Thursday, June 24, 2004

Relying on digital electronics

I am going to have to be in Alaska on Saturday for a few days of non-profit business. I'll bring all three cell phones, my laptop and my blakcberry. Odds are that none will work very well. While they work pretty well in the urban areas, once you are out of the cities, communication becomes much harder.

I expect that I will be out of reach for a few days, except from my hotel room Internet access. Too many devices and still not enough. Sad, isn't it?

When I was in Singapore a few months ago I was interviewed by Computer Times as their first cyber-celebrity feature. The journalist looked at the assortment of devices spilling out of my purse and asked to photograph me with them. In addition to my US cell phones, I had my Palm, UK phone and my international blackberry device.

In addition to the devices, I had extra batteries for each, and plug-in chargers and adapters. Of course I also had my little Vaio, with its plugs and wires and wireless card. I was a mess.

Amy Harmon, from the New York Times, did a recent review of the Treo 600. She loved it, but thought it was a bit pricey. When Amy recommends something, I listen. So, I've been looking around for a Treo, and found some pretty good prices if I was willing to sign up for a new cell phone plan. (Verizon doesn't have the Treo yet, and that was the only plan I could renew.)

I was amazed at how few devoces there are out there. And how badly they seem to function. Most of my friends have complained about having to replace them several times in a few months when the headset or flip front breaks, or the device stops working. My son is on his fourth in as many months.

Yet, the newest hottest topic among us road warriors is how to combine cell phone, PDA and Blackberry functions into one manageable device, that doesn't break down, isn't the size of a breadbox and works. The device would have to be palm-compatible for all the software I already have and would want to use. But also have e-mail capability that is as easy as a Blackberry. It needs a keyboard function that works for those with big fingers and small fingers alike. And better web-surfing functions than Blackberry has, with attachment capability. I'd also like an expansion card.

All that and, maybe, look good too.

Am I asking for too much?

Relying on digital electronics

I am going to have to be in Alaska on Saturday for a few days of non-profit business. I'll bring all three cell phones, my laptop and my blakcberry. Odds are that none will work very well. While they work pretty well in the urban areas, once you are out of the cities, communication becomes much harder.

I expect that I will be out of reach for a few days, except from my hotel room Internet access. Too many devoces and still not enough. Sad, isn't it?

When I was in Singapore a few months ago I was interviewed by Computer Times as their first cyber-celebrity feature. The journalist looked at the assortment of devices spilling out of my purse and asked to photograph me with them. In addition to my US cell phones, I had my Palm, UK phone and my international blackberry device.

In addition to the devices, I had extra batteries for each, and plug-in chargers and adapters. Of course I also had my little Vaio, with its plugs and wires and wireless card. I was a mess.

Amy Harmon, from the New York Times, did a recent review of the Treo 600. She loved it, but thought it was a bit pricey. When Amy recommends something, I listen. So, I've been looking around for a Treo, and found some pretty good prices if I was willing to sign up for a new cell phone plan. (Verizon doesn't have the Treo yet, and that was the only plan I could renew.)

I was amazed at how few devoces there are out there. And how badly they seem to function. Most of my friends have complained about having to replace them several times in a few months when the headset or flip front breaks, or the device stops working. My son is on his fourth in as many months.

Yet, the newest hottest topic among us road warriors is how to combine cell phone, PDA and Blackberry functions into one manageable device, that doesn't break down, isn't the size of a breadbox and works. The device would have to be palm-compatible for all the software I already have and would want to use. But also have e-mail capability that is as easy as a Blackberry. It needs a keyboard function that works for those with big fingers and small fingers alike. And better web-surfing functions than Blackberry has, with attachment capability. I'd also like an expansion card.

All that and, maybe, look good too.

Am I asking for too much?

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

What do you say when there is nothing you can say?

One of my dearest friends is married to an incredible man. He is gentle and kind, caring and thoughtful, supportive and softspoken. He is perfect for her. And, as her friend, perfect for me too.

I don't mind when he answers the phone and even chat a bit before asking for her. He never seems to mind when I disrupt their lives, privacy and quiet. He is a good man.

And he is very sick.

For the last several months he has been complaining about back pain. Not a man to complain, everyone listened. As residents of Canada, he had to wait forever to get the one doctor in a town of 120,000 to work him in. Even then he was given something for the pain and sent home. He was told to apply heat compresses and rest. When things didn't improve, my friend, a nurse in her former life, insisted that he have an MRI. The brilliant medical system in Canada sent him for a catscan instead and catscanned his neck, instead of his middle back where the pain had settled. They found nothing and changed his medications.

He felt horrible complaining about what everyone said was just some arthritis. He stopped eating and became very depressed.

