text:
Utah makes Ohio look good!
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070720154526846
Nevada governor accidentally posts Outlook password
Friday, July 20 2007 @ 03:45 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
If you ever wanted to be Nevada's governor for a day, it doesn't seem to be that hard. In what could be a whopping security hole, Nevada has posted the password to the gubernatorial e-mail account on its official state Web site. It appears in a Microsoft Word file giving step-by-step instructions on how aides should send out the governor's weekly e-mail updates, which has, as a second file shows, 13,105 subscribers.
Source - C|net
Note: Declan notes in email that: The files have been deleted since my story went up, but, unfortunately for the governor's office, are still available on Google's cache: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alistserv.nv.gov
You remember Ohio...
Ohio Inspector General releases report on state data theft; no referrals for criminal prosecution made
An investigative report released this afternoon assigns "shared blame" for a series of decisions that led to the theft of a state computer device containing the personal information of more than 1 million Ohioans.
The report also revealed that the 22-year-old intern instructed to take the device home actually had two such devices in his car at the time, although only one was stolen.
Source - Toledo Blade
Related - State of Ohio OIG Report (pdf)
Do we have a data spill larger than TJX in the wings?
AU: Westpac scare snags cardholders
THOUSANDS of credit card holders may find themselves in an embarrassing position the next time they go shopping.
Westpac confirmed yesterday it had cancelled thousands of Visa credit cards over the past week, due to a security scare. But a spokeswoman disputed a customer's claims the bank was leaving it up to cardholders to figure out whether they are affected, due to the sheer volume of cards involved.
Source - SMH
PogoWasRight.org Editor's note: wonder if this report could be linked to another story reported here yesterday out of upstate NY yesterday involving M&T Bank Visa
Fortunately Delaware is a tiny-tiny little state.
Computer data from Delaware courts stolen
A computer hard drive containing personal information related to criminal cases in Superior Court, Family Court and the Court of Common Pleas has been stolen, Delaware's judicial branch announced this morning.
The hard drive was in luggage stolen from an employee of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., which manages some of Delaware's information technology.
... More than 2,700 people will receive letters informing them that their personal information may have been contained on the stolen hard drive.
Source - Delaware Online
(update) SAIC: 900,000 health records possibly compromised
Friday, July 20 2007 @ 10:51 AM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
The personal health care records of close to 900,000 troops, family members and other government employees stored on a private defense contractor's nonsecure computer server were exposed to compromise, the company announced Friday.
... Although SAIC announced the data breach Friday, the company acknowledged it has known about the problems since May 29, when U.S. Air Forces Europe notified SAIC that it had detected "an unsecure transmission [The data wasn't encrypted! Bob] of personal information concerning uniformed service members and other individuals," according to a SAIC press release.
However, SAIC had concerns about a potential problem even earlier. Two weeks before USAFE contacted the contractor, SAIC shut down the server "based on general concerns regarding the security of transmissions," the press release said. SAIC confirmed that personal information had, in fact, been transmitted in a nonsecure manner and stored on an unsecured computer.
... Affected are service members and family members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and the Department of Homeland Security. The breakdown includes 173,939 Army; 151,315 Air Force; 96,925 Navy; 26,171 Marine and 10,415 Coast Guard. All told, SAIC officials said, the breach involves data on 867,000 individuals.
Source - Army Times
Related - SAIC Response to Data Security Failure
Will Google follow? (Nope)
http://searchengineland.com/070719-173648.php
Ask.com To Launch AskEraser To Erase Search History & New Data Retention Policy
Jul. 19, 2007 at 5:36pm Eastern by Barry Schwartz
Ask.com announced that they will be launching "AskEraser" in the near future, a feature to allow you to erase your search history. Ask also said it will be implementing a new 18 month data retention policy, where searches will be disassociated from IP addresses or cookies that might possibly be used to link them back to searchers.
Tools & Techniques Yes Virginia, it is that easy! (You don't suppose this is what the FBI uses...)
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2161000,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Dirty e-Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
July 20, 2007 By Lisa Vaas
A security firm has uncovered an easy-to-use, affordable tool for making a variety of customized Trojans—from downloaders to password stealers—on sale at several online forums.
The tool, discovered by PandaLabs, is called Pinch, a tool that allows cybercriminals to specify what type of password they want their Trojans to steal—be it for e-mail or system tools.
Pinch also has encryption capabilities to ensure that nobody intercepts stolen data. [Something government contractors might consider... Bob] Pinch's interface also has a SPY tab that lets criminals turn Trojans into keyloggers. In addition, the tool can design Trojans that snap screenshots from infected computers, steal browser data and look for specific files on the target system.
... "Although it may look difficult to find Web pages where these tools are sold, it is not. All you have to do is search in browsers for forums where hacking services are rented or where Trojans are sold," said Luis Corrons, technical director for PandaLabs, in the release.
... Wondering whether purchasing malware at these prices can be profitable? PandaLabs ran a few calculations to find out. Say a cyber-crook were to purchase a Trojan for $500, a 1 million-address mailing list for about $100, a $20 encryption program, and a $500 spamming server. The total outlay would be $1,120.
Given a 10 percent success rate, which PandaLabs said is "really low," hackers could infect 100,000 people. If the criminals managed to steal bank details from 10 percent of infected systems, that means access to 10,000 bank accounts and funds therein.
"Just imagine the money a normal person could keep in the bank and multiply it by 10,000 to calculate the cybercrooks' profits," said the report.
... As for the custom Trojan maker, Pinch, other abilities include a feature called NET that lets attacks turn an infected computer into a proxy so that it can be used to perform malicious or criminal activities without leaving a trace. Trojans can also be turned into downloaders that download other executable files onto the compromised computer, PandaLabs said.
Pinch also has a BD tab that allows criminals to specify the ports that the Trojan will open on the infected computer, thus providing backdoors. A tab labeled ETC also allows the Trojans to be hidden through techniques including rootkits.
But one of the most dangerous features in Pinch can be found on the WORM tab, PandaLabs said. This allows users to add worm features to their Trojans, thus allowing the malware to replicate and spread via e-mail.
Other goodies Pinch can deliver: turning infected computers into zombie PCs; packing Trojans to make detection more difficult; and killing certain system processes, particularly those of security solutions.
Pinch also lets users define how stolen data will be sent: via SMTP, HTTP or by leaving stolen data in a file on the infected computer to retrieve it later through a port opened by the Trojan itself.
Pinch is powerful—scary powerful. But what's even more scary than its powerful features is that it's so easy to use.
Some speech isn't free. "Fire! Fire!"
http://www.techmeme.com/070720/p23#a070720p23
Nearly Ten Percent of Companies Have Fired Bloggers, Survey Claims
By Ryan Singel EmailJuly 19, 2007 | 4:17:10 PM
Nearly ten percent of companies have fired an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies, and 19 percent have disciplined an employee for the same infractions, according to a new survey from Proofpoint, a messaging security company.
Get me a Patent Attorney! I would like to patent my process for protecting new processes so inventors can profit from them. Like a monopoly, but only for a few (hundred) years... Then I want to sue the lawyers who use that process.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070720/013117.shtml
Wish I Could Save Your Life, But That Kind Of Surgery Is Patented...
from the apparently,-it-will-never-stop dept
Patent madness keeps on growing as patent attorneys keep trying to convince people in all different professions that patents are an important strategy to "protect" their interests. It explains the ridiculous explosion in patents in areas that never would have bothered with patents in the past. That's why we see things like tax strategies being patented. Now, Marc has alerted us to an alarming rise in patents for surgery techniques, once again being pushed by patent attorneys. It seems that medical device companies were getting rich patenting their equipment and patent attorneys realized an even better route was to talk to surgeons themselves, convince them to patent any new kind of surgical technique and then sue any device maker who created devices for those types of surgeries. Never mind that lives may be at stake, there's more money to be made and the patent attorneys are thrilled.
Now get me a Copyright Lawyer! I've got a story (unpublished by copyrighted) about an evil client that wants his lawyers to sue even when there is no legal basis, and so I'm gonna sue anyone who writes stories like this one. Or any story about the RIAA... Or the MPAA... Or Major League baseball... Or...
Potter Publisher Says Selling Legally Obtained Copy Is Illegal
from the it's-magic-lawyer-speak-for-bullying dept
The hysteria over tonight's launch of the latest Harry Potter book has been covered to death in many places, but it still amazes us how ridiculous JK Rowling and her entourage are about the way they view intellectual property surrounding the books. Rowling has said she's against putting out an eBook because it would be pirated, even though that makes almost no sense. The book gets scanned and put online anyway, meaning anyone who finds it more convenient to read an electronic copy has to get an unauthorized copy rather than paying for a legitimate copy. And, of course, even booksellers are pointing out that they're unlikely to lose a single sale over scanned versions that are found online.
However, the Potter crew is still going nuts over the secrecy of the book, claiming intellectual property rights that they don't actually have. It's no secret that there's an extensive process that the publisher makes booksellers go through to avoid an "early" leak of the books, but what happens if a legitimate copy of the book actually does get out? That's what happened when an engineer received a copy of the book earlier this week when an online bookstore accidentally shipped it out early. He quickly (and smartly) put it up on eBay where the price shot up to $250... and then, JK Rowling's lawyer demanded eBay take the auction down as infringing on its rights. What rights? That's not clear. The book is legitimate. The sale to the guy was legitimate. The bookseller may have violated an embargo from the publisher, but that's between the bookseller and the publisher -- not the guy who ended up with the book. Once the book has gone out to the guy he has every right to sell it, and JK Rowling's lawyer was wrong for demanding it be taken down and eBay was wrong in agreeing to take it down. This is simply a case where they seem to be claiming copyright privileges that simply don't exist.
Of course there are other ways to misuse copyright law...
Prisoners Figure Copyright Abuse Is A Way To Get Out Of Jail
from the a-sign-of-the-times dept
Well, we've seen all kinds of companies abuse copyright law for a variety of purposes, and it seemed only a matter of time until outright criminals caught on as well. A group of inmates apparently copyrighted their names and then demanded millions of dollars from the prison they were in for using their names without permission. The claims were sent to the warden of the prison and when he didn't pay up, the prisoners were able to file claims against his property -- and then hired someone to seize the warden's property and freeze his bank accounts. At this point they then demanded to be released from prison before they would return the property. Instead, they were charged with extortion and "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials." While the story is amusing, it does show how copyright law is being perceived these days. As intellectual property lawyers push more and more ridiculous positions concerning copyright law, people are beginning to realize that it can be used as a hammer for all kinds of ridiculous lawsuits that have absolutely nothing to do with creating incentives for the creation of new content.
On the other hand, some folks are getting the message...
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6461549.html?industryid=47197
CBS Aims to Spread Web Content
Broadcast Network Targets 400 Sites by Fall
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 7/19/2007 3:59:00 PM
CBS television content will be available through 400 sites on the Internet by the fall, according to executives from the broadcast network's interactive division.
"CBS is al about open, nonexclusive partnerships," CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith said. "Just CBS.com is not the answer" to reaching viewers, he added, so the network is devoted to going out where the viewers are, not forcing them to CBS.com.
The network already partnered with 24 sites including TV.com, Comcast's The Fan, Slingbox and Brightcove to offer clips and other CBS content.
Those have already resulted in a huge lift in unique viewership to CBS.com -- from 21 million unique users per month in May to the current 134 million -- from people linking in from partners.
Each partner is displaying the content in a way that best suits its demographic, CBS executives said. For instance, Comcast's users are more affluent and highly educated than the norm for Web users, so that site will pick clips that speak to that audience.
So, they underpaid?
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070720/laf074.html
Journal Investment Group's Brad Greenspan Issues Open Letter to Dow Jones Shareholders Detailing Valuation Assumptions
Sometimes you have to use a two-by-four just to get their attention. Long (detailed) article well worth reading.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/realworld/119751/i-fought-the-law.html
Real World Computing
I fought the law...
12th July 2007 [PC Pro]
Davey Winder reveals how he took on the government and won, and why incident disclosure is so important to your business...
Fortunately, this only happens with software..
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/20/1942220&from=rss
Slot Machine with Bad Software Sends Players To Jail
Posted by Zonk on Friday July 20, @04:22PM from the can't-you-see-the-code dept. The Courts Programming Software The Almighty Buck
dcollins writes "Previous discussions here have turned into debates over who is liable for faulty software: the programmers, the publisher, etc. Yahoo has a new option: perhaps the users are criminally liable for using the software. From the AP: 'Prosecutors are considering criminal charges against casino gamblers who won big on a slot machine that had been installed with faulty software ... A decision on whether to bring criminal charges could come in a couple of weeks, said John Colin, chief deputy prosecutor for Harrison County. He said 'criminal intent' may be involved when people play a machine they know is faulty.' [Would that argument invalidate elections when voting machines were "suspect?" Bob] Would your average user be able to distinguish 'faulty software' from 'lucky'?"
...except when it doesn't.
http://www.krqe.com/Global/story.asp?S=6816120
Marketer copes with contest disaster
ROSWELL, [Them damned aliens again... Bob] N.M. (July 19, 2007) - A Georgia marketing company that mistakenly printed 50,000 winning scratch-off ads for a Roswell car dealer was there today trying to make good on the mess.
The ads promised a $1,000 grand prize, and 30,000 game ads were mailed before anyone realized they had all been printed as winners.
Google instructs the FCC on how to run its auction. (Hey, its cheaper than a lobbyist or a bribe...)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070720-google-announces-intent-to-bid-on-700mhz-spectrum-auction-if.html
