Odysseus and tax day
Nature.com reports that several researchers have combined astronomical data with events in Homer’s Odyssey to pinpoint the exact date on which a returning Odysseus executed his wife’s suitors.
Marcelo Magnasco and Constantino Baikouzis identified four astronomical events in the epic poem and calculated dates within 100 years of the fall of Troy that would fit in with the events described around Odysseus’s return home and the ensuing slaughter of men propositioning his wife.
According to the researchers, the date was April 16, 1178 BCE. That’s also the day after Tax Day, though I’m pretty sure the IRS didn’t exist back then.
(Abstract and paper here; press release here).
What about mail surveillance?
Yesterday’s posting on unconsented cell phone surveillance reminded me of an excellent column that Peter Shane wrote a while back in Jurist where he pointed out that any technical legality of the NSA surveillance program is besides the point. Shane asked, what if the Post Office created a database with the addresses contained on every piece of mail it handles. Even if, hypothetically, such a program were legal:
An America in which ordinary citizens have their mail “surveilled” would be a different America from the country in which virtually all of us think we live. Our freedom would be lost not because a law was broken, but because of the breakdown in respect for the norms of liberty and government self-restraint.
I think much the same could be said of the ends-justifies-the-means thinking of the Northeastern University researchers who got a European cell phone provider to give them individualized location information on 100,000 unknowing customers. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.
The electronic leash: whatever happened to trusting your kids?
Verizon Wireless now offers a service that allows parents to track their kids’ movements through cellphones. According to News.com:
Parents can use the service to set up geographic limits and receive text alerts if their children, who also carry phones, go too far from home. The service also lets parents check where their offspring are via a map on their cell phone or computer.
The service — “Chaperone” for location tracking, and “Child Zone” for a boundary-setting add-on — is available for now only on a four-button phone designed for young kids, such as 5-9 year olds. (Who buys a phone for a 5 year old?) But News.com indicates that Verizon Wireless might develop a version of the program for older kids, with more sophisticated phones.
What a great way to train kids for a lifetime of submitting to technological surveillance from authorities. If you really want to be creeped out, go here on the Verizon Wireless site and watch the animated cartoon family whose kids cheerily acquiesce to their parents spying on them.
Whatever happened to trusting kids and letting them make decisions (and letting them learn to live with the consequences)?
And to be clear, I am a parent.
Thanks to Slashdot, where I first read about this.
Facebook: job-hunting, non-invisibility, and the creepiness factor
Note to job applicants: your potential employers aren’t just looking at Google and Yahoo.
Sunday’s New York Times includes a really interesting article by Alan Finder on how some companies now investigate job applicants on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, and Friendster. See “For Some, Online Persona Undermines a Résumé.”
The article underscores a simple but important fact: users of social network sites shouldn’t assume that their postings are private. Although names like “MySpace” paint an image of personal spaces, personal doesn’t mean private. It’s not difficult to get into these sites – as the article notes, for some sites such as MySpace, you generally only need to register. For Facebook, to view entries for a particular college, you only need an e-mail address from that college.
That means an awful lot of people can view Facebook entries: alumni with email addresses (which could include potential employers), professors, even campus police. Despite this, at an emotional level, many people assume that their personal websites, blogs, and social network postings are relatively personal spaces that won’t be noticed or invaded by others. These assumptions are wrong in at least two ways.
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A blog on IP, information, and technology by Professor Ira Nathenson, St. Thomas Univ. School of Law. Nothing on this site is intended as legal advice.
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