Technically Incorrect

Everyone is talking security these days. Does this include Facebook?

I ask because a group called "Kill Obama" was on the social-networking site for more than a month before Facebook's attention was drawn to it by CNET late Monday evening.

The group, which appears to have been created in Alberta, Canada, had 122 members and five administrators. Its existence originally caught the eye of Brian Cuban, brother of tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Brian Cuban, who has long criticized Facebook for its attitude toward Holocaust denial groups, used his blog, the Cuban Revolution, to point out the apparent criminality of the "Kill Obama" group: those found guilty of a threat to kill the president could face up to five years in jail.

The "Kill Obama" group, which was active since November, was entirely open and set out its goals like this: "We are going to kill Obama. Ten of us will surround the capital, armed with sniper rifles. Mr. Hope And Change just made his last speech."

(Credit: CC Jay Cameron/Flickr)

Facebook's response might strike some as peculiarly confident. Andrew Noyes of Facebook's public-policy group in Washington, D.C., told me via e-mail:

The group in question, which was created by an individual user, was brought to our attention on Monday and was removed promptly. As for the broader issue of controversial content that may appear on Facebook, I wonder how a phone company would answer a question about preventing threatening phone calls or how the postal service would respond about preventing threatening letters? And Web mail providers about threatening e-mails?

Some might feel that the difference is that Facebook can better see and hear what is on its site than phone providers or the U.S. Postal Service. This communication was entirely public and had been on the site for a while. The impression Facebook gives, however, is that it is doing more than most communication platforms to fight misuse.

Noyes continued:

Just as none of those communications platforms can guarantee their tools won't be misused, neither can we. However, different from those platforms, Facebook is committed to enhancing our already-robust reporting and review infrastructure, and reducing our response times in removing content that violates our policies. When we find egregious violations, we'll kick people off for good and prevent them from committing further offenses. Again, this is something that the other communication platforms can't do nearly as effectively as we can or at all.

The robust reporting and review infrastructure seems to have not been terribly robust in this instance. Facebook can give the impression that it is more attuned to removing images of breastfeeding than policing hate and threat.

Given that the company is so able and keen to collate information in order to help advertisers, some might wonder whether one member of its "porn police" might be reassigned so that Facebook might exercise a little more vigilance in the area of threatening and possibly criminal activity.

Indeed, one might have thought that Facebook would have security in place that would immediately monitor groups using such obvious keywords in their names as "Kill" and "Obama." However, Facebook's view is, according to Noyes, that there could be "millions" of possible permutations of these two words.

I know that there are many mathematically skilled readers here, so perhaps they might offer a view on these millions of permutations. My nonmathematical methods just revealed to me that by searching "Kill Obama," there were only 571 results. These results didn't appear to offer anything as overtly threatening as "Kill Obama." Indeed, the top group, with 143 members, was "Don't Kill Barack Obama."

In September, Facebook removed a "Should Obama be Killed?" poll, again after it had been noticed by the media. Indeed, Facebook's view seems to be that the policing of the site is largely down to, well, you.

Noyes told me:

No system is perfect, but we believe this is the best system, and we're always working to improve it. With extremely few exceptions, our user base has proved to be vigilant in flagging content that should be taken offline.

Perhaps there are more users concerned with naughty pictures than threats to kill the president. However, when asked if Facebook had given the personal details of the "Kill Obama" group to the authorities, Noyes said, "We don't comment on investigations, but we're in regular contact with the Secret Service."

All's well that ends well is one philosophy of life, of course. But not the only one.

It can't be easy being a policeman.

Every day you're forced to be in contact with some of the lower beings of the world. Sometimes you have to punch them or shoot them, when you'd rather be out with your lover or at least surfing the Web for a little fun.

As a matter of fact, I have just learned from the very learned Daily Mail that an average of nine police officers and support staff from every British police force have been fired or warned after transgressing the police's IT regulations.

To view one's screen, one must remove one's riot helmet.

(Credit: CC Stuff and Nonsense/Flickr)

In all, the Mail said that its figures, obtained under the UK's Freedom of Information Act, show that at least 439 police officers and support staff were fired or disciplined for viewing material online that they ought not have been viewing on police time; that includes anything from viewing porn or using social-networking sites while on the job, to doing individual background checks for personal use or posting unauthorized video online.