Google announces intent to bid on 700MHz spectrum auction, if...
By Eric Bangeman | Published: July 20, 2007 - 09:46AM CT
In a letter sent to the Federal Communications Commission today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced his company's intentions to enter the bidding for the 700MHz spectrum early next year—if Google's proposed auction rules are adopted. Earlier this month, a draft of Martin's proposed auction rules were released, rules which embraced some principles of open access, but left proponents of the principle wanting more.
Why would Google want to own the wireless spectrum you ask? (Can you say gPhone?)
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/07/20/Google-invests-in-home-cell-station-vendor_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/07/20/Google-invests-in-home-cell-station-vendor_1.html
Google invests in home cell-station vendor
The search giant participated in a $25 million round of venture funding for Ubiquisys, which makes femtocells -- small cellular base stations for homes and offices
By Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service July 20, 2007
Femtocells, an emerging technology for improving cellular coverage in homes and enterprises, have attracted the interest of none other than Google.
Maybe its time? I've been thinking about using only w3schools.com for my web site class, since I've been stealing... er... I mean, making fair use of all their stuff.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/college-is-expensive/professor-says-textbooks-are-too-expensive-quits-using-them-280753.php
Professor Says Textbooks Are Too Expensive, Quits Using Them
Ron Hammond, Phd, professor at Utah Valley State College, has quit using textbooks in his classes. Why? They're too expensive. [...and they are obsolete by the time they are published. Bob]
Another good list...
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3689281
100 Open Source Downloads
July 17, 2007 By Cynthia Harvey
All you have to do is find what you want.
http://freegovinfo.info/node/174
Government Podcasts
Wed, 2005-07-06 08:47 — dcornwall
USA.gov Federal Podcasts listing - Official listing of federal podcasts by subject.
Ooh! A student project for my Security Class!
Leaks Found In Louisiana University Systems
Thursday, July 19 2007 @ 11:28 AM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
Aaron Titus, a law school student in Louisiana, wanted to prove a point about user privacy. So he started Googling -- and ended up with names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other personal data on some 80,000 students and employees in the state's university system.
Titus revealed his findings to a local television news station, WDSU, which issued a report yesterday. The FBI and the Louisiana Board of Regents are investigating the leak.
According to the WDSU report, Titus found much of the information on an internal Internet site operated by the Board of Regents, which oversees all of the state's higher education. Most of the network was password-protected, but the area containing the most potentially dangerous data -- including thousands of student Social Security numbers -- was not, he said.
Source - Forbes
Related - For Aaron's own report on this incident and additional information, see Privacy Podcast: Louisiana Board of Regents Breach
Curious. Could this be an old breach (e.g. TJX) or has a new "Retailer" had a data spill they aren't talking about yet? At least they won't be able to claim "We have no evidence of illegal use..."
Breach forces M&T to reissue cards
Thousands of M&T Bank Visa cardholders have been issued new cards because of a security breach at a major retailer.
Visa notified Buffalo-based M&T Bank that some of its customers' debit and credit cards may have been involved in the breach, M&T spokesman Chet Bridger said. The breach was not on M&T's side, but rather at the retailer, who Bridger declined to name. ... In its letter to customers, M&T said "some fraudulent activity" had already been reported both in and outside the U.S.
Source - Press & Sun-Bulletin
Very weird. (Sounds like he pawned it...)
http://www.projo.com/news/content/SC_RITACCO_LAPTOP_07-20-07_HE6EDB3.35543a7.html
State officials weigh in on recovered laptop
01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 20, 2007 By Donita Naylor Journal Staff Writer
The case of a state Division of Taxation laptop computer reported stolen in March and reported found three weeks later is generating some carefully worded statements from the state police and the attorney general's office.
Robert Ritacco, chairman of the Westerly Democratic Town Committee and until recently a senior tax auditor, reported that his state-owned laptop was stolen March 20 from his office at the Department of Administration Building on Capitol Hill in Providence.
State police Detective Christopher J. Dicomitis, in an affidavit filed April 13, said that Ritacco told Capitol police on April 9 that he had found the laptop April 7 in a computer bag in the trunk of his vehicle.
The affidavit said that Ritacco's immediate supervisor, Robert Narcavage, went to Ritacco's home April 10 to retrieve it, finding that Ritacco had been "de-fragging" it "to make it run faster and to get everything in order."
A state police forensic examination found that the laptop had been used March 27 and April 2, 3 and 6, the affidavit says, by Internet user "bobr," who had deleted or exported four files.
On the basis of the affidavit, Ritacco was arraigned April 20 on a charge of filing a false report of a crime. He pleaded not guilty, and on June 1 the misdemeanor charges were dismissed.
Mike Healey, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the charges were dismissed "for a couple of reasons." The one listed on the dismissal form was insufficient evidence, he said.
"Had Mr. Ritacco been allowed to plead to the misdemeanor," Healey said, "that would have foreclosed any further charges, possibly felony charges, coming out of the same incident. After consulting with the state police, we dismissed the misdemeanor so the state police could fully investigate the matter."
In the wrong hands. this would be a great technique for stealing SSANs.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007071911353186
Resource: SSNBreach.org
The Liberty Coalition is sponsoring a new site where individuals can check to see if their personal information has been exposed. From their site's description of the search tool:
This site is a list of the names of individuals, some of whose personal information may have been exposed to others. The level of potential exposure for any name on this list will vary.
This website does NOT contain sensitive data, such as Social Security Numbers (SSN), Birth Dates, Addresses, and the like. Consequently, there is no way to search for your SSN or any other type of sensitive data on this site, so don't bother looking.
Where possible, the database includes an indication of the way that your information was exposed, what information was exposed, and tools for your additional action or investigation to help correct any harm resulting from this exposure.
Source - SSNBreach.org
A foretaste of things to come? Goodbye athletic scholarships?
Houston district keeping baseball stats private from parent
Thursday, July 19 2007 @ 06:09 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Older News Stories
PogoWasRight.org Editor's note: if the district declares athletics statistics "Directory Information" and allows students and their parents to opt out of being listed, I suspect that would address any FERPA issues. As noted in the story, most districts definitely do not consider team/player statistics protected educational records.
The Houston Independent School District has denied a parent's request for the statistics of high school baseball players, citing a federal privacy law.
In April, Scott Rothenberg made a formal request for the statistics, such as hits and home runs, of players on the Bellaire High School baseball team.
He received a letter Tuesday from the district's lawyer telling him the information is private under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Source - Associated Press
Even more ridiculous?
EU: Mentioning someone by name on a web site
Thursday, July 19 2007 @ 06:59 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News
Colleague Karen McCullagh has pointed out a decision from the European Court of Justice that appears to suggest that the inclusion of identifiable personal data on a personal web page could run afoul of the European data directive.
Source - Concurring Opinions (blog)
[From the article: The full opinion can be found here.
Attention Class Action Lawyers? My experience: My database students sent me their Access final and Hotmail deleted it as "unidentified"
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/19/2356217&from=rss
Hotmail Delivers Far Fewer Emails with Attachments
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday July 20, @12:51AM from the dead-letter-office dept. Microsoft The Internet
biednyFacet writes "It has long been suspected that there is a silent policy that makes Hotmail automatically delete the majority of attachments to save on bandwidth and internal disk space. Therefore it really doesn't matter if every client has access to 2GB of storage since they don't deliver the attachments to fill that space up anyway. If that truly is the case, then Microsoft may be liable for several hundred million cases of conspiracy and mail fraud."
Well, we gotta pay for the war somehow!
Executive Order Overturns US Fifth Amendment
Posted by kdawson on Thursday July 19, @01:03PM from the deprived-of-life-liberty-or-property-without-due-process-of-law dept. United States Politics
RalphTWaP writes "Tuesday, there wasn't even a fuss. Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact."
There hasn't been much media notice of this; the UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.
Frequently worth listening to.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/20/055206&from=rss
Richard Stallman Talks on Copyright V. The People
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday July 20, @03:32AM from the it-takes-a-village dept. Communications Networking
holden writes "Richard M. Stallman recently gave a talk entitled Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. The talk looks at the origin of copyright, and how it has evolved overtime from something that originally served the benefit of the people to a tool used against them. In keeping with his wishes to use open formats, the talk and QA are available in ogg theora only."
Media strategy. Interesting
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5711.html
Podcast: Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal
Published: July 19, 2007 Interviewer: James Aisner Running Time: 17 min., 15 sec.
... Meanwhile, the Journal reported on July 18 that ad revenue for newspapers fell 4.8 percent in the first quarter year-over-year as a major industry slump continues to worsen. The industry is now going through full-scale consolidation and reorganization in the face of competition from Internet properties.
The trend begs the question: Is Murdoch overpaying for Dow Jones?
... o listen to this interview with professor Bharat N. Anand, click on the triangular play button below.
New Jersey cures Global Warming?
New Flexible Plastic Solar Panels Are Inexpensive And Easy To Make
Science Daily — Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. "The process is simple," said lead researcher and author Somenath Mitra, PhD, professor and acting chair of NJIT's Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations."
Stupid is as stupid does...
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/darwin-at-work/why-you-shouldnt-smash-a-can-of-wd+40-280250.php
Why You Shouldn't Smash a Can of WD-40
You've gotta love natural selection caught on video.
Labels: free speech, Identity theft, law, Privacy, security
Because we can, we must! Surveillance is a slippery slope.
Police Given Access to Congestion-Charge Cameras
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @03:17PM from the creep-hard-to-stop dept.
The BBC is reporting that anti-terror Police officers in London have been given live access to the "congestion charge cameras", allowing them to view and track vehicles in real time. This is a change from the original procedure that required them to apply for access on a case-by-case basis. "Under the new rules, anti-terror officers will be able to view pictures in "real time" from Transport for London's (Tfl) 1,500 cameras, which use Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology to link cars with owners' details. But they will only be able to use the data for national security purposes [Sure... Bob] and not to fight ordinary crime, the Home Office stressed."
Attention 'garage sale' subversives!
eBay Bargains Soon To Be A Thing Of The Past?
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @05:45PM from the capitalists-attacking-capitalism dept.
ScaredOfTheMan writes to mention that, as expected, companies are utilizing the decision in Leegin Creative Leater Products v. PSKS to force the take-down of auctions on eBay because auctions are priced too low or even stating the auction itself is an infringement of their intellectual property rights.
[My favorite comment:
Auctions (if fair & open) yield the RIGHT price... in other words, the price which the buyer is willing to pay and which the seller is willing to accept. Any other kind of pricing is rigged.
Too "European" for the US?
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/18/ap3927736.html
EU File Sharers Protected in Civil Cases
By AOIFE WHITE 07.18.07, 3:07 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium -
Copyright groups may not be able to demand that telecom companies hand over the names and addresses of people suspected of swapping music illegally online, a senior legal adviser to the EU's highest court said.
Advocate General Juliane Kokott, advising the European Court of Justice, said Wednesday that EU law directs governments to resist the disclosure of personal data on Internet traffic in civil cases - unlike criminal cases, where compliance would be required.
... Separately, a Belgian court ruled last month that a local Internet provider, Scarlet, must filter or block file-sharing software to prevent users downloading music owned by Belgian copyright owners. It has six months to comply or faces daily fines.
Bell killer?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/18/ooma-launches-free-consumer-phone-service/
Ooma Launches Free Consumer Phone Service
Michael Arrington July 18 2007
An ambitious and long awaited new consumer VOIP startup - Ooma - launches on Thursday morning. Much like Vonage and the ill-fated SunRocket, Ooma allows consumers to use their normal phones to make and receive telephone calls, but at drastically reduced prices.
Vonage provides unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada for a flat $25/month. Ooma, however, is using an innovative peer-to-peer architecture to significantly reduce their cost overhead. Because of that cost reduction, they're charging for hardware only. Calls in the U.S. are free, and will be forever.
... Ooma has a very deep management team and board of directors, and has raised $27 million over two rounds of financing.
I had the opportunity to interview founder and CEO Andrew Frame and Creative Director Ashton Kutcher (yeah, the actor) a couple of days ago. Kutcher is actively engaged in the business - part of his work will consist of creating a viral video series to promote the product. The podcast is up at TalkCrunch.
Think what you will, they're gonna sell a ton of them!
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070718-298-wal-mart-pc-features-openoffice-org-no-crapware.html
$298 Wal-Mart PC features OpenOffice.org, no crapware
By Eric Bangeman | Published: July 18, 2007 - 05:00PM CT
Looking to get a jump on the lucrative back-to-school shopping season, Wal-Mart has begun selling a sub-$300 PC. The Everex IMPACT GC3502 comes with Windows Vista Home Basic and OpenOffice.org 2.2 installed on a system that includes a 1.5GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of DDR-2 SDRAM, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and integrated graphics, as well as a keyboard, mouse, and speakers. [Monitor extra Bob]
... for basic word processing, e-mailing, listening to music, watching video, and web surfing, the machine should be adequate, and Windows Vista Home Basic doesn't have the graphical overhead of the other versions.
Bill said that? What was he drinking at the time?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece
Gates: how piracy worked for me in China
The Microsoft chairman says that bootlegged software is creating a demand for his legitimate products in the longer term
Rhys Blakely From Times Online July 18, 2007