Then one day he couldn't stand or walk. The doctors this time ran a better scan and found growths in his lungs that had spread to his spine. He was admitted immediately and radiation therapy was begun that afternoon. The radiation therapy helped and he is able to now move and feel his legs again. Chemotherapy was begun as well. He was moved to a hospital a bit closer to home, and waits.

And his family waits too. His little ten-year old daughter doesn't know what she is waiting for, but she is waiting too.

Waiting for a cure, waiting for a miracle, waiting for her daddy to come home.

I am a fixer. Some people theorize. Others do. I do. Sometimes I do it wrong, but doing something is essential to me.

I can't do anything here. I too am waiting.

I don't know enough to "do" anything here. I can help the wills get written and the durable power of attorney and living wills. I can review insurance policies and get property in order. I can pray.

But waiting for answers here is hard. We have too few good men in this world already. We can't lose another.

I don't know what to say, so I share these things with you...And hope you understand.

with love, for Ron. Keep him in your prayers, please.

Parry

Is life better online?

Ever since I started doing this in 1994, shortly following the launch of the Web, I have spent an increasing amount of time online. My virtual life has vastly overtaken my real life. My virtual friends are closer to me than most of my real ones. My virtual communications are more meaningful than my real ones. Some people i have never met in rl are more clear ot me than people i have known in rl for years.

In the days before I started protecting people online, even my flirtations were more fun online.

I live in this virtual world. Life has become a website, and now, a blog. You send out your thoughts, opinions and information and hope someone will see it. You measure your popularity by hits, and your companions by the length of your buddy list or address book.

It's a lot like American Idol. That young man from Hong Kong, who sings "She bangs!" so badly is a product of this virtual life. It's a moment's entertainment. We all are on one wave length for that moment. The connections are made. We're all virtual.

We check the weather bug or site for weather when we could look out our window or open the back door.

Today I sat in bumper to bumper traffic coming home from Manhattan and messaged by daughter repeatedly using my Blackberry. I would have called and chatted, but she was at work. Iming her was okay, a call wasn't.

When we got home, we couldn't decide where to eat. What did I do? I went online.

I know I am smarter online (although those reading this blog may not agree :-)). I am much better dressed and you can't see the stains on my shirt. In the photos, carefully selected for the Web, my hair is brushed and I have lipstick on. I exist in cyberspace.

we can be anyone we want to be online. A little photoshop and we are thinner, younger and have more hair than in real life. We can work for hours ot draft that line people think was off the cuff. We can research the answers ot questions before offering the ansewers and looking smart.

There's always someone awake, always something to read, always something to shop for or buy...

maybe life is better online.

I think I need a vacation :-)

Parry

Privacy and misinformation....

I have been trying to learn my way around blogs. In searching for other privacy-related blogs I have seen many blogs that don't know what they are talking about. Too many were talking about the new Claifornia legislation that requires websites to have privacy policies if they collect any personal information from California residents.

There were many complaints about how this law has California reaching outside of its borders. While I am not a fan of local and state Internet-related laws, until Capitol Hill begins to move on issues like these, states may feel they have to act to protect their own residents.

California isn't reaching outside of its borders. it is regulating others than reach within its borders. State consumer laws have always reglated sales to their residents, from any location. Catalogue sales, phone sales and mail-order sales are models of how this has always worked. This new law is no different.

And, frankly, it's a good idea in any event.

Unless the site is part of a regulated industry (I call them Kids, Cash and Kidneys (children's, financial and health privacy issues), no privacy policy is required in most cases in the United States.

Efforts to require them have, largely, failed.

Microsoft and IBM among others announced many years ago that they would not advertise at any site without a privacy policy. It's plain good business. And makes good sense. it's also respectful of the website users.

There's no magic to a privacy policy at a website. (The problems come, not from drafting one, but from understanding your data collection practices.)

Tell people what you are collecting and how.
Tell them how it is being used. (shared? if so, with whom?)
Can they access it to confirm it's accuracy or to see what the site has already (most sites don't have mechanisms for this)
Do they have a choice (other than by electing not to use the site?)
What's the choice.

think about any spyware or tracking technologies. think about banner ads or other third-party marketing and data collection that might be occurring at the site. If you have e-commerce, are you using outside vendors to ship, fulfillment operations outsourced?

it's that simple.

Whether you are collecting informatio from california residents or from those in Outer OshKosh, you owe your site visitors this simple courtesy. Note though, that you have now exposed yourself to liability that you might not otherwise have, especially if you're not part of the privacy-regulated industries. The Federal Trade Act gives the FTC authority over any misrepresentation (essentially consumer fraud), and if you have a privacy policy and don't follow it, it's a fraud on your users. So, craft one and make sure it's accurate and you follow it. Otherwise the FTC will come knocking.

A few simple tricks can also make sure that you are better protected when the unthinkable or unexpected happens. What if the company is sold? or merged into another? or unhappily, if the company goes belly-up and assets are sold in bankruptcy? what about your promise never to share this information or transfer this information to others. In each case, these are "others."

