes been at such a low ebb. The availability and use of secure encryption may offer an opportunity to reclaim some portion of the privacy we have lost. Government efforts to control encryption thus may well implicate not only the First Amendment rights of cryptographers intent on pushing the boundaries of their science, but also the constitutional rights of each of us as potential recipients of encryption's bounty.

For a decade, the government backed off of attempts to force encryption developers to weaken their products and include back doors, and the crypto wars seemed to have been won. (Indeed, journalist Steven Levy declared victory for the civil libertarian side in 2001.) In the past ten years, even as the U.S. government has sought (or simply taken) vastly expanded surveillance powers, it never attempted to ban the development and use of secure encryption.

Now the government is again proposing to do so, following in the footsteps of regimes like the United Arab Emirates that have recently said some privacy tools are too secure and must be kept out of civilian hands.

As the Internet security community explained years ago, intentionally weakening security and including back doors is a recipe for disaster. 'Lawful intercept' systems built under current laws have already been abused for unlawful spying by governments and criminals. Trying to force technology developers to include back doors is a recipe for disaster for our already-fragile on-line security and privacy. And like the COICA Internet censorship bill, it takes a page from the world's most repressive regimes' Internet-control playbook. This is exactly the wrong message for the U.S. government to be sending to the rest of the world.

The crypto wars are back in full force, and it's time for everyone who cares about privacy to stand up and defend it: no back doors and no bans on the tools that protect our communications.
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The Future of News and Newspapers

Last year, while attending a lecture by noted technology guru, Alan November, there was discussion and concern about the decline of the newspaper industry, punctuated by fears for the book industry too.  Well, those concerns were justified, but the sentiments were all wrong.  Indeed, these industries are changing, but all for the better.  Just ask anyone who owns a Kindle or Ipod Touch or Iphone.  The customer is now in control.  Welcome to the 21st Century!  

For those who like to be frightened on this upcoming Halloween, I thought you might like to revisit this curious flash movie that was originally created in 2004. Its foresight is more than a bit eerie! Now that Amazon delivers the NY Times electronically, via the Kindle e-book reader, the future in here.

Enjoy.

See original prediction from 2004

http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/ols-master1.html

See updated prediction

http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/new-masterfs1.html

PS: There are some significant changes in the new version so it’s worth watching both.

Differentiation: "Guess what! Different People Choose To Learn In Different Ways."

When it comes to learning, "What's the difference between adults and children?" Adults have choices when choosing how to learn. Children? Uh! Less so.

Note these personal "adult" examples:

1. I want to learn about news and politics: I LISTEN to podcasts from National Public Radio and retain a lot. If I read the newspaper, I seem to retain less.
2. I want to learn about a new software program: I explore and play with the software's features well ahead of the time when I will actually need to use the program. Then, when I have real problems, I READ the FAQs, manual and help screens very slowly until I uncover the solution to my problem.
3. I want to learn how to fix a toilette: I WATCH a youtube video that shows me how the entire flushing system works.
4. I want to learn how to manage my appointments: I prioritize which features I need first, and then I use my Outlook calendar every day and provide myself easy access to it.
5. I want to learn how to train my mind and improve my vocabulary: I READ a book. Sometimes I read a paper book, and most times I read on my Kindle or Ipod Touch. After reading a book, I document my progress on my virtual bookshelf of choice, Shelfari.
   

I love this new world in which we are living. Opportunities for learning abound and the tools we have at our disposal are effective and intriguing. So I have to ask, "Are we giving our students access to all the tools in the toolbox?

No doubt, children are not adults and their needs are different, including their needs as learners. Still, common sense suggests that children are like adults when it comes to modes of learning. Different kids learn differently. Thus the explosion of the new "eduspeak" term: Differentiation.

Although I am not fond of educators' proclivity for using trendy terms that have a tendency to complicate matters, that doesn't negate the importance of the topic of Differentiation. When it comes to learning in school, students need options. Teachers need to provide and allow for such options, and parents can provide such support as well. To better understand how differentiation can work for children and teens in schools, the following web site should be a good starting point.