Bill Gates has unveiled Microsoft's unlikely secret weapon in China, a territory he is adamant will turn out to be the software giant's largest market: piracy.
"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," the Microsoft co-founder and chairman told Fortune magazine.
... Mr Gates's fondness for China and its potential looks as if it were being reciprocated.
His latest remarks came as he visited the country on a tour on which he met the kind of adulation more usually reserved for Hollywood's glitterati.
On his trip he was made an honorary trustee of Peking University and awarded an honorary doctorate from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
... However, there are signs that Microsoft is gaining traction in China — a feat that Mr Gates suggested was aided by the vast volume of the company's software that has been bootlegged by Chinese pirates, making Windows the nation's de facto standard.
Cutting prices for Windows — to as low as £1.50 for students — has also helped.
Points to free software...
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/58358.html
Bringing Doctors and Lawyers Into the 21st Century
By Jack M. Germain TechNewsWorld 07/18/07 4:00 AM PT
Doctors and lawyers generate huge amounts of electronic records and are under increasing regulatory and legal scrutiny. With recent changes to the Federal Rules to Civil Procedure, courts are requiring solo law practitioners and large practices alike to become litigation-ready and establish the integrity of their electronic records over their retention periods and throughout their chain of custody.
One out of three. We're getting better too slowly?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1833237&from=rss
Identifying (and Fixing) Failing IT Projects
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @04:57PM from the if-it-aint-baroque-don't-fix-it dept. Software IT
Esther Schindler writes "Often, the difference between the success and failure of any IT project is spotting critical early warning signs that the project is in trouble. CIO.com offers a few ways to identify the symptoms, as well as suggestions about what you can do to fix a project gone wrong. ' The original study (which is still sometimes quoted as if it were current) was shocking. In 1994, the researchers found that 31 percent of the IT projects were flat failures. That is, they were abandoned before completion and produced nothing useful. Only about 16 percent of all projects were completely successful: delivering applications on time, within budget and with all the originally specified features. "As of 2006, the absolute failure rate is down to 19 percent," Johnson says. "The success rate is up to 35 percent." The remaining 46 percent are what the Standish Group calls "challenged": projects that didn't meet the criteria for total success but delivered a useful product.'"
Perhaps we could tap the sewer lines for our cars? (When they say 'green,' they don't mean 'around the gills,' do they?)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1456224&from=rss
Boeing Helping to Develop Algae-Powered Jet
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 18, @12:48PM from the powerful-pond-scum dept. Science Technology
jon_cooper writes "Air New Zealand, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation and Boeing are working together to develop and test a bio-fuel derived from algae. Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation began operating in May last year after it met a request from the local council to deal with excess algae on sewage ponds. Boeing's Dave Daggett was reported this year as saying algae ponds totaling 34,000 square kilometers could produce enough fuel to reduce the net CO2 footprint for all of aviation to zero."
More thinking about RFID
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1867898/posts
AMA Issues Ethics Code for RFID Chip Implants
RFID Journal ^ | July 17, 2007 | Beth Bacheldor Posted on 07/18/2007 10:49:01 AM PDT by TheTruthAintPretty
The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially established a code of ethics designed to protect patients receiving RFID implants. The recommendations focus on safeguarding a patient's privacy and health, and are the result of an evaluation by the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) regarding the medical and ethical implications of RFID chips in humans, as well as a follow-up report recently released. The latter discusses the possible advantages and specific privacy and ethical issues of using RFID-enabled implantations for clinical purposes.
Entitled "Radio Frequency ID Devices in Humans," the report is presented by Robert M. Sade, M.D., who chairs the CEJA. It acknowledges that RFID's use in health care "represents another promising development in information technology, but also raises important ethical, legal and social issues." The report adds, "Specifically, the use of RFID labeling in humans for medical purposes may improve patient safety, but also may pose some physical risks, compromise patient privacy, or present other social hazards."
[Direct link to the WORD document: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/467/ceja5a07.doc ]
A lovely little (11 page) summary, with suggestions for Best Practices and pointers to resources. (Makes me wonder why all government data hasn't been compromised.)
http://csrc.nist.gov/pcig/document/Common-Risks-Impeding-Adequate-Protection-Govt-Info.pdf
Common Risks Impeding the Adequate Protection of Government Information
1. Security and privacy training is inadequate and poorly aligned with the different roles and responsibilities of various personnel.
2. Contracts and data sharing agreements between agencies and entities operating on behalf of the agency do not describe the procedures for appropriately processing and adequately safeguarding information.
3. Information inventories inaccurately describe the types and uses of government information, and the locations where it is stored, processed or transmitted, including personally identifiable information.
4. Information is not appropriately scheduled, archived, or destroyed.
5. Suspicious activities and incidents are not identified and reported in a timely manner.
6. Audit trails documenting how information is processed are not appropriately created or reviewed.
7. Inadequate physical security controls where information is collected, created, processed or maintained.
8. Information security controls are not adequate.
9. Inadequate protection of information accessed or processed remotely.
10. Agencies acquire information technology and information security products without incorporating appropriate security and privacy standards and guidelines.
Labels: law, Privacy, security
Trust us! (Many similarities to the TJX data spill?)
Breach, undetected since '05, exposes data on Kingston customers
Tuesday, July 17 2007 @ 04:15 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
A September 2005 security breach that remained undetected until 'recently' may have compromised the names, addresses and credit card details of about 27,000 online customers of computer memory vendor Kingston Technology Company Inc.
The company began sending out letters to affected customers informing them of the incident last week. But it did not offer any details on how or when exactly the breach was discovered and how long the company may have waited to notify customers about the potential compromise of personal data.
Source - ComputerWorld
How many other organizations aren't bothering to check?
La. Security Breach Exposes Thousands To ID Theft
It seems like a list without end -- thousands of student names, addresses, ZIP codes, birthdays -- and Social Security numbers.
In all, more than 80,000 names and Social Security numbers were accessible for perhaps as long as two years on an internal Internet website run by the Louisiana Board of Regents, the body that has oversight over HOW MANY students at WHICH universities.
Source - WDSU
Related - Statement from the Board Of Regents
Someone will learn about the First Amendment...
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=18813
Conn. teen punished for Internet insult sues school officials
By The Associated Press 07.18.07
HARTFORD, Conn. — A Burlington teenager has sued two top school officials, saying they violated her constitutional rights by removing her as class secretary because she used offensive slang to refer to administrators on an Internet blog.
Avery Doninger, a 16-year-old student at Lewis Mills High School, wants to be immediately reinstated as class secretary. She also wants a new election for class officers for the upcoming school year, when she will be a senior, and a chance to give the campaign speech she was forbidden from giving to her classmates.
Doninger's mother, Lauren, filed motions for temporary and permanent injunctions on her daughter's behalf against Principal Karissa Niehoff and Region 10 Superintendent of Schools Paula Schwartz, according to court documents filed July 16 in New Britain Superior Court.
Niehoff removed Doninger as the class of 2008 secretary and banned her from running for re-election after discovering the teen called unnamed school administrators "douchbags" (sic) on an online journal.
Avery Doninger posted the message to www.livejournal.com, which is not associated with the school, from a home computer.
... "This is something that I felt was really necessary to stand up for, because you really have to stand up (for) the little things about democracy, the little things that make democracy really work in the big world," she said.
Several weeks after Avery Doninger posted the message in April, Niehoff demanded she apologize to the superintendent of schools, tell her mother about the blog entry, resign from the student council and withdraw her candidacy for class secretary, the lawsuit alleges.
She was the only candidate running for class secretary.
While Doninger apologized and reported the incident to her mother, she refused to resign. Niehoff then "administratively removed" her from the post, the lawsuit states.
Besides being banned from running for re-election, Doninger was barred from giving a speech to her school class, the lawsuit claims. Doninger and fellow students were also prohibited from wearing printed shirts supporting her free-speech rights.
I can surrender my inalienable rights?
CA: Court OKs pat-down searches of 49er fans
Wednesday, July 18 2007 @ 05:40 AM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts
A legal challenge to pat-down searches at San Francisco 49ers home games got a brush-off today from a state appeals court, which said the two fans who filed the suit had consented to the searches when they bought their season tickets.
In a 2-1 ruling, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco sidestepped the question of whether the pat-downs ordered by the National Football League in 2005 as an anti-terrorism measure are an invasion of privacy. Instead, the court said spectators waive their right to privacy when they show up for the games after learning about the searches.
Source - San Francisco Chronicle
Related - Law.com: Did a Federal Appeals Court Avoid Tackling the Real Issues Behind Football Fan's Lawsuit? (commentary)
I bet there are some unique cases here...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070718.LAW18/TPStory/TPInternational/?page=rss&id=GAM.20070718.LAW18
African legal judgments go online
'Ordinary people in the region will benefit if the law is open and judges can be held accountable,' Constitutional Court justice says
STEPHANIE NOLEN July 18, 2007
... The bulk of the material now available on http://www.saflii.org is South African, but Mr. Mafukidze and the librarians and information technology experts with whom he works are quickly adding judgments and law reports from other countries.
Miles today, location, speed, times tomorrow? (Save more by using my patented "Little old lady from Pasadena" hack to 'adjust' the numbers. Also helps with speeding tickets. "As you can see your honor, I was only driving 13 MPH when I passed that Ferrari...))
http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/13/autos/gmac_onstar_insurance/index.htm?section=money_mostpopular
Big Brother can save you money
Car insurers explore ways to track drivers so they know whom they can charge less.
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com staff writer July 17 2007: 2:20 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A new discount plan from GMAC Insurance gives a discount on premiums to drivers of General Motors vehicles with the OnStar service if they let the insurer track the number of miles they drive.
An article yesterday suggested that security software should stop this. Perhaps they lied? (At least the FBI doesn't need to break into the house any longer.)
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9746451-7.html?part=rss⊂j=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
FBI remotely installs spyware to trace bomb threat
Posted by Declan McCullagh July 18, 2007 1:00 AM PDT
The FBI used a novel type of remotely installed spyware last month to investigate who was e-mailing bomb threats to a high school near Olympia, Wash.
Federal agents obtained a court order on June 12 to send spyware called CIPAV to a MySpace account suspected of being used by the bomb-threat hoaxster. Once implanted, the software was designed to report back to the FBI with the Internet Protocol address of the suspect's computer, other information found on the PC and, notably, an ongoing log of the user's outbound connections.
... While there's been plenty of speculation about how the FBI might deliver spyware electronically, this case appears to be the first to reveal how the technique is used in practice. The FBI did confirm in 2001 that it was working on a virus called Magic Lantern but hasn't said much about it since. The two other cases in which federal investigators were known to have used spyware--the Scarfo and Forrester cases--involved agents actually sneaking into offices to implant key loggers.
An 18-page affidavit filed in federal court by FBI Agent Norm Sanders last month and obtained by CNET News.com claims details about the governmental spyware are confidential. The FBI calls its spyware a Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier, or CIPAV.
... News.com has posted Sanders' affidavit and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to U.S. Magistrate Judge James Donohue.
A better analysis than I offered...
RIAA Says It Shouldn't Have To Pay Legal Fees Because Woman Didn't Settle; Judge Says Think Again
from the a-new-low dept
Despite the RIAA's astounding legal gymnastics and its questionable -- if not illegal -- investigative techniques, it typically finds a way to wiggle out of paying the legal bills of anybody it has sued in its misguided legal campaign against record labels' customers. Though there's been a few exceptions, the group's strategy of dropping cases when people notice their flimsy evidence seems to generally shield them from having to pay costs. That's a real problem, since it makes it very easy, and relatively cheap, for the RIAA to abuse the legal system by filing thousands of suits, then suffer no repercussions when it drops them after they're exposed as bogus. [Good strategy though... Bob] Hopefully, though, that's starting to change, as more judges become aware of the RIAA's tactics, or at least pay attention to the facts of its cases. A judge in Oklahoma has now ordered the RIAA to pay $70,000 in legal fees to an Oklahoma woman, after tossing out the group's suit against her earlier this year. In this case, the RIAA didn't make a very good impression on the judge by claiming that they shouldn't have to pay the defendant's legal bills because she could have avoided being sued, had she "appropriately assisted their copyright infringement investigation and litigation" -- which means had she given in to their bullying and accepting one of their generous settlement offers. That's absolutely ridiculous, as the judge noted, since it steamrolls a defendant's right to defend themselves against bogus suits. It's up there with the RIAA's promise in another case not to incorrectly sue a woman a second time, as long as they didn't have to pay her legal bills for the first time they wrongly sued her. The RIAA has gotten away for far too long with bending the legal system to fit its desires; hopefully those days are coming to an end.
How much market penetration do the video services have?
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1529
3 Out of 4 U.S. Internet Users Streamed Video Online in May
Average American Video Streamer Watched More than 2.5 Hours of Video Online
Utah makes Ohio look good! http://www.pogowasright...
Ooh! A student project for my Security Class! ...
Because we can, we must! Surveillance is a slippe...
Trust us! (Many similarities to the TJX data spil...
This one will take some explaining... How does a ...
1) It can happen to anyone. 2) There is a way to ...
e-Discovery http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/2007/0...


