Twitter complies with prosecutors to surrender Occupy activist's tweets

Site ends fight with New York lawyers after contempt warning from judge over protester Malcolm Harris's Twitter account

Twitter has relented in its fight with New York prosecutors to hand over three months worth of messages from an Occupy Wall Street protester ahead of the activist's criminal trial.

Twitter had argued that the posts belong to Malcolm Harris and as such it would be violating fourth amendment privacy rights if it were to disclose the communications.

But having lost a legal appeal against a subpoena, Twitter faced the prospect of steep fines if it did not comply with the judges order to turn over the tweets to the Manhattan district attorney's office.

The firm handed over the tweets on Friday after being told by a New York judge that it would be held in contempt after that date.

The activist has been charged with disorderly conduct in relation to a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October last year. He was among several hundred Occupy Wall Street demonstrators arrested during the protest march.

Prosecutors say that messages posted by Harris – who goes by the twitter handle @destructuremal – could show whether the defendant was aware that he was breaking police orders relating to the demo.

In January, the New York district attorney's office issued a subpoena to Twitter, calling on the firm to hand over "any and all user information, including email address, as well as any and all tweets posted for the period 9/15/2011 – 12/31/2011".

Harris initially attempted to block the move, but was told that he had no proprietary interest to his own messages.

Twitter countered that this contradicts its own terms and conditions, which explicitly states that users "retain their right to any content they submit, post or display on or through". Moreover, in its own legal challenge to the subpoena, the firm accused prosecutors of trying to force its employees to violate federal law.

Lawyers for Twitter also argued that under the Uniform Act, prosecutors would need to obtain a subpoena in California before it could demand documents from a company based in that state.

But a New York judge rejected most of the firm's arguments and ordered Twitter to hand over the messages to the court, which would review the material and hand over relevant tweets to prosecutors

No one at the firm was available to comment, and the New York's district attorney's office declined to respond.

Harris' lawyer, Martin Stolar, said the decision by Twitter to hand his client's messages "certainly doesn't help our case".

He added: "I assume Twitter made a business decision, that they did not want to go into contempt. I would think they would be better off making a business decision to stick up for the fundamental privacy rights of their customers."

Harris has pleaded not guilty. Mr Stolar said Friday that he would continue to appeal against the tweets being used as evidence in any criminal trial.

FBI stored information on Apple device users hacked

Examiner

Cynthia Hodges

Twelve million Apple device user's personal information stored on the laptop of FBI agent were exposed by hacktivists targeting the agency.

One million of the Apple device IDs have been released, including full user names, addresses and telephone numbers attached. In the announcement released on Twitter, hackers said they figured a million would be enough to make their point.

"Why exposing [sic] this personal data?" asked the unnamed writer of the Pastebin posting announcing the data dump, who claimed to be affiliated with the anti-government hacktivist group AntiSec. "Well, we have learnt it seems quite clear nobody pays attention if you just come and say 'Hey, FBI is using your device details and info and who the [expletive] knows what the hell are they experimenting with that," well sorry, but nobody will care."

In Forbes, Parmy Olson points out that the breach raises many questions, not only about the security of federal devices, but of why an agent might have (allegedly) been carrying a database of Apple UDIDs, with user's personal information, and even Apple Push Notification Service tokens of iPhone and iPad users.

It isn't the first time the hacktivists have exposed vulnerabilities in the security of federal agencies computer networks, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DoD and the FBI.

In January, hacktivists of the Anonymous collective breached a conference call between FBI agents and Britain’s Scotland Yard in which the Anonymous and LulzSec wee discussed.

Anonymous released an audio recording of a January conference call between FBI agents and Britain’s Scotland Yard in which the hacktivist group Anonymous was discussed.

The FBI confirmed the authenticity of the recording, and said the agency was investigating to how hactivists linked to the Anonymous network managed to intercept a conference call.

The AntiSec group argues that the FBI will “deny or ignore” the latest Apple ID incident, but says that someone should care how the FBI obtained the vast amount of information on Apple users and how it’s being used to track citizens.

The USA Patriot Act gives the feds authority to collect information on U.S. citizens without their knowledge or consent and without a warrant - if is connected to a suspected terrorist investigation, which as defined includes any American citizen.

Both candidates for U.S. President in the 2012 election fully support the USA Patriot Act, and it may be the only issue on both sides of the isle that the U.S. Congress can agree on.

