Rake Magazine (January 1962) ... The 0 USB Stick Your Boss Can Use To Find Your Porn -- Why is pornography a problem in the workplace? (April 7, 2011) ...
Image by marsmet522
A new device, literally called the Porn Stick, from Paraben Corp., makes the task of identifying abusers much simpler.
It will search for, identify, display, tag and even wipe images from a computer for a fraction of the cost and required expertise of the more sophisticated professional forensic programs. The software will even retrieve deleted images and Internet cache files.
With the Porn Stick there is no software installed on the target machine, so there is no evidence of an intrusion and nothing is altered.
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........***** All images are copyrighted by their respective authors .......
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.....item 1) .... FORBES ... www.forbes.com ... The 0 USB Stick Your Boss Can Use To Find Your Porn
TECH | 4/07/2011 @ 1:43PM
Marc Weber Tobias, Contributor
I am an investigative attorney and physical security specialist.
+ Follow on Forbes
www.forbes.com/sites/marcwebertobias/2011/04/07/the-100-u...
If you are among the growing legion of porn addicts that spend your employer’s time or resources viewing and downloading graphic images, be very afraid. There is a new tool your boss (or spouse) can use to catch you. It’s a 0 USB stick that plugs into your PC and unmasks abuses and exposes your addictions without leaving a trace it was there.
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img code photo ... test image
blogs-images.forbes.com/marcwebertobias/files/2011/04/PAR...
The Paraben Porn Stick detected this test image on my computer after scanning for pornography employing a sophisticated program embedded on a USB drive.
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Traditionally, expensive software was required to scan massive amounts of data to detect suspect images within an individual computer or on a network. Guidance Software’s EnCase, X-Ways forensic tools, or AccessData FTK3 are popular pro-level forensic programs for policing porn in the workplace. Such programs are expensive and can require some sophisticated hardware to run them properly.
A new device, literally called the Porn Stick, from Paraben Corp., makes the task of identifying abusers much simpler. It will search for, identify, display, tag and even wipe images from a computer for a fraction of the cost and required expertise of the more sophisticated professional forensic programs. The software will even retrieve deleted images and Internet cache files. With the Porn Stick there is no software installed on the target machine, so there is no evidence of an intrusion and nothing is altered.
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img code photo .... The Porn Stick
blogs-images.forbes.com/marcwebertobias/files/2011/04/POR...
The Porn Stick is a self-executable program within a USB drive that will detect explicit images on almost any type of media.
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While the primary use for this device may be in business and government, parents, schools, churches, law enforcement and corrections will also find it a valuable tool because it requires no expertise and is inexpensive. It is fast: the system can search a 500 GB hard drive with more than 70,000 images in about an hour. Virtually all storage media can be analyzed, including DVDs, CDs and MicroSD cards; you are not limited only to hard drives.
The software can search archive files such as ZIP and RAR, and will support more than fifteen image formats. It identifies images by file headers and not file extensions for greater accuracy, which means that you cannot obscure content by changing extensions. The search sensitivity is user-controlled and the resulting images can be blurred so as not to offend employees.
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img code photo ... The Porn Stick
blogs-images.forbes.com/marcwebertobias/files/2011/04/POR...
The Porn Stick interface is extremely simple for the user.
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To test the system, I loaded some images onto my desktop and then turned the Porn stick loose to find them. It did, at two levels: low and high suspect photos. It will analyze and then produce reports with thumbnails to make it easy for administrators to zero-in on improper content. The software has been significantly enhanced from earlier versions and is now self-executable on a USB drive. It utilizes a sophisticated algorithm to analyze image data and assess flesh tone, color content, image backgrounds, body part shapes and other information which may be indicative of graphic sexual images. The software vendor reports less than a one percent false positive indication.
Why is pornography a problem in the workplace?
To get a reality check on how prevalent and serious a problem porn is in the workplace, I interviewed Bill Spernow one of the top computer forensic experts in the U.S. He ran a program for the Justice Department to train thousands of law enforcement officers about the techniques to discover and preserve computer evidence and was a police officer for many years himself. He now runs a forensic lab called Security Mentors near Atlanta and has worked thousands of high-level investigations of corporate, financial, law firm, and government networks. Give a listen here.