text:
When the Extras Are Extraneous
As ever more amenity-laden buildings hit the market, some buyers say 'no mas'
By Adam Bonislawski • 04/24/15 10:09pm
On-site gyms are often cited by amenity-weary buyers as unnecessary.
There are times—say, when you're having an important package delivered or need help hustling luggage out the back of an idling taxi—when living in a doorman building is great.
Other times, it can be, well … not so much.
For instance, Will Meyerhofer, a therapist with a number of clients in the fashion industry, recalls once having to admonish the doorman of his Battery Park rental building for trying to pick up one of his supermodel patients.
"The doorman hit on [this] client to the point where I had to speak to him about it," he said.
It's perhaps understandable, then, that when Mr. Meyerhofer and his husband began looking for a place to buy several years ago, a doorman wasn't high on their list of desired amenities. It wasn't just the doorman they chose to do without, though. In fact, the couple decided they'd actually prefer a building with no amenities at all.
"I always feel that amenities are stuck onto a building to compensate for the fact that the apartments aren't very nice," Mr. Meyerhofer told the Observer. "I went to some buildings in FiDi, and they were bragging about their weight room and common room and terrace. Meanwhile, the apartments were the size of a postage stamp."
"Simplify, simplify," advised the great 19th century real estate scribe Henry David Thoreau. (What, after all, is Walden, but a man's reflection on owning a country house?) In Thoreau's case, this maxim led him to a one-room cabin outside Concord, Mass. In Mr. Meyerhofer's case, it led him to a bare bones, 1,400-square-foot Tribeca loft.
'One of my friends is in a building with a hot tub, and you end up with trustafarians dropping their margaritas in there,' said buyer Will Meyerhofer. 'And then somebody has to drain the thing and get the glass out and fix it, and you're on the hook for that.'
"It was basically a great big box that needed to be gutted," he said. But the lack of frills meant that even after renovations, the purchase price came in at under $1,000 per square foot, Mr. Meyerhofer notes. And the unit's common charges, including taxes, total around $1,500 a month—a fraction of what he would pay in a ritzier building.
New York's residential developers are engaged in a great amenities arms race, a city-wide game of one-upmanship involving perks like pet spas, wine rooms, golf simulators and boxing gyms. Some buyers, though, are opting out.
"I see a lot of buyers asking for [buildings with] less amenities," said Core broker Steve Snider. "I have a client right now, for instance. He already belongs to a gym. He likes his gym, has friends there. So to move into a building [with a gym] and pay for it, he would never benefit from that."
"It's a competitive and frothy market, and when you are buying property you aren't just looking at the purchase price, you're looking at your monthly nut," said Douglas Elliman broker Rob Gross. "So if a lot of your common charges or maintenance is going towards payroll for doormen or upkeep of amenities, it can add up."
Indeed, says Sonya Auvray, a client of Mr. Snider's currently looking to buy in Chelsea, while building extras like a full-time doorman are nice, "I just don't want to pay for that luxury."
With two young children, ages 4 and 6, Ms. Auvray is exactly the sort of buyer who might be expected to appreciate the perks of a full-service building. But, she said, "I'm not fussy. I'd rather have the [extra living] space over the amenities."
Will Meyerhofer and William Kwok at their home.
In fact, she notes, she and her husband would ideally like to buy a commercial space they can convert to residential. "Those are very hard to find, but they are out there, and you can get something for close to $1,000 a square foot if you can find it," she said.
Another potential amenities downside—to Mr. Meyerhofer's mind, anyway—is having to shell out to repair common area damages you had nothing to do with.
"One of my friends is in a building with a hot tub, and you end up with Trustafarians dropping their margaritas in there," he said. "And then somebody has to drain the thing and get the glass out and fix it, and you're on the hook for that."
And while potential buyers might like the idea of amenities like a dog-washing station or game room, few actually use them regularly once they move in, Mr. Snider says.
"A wine cellar?" he scoffed. "Really? I'm going to put my $400 bottle of wine in a common wine cellar with my name on it like it's in the office refrigerator?"
"I show people things like a 28-seat movie theater, and they're like 'What the heck is this? I don't have 27 people over, ever,' " he added.
The one exception is a roof deck, Mr. Snider said. "I think everyone likes to have a roof deck."
But even here, Mr. Meyerhofer demurred. "The fact is, a roof deck in New York you can use for about three months [out of the year], and they tend to be kind of windy and cold, and they get dirty," he said.
The renovated Meyerhof/Kwok residence in Tribeca.
The rise of online shopping and dining apps has helped devalue certain traditional amenities, as well, said Mirador Real Estate managing partner Karla Saladino, whose firm has in recent months conducted a number of focus groups aimed at determining what building features buyers most value. For instance, she says, "The word 'concierge' is kind of a dead word. People are like, 'I can use StubHub and OpenTable just fine without you.' "
Rising in popularity, on the other hand, are perks like in-home beauty and pet services delivered by outside parties, Ms. Saladino said.
Buyers who do go the high-amenity route can find themselves stuck with no way to shrink their monthly nut short of selling, cautioned Robb Pair, president of real estate firm Harlem Lofts.
"You can't cut [the common charges] even if you want to," he said.
"I used to live in a condo in Midtown that had a doorman, a concierge, all that. And I have to tell you, when I was on vacation, I would be up all night thinking about how I was wasting money because I was paying for all that common stuff I wasn't using."
Mr. Pair recently helped developer Valerie Feigen find a building in central Harlem that she plans to convert to a four-unit, low-amenity condo project.
The building, at 56 East 130th Street, will offer a virtual doorman, package area, rooms for bikes and strollers, and a shared rooftop that Ms. Feigen said she thinks "have become sort of basic necessities." Beyond that, though, the plan is to eschew amenities in order to keep sales prices and common charges low.
"Everything is a choice," she said. "And to me the choice more and more people are going to make is for individual space [over communal amenities]."
Elliman's Mr. Gross is likewise working with a developer, whom he declined to name, on a 35-unit East Village condo project that he says will take an amenity-light approach.
"I don't see us getting a doorman, though we're not sure if we're going to put in a virtual doorman," he said. "There is a roof deck, because the building has a roof. There will be bike storage. But this is going to be an incredible price play, so we want to keep our monthlies low."
Of course, it's possible that in trying to shed amenities, you'll find yourself more enmeshed in them than ever: Mr. Meyerhofer, the man who never wanted a doorman, has himself become a doorman of sorts.
"The crazy thing is, I work from home, so I am the doorman for my building," he said. "UPS has kind of figured out that I'm the guy to buzz. So I get packages for all the neighbors." ν
SEE ALSO: On the Market: De Blasio Beseeches Reporters—Pay No Attention to Paltry MTA Funding