Learner Strategies

Survey Says! Why aren't you using this free and easy assessment tool?

Ever wonder whether the students in your class have a real grasp of the subject matter? Need a free and easy way to tap into their "prior knowledge?" Consider using SurveyMonkey or one of the myriad internet polling sites available to you.

For teachers on a budget, here is a free and easy to use assessment tool for your classroom.

1. Go to SurveyMonkey and open a free account.

2. Create a survey based on whatever subject matter you want to sample to see what the class does or does not know.

3. Email the survey link to your students and ask them to "take the survey."

4. Review the survey results in class together (SurveyMonkey totals them for you automatically) and see what the majority or minority of students are thinking. I've done this in class before, and the conversations are quite animated. Because this is not a test, students are more willing to listen and exchange ideas as they try to remember whether or not they actually "voted" for the best answer.

See this link to take a simple, 5 question geometry quiz as an example of how this might look.

Geometry Knowledge Survey Example

Internet Safety - Small Steps

When a toddler is learning to walk, there is usually an adult nearby. In this early stage of a child's physical development, parents seem to be naturals in determining the proper balance - stay close enough to intervene if my toddler is in harm's way, but allow enough freedom for my child to learn how to balance, navigate, and eventually walk with confidence and independence. No doubt, the "wobbling" is always the most anxious time for parents.

Now that your toddler has matured into a tween or teen, your son or daughter may be wobbling all over again. Yet few parents are feeling nostaligic by this sense of deja vu as we watch our children stumble and fall while learning to toddle the Internet. Many parents are asking, "How close is too close, and how safe is safe enough?" As you determine your parental stance regarding Internet safety, think back to your child's toddler stage and remember how progress was made in small steps. First and foremost, your toddler needed support, and so do our tweens and teens when they first learn to navigate the Internet.

Step one: Hold their hand, which means be around and be available. Just as a toddler will attempt to walk when ready, so too will elementary age children gravitate to the computer. I won't go so far as to say it's natural; however, I will say it's inevitable. When those first steps arrive, a desktop computer sitting in a common living space where there is a lot of foot traffic probably makes the most sense. The novice computer user will have problems, technical and otherwise. Anticipate problems, and be available to help your child understand them.

Eventually, you will want to bolster your child’s independence by allowing unmonitored time on the Internet - which leads to Step two: Learn how to use filters that block the most offensive information. In later blogs, I’ll speak more to this. For now, the information below will show you how to strengthen the filter when using the Google search engine. Since Google is where most searching gets done, and since the option is free, why not use it? To the right of the Google search box, click on Advanced Search, and then follow the direction for SafeSearch.

SafeSearch filtering

Many users prefer not to have adult sites included in search results (especially if their kids use the same computer). Google's SafeSearch screens for sites that contain explicit sexual content and deletes them from your search results. No filter is 100% accurate, but SafeSearch should eliminate most inappropriate material.

You can choose from among three SafeSearch settings:

• Moderate filtering excludes most explicit images from Google Image Search results but doesn’t filter ordinary web search results. This is your default SafeSearch setting; you’ll receive moderate filtering unless you change it.
• Strict filtering applies SafeSearch filtering to all your search results (i.e., both image search and ordinary web search).

And finally…

• No Filtering, as you’ve probably figured out, turns off SafeSearch filtering completely.

You can also adjust your SafeSearch settings on the Advanced Search or the Advanced Image Search pages on a per search basis.

We do our best to keep SafeSearch as up-to-date and comprehensive as possible, but inappropriate sites will sometimes slip through the cracks. If you have SafeSearch activated and still find websites containing offensive content in your results, please contact us and we’ll investigate it.

What's HappeNING?

While in graduate school, I had a professor who adhered to the following mantra: "Real learning is about making connections between seemingly unconnected ideas." For those of you who are looking to use the Internet as a resource, connecting seemingly unconnected ideas is an essential skill all of us should be cultivating. Note the following case in point.