I know there will be some who, on hearing this information, will feel angry. They will say policemen are hypocrites who, in showing us the stiff arm of the law, demonize us for questionable behavior while partaking of questionable practices themselves.

Perhaps, though, others might feel something akin to relief. Policemen are humans, after all. They have weaknesses, vices, and foibles. Perhaps you might share that psychological insight with the next policeman who stops you for speeding and finds a week-old spliff in your glove box.

This is definitely a question reeking of our delightful modernity: if you were an escaped convict, would you regularly update your Facebook status?

This question is significant because Craig "Lazie" Lynch has, according to CBSNews.com, been on the run from a British prison since September. However, his Facebook page, updated with a plethora of bons mots Sunday, has stirred so many who admire freedom and, um, crime.

Lynch's musings are enjoying the attention of more than 3,000, um, friends. They have been regaled with Lynch's dilemmas, thoughts and wishes. This, for example, from Sunday: "Trying to figure out my plans for New Years. I know what I want to do but its not that easy."

Who can but sympathize with his plight? It's tough to get a reservation for dinner at a Gordon Ramsay establishment at such late notice. And if he wanted to take a lover for, say, a night at the Ritz, well, there might be problem with the credit card confirmation.

Lynch was serving a 7-year sentence for aggravated burglary before he slipped out of Hollesey Bay Prison, which is in the rather sleepy and flat part of England to the north-east of London.

An aerial view of the prison and its surroundings. Plenty of fields to hide in, no?

(Credit: CC Babylon Angel/Flickr)

The police are, naturally, not well-disposed toward Lynch's updates.

"We have spoken to Facebook and we are trying to trace him from the information we have, but it's one of those things that we're also asking for help from members of the public," police spokesperson Anne-Marie Breach told CNN.

It seems, though, that late Sunday, Lynch began experiencing a little emotional pain. In what must have been an almost teary update, he posted: "right i'm coming off this page as i have better things to do."

Who might have imagined that, in his mysterious hideaway, Lynch had something better to do than continue his run as a Facebook attraction?

Still, he continued: "In fact due to the nature of some of these comments and the racist remarks that keep frequently poppin up have a dig at me by all means but why be abusive to others due to their colour or race it is petty minded fools who have ruined this site."

Petty-minded, indeed. Some of the world's great artists have suffered when their works have been ruined by unscrupulous, jealous critics, so Lynch's pain is entirely understandable.

However, he wants his supporters to know that he is grateful. For he posted: "Thank you to...all of you serious supporters out there and to my admin staff. To all you haters and hitlers out there i hope you slowly choke in your sleep."

By the way, if you ever wondered about the definition of aggravated burglary it is this: at the time of the burglary, the criminal: "has with him a firearm, imitation firearm, weapon of offense, or any explosive."

You might imagine, therefore, that Lynch is someone who might not always turn the other cheek. This might affect the level of sympathy you have for his Facebook critics.

How do you react, for example, to this update from he Saturday evening?: "Its freezing outside. Another lonely night. So far away from my family and friend. Yet I have so many supporters and haters on here. Thx for your support everyone cause this is a FAN PAGE."

One might conceive that, with the help of the large brains at Facebook, Lynch's Facebook fame might shortly come to an abrupt logout.

But here's the thing that seems a little peculiar. Lynch, according to the BBC, was serving time near the end of his sentence and escaped while he was on day release.

For some, the lure of Facebook fame is clearly uncontrollable.

Ever since someone tried to sell me on the curious notion that Houston was the Manhattan of Texas, I have become fascinated with the place.

So I am blissfully excited that PCWorld has caused my blood to turn my arteries into a NASCAR track with the revelation that police in the Houston-area county of Montgomery have decided to shame drunk drivers in a very modern way.

Yes, if you are caught driving while the special eggnog concoctions are making your nerve endings feel like Christmas lights, you will have your name on an especially festive Twitter page.

This seasonal offer only applies to those arrested between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. And the Twitter page in question will not be one newly set up for the occasion, but rather that of Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon.