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Heroku deploy chat bot so, my code works both locally and docker image but, when I deploy to heroku it seems to work on first 1 minute and then app crashes, there is heroku logs, after crashing so what can be problems? any thought? thank you
there is my code
const { default: axios } = require('axios')
const telegramBot = require('node-telegram-bot-api')
const express = require('express')
const dotenv = require('dotenv').config()

const links = `
GitLab
Linkdin
Personal
  `
const bot = new telegramBot(process.env.TOKEN, { polling: true })
const aboutText = 'Hello, I am learning NODE JS!'
const app = express()
bot.on('message', (message) => {
  const id = message.chat.id

  if (message.text === '/start' || message.text === '/help') {
    bot.sendMessage(message.chat.id, 'avalable commands', {
      reply_markup: {
        keyboard: [['/about', '/links']],
        resize_keyboard: true,
        one_time_keyboard: true,
        force_reply: true,
      },
    })
  } else if (message.text === '/about') {
    bot.sendMessage(id, aboutText)
  } else if (message.text === '/links') {
    bot.sendMessage(id, links, { parse_mode: 'HTML' })
  } else {
    bot.sendMessage(
      message.chat.id,
      'no such command! there are avalable commands',
      {
        reply_markup: {
          keyboard: [['/about', '/links']],
          resize_keyboard: true,
          one_time_keyboard: true,
          force_reply: true,
        },
      }
    )
  }
})

