Image via CrunchBase

Putting a password on your phone is good for keeping a paranoid significant other from snooping. It’s also a good idea in case you’re arrested. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Police in Daly City, California seized a suspect’s iPhone during his arrest. Hours later, investigators bypassed the password and searched through the data on the device without a search warrant. After the officers realized that the information was too extensive to write down, they finally obtained a warrant to search the phone.

EFF has urged the court to suppress evidence gathered by police from the suspect’s phone during the warrantless search, including contacts, called phone numbers, emails, text messages, Internet search history, and photos. EFF has also asked the judge to quash the warrant that was eventually issued in part based on the information illegally accessed on the phone.

via EFF Asks Court to Suppress Evidence Illegally Gathered From Password-Protected Phone | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The court documents [PDF] offer a bit more detail. Christian Taylor is a founder of Hype UniverCity, a company with an annoying name and a confusing mission — something about harnessing college-bound students’ purchasing power. Whatever it is that Hype does, it requires many BlackBerrys.

Taylor went to a Sprint store to buy 30 BlackBerrys for his company, but he didn’t have proper documentation for his business with him. He said he would return the next day with his company’s tax id and articles of incorporation. For some reason, this made the clerk suspicious.

When Taylor returned the next day, the clerk called the police…

continue »

Google doesn’t have to do much advertising, since it’s so entwined in our lives already. But the company decided to spend the big bucks to advertise during this year’s Super Bowl. Google CEO Eric Schmidt sent out a pre-game tweet about it on Saturday:

Can’t wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said “Hell has indeed frozen over.”)

Google went all traditional with a real, broadcast ad. And, according to a panel of experts (a.k.a. Kash Hill & associates), the search giant dominated its competition (mainly Coke and Bud Light). Here’s the “Parisian Love” advertisement:

Awwww, so cute, right? It makes you almost forget about that whole “Google-NSA love” thing…

continue »

"All yours, Gramps."

The Pew Internet Center released a new social media survey yesterday. The survey confirms that Facebook is the social network of choice for the educational elites (not surprising since it started out as a social network for Ivy Leaguers):

Among adult profile owners with a high school degree or less, 64% have a profile on MySpace, 63% have a profile on Facebook and just 3% have a LinkedIn profile. Among profile owners with at least some college experience, Facebook and LinkedIn are much more popular—41% have a profile on MySpace, 78% have profile on Facebook and 19% have a LinkedIn profile.

via Adults and social networks | Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Given that those with advanced degrees tend to make more money, it’s not surprising that Pew found that the Facebook community tends to be more affluent than the MySpace ‘hood.

Pew also confirms the race divide on social networks:

Additionally, white profile owners appear to gravitate towards Facebook and LinkedIn, while minority profile owners tend towards profiles on MySpace.

Most people who follow Internet trends likely don’t find the above surprising. More interesting are Pew’s findings on age demographics. It appears “old people” are taking over the Internetz….

continue »

The last season of Lost premiered Tuesday, peppered with the usual head-scratching questions and introduction of mysterious new characters. Hopefully, the series will stick to the cerebral and there will be few action-packed “Final Destination”-esque scenes, like the one that ended last season with a chain winding its way around Juliet’s body and dragging her into a well.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the show has been how private the characters are. They do not share information easily, making the Island’s riddles harder to solve.

If Facebook and Twitter existed on the Island, the transparency would have helped make the place less confusing and this thing could have been wrapped up in, like, two seasons.

If the characters were on Facebook, here would be likely updates based on recent happenings:

continue »

Image via CrunchBase

When it comes to lawsuits, Facebook is a treasure trove of material. It can also come in handy for criminal investigations. The company gets dozens of inquiries every day from civil litigants and the po-po, said Mark Howitson, Facebook’s deputy general counsel, during a speech at LegalTech, the legal research industry’s trade show. Howitson says Facebook is committed to protecting our data though.

“Users want to know that we’ll fight for them, so that’s what we do,” said Howitson. Facebook is also required to protect us thanks to the Stored Communications Act, added to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986. Howitson seemed thankful — the Act helps to cut down on the amount of archive-mining work Facebook has to do.

Without a subpoena, Facebook will ignore the request, just as you would a friend request from a person you didn’t like in high school.

Even with a subpoena, Facebook puts up a fight. When a Virginia state board tried to compel Facebook to turn over information for an airline employee claiming worker’s compensation, Howitson said his response was: “F-in’ awesome.” (He preferred not to use the actual expletive in front of a room full of lawyers.) Facebook is hoping for a case that will go to a federal judge and clarify the company’s responsibilities to protect users’ privacy. It’s been a while since 1986, after all….

continue »