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How scared should we really be about thieves accessing our credit card bills? And how has the growing reach of the internet affected the limits of our privacy? Steven Rambam, a private investigator who makes heavy use of online databases in his daily work, has some disturbing answers. He gives Brooke the willies with disturbing stories about the federal government, the internet… and her social security number.
You've probably had this problem: Somebody forwards you a story from a major newspaper, you click on the link, and the page opens up. But before you can read the story, you need to answer some basic, but increasingly irritating questions. Wired News reporter Rachel Metz tells Bob about a number of Internet resources that can help you get around these exasperating roadblocks.
A year ago, the alleged rape victim of NBA star Kobe Bryant exchanged a few text messages. The judge in the Bryant case says those messages could be "highly relevant" to the case and wants the cell phone company to produce the messages. That is possible - text messages, like emails, are stored on servers long after we press "delete". But what about our right to text-message in private? Brooke talks with Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the ACLU.
The space inside the beltway has no shortage of wonks. And for every wonk, there's a wonkette - or rather, there's the Wonkette. The eponymous gossip weblog has recently become the talk of DC, what with its blow-by-blow documentation of the sex-for-hire exploits of a certain Hill staffer. Bob chats with Ana Marie Cox about her life as The Wonkette.
Over the past few years, web-searchers worldwide have come to rely on Google to find the needle in the digital haystack. But at the same time, others have figured out ways to manipulate the search engine for their own ends. Type in "waffles," and up comes John Kerry's campaign site; type in "miserable failure" and you get President Bush's official bio. An entire industry has sprung up to help businesses optimize the placement of their own sites. Bob speaks to New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki about how the so-called "Google bombers" threaten Google's fundamental operating principle.
What do you get when you cross a blogger with college radio DJ? A whole new format for delivering obscure musical gems from the collection of twenty-somethings with a high-speed connection. Reporter Benjamen Walker looks at the emerging trend of MP3 blogs, and speculates on their future in a creative culture still governed by copyright laws and litigious record execs.
To its growing list of Internet services, Google this month launched its own free email service. But scarcely a day had passed before privacy advocates were railing against "Gmail." At issue is a function that scans incoming messages in order to deliver targeted advertisements with the email. Bob talks to World Privacy Forum executive director Pam Dixon about the brouhaha.
Last month, the Hartford Courant discovered that Central Connecticut State University president Richard Judd had plagiarized widely for an op-ed piece he wrote for the paper. The Courant reached that conclusion with the help of iParadigms, new software originally developed to nail students for cutting and pasting term papers. Will iParadigms become a newsroom staple at other papers as well? Bob speaks with John Barrie, president and founder of the company that developed the software.