Naturally, some are wondering whether this little Twittering experiment might be flying the wrong way down a lane currently occupied by the concept of "innocent until proved guilty."

The Manhattan of Texas. A home of socially-networking progress?

(Credit: CC Eflon/Flickr)

As Houston attorney Paul B. Kennedy says, on his own blog, with a sarcasm that not even a sliver of cabernet sauvignon could dampen: "Of course the police never make wrongful arrests."

However, in Texas they do seem to be quite keen on humiliation as a palliative. No, I am not referring to the bedroom predilections of Texan lawmakers, but rather to Denton, Texas (near the slightly less Manhattanesque city of Dallas), where every arrest gets Twittered.

It has to be said, though, that the Denton Twitter page was originally conceived by an enthusiastic layperson, rather than a zealous arresting officer.

While the Montgomery County drunk-driving information that is being Twittered is not legally confidential, you might wonder whether Twittering humiliation is a reasonable method of enacting the law.

Montgomery County Vehicular Crimes Prosecutor Warren Diepraam told PCWorld: "I sincerely doubt that the fact that I've put someone's name on a Twitter page is going to affect their right to a fair trial."

And I sincerely doubt that Diepraam believes that social networking is anything other than a vehicle for honest and legal communication. However, could he be the same Warren Diepraam from Houston, Texas who, on his Facebook page, wants people to think he looks like the moon? Surely not.

I have often wondered if being a divorce lawyer makes you feel better about humanity or worse. Perhaps it merely keeps you in intimate contact with all the pitfalls of relationships on a daily, even hourly, basis.

Still, whose heart could possibly lose so much as a throb on hearing that almost one in five divorces in the UK are fueled by Facebook?

No, it's not that Facebook's employees are so irresistible that anyone who comes into contact with them, even in the UK, immediately leaves their spouse. Rather, it seems that the constant lack of trust in marriages causes much trawling around spouses' Facebook pages until one party decides the party's over.

It has already been established by one study that Facebook turns lovers a painful shade of green. However, the Telegraph quotes a law firm declaring that almost one in five divorce petitions make Facebook the scene of the crime.

The managing director of Divorce-Online told the Telegraph: "I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was. I was really surprised to see 20 percent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook."

Facebook is the home of love, surely.

(Credit: CC Sabrina Campagna/Flickr)

Some of the biggest culprits, according to the Telegraph, are flirty e-mails and messages found on Facebook, which are "increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behavior."

And it was only in February that Emma Brady discovered her husband was divorcing her when he updated his Facebook status to: "Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady."

Are people who leave themselves so exposed on Facebook merely careless? Or does the liberating new medium of social networking allow them to deliberately tell their spouses that they have had enough without having the courage to look them in the eyes?

Perhaps, though, Facebook might use this phenomenon to advertise its own power. The site should create a special group: the Facebook Disconnects group. It would bring together all those whose marriages that ended because of wall posts and the like, thereby showing how Facebook relationships are more powerful than any out there in the dumb ole' analog, touchy-feely world.

That way, advertisers might finally realize that it's better to put all of their money into digital relationships on Facebook rather than into those quaintly ancient TV spots.

There are those who believe that Microsoft came up with the name Bing for its refreshed search engine after staring at the word "Bingo" for several days and then removing the last letter.

However, a small entity in St. Louis has decided that the name Bing was, is and always should be, theirs.

According to Ars Technica, Bing Information Design! has designs on some compensation from Microsoft, as it has used the delightful term, followed by a slightly less delightful exclamation point, ala Yahoo, since 2000.

Even to the most bleary eyes, Bing Information Design's Web site does not immediately stir confusion with Bing the search engine. Bing Information Design is "dedicated to taking tough, hard-to-define concepts and boiling them down into simple, easy-to-understand ideas."

So perhaps there might be those who would prefer a few pictures that would engender easy-to-understand ideas that might explain one thing: how could anyone confuse a massively promoted search engine from Microsoft with a minimally known company whose two founders "have over 25 years of experience in design, illustration, branding, information architecture and publishing"?

(Credit: Diego 3336/Flickr)

Bing Information Design's lawsuit says that Microsoft's Bing "causes confusion with regard to the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant, confuses the public with regard to the origin of the plaintiff's services and dilutes the value of the plaintiff's trademark."