dockerfile:
FROM node:16-alpine

WORKDIR /app

COPY package*.json ./

RUN npm install --production

COPY ./app.js .

ENV port=8080
ENV TOKEN=21*****:AAEF******************fKiQ
EXPOSE 8080

CMD [ "node", "app.js" ]

A: Your app fails to bind to the port assigned by Heroku: you cannot set the port yourself (ie 8080) but instead bind to the port defined by the $PORT env variable.
See Why is my Node.js app crashing with an R10 error? to understand the details.
In your specific case if you run the Bot in polling mode (i.e. pulling the changes) you can instead use a worker node instead of a web: doing this you don't need to bind to the port as your application does not require to process incoming HTTP requests.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


You are visiting the placeholder page for Michelle Dennison. This page is here because someone used our placeholder utility to look for Michelle Dennison. We created this page automatically in hopes Michelle Dennison would find it. If you are not Michelle Dennison, but are an alumni of Palestine High School Palestine, IL, register on this site for free now.


Extractions: The Dominican Republic offers some of the most beautiful and diverse topography in the Caribbean. To give you and idea of its size, The Dominican Republic is larger than the Bahamas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands all combined. The Dominican Republic offers an estimated 1,000 miles of gorgeous beaches to the beach lover. In addition, should you like the idea of year round tropical weather, but are not a beach fan, The Dominican Republic also offers a collection of four mountain ranges. Pico Duarte is found here and is the tallest mountain peak in the Caribbean at 10,700 feet above sea level. Snow or frosts have been reported at the highest elevations of Pico Duarte, so beach attire is out if you are heading up that way. Santo Domingo is the capital city, situated on the southern portion of the island. Since the city is located directly on the coast, it is a major center of seaport activity. The population of the Dominican Republic has been estimated to be about 8 million, with slightly less than four million living in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Santiago is the second largest city, and is situated closer to the mountainous areas to the north. While Santo Domingo is the nation's capital, Santigo truly is the capital of the tobacco and cigar industry. Cigar manufacturers, such as Leon Jimenez and many others, all have their operations in or near Santiago.
South America. Southeast Asia. Central America and the Caribbean dominican republic geography. Note Click on the link to view the graph for each statistic.
Extractions: BACK TO THE FRONT PAGE BASIC INFO. ECONOMY GEOGRAPHY ... PEOPLE Color DOMINICAN REPUBLIC The Dominican Republic is located in the Caribbean. It is located on the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Haiti . The terrain of the Dominican Republic is rugged highlands and mountains with fertile valleys interspersed.
Extractions: Dictionaries: General Computing Medical Legal Encyclopedia Word: Word Starts with Ends with Definition Location: Caribbean The Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. These islands curve southward from the bottom tip of Florida to the Northwest of Venezuela in South America. There are at least 7000 islands, islets, reefs and cayes in the region. They are organized into twenty-five territories including sovereign states, overseas departments and dependencies. The name "West Indies" originates from Christopher Columbus' idea that he had landed in India when he had in fact reached the Americas. The Caribbean consists of the Antilles and the Bahamas and is part of North America. Click the link for more information. , eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola Hispaniola is the second-largest island of the Antilles, lying east of Cuba. Christopher Columbus arrived there in 1492, and in 1493 founded the first Spanish colony in the New World on it. On March 10, 1496 Columbus left the island for Spain, ending his sixth visit to the Western Hemisphere.
Geography of Dominican Republic Dominican Republic. Geographic Geography of Dominican Republic www.volcanolive.com Copyright John Seach.


text:
using std::pair;

namespace blaze_util {

string Which(const string &executable) {
  char *path_cstr = getenv("PATH");
  if (path_cstr == NULL || path_cstr[0] == '\0') {
    die(blaze_exit_code::LOCAL_ENVIRONMENTAL_ERROR,
        "Could not get PATH to find %s", executable.c_str());
  }

  string path(path_cstr);
  std::vector<std::string> pieces = blaze_util::Split(path, ':');
  for (auto piece : pieces) {
    if (piece.empty()) {
      piece = ".";
    }

    struct stat file_stat;
    string candidate = blaze_util::JoinPath(piece, executable);
    if (access(candidate.c_str(), X_OK) == 0 &&
        stat(candidate.c_str(), &file_stat) == 0 &&
        S_ISREG(file_stat.st_mode)) {
      return candidate;
    }
  }
  return "";
}

}  // namespace blaze_util

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


National Standard of the People's Republic of China Pressure Vessels ... values are raised for 30CrMoA, 35CrMoA, and 40CrNiMoA bolts. S31008, the high alloy bolt designate for ... should get approval for the material technical evaluation and assessment before tryout.
30CrMoA materials equivalent material also can be called as alloy structural steel. Alloy steel means this kind of grade contains some special alloy composition. Alloy steel plate application is very wide, as : Machine, pressure vessel, construction and so on .