High School Student Expelled For Tweeting Profanity; Principal Admits School Tracks All Tweets

TechDirt
Mike Masnick

Tinker v. Des Moines is considered a key lawsuit in defining the free speech rights of students. While there have been a few cases that limited the ruling, it's still seen as the key case in establishing that students have First Amendment rights and that schools can't just arbitrarily shut them down.

I'm reminded of all this after hearing that a student, Austin Carroll at Garrett High School in Garrett, Indiana, was expelled from the school for a silly tweet that used the word "fuck" repeatedly.

Supposedly he tweeted something along the lines of "Fuck is one of the fucking words you can fucking put anywhere in a fucking sentence and still fucking makes sense." A little juvenile, but he's in high school. He insists that he tweeted this from home, but the school insisted that it was done at school.

But the details suggest the tweet came at 2:30am when he was definitely not at school.

What's coming out, however, is that the school was apparently spying on how students use Twitter:

The principal at Garrett High School claims their system tracks all the tweets on Twitter when a student logs in, meaning even if he did tweet it from home their system could have recognized it when he logged in again at school.

I'm not entirely sure what they mean here by it "could have recognized it when he logged in again at school," but it seems clear that the school was aggressively monitoring social networking activity, and chose to expel the kid because of his decision to express himself. It sounds like Austin isn't fighting the expulsion, but simply found an alternative school to complete his last few months and get his diploma, but that's pretty ridiculous. I don't see how the school has a legitimate argument for expulsion here as it appears to violate his basic First Amendment rights. Even beyond that, though, it's really pretty shameful what the school is teaching its students. Spying on students and punishing them for expressing themselves gives exactly the wrong kind of message to students.

In Few Years, Social Network Data May Be Used in Underwriting

Insurance Journal

The insurance industry is paying increasing attention to what people and businesses post on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


Already, scouring Facebook and other social network pages of the insureds is a common practice on the claims side of the business. Many investigators say it’s one of the first things they do when looking into potentially fraudulent claims, including both hard fraud (staging auto accidents, etc.) and soft fraud. (over-reporting damaged values after a fire, etc.)

Crack the Data

Currently, social network data are being used as sources of evidence in courts of law in claims cases. Individual underwriters are retrieving risk evaluation information on their insureds through manual searches on social sites.

But in a few years, automatically mined data from social networking sites could find their way into the underwriting pricing process. It could become a factor in determining premiums for both personal and business insurance, according to a new report from Boston-based research firm Celent. The report, titled “Using Social Data in Claims and Underwriting,” was published on Oct. 10.

Right now, most insurers are using social medium for sales and advertising, Michael Fitzgerald, Celent senior analyst and co-author of the report, told Insurance Journal. “Some are using it in claims. Underwriting is next.”

State regulators have not yet offered official guidelines in terms of overall use of social data. And such data are not yet approved for use in the pricing process, Fitzgerald added. But that could soon change.

Could Offer Similar Insights as Credit Health

“Just as insurers recognize a link between credit health and risk in auto insurance, social data may offer similar insights for insurers who set out to crack the data,” the report stated.

As users interact with multiple social networking sites, purchase items online, and communicate with others in public forums, they leave behind data about their preferences, lifestyle, operations and habits, according to the Celent report. This data can be used to develop a risk profile for an individual or for a company. On the corporate side, companies postings also include descriptions of new product offerings (hence new added risks), services and operations.

Connections and Links

Another piece of useful information is the “social graph,” which shows how individuals or companies are linked together: a picture of who is friends with whom, who follows whom, and what friends of friends people have. In addition to identifying fraud organizations, these graphs can give insurers further insight into how an individual may perform as a risk, based on the behavior of those he or she is connected to.

Such a profile can be used to build a real-time risk profile that can be integrated into an insurer’s existing process and automation environment. They can be compared to any previous risk information about that entity to identify material changes that should be addressed from an underwriting perspective. The data can also be used to develop conclusions as to the attractiveness of a risk at renewal or at policy lapse.

Part of Underwriting in 3 Years

Use of social data is still in its formative stages, but it’s developing rapidly. Celent predicts that over the next three years, social data will be “incorporated into core underwriting and claims processes” and become standard inputs into risk evaluation and settlement activities.