A few weeks ago, having finished a technology presentation for parents, I was approached by one mother who suggested that I investigate an up-and-coming social networking site called NING. Always eager for a treasure hunt, I entered NING, only to have my enthusiasm immediately tainted by the number of adult oriented topics that splashed on the screen. Social networks focusing on topics like sex, love, or bizarre aspects of astrology were not on my radar screen. Being one who is usually looking for sites that are appropriate for children, teenagers and adults alike, my initial instinct was to shove off in search of some other island of information. Then I paused and reflected on those words: "making connections between seemingly unconnected ideas."

Gut instinct told me that the concept of NING, being a creation engine and library of social networks, seemed to make a lot sense. So, rather than giving it up for a lost cause, I decided to roam a bit further into the wilds of this information island, and I'm glad I did. It didn't take me long to find the Education link which was where the real treasure was buried. The first gold nugget I uncovered was a NING social network called Classroom 2.0 which is focusing on Web 2.0 resources available to teachers and students. (More about Classroom 2.0 in future postings.)

For now, I simply want to make the point that researching resources on the Internet requires more than the furious "point and click" mentality currently being incorporated into the psyche of students and adults alike. Nowadays, it's too easy to click away and redirect one's self to yet another "resource" when the going gets tough or when the apparent value of a site seem unobvious. At these times, remind yourself, “Real learning is about making connections between seemingly unconnected ideas," and “Real learning on the Internet requires patience, and fortitude, and curiousity.” Read more and dig deeper!

Free Means Free in the Internet Archive

Nowadays, most everyone is scheming to make a quick buck on the Internet. Well, almost everyone. Buried, deep in the jungles of the Internet wilderness, is a magnanimous trove of Internet treasures that are free for the digging. Welcome to the Creative Commons, and more specifically the Internet Archive. Free audio books, Free music, Free animated cartoons, Free college lectures, Free movies. As in any vast wilderness, a little common sense will help you to avoid pitfalls such as music with objectionable lyrics, outdated software that could crash your computer, or the viewing of Night of the Living Dead before you are old enough to appreciate this vintage classic. One of my favorite pastimes is spent with a pair of music headphones while I sample the thousands of music files available in the archive. If I happen upon a song that moves me, then I move it - right into the music directory on my computer and on to my MP3 player, for future listening pleasure. It doesn't get any better than that.

Learning Technology From SCRATCH

A new software program has been developed at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), with the aim of teaching children how to program “interactive creations” on screen. With the software program, named Scratch, students can animate images, mix music, and create their own interactive stories, video games, etc. In essence, the potential for young minds is limitless. Scratch emphasizes logic and problem solving as students venture into an accessible world of computer programming, and Scratch provides students with the tools to become content creators on the computer.

Below is a link to MIT TV which gives you a video opportunity to learn about this program.

http://techtv.mit.edu/file/127

Some points to note:

1. Scratch is free software that can be downloaded from the MIT education web site at http://scratch.mit.edu/

2. Scratch can run on both PC and Macintosh computers

3. Once a Scratch project is created, it can be uploaded onto the MIT Scratch website for others to view and enjoy. More importantly, projects on the web site can be downloaded by others so they can view the programming blocks and learn from its creator.

4. On a cautionary note: the scratch web site is inundated with projects built by elementary school students, teenagers and adults. If one goes looking for it, there is likely to be content available that some parents find objectionable. If your child is watching Scratch projects from home, please be aware of this.

5. In class, students will develop projects using Scratch software. Students will not need to go on to the Scratch website to take part in the learning to use Scratch. However, if any student would like to upload projects on to the web site (for others to view, or for him/her to continue working on at home), then they would need a login account which requires an email address for sign up. I will not be encouraging or discouraging students from creating an account on the Scratch website. This should be a decision for parents to make. However, if a student does start an account, then I will allow him/her to use the account to upload projects (so he/she can continue to work on them from home or show them to others.)

Scratch is an engaging opporunity for learning true 21^st Century Skils.