text:
UNITED KINGDOM, London : Jamaica's Usain Bolt has his photo taken with spectators as he celebrates Jamaica winning and setting a new world record in the men's 4X100 relay final at the athletics event of the London 2012 Olympic Games on August 11, 2012 in London. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNIS
Adrian Dennis was hailed in particular for his surprising picture of Usain Bolt photographing himself alongside fans after the Jamaican team's victory in the 4X100-metre relay at the London Olympics.
"I am honoured and proud to see my name join great British sports photographers. Sports photography is a constant challenge. Sports photographers, just like athletes, run around the field to deliver the best image", said Adrian Dennis.
Adrian Dennis had already won the photographer of the year title for his coverage of the Paralympics and was hailed for his Olympics portfolio by the UK Picture Editors' Guild.
Adrian Dennis studied journalism at the University of Florida and worked for several publications in the USA from 1989 to 1996. On returning to the United Kingdom, Adrian worked for The Independent and The Independent on Sunday until 2000, when he joined the AFP London bureau.
As a strategic priority for the agency, sports account for over half its annual image output. The agency's 45 photo-journalists out of the 150 accredited AFP journalists released nearly 75,000 images from the London Olympics alongside video journalists, writers and graphic editors. The 2012 sporting summer featuring the football European Cup and the London Olympics was an opportunity for AFP to beat its own records for speed, volume and technique.
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About AFP
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a leading global news agency providing fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the events shaping our world and of the issues affecting our daily lives. Drawing from an unparalleled news gathering network across 151 countries, AFP is also a world leader in digital verification. With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world in six languages, with a unique quality of multimedia storytelling spanning video, text, photos and graphics.
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text:
auto/ Day in Tech History
June 4, 1896: Ford Test Drives First Car
Jeffrey Powers @geekazine board of directors, caption, day in tech history, door, dram, first car, ford motor company, Ford Quadricycle, Game Boy, garage door, geek history, Google, gotomeeting, henry ford, history, June, mobile solution, nec, nintendo, packard bell, palm shares, pam, patent, pda market, Podcast, Quadricycle, rivals, stitcher, stock, stockholders, technology history 0 Comment June 3, 2019
June 4, 1896: Henry Ford tests the Quadricycle
1896 – Henry Ford gets ready to test drive the first Quadricycle (a.k.a. Car). Only one problem – They didn't make the garage door big enough. Out comes the Ax – A couple chops and a wider door was created. The car ran 2 speed, but could not go in reverse.
It's all in the book – the ford century
Patent for DRAM
Nintendo introduced the Game Boy
Packard Bell and NEC merge
Commodore/ Day in Tech History
June 3, 2009: Core i7 "Nehalem"
Jeffrey Powers @geekazine Amiga, commodore, commodore 16, commodore 64, day in tech history, galoob, game genie, geek history, Google, history, Intel Core, June, june 3, Microsoft, mobile solution, Nehalem, nintendo, Plus, Podcast, ram, Random-access memory, stitcher, technology history, Wi-Fi 0 Comment June 3, 2019
2009 – Intel introduces the Nehalem Core i7 processor, code-named "Lynnfield". The i7-950 and 975 models are 4-core processors with a speed of 3.06 GHz. The processor ran 64-bit instruction set and could take up to 24 GB of RAM at DDR3 800/1066. Price: $294.00
Nintendo sues Lewis Galoob over the Game Genie
AT&T offers Wi-Fi at Starbucks
Microsoft releases "Nehalem" Core i7
Computer/ Day in Tech History
June 2, 1988: IBM PS/2 Model 70
Jeffrey Powers @geekazine AOL, bomb attack, business, carpet, ceo chris, chris hassett, CIH, computer architecture, Computer virus, day in tech history, geek history, Google, Hardware, history, IBM, IBM Model 70, IBM PC Series, IBM Personal System/2, June, mobile solution, model 70, os 2, Podcast, Pointcast, ps 2, Safari, screensaver, stitcher, technology history, virus surfaces, windows 95 0 Comment June 3, 2019
IBM Model 70
1988 – While not the first version of the PS/2, the Model 70 was introduced with the 80386 processor. 16, 20, and 25 MHz clock speeds. The Model 70 also used a 25 MHz Intel 486 processor in a complex called the Power Platform.
If you wanted to upgrade to the 80486, you would have to replace the PS/2's BIOS chip along with the processor board.
The model 70-A21 sold for $11,295 and included 2 MB of RAM, 120 MB ESDI hard drive, MS-DOS and OS/2. If you wanted a monitor for it, you would have to put down an additional $595 for the 8512 VGA.
Model 70 was a desktop case and Model 80 was a tower. IBM also introduced the PS/2 Model 25 LS and PS/2 Model 50 Z.
The CIH Computer Virus surfaces
Safari Carpet Bomb attack


History: The LAHPA project was started in 1997 by a group of ambitious high school students. In the summer of 1998, the team nearly completed the construction of the plane at the San Bernardino Airport. While attempting a pull test of the plane, one of the wing sections broke, preventing the flight of the plane. In 1998-99, the plane was redesigned and reconstructed.
All of the team members contribute to the project in ways such as computer drawings, research and design, public relations, and construction.
Description: A Human Powered Airplane is a lightweight aircraft constructed of foam, aluminum, fiberglass and carbon fiber, and Mylar. The estimated weight of the Grasshopper is 100 lbs.
Research: The book The Gossamer Odyssey by Morton Grosser has been an essential tool in researching HPAs. Several experts on HPAs have dedicated their time to assist us, including Paul Illian and Dr. Paul MacCready.
1. Finish construction of the Airplane by April '00.
2. Fly the airplane 100 yards at an elevation of six feet.


text:
Big Bad Bottle of Wine Does In Red Riding Hood Schoolbook
By JOHN L. MITCHELL
May 19, 1990 12 AM PT
The message in Little Red Riding Hood is supposed to be: Don't talk to strangers.
But Culver City school officials have eliminated an illustrated version of the Grimm fairy tale from their fall reading program because they believe that it sends youngsters a very different message: Alcohol will make you feel good.
An adaptation by author Trina Schart Hyman, distributed by Houghton-Mifflin Co., shows a bottle of wine tucked among the goodies Little Red Riding Hood was taking to her ailing grandma. After reviewing the award-winning book from the state-recommended reading list for first-graders, Culver City Unified School District officials concluded that its message conflicted with the anti-drug and -alcohol theme they promote in the classroom.
"We are working very, very hard in the district to give the children a message about the dangers of substance abuse and we didn't feel this book was giving the right message," said Joy Jacobs, a spokeswoman for the Culver City Unified School District.
Most adaptations of the fairy tale call for Little Red Riding Hood to carry cookies or biscuits on her treacherous trek through the woods to Grandma's house. In Hyman's version, the girl's mother gives her a loaf of bread, some butter and a bottle of wine and then tells her daughter:
"I want you to take this loaf of fresh bread, some of this sweet butter, and a bottle of wine to your grandmother. She is sick in bed, and they will do her a world of good."
In another passage, after the wolf is killed by the woodsman, the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood are seated, eating the contents of the basket.
"The grandmother drank some of he wine and Little Red Riding Hood had a cup of blackberry tea," the book says. "After a while the grandmother felt quite strong and healthy."
In one of the illustrations, the grandmother's face is flush as she sits at a table holding a glass of wine. The bottle is half empty. Little Red Riding Hood is seated next to her sipping her cup of blackberry tea.
"Showing the grandmother who has consumed half a bottle of wine with a red nose is not a lesson we want to teach," Jacobs said.
The Hyman version of the classic is part of a 10-book soft-cover series supplement to a first-grade text. Culver City will continue to use the text and the other supplemental readers.
"We feel it is a very well-told and very beautifully illustrated book," said Sandy Caswell, a spokesman for Houghton-Mifflin Co., in a telephone interview at the publisher's Boston headquarters.
The book, which made the state's recommended supplemental reading list for 5- and 6-year-olds, has done "very well in California," Caswell said, adding that only a school district in Modesto has rejected it. Caswell said he did not know which school districts in the state that use the book.
The book won a Caldecott Medal for illustration in children's books in 1984 and the Golden Kite and Parents' Choice awards for illustration in 1983.
In Culver City, several teachers protested the district's decision by pinning paper cutouts of Red Riding Hood's face to their shoulders.
"It's ridiculous. It's book-banning," said Gina Grawe, a fifth-grade teacher. "Usually books are banned for having obscene things. If this book is banned, what about Tom Sawyer and a few other books? Where does it stop? These books have already been placed on the state-adopted list. They have already been screened by experts."
But School Board President Linda Price disagreed. "The book was not included in the series that was recommended because its message was inconsistent with our program against substance abuse. It says drinking wine (makes) one feel better," she said. "To feel better there are a lot of other things one can do, such as take a walk or go jogging."
Culver City's decision comes at a time when a growing number of school districts are questioning textbooks because of what some local officials and parents deem to be offensive language and images.
"We don't like to see this kind of thing happen, but it is totally within their jurisdiction to (reject the book)," said Susie Lange, official spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.
Lange, who had not read the Little Red Riding Hood text, said educators are stressing that children should read classic fairy tales in their original forms.
"We have asked publishers to submit classics in their original form," she said. "The feeling is that children don't need to have books watered down. That is part of learning literature. The fact that Little Red Riding Hood is taking wine to her grandmother is not going to make someone who reads it an alcoholic."


text:
Q: click() and setTimeout issue I have a message panel at the bottom of my page which I display by applying a negative margin. When it opens, I would like it to either (whichever first):

*

*Close when user clicks on #panel-close (this is on the panel, so
only visible when it is open)
OR

*Close after 6 seconds
The code I have works until I start opening and closing it repeatedly - then the timing goes wrong.  I believe I need to cancel the setTimeout if i have closed the panel with a click, but i can't get this to work.
$("#button").click(function() {
    messagePanel.animate({
        marginTop: '-50px' //open
    }, 600 );

    setTimeout(function(){
        messagePanel.animate({
            marginTop: '0px' //close
        }, 600 );
    },6000)

});

$('#panel-close').click(function() {
    messagePanel.animate({
        marginTop: '0px' //close
    }, 600 );
});

Any help appreciated!

