In March 2008, the Department of Defense supposedly published a memo about a perceived national security threat. The target: Wikileaks a site that had previously put out sensitive information about Abu Ghraib. More

For all the good things that leviathan Samsung comes up with, they have to spoil it somehow. Now, I’m not saying that the tech behind this ID card is teh bad, but it’s the principle. Winston Smith, where are you? The idea consists of an ID card with an AMOLED display that looks normal until you bring it up close to an RFID card reader. Then, Shazamalamadingdong! The display lights up, giving the stern border guard who’s giving you the once over a 360-degree close up of your head. Then, I guess, depending on how much he likes the look of you, it’s either on with the latex gloves and bend over you won’t feel a thing, Mush, or thanks so much have a nice stay in our beautiful country.

Privacy advocates and career criminals alike are in a lather over reports that between September 2008 and October 2009, Sprint Nextel ponied up customer location data to various law enforcement agencies more than 8 million times. Speaking at ISS World 2009 (a conference for law enforcement and telecom industry-types responsible for “lawful interception, electronic investigations and network Intelligence gathering”), Sprint Nextel’s very own Paul Taylor, Manager of Electronic Surveillance, lamented on the sheer volume of requests the company’s received in the past year for precise GPS data for Sprint customers. How did the company meet such high demand? Apparently, his team built a special “web interface” which “has just really caught on fire with law enforcement.” We’re glad that Sprint’s plans to streamline the customer service experience don’t stop short of those who serve and protect, but as the EFF points out, plenty of nagging questions remain, including: How many individual customers have been affected? Is Sprint demanding search warrants? How secure is this web interface

Amazon might have been extremely contrite about remotely deleting 1984 from Kindles , but a Jeff Bezos apology and an offer to restore the book doesn’t necessarily add up to a meaningful change in policy. As part of the settlement with that student who sued over the 1984 situation , Amazon’s had to clarify its remote-deletion guidelines, and they’re pretty much the same as ever: they’ll hit the kill switch if you ask for a refund or if your credit card is declined, if a judge orders them to, or if they need to protect the Kindle or the network from malware. Sounds simple, right? Well, sort of — saying they’ll delete content at the behest of judicial or regulatory decree pretty much leaves the door open to exactly the same situation as the 1984 debacle, just a couple procedural steps down the line and with less blame placed on Amazon. If you’ll recall, 1984 was deleted after the publisher was sued for not having the proper rights, and Amazon took the proactive step of deleting the content — and although Amazon won’t do that on its own anymore, all it takes now is one strongly-worded motion before a sympathetic judge and we’re back at square one. That’s pretty troubling — no judge can order a physical bookseller to come into your house and retrieve a book they’ve sold you, and saying things are different for the Kindle raises some interesting questions about what Amazon thinks “ownership” means.

Palm Pre ’s webOS, besides juggling your life or whatever that creepy girl says , sends information back to the mothership periodically, like what apps you’ve installed and how much you’ve used ‘em. And location data . Wait. What ? That’s right, part of the data package it delivers to Palm includes your GPS location, according to Joey Hess , on top of ever webOS app you use, and how long you use it: The first thing sent is intended to be my GPS location.

Here are some of the memorable catchphrases you can expect from the retailer formerly known as Radio Shack’s rebranding , as caught on camera from an anonymous tipster: “The Shack is fluent in mobile. The Shack is a big hug for your mobile life. The Shack is music to your ears. The Shack is your path to wireless wisdom. The Shack helps you get it right. The Shack is like a GPS to your GPS

Thousands of “the worst families in England” are being put in “sin bins,” or subsidized housing outfitted with closed-circuit cameras. The cameras will be used to ensure that children do their homework and go to bed on time. Holy shit. The justification for this action is that if kids have structured upbringings, they won’t get sucked into street crime and drugs. And because the housing is subsidized, the government isn’t technically putting cameras in private homes; these are public homes. But still, the precedent this sets is terrifying.

Forget blaming it on the dog, thanks to Amazon students have a 21st century excuse for lost homework. When Amazon foolishly yanked 1984 from thousands of Kindles , Justin Gawronski’s electronic notes for a summer assignment became useless. Now a class action lawsuit has been filed that seeks punitive damages for those affected by the deletion as well as an injunction that forbids Amazon from improperly accessing Kindles in the future. Granted, after the fallout and subsequent Bezos apology , there probably wasn’t much risk of Amazon crossing the line again. Still, I agree that they had this coming. Again, the fact that Orwell’s 1984 is at the center of all of this controversy is one of those delicious coincidences that is impossible to ignore.

If you’re into keeping tabs on irony, check this out. Amazon apparently sent out its robotic droogs last night, deleting copies of the George Orwell novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from Kindles without explanation, then refunding the purchase price. As you can imagine, a lot of people caught in the thick of Winston and Julia’s love story aren’t very happy — and rightfully so — the idea that we “own” the things we buy is pretty fundamental to… ownership. We’re not sure exactly what happened, but it seems that the publisher of said novels, MobileReference, has has changed its mind about selling content on the Kindle , and poof! Amazon remotely deleted all previously purchased copies

While not busy being the destination of Westerners seeking spiritual growth and the birthplace of the beloved Bollywood song and dance flick, apparently India is home to some 1.2 billion people — many of whom possess no proof of identification whatsoever. According to The Times (UK), less than seven per cent of the population are registered for income tax, and the voting lists are terribly inaccurate. Hoping to bring the nation’s census data into the 21st century, India has created the Unique Identification Authority. Under the direction of Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders of Infosys , the plan is to outfit every one of the nation’s citizens with a biometric ID card that contains personal data, fingerprint or iris scans, and possibly even criminal records and credit histories. Gathering the data is projected to cost at least $4.9 billion, a figure that’s likely to soar once the ball gets rolling.