New York Times

Nov 12, 2015 ∞

Russian Ships Too Close to Data Cables for U.S. Comfort

The first of two this-is-really-concerning posts you’ll find here today:

The role of the cables is more important than ever before. They carry global business worth more than $10 trillion a day, including from financial institutions that settle transactions on them every second. Any significant disruption would cut the flow of capital. The cables also carry more than 95 percent of daily communications.

I hope there are ways for at least economic, government and military organizations to route around those cables via satellite if necessary…

Jul 6, 2015 ∞

When a Company Is Put Up for Sale, in Many Cases, Your Personal Data Is, Too

I have written about this before, but it’s worth reminding you. These days many companies offer an official privacy policy and an easier-to-read but not so official abridged version. Sometimes the two do not agree:

One example is Nest, an Internet-connected thermostat company that enables people to control their home energy use via their mobile devices. Acquired by Google for $3.2 billion last year, Nest has different online privacy pages with seemingly conflicting statements.
One page, in colloquial English, says that the company values trust: “It’s why we work hard to protect your data. And why your info is not for sale. To anyone.”

Another page, containing Nest’s official privacy policy, however, says: “Upon the sale or transfer of the company and/or all or part of its assets, your personal information may be among the items sold or transferred.”

I know privacy policies are long and boring, but it’s worth at least scanning them to get a sense of what will happen to the information the company collects about you if they ever sell or go under. You may not like what you find.

Photograph by KylaBorg, of graffiti by Zabou

Oct 31, 2013 ∞

States cite lack of federal progress in pursuit of privacy reform

Special interest groups oppose federal privacy reform to prevent onerous new regulations.

But this effort must, at some point, become counterproductive.

A multitude of state-specific privacy frameworks that, by (federal) law, can’t operate between states, must, at some point, become at least as onerous as new federal regulations.

Sep 16, 2013 ∞

NYT managing editor: Guardian story on Israel and N.S.A. Is Not 'Surprising' Enough to Cover

NYT managing editor: Guardian story on Israel and N.S.A. Is Not ‘Surprising’ Enough to Cover

New York Times news editor Dean Baquet suffered a serious lapse in editorial judgment. I mean, he can’t be serious, can he?

Sep 11, 2013 ∞

Daniel Victor of the New York Times shows us how to be a reporter even on Twitter

This is a great story precisely because Victor wasn’t writing a blog post about how to properly commit journalism on Twitter, he was properly committing journalism on Twitter.

May 8, 2013 ∞

The pressing need for hospital pricing regulation

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published data on what hospitals charge for the most common procedures. There is much to look at, and other have done good reporting on it, notably Sarah Kliff and Dan Keating at the Washington Post and Barry Meier, Jo Craven McGinty and Julie Creswell at the New York Times.

The bottom line is that hospital pricing practices appear from this data to be arbitrary. I wouldn’t be surprised if pricing flucutated from year to year based on what revenue each hospital brings in. That’s unconscionable, and a failure of the free market in arguably the most important industry. Hospitals and canadian pharmacies would do well to get together and establish transparent and ethical best practices for pricing, because the alternative is onerous regluation to ensure they are not gouging insurance companies, government agencies, and individual patients without regard to actual costs.

May 8, 2013 ∞

Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users

Charlie Savage of The New York Times:

the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not.

Concerns that this would prompt similar measures from repressive governments abroad are not overblown. If we expect foreign companies to submit to these procedures, their governments will expect US companies to do the same. I’m surprised this article doesn’t mention anything about what the Obama administration’s diplomats and international law folks think about all of this.

Apr 10, 2013 ∞

Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reports at the New York Times:

But a dozen or so state legislatures have had a different reaction: They proposed or enacted bills that would make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms, or apply for a job at one without disclosing ties to animal rights groups. They have also drafted measures to require such videos to be given to the authorities almost immediately, which activists say would thwart any meaningful undercover investigation of large factory farms.