A: If you need to cancel the setTimeout event, you need to get the timeoutID return by setTimeout function, eg.
var timeoutId;
timeoutId = setTimeout(function () {...});
$('#panel').click(function() {
   clearTimeout(timeoutId);
}

see https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.clearTimeout for more detail


Base cabinet with 1 full height hinged door and 2 adjustable shelves. Please note: doors less than 200mm wide will be solid with no frame. Integrated appliance fascia with full height door and plinth (supplied loose). 1 Handle supplied for centre, left or right hand opening.
Available 840mm to 1390mm wide.
Base cabinet with 2 full height hinged doors and 2 adjustable shelves. Integrated appliance fascia with full height door and plinth (supplied loose). 1 Handle supplied for centre, left or right hand opening.
Available 1140mm to 1890mm wide.
Base cabinet with 1 full height hinged door and 2 adjustable shelves. Please note: doors less than 200mm wide will be solid with no frame. Base cabinet with 1 full height hinged door and 2 adjustable shelves. Please note: doors less than 200mm wide will be solid with no frame. Integrated appliance fascia with full height door and plinth (supplied loose). 1 Handle supplied for centre, left or right hand opening.
Available 1090mm to 2040mm wide.
Base cabinet with 2 full height hinged doors and 2 adjustable shelves. Integrated appliance fascia with full height door and plinth (supplied loose). 1 Handle supplied for centre, left or right hand opening. Base cabinet with 2 full height hinged doors and 2 adjustable shelves.
Available 1690mm to 3040mm wide.


Tasting note: 30% of the grapes left to dry for 3 months after picking (the "ripasso" method) before being separately vinified then fermented with the fresh wine, generating great intensity. Ruby red in colour, Palazzo della Torre has enticing aromas of cherry with rich dark chocolate notes. Velvety in texture, it is well-balanced and offers ripe, juicy dark fruit, with silky tannins and refreshing acidity.


Up until now there has only been one choice. Receiver or Transmitter. You stand at the store stuck in a bind. Which one do I take? Accessory Genie has heard your cries and we are pleased to present you with the GOgroove BlueGATE RXT 2-In-1 Wireless Bluetooth Receiver and Transmitter. The BlueGATE RXT works as a universally compatible 2-in-1 Bluetooth wireless receiver and transmitter and is perfect for car stereos, headphones, laptops, and more. The RXT includes a 3.5mm audio cable, 3.5mm extension cable, RCA adaptor, Micro-USB, and Velcro mounting strips for easy setup and relocation. Too good to be true? It gets better. Starting Monday March 3rd, use the coupon code 'RXTDEAL' at checkout and receive an $8 savings and free shipping. Two function modes for less than the price of one?!?! Upgrade your Bluetooth now!
The GOgroove BlueGATE RXT houses Bluetooth version 2.1 and A2DP / AVRCP protocols, allowing you to wirelessly stream your media from up to 33 feet away. The included 3.5mm and RCA cables make it possible to connect the RXT to a wide variety of devices. Use the RCA cable to integrate non-Bluetooth devices such as large speakers, soundbars, and stereo systems and use the 3.5mm extension cable to achieve ideal positioning and signal transmission. Use the micro-USB cable to connect to any USB port or adaptor and the RXT will fully charge in 2 hours and will last between 6 and 10 hours depending on the mode you have chosen.
Operating the BlueGATE RXT is a breeze. Simply slide the button on the side of the device to switch between transmitting and receiving modes. The receiver mode of the RXT equips your car, home, or audio device with Bluetooth capability to wirelessly stream audio from your phone, tablet, or computer. Simply connect the RXT to the AUX line-in port or RCA ports of your non-Bluetooth device, push the power button and it will automatically go into pairing mode. Auto pairing occurs as a receiver for quick connections after initial setup.
As a transmitter, the RXT allows wireless Bluetooth streaming from virtually any audio source that isn't Bluetooth compatible. Connect the RXT to your non-Bluetooth device via the included 3.5mm AUX cable and pair with your tablet or Smartphone to stream audio wirelessly.
Remember from March 3rd through March 10th use the coupon code 'RXTDEAL' at checkout to receive a discount and free shipping. Like all GOgroove products, the BlueGATE RXT is backed by a 3-Year Manufacturer's Warranty.


text:
/content/kw/en/destinations/flights-to-bucharest/from-doha https://www.qatarairways.com/en-kw/search-results
Bucharest Bucharest Clear
From Doha
Book flights from Doha to Bucharest with Qatar Airways
Arriving in Bucharest
Bucharest is Romania's capital city and is rapidly becoming one of Europe's tourist hot-spots. Filled with elegant buildings, cobbled squares and fabulous galleries, Bucharest captures the imagination at any time of year. Business travellers will also discover it to be an important commercial hub, with a strong finance and investment sector as well as a growing high-tech marketplace filled with innovative and groundbreaking ideas.
Book a flight to Bucharest with Qatar Airways and you'll step back into an age of elegance, where fine dining and refinement are the order of the day. The people are warm and welcoming, giving visitors an experience to remember and making Bucharest one of the most popular destinations on the continent.
The heart of the city is the Old Centre or Lipscani, which stretches from the Dâmboviţa River to the south, Calea Victoriei to the west, Calea Moşilor to the east and Regina Elisabeta Boulevard to the north. Here you'll find everything from elegant 19th century façades and hotels where quiet opulence is the norm, to the ruins of the medieval court of the Wallachian princes. Narrow cobbled streets add real atmosphere to the city, and are a pleasure to wander down and explore.
In the centre of Bucharest, near Piaţa Unirii (Union Piazza), sits Parliament Palace – the largest parliament building in the world. Twelve storeys high and with 3100 rooms, the palace was recently built – and even has a network of underground tunnels below the surface. Many of the rooms are lined by Romanian marble, and daily tours take visitors through the building (wear comfortable shoes as the tours can be quite lengthy).
Romania is proud of its traditional lifestyle and roots, and two excellent museums to explore this culture are the Village Museum and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. The Village Museum is a vast, open-air complex of around 300 traditional buildings from every region of the country. The Museum of the Romanian Peasant celebrates the culture of the Romanian people through textiles, interiors and folk art.
Flights to Bucharest with Qatar Airways land at Henri Coandă International Airport. Visa restrictions for entry into the country will depend on your country of origin, length of stay and whether your trip is for business or pleasure. Before you fly to Bucharest please check the visa and passport requirements.
Useful Info About Bucharest
Currency: Romanian Leu (RON)
Voltage: 230 V 50 Hz
Plugs: Type C / F
Language: Romanian
International dialing code: +40
More Information: Read our Bucharest Travel Guide
Flying from Doha
From the luxury departure lounge to the oasis-styled exterior complete with gently swaying palm trees, Doha's brand new Hamad International Airport is the very epitome of modern elegance.
Hamad International Airport one of the few Middle Eastern hubs to connect with all six continents, putting it at the very heart of the international transport system.
Short-term parking is available at two sides on either side of the terminal, with the Eastern car park more convenient for Qatar Airways passengers.
The bus pavilion is located to the right just outside the entrance to the passenger terminal, and provides regular services into the business and residential centres of Doha.
Chauffeur- driven limousines are available on request, and car rental facilities are also on offer.
Arriving at Hamad International Airport
If you are flying from Doha in First or Business Class with Qatar Airways, the most convenient access to the airport is through Entry Gate 1. Economy class passengers will find it easiest to enter the departure hall through Entry Gates 2 and 3.
Travel from Doha with Qatar Airways and enjoy our dedicated lounges, such as our Oryx Lounge, or Gold or Silver Lounges for frequent travelers. Our premium travelers lounge, Al Mourjan, includes its own duty-free shops, private rest areas and showers.
Free Wireless internet access is freely available too throughout the passenger terminal, along many other facilities, such as prayer rooms, children's play areas, and hotel desks.
The airport offers a wide selection of facilities, including exclusive retail outlets and an international menu of cuisine from Asian and Arabic through to Italian and American.
Useful Info About Doha
Currency: Qatari Riyal (QAR)
Voltage: 220-240 Volts
Plugs: type D and G
Language: Arabic
International dialing code: +974
More Information: Read our Doha Travel Guide
At Qatar Airways we operate a fleet of luxury, state-of-the-art aircraft, offering our passengers the very latest in premium quality air travel. Everything from the elegant décor to the generous space on-board is about creating an atmosphere of refined sophistication, an atmosphere in which our passengers can enjoy the latest in-flight entertainment, freshly prepared cuisine and premium services in peace and harmony. This is what you get when you book flights from Doha to Bucharest with Qatar Airways.
Bucharest is the capital and largest city in Romania, a hub for commerce, culture and media. Visitors will discover a fascinating mixture of architecture, evidence of the city's rich and diverse history – from neo-classical buildings to gleaming skyscrapers. These skyscrapers also tell of a city on the rise, and Bucharest is one of the main economic and industrial centres of South-eastern Europe.
Doha to Bucharest route guide
• Flight distance: 1940 miles (3123 kilometres)
• Flight duration: 5 hours 10 minutes
Essential facts about Bucharest