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Cameron Exploring Crackdown on Social Media After Riots

New York Times

Eric Pfanner

PARIS — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said Thursday that the government, seeking to prevent a repeat of riots and looting in London and other British cities this week, might bar suspected troublemakers from using social media and other digital communications tools.

Mr. Cameron said that Theresa May, the Home secretary, would meet with executives of the Web companies Facebook and Twitter, as well as Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, to discuss possible measures that could be put in place.

“Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organized via social media,” Mr. Cameron told Parliament during a special debate on the riots. “Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.

“And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these Web sites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

While Mr. Cameron said that the Internet and sophisticated mobile phones had been used to coordinate the violence, his call for curbs drew protests from free-speech campaigners, saying they were reminiscent of moves by Arab rulers to block digital communications during anti-government uprisings this year.

Free-speech groups said restrictions on the use of social media or smartphones would be difficult to enforce and could violate basic freedoms.

“It seems like a bizarre and kind of knee-jerk reaction by the government,” said Padraig Reidy, news editor of Index on Censorship. “We’ve seen this kind of thing time and time again, especially with young people, when it comes to technology. Now it’s social networks and smartphones. A few years ago it was video games. Before that it was horror films.”


“More recently, we’ve seen this kind of thing in Egypt,” he said, where the government last winter moved to block access to the Internet and mobile phone networks as protesters took to the streets. “Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. These things weren’t caused by Twitter or BlackBerry.”

Index on Censorship said that the police should be allowed access to messages related to specific investigations, but should not be permitted to monitor or suspend communications.

The police said Thursday that they had arrested three people in Southampton, England, on suspicion of using BlackBerry Messenger or Twitter to encourage rioting.

The Guardian newspaper has published examples of “broadcasts” that BlackBerry users sent to their contacts, urging them to join in the looting and arranging gatherings. The BlackBerry Messenger service is difficult for the law-enforcement authorities to track.

“If you’re down for making money, we’re about to go hard in east london tonight, yes tonight!!” one of these broadcasts read. “I don’t care what ends you’re from, we’re personally inviting you to come and get it in.”

While the BlackBerry used to be seen mostly in the hands of business executives, its security features and low price, relative to competing devices, have helped it gain new adherents. According to Ofcom, the British telecommunications regulator, it is the most popular smartphone among British teenagers, with a 37 percent market share.


Britain is not the only place where BlackBerry Messenger has come under scrutiny from law enforcement officials and politicians over its tight security. After being threatened with a ban on its services in countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Research In Motion has made certain concessions.

The company declined to comment on Mr. Cameron’s remarks, falling back on a statement it issued earlier in the week, in which it said: “As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we cooperate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials. Similar to other technology providers in the U.K. we comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and U.K. police forces.”

Neither the government nor Research In Motion has provided details about this cooperation, or about what, if any, information might have been turned over to the police.

Most of Newt Gingrich's Twitter Followers Are Fake

Gawker

Yesterday Newt Gingrich laid out a new argument for why he should be the GOP presidential nominee: He's got the most Twitter followers. But according to a former Gingrich staffer, he bought them.

Gingrich complained yesterday that the press is ignoring his prodigious Twitter audience: "I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count." Which is true! Gingrich currently boasts 1,325,842 followers, whereas competitors Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann have yet to crack 100,000.

But if Newt is winning the Twitter primary, it's because of voter fraud. A former staffer tells us that his campaign hired a firm to boost his follower count, in part by creating fake accounts en masse:

Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.

About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?

That's quite a different explanation for Gingrich's Twitter popularity than the one offered by this Politico story on the subject: "[I]t's his personal touch: He tweets and manages his Twitter feed himself, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO. All told, he has tweeted 2,611 times in the 29 months since he joined the site."

While it would be impossible to survey all of Gingrich's followers, a cursory glance immediately turned up a few accounts that featured odd names, no personal information, no followers, no posts, and a small follow list. And there's certainly a healthy market out there for buying Twitter followers, either by hiring a company to strategically follow accounts that will follow you back or by paying for dummy accounts. If Gingrich did goose his Twitter numbers, it would help explain why he has, for instance, more than twice as many followers as Sarah Palin, which just doesn't sound right.

The Gingrich campaign didn't respond to a message seeking comment.

CIA on Facebook & Twitter: Wayne Madsen on info warfare