In the privacy policy, let them know that the data will move with any merger, sale of the business unit or assets associated with teh website and in the unlikely event of a bankruptcy, may be transferred by court order or operation of law, notwithstanding your statements to the contrary.

Monday, June 21, 2004

My Information Week column blog: The Privacy Lawyer

The Privacy Lawyer

for the privacy columnist side of what I do, and things I wanted to write about but didn't. :-)

let me know what you think.
Parry

Okay...I've got the blog bug!

I set up a second blog, The Privacy Lawyer for my column-related posts and comments.

I suspect that this will only get worse...I can see it now...The Security Lawyer, The Cyberlawyer, The...and so forth and so on and the Energizer Bunny keeps going....

I need a life :-)

Parry

Prolific? or Punchy?

As I start to learn about blogging and what works and what doesn't, I don't seem ot know whether it is the number of posts or the meaningfulness 9is that a word?) of the posts that makes a good blog?

does each post need ot be thoughtful and valuable. Can some be thoughtful and the others be fun? What about an entire waste of your time? How much of that is foregiveable?

What do you see as key to a successful blog? And how can you find the ones you want in the midst of all the rest?

As someone put it so well...if you blog and no one reads it, have you even blogged? should you bother?

musings of a late afternoon.

Parry

Sunday, June 20, 2004

E-Payments...what every consumer needs to know


The FTC's website (www.ftc.gov) is a wealth of valuable information about any kind of consumer fraud, scam or abuse online. The responses are based upong U.S. law (as the FTC is the US consumer protection agency, among other roles). But most advice is common sense and works globally to help consumers online.

A big Parry's thumbs up!

Being able to track legislation in the US on privacy issues

EPIC Bill Track - 108th Congress Privacy and Cyber-Liberties Legislation

While I may not always agree with EPIC's conclusions on privacy and security legal issues, their website is one of the best online when it comes ot privacy. Their Bill Track page tracks US federal privacy, content and security bills and is where I look for updates.

This gets a Parry Thumbs-Up!

My privacy and cyber law site

Aftab.com
This site was created in 1996 and has had many evolutions since then. Rather than waste time waiting for others ot be able to update it, I have taken over my own webmaster duties. So, excuse the frontpage and other easier applications I now use. I am getting too old for html and trying to learn the latest css and other website development codes. I can't get Dreamweaver to work for my life's sake.
But the site has lots of content and lots of tips and legal information.
Let me know what you think...just don't complain about the frontpage software. :-)

Saturday, June 19, 2004

blogging...curtailing the rant in me

I understand why so many people get into trouble by sharing too much personal infromation in a blog. It feels like a diary. But my diary (when I had one last at the ripe old age of ten) had a lock and a key I wore around my neck. Here we don't have any locks and invite anyone who wants to read them, to read our inner most thoughts.

When I was doing a world travel crazy trip from February to March this year, I was frazzled, tired, and working on dial-up access when I could get any access at all. I wrote a rant column for Information Week, and unfortunately, they published it. http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18201799

It's so easy to rant and click "send." Then, in the blink of an eye ou thoughts and ranks are everywhere, copied in multiple places (if we are either unlucky or lucky, depending on your point of view).

Two weeks ago I spoke to a good friend. She was the very first person to be involved in the fight against online child molesters, and started her work before the Web was launched in 1993. She formed a group to teach about the dangers of child molesters online and how they organize and have their own discussion and educational programs online, just like the rest of us. Her group, now winding down, is www.soc-um.org.

Anyhow, I digress (you'll learn that I do that often...:-))

I was complaining about the state of online safety. No one seems willing to work together. Too many have their own agendas and refuse to join forces. There is no money in online safety, and littel power. Those who can copy our tips and tell people to "keep the computer in a central location" appear to be as expert as the rest of us. And vigilante groups like the new Perverted Justice (and next week's model) risk letting real child molesters get away in the name of media.

It gets frustrating.

But, I digress...

She lectured me for forgetting that I was first a privacy and security lawyer and second an online safety advocate. She lectured me that I had given up my expertise by hiding it under the "angel of the Internet" message. She challenged me to visit my home page, www.aftab.com, and find the focus. She was right.

She reminded me that my real value and power came from my being a cyberlawyer and legal expert in privacy and security.

She reminded me that as such, I could get others to join forces and try to put the politics and egoes behind us (I take equal blame in that one!) and really make a difference.

This week we will be making a big announcement that, IMHO, will change the face of online safety and awareness, worldwide. I am very excited about that. We are also working on pulling together a national conference for teens, headed by our teenangels (teenangels.org) to create teen experts who can get out there and help teach others about online safety and responsible surfing.

Big things are happening on the online safety front, and in my pro bono life.

