Digital Undercurrents

Popular online storage and backup provider Dropbox has changed their terms of service – apparently they want to reserve the right to decrypt the data that you’re storing on their service if the US government asks them to do so.

Independent of how intrusive this must be for non-US users, it’s an interesting reminder of how little control you have over data that resides “in the cloud”. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure that the software and process for decrypting user data is very secure, and complex, and will never be used by an outside intruder or a disgruntled insider. Safe as houses.

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, or NSTIC, will be publicly launched at an event at the Commerce Department this morning. The concept behind the initiative is simple: create a standardized authentication framework so that users don’t need to leave PII, or Personally Identifiable Information, in the hands of every web site where they need to handle personal matters.

There’s even an adorable little animation explaining the concept. A user can establish an account with any of a number of registrars, some of which are public and some of which are private. The registrar then issues an authentication token that can be used as proof of identity on sites that conform to the standard. Obviously, this depends heavily on maintenance of proper security at the registrar – but that’s still better than the current situation, where your doctor, your bank(s), your employer, etc. all have copies of your personal information, shielded only by a simple password.

It seems that the feds have really gone out of their way to make this vendor-neutral and decentralized; I hope it takes off. I’m sick of seeing headlines about massive data breaches harvesting tons of PII.

According to the law currently on the books, email stored for more than 180 days in a hosting environment – including on so-called “cloud” servers like those of Hotmail or Gmail – is considered “abandoned” and can be obtained without a warrant. Efforts to rectify this mid-1980s legislative situation are being actively opposed by the Obama administration, who apparently feel that due process is a bit of a hassle and would rather not deal with the realities of how people now use email.

The Anaheim Union High School District of California has come up with a new scheme for battling truancy: track students with GPS units.

Students with four or more unexcused absences are issued a GPS unit, which they must carry with them during the day. Their locations are checked five times a day – when they leave home for school, when they arrive, lunchtime, when they leave school, and eight PM. In addition to location tracking, students are assigned to a mentor for one-on-one planning sessions to avoid future truancy.

This is an interesting solution to a common problem – although I have to wonder how beneficial it really is to the other students to divert funds from education to technology, in the interests of filling the classroom with students who would rather not be there.