Andrew Patrick

Dominica 021

Originally uploaded by ColdAndrew.

This is a waterfall that we visited during a hiking trip in Dominica.

There is an important story today about plans to block access to hundreds of child pornography sites on a national scale. There is an interesting discussion happening at Michael Geist’s blog:

Michael Geist – Project Cleanfeed Canada

[One side] I do think that blocking hundreds of child porn sites will provide some measure of protection for the overwhelming majority of the population who are not seeking to access such content yet may inadvertently come across it. That is a clear societal harm and this has the potential to help address it.
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[Another side] It seems that the use-case here is quite muddled. Is this really about stopping people from *inadvertently* seeing bad content? That’s a pretty narrow goal for such a sweeping program. Is this a real social ill? Does it really happen all that often in the course of web-browsing?

A few of us were talking last night about recent security problems with using debit and credit cards, and I was predicting a return to cash. Here is a recent article detailing the experiences in the UK.

Britons are Europe’s biggest victims of card fraud

Britain is the fraud capital of Europe, with almost 20 per cent of the population having been a victim of electronic card fraud.
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as a result of card fraud, 33 per cent of Europeans said the experience had made them favour cash over electronic payment
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almost a third of card fraud victims are never reimbursed for their loss by their card provider, despite claims to the contrary by banks
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It’s incredible how many people across Britain have fallen victim to card fraudsters and unsurprising that so many victims favour a return to cash
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consumers were not being “told the full story”.

This probably is one of the best shows on television!

Is Mythbusters the Best Science Show on Television?

The show, which has been on the air since October 2003, may be wacky, but Mr. Hyneman and Mr. Savage employ thinking and processes that are grounded in scientific method. They come up with a hypothesis and test it methodically. After research and experimentation, they might determine that they have “busted” a myth or confirmed it, or they might simply deem it “plausible” but not proved.

It is the kind of logical system of evidence-based conclusions that scientists understand but that others can sometimes find difficult to grasp. And so “Mythbusters” fans say the show has hit on a great way of teaching the process of scientific discovery.

Here is a description of the security risks associated with the UK’s new RFID-enabled passports

Cracked it!

The Home Office insists that UK passports are secure and among the best in the world, but not everyone agrees. Last week, an EU-funded body entitled the Future of Identity in the Information Society (Fidis) issued a declaration on machine-readable travel documents such as RFID-chipped passports and ID cards. It said the technology was “poorly conceived” and added: “European governments have effectively forced citizens to adopt new … documents which dramatically decrease their security and privacy and increase risk of identity theft.”

Canada’s national privacy law is the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). That law is about to be reviewed and here is an article by Michael Geist on possible improvements.

Hearings Offer Chance to Fix Holes in Privacy Law

With privacy breaches and identity theft concerns popping up regularly, Canadians can ill-afford to wait another five years for meaningful privacy protections. While few observers expect privacy law reform to emerge as a top legislative priority, the PIPEDA review presents an excellent opportunity to build the foundation for future change.

Another interesting article on neuroscience.

A Hands-On Approach to Studying the Brain, Even Einstein’s

Dr. Harvey … sent her a handwritten note by fax in 1995 asking simply, “Do you want to study the brain of Albert Einstein?”

She sent a fax back: “Yes.”

Security group ranks human error as top security worry

Paller’s organization compiles an annual report on the top to Internet security targets. This year “human vulnerabilities” will make their first appearance on a list that is typically made up of software products like Internet Explorer, databases, and file sharing applications. That’s because the human factor is being exploited in a growing number of targeted attacks as more and more online criminals come online in Eastern Europe and Asia, Paller said.

[T]he U.S. Military Academy at West Point [studied] a group of 512 cadets, selected at random for a test called the Carronade. The cadets were sent a bogus email that looked like it came from a fictional colonel named Robert Melvillle, who claimed to be with the academy’s Office of the Commandant (The real Robert Melville helped invent a short range naval cannon called the Carronade nearly 250 years ago).

“There was a problem with your last grade report,” Melville wrote, before telling the cadets to click on a Web page and “follow the instructions to make sure your information is correct.”

More than 80 percent of the cadets clicked on the link, according to a report on the experiment.

Worse still, even after hours of computer security instruction, 90 percent of freshmen cadets still clicked on the link.

Here is a great first-hand account how a student applied principles of cognitive neuroscience while playing the popular television game show — Who wants to be a millionaire?

Who Wants to Be a Cognitive Neuroscientist Millionaire?

Researchers in my department, Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS), seek to understand the brain’s mechanisms, including three cognitive systems that happen to be essential for a profitable performance on Millionaire: learning, memory, and decision-making. This summer—the start of my final year in the CNS Ph.D. program—I decided to apply my graduate skills to a decidedly practical purpose and auditioned for a turn in the show’s perilous hot seat.

Here is an interesting article from The Register on data mining and how it can be used for commercial and government purposes.

“I have nothing to hide” – or the Sainsbury’s Lesson

How frightened would you be if you were secretly planning to get pregnant, without telling your husband, and discovered that someone had written to him telling him about it? Or, put the other way, how would you feel if you discovered your wife was pregnant only when someone dropped you a letter?