This is abhorrent.

Apr 5, 2013 ∞

Twitter Arrives on Wall Street, Via Bloomberg

Interesting news, but someone call the design police: there’s a crime being committed at every Bloomberg terminal on Wall Street. It’s 2013 and it looks like financial professionals are daily being punished with truly awful interface design. Don’t believe me? See for yourself.

Jan 30, 2013 ∞

Streaming music: good for fans, bad for musicians

The numbers are pretty stark, and while it doesn’t hurt to be available on streaming services, if for nothing else than the opportunity to be found by new listeners, unknown artists are better off leveraging social media and sites like Bandcamp to manage their own digital distribution.

Jan 30, 2013 ∞

Antigua responds to US gambling ban with government-backed infringement plan

The Carribean nation Antigua and Barbuda and the World Trade Organization say a US ban on online gambling is costing jobs and “billions of dollars.” The WTO has approved a plan to allow infringement of US-based copyright interests to the tune of $21 million per year.

The recovery looks de minimis next to the claimed loss, but experts quoted in Annie Lowery’s New York Times article are probably right: this a ploy to get US artists up in arms about Congress conceding to Antigua and Barbuda on this conflict.

What a strange, strange story.

Jan 29, 2013 ∞

Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner

Novelist Justin Cronin presents a very well-written and reasonable take on why knee-jerk reactions on either side of the gun debate are misinformed and unrealistic:

[…] in the weeks since Newtown, I’ve watched my Facebook feed, which is dominated by my coastal friends, fill up with anti-gun dispatches that seemed divorced from reality. I agree it would be nice if the world had exactly zero guns in it. But I don’t see that happening, and calling gun owners “a bunch of inbred rednecks” doesn’t do much to advance rational discussion.

Jan 23, 2013 ∞

NLRB refines position on employee social media and workplace criticism

My personal policy is to refrain from discussing work on social media. In all my years of Twitter-ing and Facebook-ing, I’ve posted only a very few work-related updates, invariably focused on interpersonal minutiae like elevator rudeness. I think it’s just best to leave work at work. However, as the Times's Steven Greenhouse reports, the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that conversational exchanges about working conditions between multiple employees on social media may be construed as the kind of concerted activity protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

The Times story to which I link in this post’s headline mentions at least two instances (here and here¹) where the termination of lone complainers was upheld by the NLRB. This ruling suggests that my personal policy is a safe bet: there’s no way to engage in concerted activity if you’re venting alone.

I really like those fancy paragraph-specific links the Times has on its digital articles. ↩

Jan 10, 2013 ∞

US suspects Iran behind DDoS attacks on banks

These look a lot like “feeler” operations, meant to gauge the reaction attackers can expect from victim institutions and nations. The United States (read: Congress) must act immediately to ensure that we’re ready when attackers stop slowing down or blocking bank websites and start trying to steal customer data en masse.

Dec 5, 2012 ∞

Sign Language Researchers Broaden Science Lexicon

This is wonderful stuff: with a shortage of STEM talent these days, it’s imperative to involve all those who are interested, and this project serves to reduce the barrier to entry for deaf students.

(Via Evening Edition)

Nov 28, 2012 ∞

NYPD subpoenas call logs of stolen cell phones

Joseph Goldstein, writing for the Times:

Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone.

Mr. Sussman is exactly right. I suspect the intent here on the part of NYPD is an admirable one: we have data available that can help us track thieves, so let’s use it.

But it’s not hard to limit the information requested to only the information that could possibly be of use in finding the suspect.

Nov 28, 2012 ∞

"Gay conversion" snake-oil salesmen taken to court

“Gay conversion” snake-oil salesmen taken to court

Erik Eckholm, reporting for the New York Times:

Referred to Jonah by a rabbi when he was 18, Mr. Levin began attending weekend retreats at $650 each. For a year and a half, he had weekly private sessions with Mr. Downing as well as weekly group sessions. He quit, he said, after Mr. Downing had him remove his clothes and touch himself, saying it would help him reconnect with his masculinity. Mr. Goldberg has defended Mr. Downing’s methods as sometimes appropriate for men dealing with body image problems.

