I had to do some digging around on the ATF website for a family member and in doing so tried to download a Firearms License but instead downloaded a text file containing all the Federal Firearms License owners, their license number, address, business name, owner phone number and more.

Now could this be normal for the ATF website or was this some misconfiguration I don't know. I do know it would seem to me posting all the above information online for any criminal to know what address to go to find a gun dealer would be pretty stupid but is that what the ATF meant to do?

As of right now I've contacted the ATF about this issue alone with a couple of security experts and I am waiting on their response. So is this just one more example of a Government website leaking private information or is this just a website posting personal information that most of those listed probably have no clue is being posted. I for one would not be real happy to have my full name, address, business name, and phone number posted to any website.

It appears another wireless carrier has decided "unlimited" doesn't mean unlimited as T-Mobile has sent out a notice that access to "third parties" is not part of their plan and they can

“Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and therefore you are not able to utilize service from this provide any longer.”

”T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate “… some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion.” Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation.”

Now I am not a Twitter user but where this becomes an issue is the language of the above notice basically gives T-Mobile the right to block any access they decide is "third party" so all of you using T-Mobile to access your company email, corporate networks, even this web site may find that T-Mobile declares such access as forbidden and then what will you do?

It's high time the fine print in these wireless contracts come under fire and if the carriers can't come clean then let the government do it. I mean really what good is an Internet phone that can't connect to "third party" sites?

Laughing Squid did a story on Improv Everywhere selling Blue Polo Shirts with a spoof of the Best Buy logo and just as soon as they did it Best Buy sends them notice to remove the story for trademark infringement. I think anyone reading the little blurb on Laughing Squid would consider the post nothing more than a blurb, a news item, a public comment on what somebody else was doing but not Best Buy.

Best Buy sent Laughing Squid a letter ordering them to "remove all infringing content" found on a blog post that did nothing more than link to something another site was doing and provide commentary. It appears Free Speech and the First Amendment are something Best Buy does not consider apply to Bloggers in direct contradiction to case law:

We agree with these implied concessions, and with petitioners’ arguments, that petitioners are reporters, editors, or publishers entitled to the protections of the constitutional privilege. If their activities and social function differ at all from those of traditional print and broadcast journalists, the distinctions are minute, subtle, and constitutionally immaterial. 

Now to me this is news because Best Buy, it's Geek Squad and Business Services want to get your technology business and tout themselves as Business Technology Experts they sure seem to be oblivious to the most basic of Internet Tech such as Blogs and their legal council oblivious to decided case law. What's worse is their legal department had to have a blogger point these points out as they then retracted their order and 'apologized' (in a sense) for sending it in the first place.

"However, we do not object to fair and accurate reporting of facts, and respect the First Amendment rights of Laughing Squid and other bloggers to provide articles or commentary on currect events. Now that we have a better understanding of your website, we regret sending you the demand letter."

So I guess they will understand this is commentary and I won't get a take down notice of some sort unless once again they can't define technology for themselves and have to have a third party define what a blog is, what First Amendment Rights are, what Case Law has been defined and then they will have regrets and not offer up an appropriate apology for trying to take action against a blogger.

The video I linked to a few days ago and has the Internet crowd falling out of their seats laughing so hard was pulled from YouTube. Not only this but a search of YouTube for "Bubble 2.0" or "Internet Bubble" will fail to find any related uploads and you know it's getting uploaded again, in fact I found 3 copies, here's one again just to see how long it stays up:

So is Google trying to protect itself as well as the other tech outfits satirized in this video? If they have another reason they are not talking and they sure look guilty on this one. Appears they don't care how much material is copyrighted when it generates ad revenue but if it pokes fun at YouTube or Google they pull it?

I've asked a few super bloggers that can usually get answers to try and get the scoop on this one and I think we will be hearing more about this take down over the next few weeks.

I have been getting tons of calls from these people and as a general rule I do not return or answer calls from unknown numbers, numbers without Caller ID or contain cryptic messages left on the answering machine or voicemail. As such these guys fall into all the above but I finally called back tonight and after 20 minutes of asking who they were, what they were and them refusing to give me any information I did some digging and found out exactly who they are and since no place on the Internet has this information but lots of people searching for the owner of the numbers I thought I'd put it all in one place.

(Note they are a collection Agency and after confirming I am not the one they want they did say they would stop calling but were VERY rude getting to that point.)

Genesee Valley Associates, Inc.

From everything I can gather they may be a Collection Agency but they appear to go after old debts which probably cannot be collected on in the first place, will call even after being told not to, will charge more than the agreed upon amount if you give them any financial information. The simple fact they refuse to give you any information about who they are, hide behind blind phone numbers, refuse to say where they are located and will hang up on you if you press them for information I would not suggest anyone deal directly with these guys without an attorney.

If any of the above information is incorrect or you have anything to add please leave a comment. If your from Genesee Valley Associates then tell your bosses you've been busted, we know who you are.

Bill actually asked for this with the ridiculous comments that the US needs to allow more cheap labor from foreign countries. Yes Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, thinks Microsoft should be able to import even more cheap labor to supplement it's 7% foreign workers it already employs.

As it is Microsoft opened a Software Development Campus in Vancouver, CA so they could legally get around the limits on H1B Visas. They freely admit the need to "recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the United States."

So check out Lou giving Bill the once over:

That's right if this Bill is passed through the Senate and signed you could be required to monitor and report your neighbor or face up to $300,000 in fines.

On Wednesday the US House of Representatives, lead by the Democrats passed the Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act, or SAFE Act with NO HEARINGS, NO PUBLIC POSTING OF THE BILL and NO COMMITTE VOTE! Rep. Nick Lampson of Texas (D) drafted the bill and the wording in the bill is so vague and 1980's it might as well have said "Tubes" instead of Internet. The so called SAFE Act provides that ANYONE providing "electronic communication service or remote computing service" shall report on who, where, and what, including email address and log files of any instance of "Apparent Child Pornography".

Now I'm sure we all agree Child Porn is horrible however what this bill does goes far beyond telling the local ISP they have to report Child Porn if they find it. The text of this bill clearly lays it out that any wifi hotspot, public library that has Internet Access, web hosting company and yes you if you run an open Access Point shall police the traffic going through your system. The wording is so open to interpretation that anyone providing web hosting, online data storage or remote managed services would be required to comply. Just the complying itself is impossible as the bill states that once an image is found and all reporting is complete you must ensure that the image is "permanently destroyed." Most of you know that the ability to recover deleted files is not rocket science anymore and even high level disk scrubbers can be bypassed with the right tools so how can anyone comply with "permanently destroyed"?

The variations on who this Bill applies to and what images it applies to is so poorly defined Disney's own website could be in violation because what is defined as Child Porn includes fully clothed children in "lascivious" poses or drawings and cartoons of the same said. In a recent case brought against website Beautiful Super Models the photographer and webhost have all been charged on child porn and a review of the images of that site are no more "lascivious" than Ariel or other Disney characters. Go compare any of these images to this image of Ariel,

which is more "lascivious"?

Oh and since you just viewed this site I have to report all of you now.

Just a quick note about the Beta for XP SP3 and some problems with Internet Explorer 6, it crashes. It appears there is something in the code which will mess up IE6 and cause it to crash on launch about every 5-6 launches. IE7 does not appear to have this problem however those shops running IE6 because of web app compatibility may be in for a bad day, install IE7 or don't install SP3.

I don't care if you don't get all the jokes in this video, it's still funny. I won't say how many times I've watched it so far.