But Debbie was right. I need to focus better and define my professional life. WiredSafety.org and WiredKids.org and WiredCops.org will host my online safety content and information. Aftab.com (which was one of the first legal sites online) will be devoted to privacy, security, workplace cyber-issues, cybercrime and abuse prevention and cyberlaw.

I have spent the better part of a week rewriting and coding (I know, for those of you out there who do this regularly, using Front Page doesn count as "coding," but cut me some slack here...). Aftab.com is now a new site, trying to focus on my professional goals.

Keeping your passion apart from your profession isn't easy. Luckily I am also passionate about privacy law and cyberspace in the workplace issues. I'll need ot keep my passions separate though.

and save my rants for here :-)







Wednesday, June 16, 2004

A Blog Virgin

As a cyberspace lawyer and someone who spends most of her waking hours online, I have been surprisingly resistant to the newer technologies.

I have refused to use instant messaging (under its current or previous carnations of ICQ) because whenever I logged on people would message me. I never had any peace. I also hate to type. (And am extraodinarily bad at it. I have to look at the keyboard whenever I type and PMs in IRC end up with text I wanted to post in the main IRC channel. But when you are always looking down, you miss things on the screens :-()

Like most of the kids these days, I want to do my thing online and not be bothered by SPAM, pop-ups, spyware or ads that take forever to load. All of these get in the way of what I am doing. They waste my time and require me to click, close, delete or ignore in order ot get back to whatever I was doing.

But this is different. A Blog lets us say our peace and only bother others who want to be bothered by us. We can share our opinions (worthy or not) and help, find and share thoughts with, others online.

So, while I still refuse to use IMs, I am now beginning my Blog. :-)

I am a lawyer specializing in Internet privacy and security law. I was one of the first cyberlawyers in the United States, and became on by accident. In the early days of the Web, I began creating discussion boards on AOL to help people with legal questions get free answers. I had more than a hundred lawyer donating their time to provide legal information online. One thing ledt to another and we created CourtTV's Legal Helpine, answering questions there too.

In some ways these discussion boards were the early blogs. Those of us with administrative status could post whatever we wanted and even remove others' posts if we wanted to. (These were the early days online when editing rights gave you the ultimate power.)

People would ask me for answers to "cyberlaw" questions. I explained that cyberlaw didn't exist. Frankly it became easier to read the one case in the United States that was an early cyberlaw issue than to continue to protest. I read the case (Epson, in California, on e-mail privacy) and became an instant expert in cyberlaw. Over the years it got harder. But judges and legal theorists still looked to the online lawyers like me for the answers. In those days being online and a lawyer made you a cyberlawyer.

So, I became a cyberlawyer. I started focusing on privacy, suveillance and security issues online. I wrote for the law journals, became a regular on network news programs and in the print media and spoke at conferences around the world. I now write the Information Week column called The Privacy Lawyer, do consulting and public speaking. My legal practice has been limited to special clients on policy development.

Not too long after that fateful CNN appearance I became worried that the people who were talking about kids online safety were focusing only on porn and forgetting the privacy, predators and security issues. When CNN called me and asked me to appear on camera and talk about the Communications Decency Act which had been enacted to censor content online, I explained it was unconsitutional. (The U.S. Supreme Court validated that opinion when they threw out most of the CDA a few months later.)

Parents called, faxed and e-mailed me asking how they could protect their children online if the laws couldn't be enacted to censeor content online. So, as a public service we self-published my first book - The Parent's Guide to the Internet. It quickly became the leading book in its space and the money I made was donated to a foundation we had set up to help give children in wheelchairs Internet access.

A year and a-half later, I took over running Cyberangels. It had been formed a couple years earlier by the Guardian Angels and had gotten into trouble with the FBI among others for mishandling certain matters.
The Guardian Angel who had been paid ot run it created a competing group and shutdown the website. The program had no remaining volunteers, no materials and no website.

Following my seeing a child being raped online, I agreed to recreate the program and run it myself. But I hadn't taken over the rights to the name. When the inevitable problems arose between Guardian Angels and Cyberangels volunteers and management, we left en masse and created WiredSafety.org. It remains the world's largest online safety and help group, with thousands of unpaid volunteers throughout the world. We help people who need help online. WiredSafety.org handles cyberstalking and harassment cases, child exploitation and child pornography issues, scams and frauds and malicious code attacks. We, through our WireKids.org, WiredTeens.org and Teenangels.org teach kids and teens how to be safe, private, responsible and secure online.

I wrote a second book for parents on online safety called The Parents' Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace which has been adapted for the UK, Singapore and for South America, as well as the United States. My publisher was McGraw-Hill, worldwide.

That said, I'll share my thoughts with others and hope that you share yours with me.

Parry Aftab
aftab.com
wiredsafety.org