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Thursday, March 10, 2005

Senators to Hear Testimony on Data Theft

At least we’re getting a little traction on the data theft issues. I’m not optimistic anything substantive will happen. We’ll see… Found via Privacy Digest.

Senate Banking Committee to hold hearings on security of sensitive consumer information

Tomorrow, 10 March 2005, the Banking Committee of the United States Senate is holding hearings on "recent developments" related to the security of consumer information. By recent developments, they are referring to the ChoicePoint, Bank of America and LexisNexis incidents. Here is the notice of hearing, with the list of who is testifying (including the VP of ChoicePoint):

U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs:

"US Senator Richard Shelby
Chairman

US Senator Paul Sarbanes
Ranking Member

Committee: US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Title: Identity Theft: Recent Developments Involving the Security of Sensitive Consumer Information
Date: 3/10/05
Time: 2:30 PM
Place: 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Agenda: The Committee will meet in OPEN SESSION to conduct a hearing on "Identity Theft: Recent Developments Involving the Security of Sensitive Consumer Information."

Publication: Printable Hearing not available at this time

Witnesses

Panel 1

Honorable Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) , Unites States Senator

Panel 2

Honorable Deborah Platt Majoras , Chairman, Federal Trade Commission

Panel 3

Mr. Larry Johnson , Special Agent in Charge - Criminal Investigative Division, United States Secret Service

Ms. Amy S. Friend , Assistant Chief Counsel, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Mr. Don McGuffey , Vice President, ChoicePoint Services, Inc.

Mr. Evan Hendricks , Editor, Privacy Times

Ms. Barbara J. Desoer , Executive Vice President, Global Technology, Service and Fulfillment Executive, Bank of America Corporate Center

- David T.S. Fraser [PIPEDA and Canadian Privacy Law]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 8:07 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Policy & Regulation, Privacy

How Widespread is Data Theft?

This is a big deal, but until someone in Congress, the Judiciary, or the Executive branches of government are directly affected we're not going to get any protection. Our video rental records are protected by the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA) because one guy, Judge Robert Bork, got smeared by his video habits. One guy. We already have hundreds of thousands of regular Americans at risk, and with no recourse, because we have no rights to our own personal information –  it belongs to mega-corporations with no obligation to protect us. Found via John Robb.

More data theft, this time at Lexis/Nexis.  Where is this data flowing?  Offshore?  Nobody seems to want to tackle that question.  Also, what's the recourse if your data is stolen?  Not much, particularly given the recent legal reforms enacted.  Oh, those pesky class action law suits...

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:40 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Policy & Regulation, Privacy

Amazon Patents Gender Stereotyping

Amazon patents gender stereotyping - ZDNet UK News

Matthew Broersma
ZDNet UK
March 09, 2005, 15:40 GMT

Girls like dolls, and their presents should be wrapped in pink paper. Whether it is obvious or not, Amazon now holds the patent on the idea.

Amazon.com has been granted a US patent on "Methods and systems of assisting users in purchasing items", including the use of gift-buying habits to determine the age, gender and birth-date of gift recipients, according to a US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) filing on Tuesday.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:23 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Copyright, Policy & Regulation

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Response to Cobb County Spend Fest

Emotions Lack Rationale

[...] Anyway, I am home with a sick wife and child, and decide to check around for any posts on the Cobb County Laptop initiative. I came across this post by, who I assume is, Terry Frazier. I can sense his passion and delirium produced by the idea of Cobb County spending $70 million for laptops for students (which was a part of a referendum that obviously passed voter muster). Fine, be passionate-- it is something that should be required for all bloggers... no one likes a boring blog. Try, at the same time to be objective and study up on a subject or the validity of the alternative solution proposed-- which is something else all good bloggers should attempt.[...]

• That Anne Davis is my tech messiah - Anne is a very nice lady and a great teacher. I blogged her ground breaking work with kids and blogs at a local elementary more than two years ago. I picked Anne because she's been in the trenches, taught kids, taught teachers, and has street cred far beyond what any outside consultant will have. Not because she's a tech guru. I don't think she is. I don't really know. But I know that when you start talking major change you have resistance and the word of a peer is worth the word of 10 outsiders.
• That I claim I can do the same thing as this program but spend only $18.5 million. I do not. I claim that Cobb County is doing the wrong thing and that doing the right thing will cost only $18.5 million (admittedly, I made this number up, but so what.) The one thing I would change is that rather than having only computer labs it's probably appropriate to equip more classrooms with computers, but they do not need to be in every class. And there is no way to justify giving one to every kid in the school district.
  
• That the paragraph in Cobb County's FAQ detailing training has it covered. Not hardly. This level of change is massive and the single biggest barrier to success is making teachers efficient, active technology users. I know lots of teachers. Not very many are active, effective tech users, nor are they all that interested tech for tech's sake. Once the new wears off and the drudgery of actually learning new stuff hits them it gets old. And a bunch of Apple consultants, however different they may think, aren't likely to get the job done with a few seminars and a help desk.
• Finally, that Apple Computer, Inc., the company that stands to make a $70 million sale to Cobb County, is in any way an unbiased source of info about the success of its programs in other areas.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 12:24 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Learning, Policy & Regulation

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Largest Technolgy Boondoggle in Public Education History

Suburban Atlanta school district Cobb County Public Schools is gearing up to spend $70 million with Apple Computer to equip all middle and high school students and teachers with laptops.