Golberg and Downing have no license to practice psychology or therapy. They took money from men in exchange for the promise of “curing” their homosexuality. And, as this passage demonstrates, Downing took advantage of at least one young man’s vulnerability.

Deplorable.

Conversion “therapy” is one of religion’s dark arts, with no basis in reality and the primary purpose of enriching cynical snake-oil salesmen by feeding off the self-hatred of confused individuals. No god wants you removing your clothes and touching yourself for a fake “therapist.”

Sadly, the California ban on this absurd abuse of religion only applies to licensed therapists. This would leave “religious counselors” like the scum described in this story able to continue to profit from the desperation of people who can’t live with the thought that their god will hate them if they’re true to who they are.

If you think gay people need to seek healing in the form of getting “un-gayed,” you’ll get no respect from me.

Nov 20, 2012 ∞

H.P. Takes Huge Charge on 'Accounting Improprieties' at Autonomy

H.P. Takes Huge Charge on ‘Accounting Improprieties’ at Autonomy

Michael J. de la Merced and Quentin Hardy, for the Times’ DealBook:

The charge essentially wiped out its profit.

The headline should say “outright misrepresentations,” not “accounting improprieties,” because the former is far more serious than the latter, and both are true.

HP hired Deloitte to review Autonomy’s books during the acquisition’s due diligence phase. Then they hired KPMG to audit Deloitte’s audit of Autonomy. Only after a former Autonomy employee tipped them off did they hire PricewaterhouseCoopers, who discovered Autonomy sold hardware at a loss, despite calling itself a successful software-only company.

Whoops. And it gets worse.

Go read it for yourself. I can’t take any more of this crap.

Oct 15, 2012 ∞

SoftBank buys 70% stake in Sprint

Michael J. De La Merced and Neil Gough, in The New York Times:

In a statement on Monday, SoftBank, a big Japanese telecommunications company, said it would pay $8 billion to buy newly issued Sprint stock worth about $5.25 a share. It will then pay $12.1 billion to buy existing stock from other investors at $7.30 a share, a premium to current levels.

This could be a very big deal. Sprint just became a strong third place again to Verizon and AT&T.

Sep 21, 2012 ∞

NYT quote approval policy is (only) a good start

The new quote approval policy at The New York Times, as quoted by Times opinion writer Margaret Sullivan:

So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.

I first wrote about the quote approval problem when I linked to David Carr’s piece on it. Then I expressed my agreement with Temple Law professor David Hoffman, who wrote at Concurring Opinions about the frequency with which experts such as himself are misquoted or taken out of context.

I’m not sure the Times policy does a very good job of distinguishing between approval by PR folks and approval by subject-matter experts. The former try to approve quotes to control messaging, while the latter try to approve quotes to ensure their opinions on a given issue aren’t manipulated to further a skewed narrative.

I don’t think those two cases can be dealt with in the same policy without explicitly pointing them out and setting up a framework for each one. The Times policy allows for exceptions with senior editorial approval, and that may allow experts like Professor Hoffman to explain that they want to ensure their comments are presented in the manner in which they intend them to be presented. Or, it may not.

Marco Arment suggested disclosing when quotes have been approved for an article, instead of calling for an unqualified end to the practice. I’m not sure that’s the perfect solution, but I think I prefer Mr. Arment’s policy to the Times policy.

Disclosure makes sense and would show great respect to readers by allowing them to decide whether the reliability of a particular quote is or is not affected by its pre-approval by the source. Experts could ensure accurate representation of their opinions, and readers could be kept in the loop when a communications department has manufactured the CEO’s statement to the paper.

In short, the Times quote policy is nothing less than a good start, but it’s also nothing more.