The lawsuit also suggests that Microsoft knew of the St. Louis Bing and that therefore Bing deserves "actual and punitive damages, including having Microsoft pay for corrective advertising to remedy the confusion it caused."

I am sure that many an ad agency would leap at the opportunity to create a campaign that says "Bing. The Decision Engine Decisively Not from St. Louis. And Decisively Lacking an Exclamation Point."

A Microsoft spokesperson told Ars Technica: "We believe this suit to be without merit and we do not believe there is any confusion in the marketplace with regard to the complainant's offerings and Microsoft's Bing."

It will be interesting to see what proof of marketplace confusion Bing Information Design's lawyers might offer. Has there truly been consternation in Missouri? Have people walked into Bing Information Design's offices expecting to find Steve Ballmer chewing on some ideas?

It will be also interesting to hear whose fine decision it was to put that lovely exclamation point after the Bing in the St. Louis company's name.

One should always have sympathy with the small fish in the big sea. But is this a slightly gratuitous attempt by Bing Information Design to gain a little cha-ching? One awaits the full evidence with an exclamation point in one's heart.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but art, it seems, is whatever a court says it is.

The folks at Lucasfilm, creators of the "Star Wars" franchise, took the designer of the original Stormtrooper costume to court in the UK and had their light sabers thrust right back at them.

According to London's Times, Andrew Ainsworth, the man who originally created the helmets and armor for the first "Star Wars" movie, decided to capitalize on his design by selling replicas made from the original mold online.

Lucasfilm clearly thought Ainsworth's view of copyright was from a very strange planet. So, after taking him to court and winning in the US in 2006, it thought it would strike a further victory in British courts.

However, Britain can often show itself to be a constellation like no other.

So perhaps one should not be entirely surprised that Mr. Justice Mann and, subsequently, three more justices in the Court of Appeal, decided that Stormtrooper uniforms are not art, but mere industrial design. You see, art enjoys British copyright protection for 70 years. But industrial design is only worth 15 years of protection.

But is it art?

(Credit: CC Andrew Rueda/Flickr)

Lucasfilm promises it will now send its legal Stormtroopers all the way to the British Supreme Court. The company told the Times: "The judges in the case dismissed the creative efforts of film designers and prop makers in general, saying that props are the work of people who 'did not make it as artists' and not fine art that should be valued under the law."

Ainsworth was, at the time of the costumes' creation, an industrial designer. This is what he told the Times of his design: "I didn't even know it was for a film to begin with." At the time the costumes were made, the machine Ainsworth used was, he told the Times, "churning out kayaks and watersports stuff."

Almost every court case in the world these days seems to be about money rather than art. So it's hard to imagine that these fine judges didn't scratch their rather beautifully designed wigs and feel sympathy for Ainsworth, as he faced the conglomerated Darth Vaders from Northern California.

Surely they had heard that every part of moviemaking is supposed to be art-- even the making of bacon sandwiches on set. So their interpretation is, indeed, an interesting one.

If Britain's Supreme Court doesn't offer Lucasfilm relief, what might the Lucas Army do?

Perhaps it will create a new "Star Wars" movie--entitled "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones II"--in which the bad guys are movie prop makers who attempt to create a parallel universe called Replica World.

In the pulsating finale, The Jedi Master would take on the Prop Master in a weird industrial design facility somewhere west of, um, London. Surely you can hardly wait.

Playing fantasy sports can be as addictive as watching "The Biggest Loser."

My own lowest point was when I went to see the Golden State Warriors play the Los Angeles Clippers and cheered when the Clippers' Michael Olowakandi snagged his 10th rebound. I am a Warriors fan, but Olowokandi was in my NBA fantasy team.

It took a team of bullish psychiatrists and several wily girlfriends to remove me from this iniquitous pursuit, which is why I have some sympathy with Cameron Pettigrew and three of his fellow Fidelity Investments employees.

Actually, they are former Fidelity employees, as, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, they were all fired from Fidelity's Westlake, Texas office for playing fantasy NFL during their hours of employment.

Fidelity is the world's No. 1 sponsor of mutual funds. These are, I believe, the folks who tell you in their ads to follow the green line on your way to having hairy gray ears and a condo in Boca. It sounds like a sure thing, but we all know how this 401(k) thing can sometimes work out.

So perhaps you might find it curious that Fidelity frowns on gambling. And fantasy NFL, where money might be involved, is, according to the company, gambling.

"We have clear policies that relate to gambling. Participation in any form of gambling through the use of Fidelity time or equipment or any other company resource is prohibited," Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio told the Star-Telegram.

He added: "In addition to being illegal in a lot of places, it can also be disruptive. We want our employees to be focused on our customers and clients."

Righteous words, indeed. However, Pettigrew made some rather human points. "Firing a guy for being in a $20 fantasy league? Let's be honest; that's a complete overreaction," he told the Star-Telegram.

This whole thing started in October when e-mails pertaining to a different fantasy league fell before the eyes of Fidelity management. It was then that they realized that Pettigrew was the commissioner of an office league.

Pettigrew, however, said that managers and leaders played in at least 10 fantasy leagues around the office. This was despite the fact that Fidelity does have a policy against fantasy leagues, a policy that Pettigrew says was routinely ignored.

Even though Pettigrew says he never sent fantasy-related e-mails at work, it all seems to have come down to two IMs that Pettigrew received.

"One of my buddies sent me something about how bad Trent Edwards was playing or something like that," Pettigrew told the Star-Telegram. "So they called me in and talked to me for about 90 minutes on everything I ever knew about fantasy football. They interrogated me as though I was some sort of international gambling kingpin."

Shortly afterward, four league commissioners, including Pettigrew, were fired.

Corporations have many rules. Indeed, I know people in corporations who rather enjoy making up rules and enforcing them.

But perhaps the first rule should be to ascertain whether an employee's private behavior, even if occasionally on company time, actually does adversely affect his work performance. Or whether it might actually help it.

The court case between eBay and Craigslist is increasingly beginning to seem as if it was scripted by John Grisham. It's the little guy against the big machine.

Craigslist would like us to dedicate all our sympathy to its cause, as it describes its dealings with the big, bad wolf, aka eBay. Or, as Monday's court session heard, the big, bad she-wolf.

Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO, told the court that Garrett Price, an eBay executive, had written him an e-mail that waved a large rainbow-colored warning flag, according to a Reuters story.

"He said he needed to tell me there were two Meg Whitmans," Buckmaster told Craigslist's counsel in court, according to the report. "We had met and reached an agreement with Good Meg. There was another Meg, an Evil Meg. We would be best served to know that Meg could be a monster when she got angry and frustrated."

A monster? That nice lady who, in her run for governor, promises to make California solvent without resorting to punitive taxation or pumping iron? This is surely hard to believe.

The proceedings are being streamed live by the Courtroom View Network, and one wonders just what joy the network might bring Tuesday when eBay's no doubt friendly counsel attempts to hide his fangs from the Craigslist CEO, while simultaneously snipping at his vulnerable parts.

In case you had missed the cause of this kerfuffle, eBay is claiming that Craigslist illegally diluted its 28.4 percent shareholding by "self-dealing," underhand methods.

A monster? This nice lady? Surely not.

(Credit: CC White African/Flickr)

Craigslist is claiming that eBay made a promise not to start its own Craigslist-type site and then went right ahead and created Kijiji. It seems that such a promise did not appear in what some laypersons might describe as the written form, according to the Associated Press.

Buckmaster also declared that Whitman promised him that if any problems arose between the two companies--an e-mail was produced to the court on Monday in which an eBay executive described Craigslist people as being "definitely on another planet"--then eBay would sell its shares, according to Bloomberg.

"I believed that I could rely on her statements," Buckmaster told the court, Bloomberg said.

Just as Grisham protagonists seem slightly naive to the workings of the world, Buckmaster seems to want the court to believe that Craigslist were nice guys who couldn't imagine how beastly business people could be.

In many Grisham novels, the heroes flee to freedom in some lovely place, with enough money to enjoy the rest of their blissful lives.

Has that thought never crossed the minds of Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark? Just wondering.