The Cobb County Board of Education on Wednesday, Feb. 9th, heard details of an enterprising plan to prepare students to succeed in the 21st Century’s global information-based society, creating the largest one-to-one computer learning initiative in the United States. Superintendent Joseph Redden will begin contract negotiations with Apple to work out details of the Power To Learn program, which calls for the company to provide approximately 63,000 iBook G4 laptops for students and teachers in grades 6-12, plus a comprehensive package of training, technical support and server upgrades. The school board will consider the first phase of the plan in March.

Oh. My. God. What a boondoggle. This is tangible, measurable, palpable proof that people in Cobb County have more money than brains. Within less than two school years the majority of those laptops will be broken and useless. The ones given to teachers will be largely unused, except for simple gradebook programs. And the students still won’t know how to do basic life functions such as balance a checkbook. This is the sort of bureaucratic, politically-correct, insanity that drives me nuts. At least it’s not a federal program that we all have to pay for (though I’m sure at least some of the funds will come from Federal coffers eventually.)

Why, you may ask, does a techno-advocate like me go pale over such a grand infusion of technology? Because it’s being done by idiots who have no clue what’s really wrong with their school system.

"The Power To Learn program represents a tremendous step forward for education in Cobb County," said Superintendent Redden. "Our school board members have demonstrated that their vision of educational excellence goes beyond doing things the way they’ve always been done. Real leadership is about using the best technology available to help students learn in new and better ways."

No, that is not what leadership is about. I have two aunts who are public school teachers in southern California. Several years ago their district squandered $5-$6 million giving every teacher in the district a Dell laptop. Everyone thought this was grand. What a great idea. Wahoo! We’re a technically advanced school system. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to provide the sort of intense training required to turn a bunch of middle-aged school teachers into effective technology users, much less technologically adept teachers. As a result, the school district has several thousand very expensive Dell-brand doorstops. And nothing, absolutely nothing, got better.

Cobb County is even worse. They’re giving the laptops to kids, fer pete’s sake. Just how long do they think one of those beautiful G4’s is gonna last in the hands of some 14-year-old? G4’s are not GameBoys. They don’t take to being dropped, banged, thumped, slammed, used as book props or whatever. This is so incredibly stupid I can barely imagine it. The same school officials that ban cell phones, pagers, GameBoys, etc (all of which, BTW, are computers) now wants to give the students laptops but has no idea what those laptops are really for.

Kids don’t need technology training. They have computer labs in my daughter’s school. You know what they’re teaching her to do? PowerPoint presentations! Teaching middle schoolers applications like M$Word and powerpoint and passing it off as 21^st century education ought to be punishable by a prison sentence. If you’re going to teach them anything, make it Quicken. The rest they’ll learn on their own given a little time to play around.

Enough whining. If the school district has $70 million to squander, here’s what they ought to do:

• Give $1 million to Anne Davis, probably the single smartest lady in greater Atlanta public education, and let her develop a technology curriculum that focuses on things that actually matter. Let Anne recruit a core of hand-picked champions from across the district to be trained in the value of technology, the reasons, the benefits, the core of things like P2P, blogs, IM, RSS, search, fact-checking, triangulation, VoIP, Skype, connectivity, etc. Make sure these people get it and, more importantly, have a burning desire to communicate it to the students.
• Set aside $10 million for intensive, 6-month training courses for the rest of the district’s teachers. A one-day class here and there isn’t going to cut it, but that’s all the morons in school administration think is necessary. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. You have to give these teachers time to absorb this stuff, wrangle with it, come up with their own questions, and then come back to get another dose of training. Then repeat. And make sure the courses are taught by peer-champions from step 1. No pointy-headed consultants.
• Set aside $1 million to create a permanent support structure. Not some anal-retentive help desk run by a bunch of geeks that work for a consulting company, but a teacher community – maybe a blogging/meetup-style community that spans the district, has funds for regular meetings, can offer classes for special training or do whatever the teachers and champions think should be done.
• We have $58 million left, what do we do with it? Oh, set aside $500,000 to buy laptop computers for the teachers, but make getting a laptop contingent on joining the community and completing the 6-month training course. If they don’t complete the course – no laptop.
• Spend $6 million to buff up the existing computer labs, maybe add some to schools that don’t have one or don’t have enough.

We still have $51.5 million. What are we going to do with all that money? What about adding more Algebra or Science teachers, putting art and music back into the curriculum, creating better after-school tutoring programs, or any of the thousands of things the typical public school needs? Anything except squander it on a boondoggle so some bureacrat can massage his ego.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 2:15 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Learning, Policy & Regulation, Technology

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This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT