More browser security

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released a new Firefox extension called HTTPS Everywhere. This extension will protect your online sessions (to some extent) by forcing your browser to use the more secure HTTPS protocol when an online provider makes that available. The rules apparently protect your use of Twitter, Facebook, Paypal, Wordpress, and other social and blogging networks.

If you want to use online services somewhat safely, use Firefox, with HTTPS Everywhere, Noscript, Petname, and other extensions which improve your browser security.

OurCourts is now iCivics

I've written before about Justice O'Connor's OurCourts initiative which develops games and curricula for middle and high school students; the idea is to deliver lessons about the Constitution and our form of government in a more compelling fashion. My kids have pre-tested the games; but so have I, and they're pretty fun. The foundation is now called iCivics, and has expanded a bit; even if you visited them before, please check them out again, as they've added more content, especially for teachers.

Where there is injustice ...

A quote from Chief Justice Earl Warren; it is apparently the epitaph on his grave stone:

"Where there is injustice, we should correct it; where there is poverty, we should eliminate it; where there is corruption, we should stamp it out; where there is violence we should punish it; where there is neglect, we should provide care; where there is war, we should restore peace; and wherever corrections are achieved we should add them permanently to our storehouse of treasure."

Justice Harlan on protecting liberty with the Fourteenth Amendment

Excepts from his dissent starting on page 523:

Due process has not been reduced to any formula; its content cannot be determined by reference to any code. ... The balance of which I speak is the balance from which [our country] developed as well as the traditions from which it broke. That tradition is a living thing. A decision of this Court which radically departs from it could not long survive, while a decision which builds on what has survived is likely to be sound. ...

[The character of the Constitutional protection of liberties] must be discerned from a particular provision's larger context. And inasmuch as this context is one not of words, but of history and purposes, the full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment] cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This "liberty" is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints ...

It is the purposes of these guarantees and not their text, the reasons for their statement by the Framers and not the statement itself, [ ] which have led to their present status in the compendious notion of "liberty" embraced in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Each new claim to Constitutional protection must be considered against a background of Constitutional purposes, as they have been rationally perceived and historically developed. ... The decision of an apparently novel claim must depend on grounds which follow closely on well-accepted principles and criteria. The new decision must take "its place in relation to what went before and further [cut] a channel for what is to come." (citing Irvine v. California, dissent).

This sounds pretty prophetic to me.

What do your online photos reveal about you?

I've written before about the fact that all your data on the internet can become public at any time, and the fact that on your phone or other devices, "apps" can be disclosing your location or other information. Another thing to be aware of is that photos that you place on the internet can leak information about you as well.

What sorts of data are available in photos? Your camera puts in statistics about the photo itself: size, resolution, color data, etc. There's also information about the camera, information about the environment (including, in some cases, GPS coordinates), and date/time stamps. Some cameras apparently even let you "tag" photos, with things like the subjects/participants.

What can this tell other people about you? Well, that flattering and innocuous picture you put up as your profile picture on Facebook might have the GPS coordinates of a bar or nightclub. A collection of your pictures, tagged with location and date information, could let people know you travel a lot to expensive locales. Tagged pictures with names help others calculate who your friends are (or other people you hang around with). Sometimes information that's stored in just one picture is no big deal, but the photos in the aggregate can paint a picture of you that you might not expect. Read the article; you should at least know what can be in the photos.

Of course, photo upload sites like Flickr and Facebook could help you by purging that information for you. As a matter of fact they typically do when they convert your uploaded photo to another format or size; however, if the original file is still available for download, the information your camera saved in there will travel with it. And of course if the site may keep the original, or the data from the original, for its own use. You may decide it's not worth the trouble to sanitize your photos before you share them - but I think you should at least be aware of this issue.

Calculus, the musical

Our family went to see Calculus, the musical when they were in town a year or so ago. It's an amusing play describing Newton's route to calculus, including old tunes updated with math lyrics. Some examples include:

• 5 Sizes of Numbers (In the style of: The Beatles - In My Life)
• The Limit’s Alright (In the style of: The Who - The Kids Are Alright)
• Differentiabul (In the style of: They Might Be Giants - Istanbul(Not Constantinople))
• Power Rule (In the style of : Petula Clark - Downtown)
• Under The Curve (In the style of: Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Under the Bridge)
• and a favorite: L’Hôpital(I have Calculus in the Heart) (In the style of : Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart)

At their web site they have some new albums for sale, and they say they're ready to come around on tour again. I'd love to figure out how to bring them to Houston, either to Rice or to a local high school. Anyone interested?