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The presence of pornographic images on a workplace computer or network can pose a serious legal threat to business owners and other employees and subject them to significant liability for damages. Pornography can result in the theft of time and improper utilization and allocation of network resources and storage space. Subjecting fellow employees to explicit images can lead to charges of sexual harassment. Several courts have concluded that pornography in the workplace may also serve as evidence supporting a claim for hostile environment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For this reason, employers should adopt a vigilant program to insure that employees are not viewing or downloading objectionable content.
I also spoke with Bill Janklow, the former Attorney General and Governor of South Dakota about the legal ramifications that explicit images bring to the work environment. As an AG for four years and governor for sixteen years he was responsible for criminal and administrative decisions about individuals who engaged in all phases or pornographic image trafficking. He is now in private practice and has prosecuted and defended actions relating to business litigation that involved employees and management who had abused internal policies relating to pornography. Watch my video interview with him below.
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...youtube video.... WILLIAM_JANKLOW.flv ..... 9:55 minutes...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoO4vKb_BnE&feature=player_em...
Uploaded by mwtobias on Mar 31, 2011
Interview with former South Dakota Attorney General and four-term Governor William Janklow regarding the problems and threat of pornography in the workplace. This interview was conducted by Marc Weber Tobias in conjunction with his article about image detection software at
blogs.forbes.com/marcwebertobias. The interview was recorded on March 30, 2011. (c) 2011, Marc Weber Tobias.
Category:
Travel & Events
Tags:
WILLIAM JANKLOW
License:
Standard YouTube License
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Pornography is a serious problem and a menace in the workplace. If you traffic in, download or view explicit images at work you are creating significant legal liabilities for yourself and your employer. Your chances of being caught have dramatically increased with the introduction of the Paraben USB stick because your supervisors, IT staff, fellow employees, or even your spouse can now easily discover and document your activities. The question you should ask is whether it is worth the risk to get caught, now that anyone can acquire this sophisticated technology tool for about a hundred dollars.
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invocation 22, channel 7, deal 4, trick J; contract is assured (deal and scorecard in progress)
Image by KevinHutchins314
In the four-player version of the game (Titanomaxia) which utilizes a French deck in the Nouveau Bourgeois style, the total number of card points in the deck is the sum of one thru thirteen, i.e.: 91. This is because each pair (duple) of cards is worth a point (in addition to any face card points, etc). But in the three-player version of the game, the total number of card points is the sum of one thru twelve, i.e.: 78. This is because each tierce (triplet) of cards is worth a point. The deck of seventy-eight cards has thirty-nine duples or twenty-six tierces, depending how many people are playing.
In the four-player version, half of 91 is thus 45.5; and so we find the assymmetrical scoring targets for a contractor are 36, 41, 51, or 56 card points, depending upon whether they dispose of three, two, one, or none of the three crucial "Key terminal" scoring cards.
In the three-player version, half of 78 is 39; and so we find the assymmetrical scoring targets for a contractor are 33, 36, 43, or 46 card points, depending upon their disposal of three, two, one, or none of the vital Key terminals.
In the four-player version of the game utilizing the French style, the Ace is always the lowest numbered card of any suit, and the Ten is the highest number of a suit (surpassed only by face cards). However, in the three-player style of the game (and in some other versions) the four small coloured suits are divided into two varieties. The first variety is the red cards (Hearts and Diamonds, if that's how your deck is marked) and they follow the French pattern (Ace is low, Ten is high). The second variety is the black cards (Spades and Clubs, if your deck is thusly illustrated) and they are ranked in reverse order, so their Ten is LOW and their Ace is HIGH (surpassed only by the face cards).
In the traditional decks, the face cards in the court of each suit usually had names such as "the King, his Queen, her Knight, and his Page". The French deck labels them as "R" (le Roi), "D" (la Dame), "C" (le Cavalier), and "V" (le Valet). Their tête points value as face cards are 4 points for a King, 3 points for a Queen, 2 for a Knight and 1 for a Valet.
In modern decks the face cards are often designated with more flexible titles. They might say "Lord, Lady, Prince, Princess" or some other variation, so it becomes necessary to establish your own ranking system upon which all the players will agree for the scoring of tête points. Any system is fine as long as it follows the basic structure of 4 points for the highest non-discardable rank, 3 points for the next rank, then 2 points for the next lowest, and 1 point for the lowest face card. Some people play the "Dealer's gender" rule; i.e., if the dealer is a man then the King is higher than the Queen, but if the dealer is a woman then a Queen is higher than a King. You can adapt any deck to work in the scoring systems as long as all players agree on the values of each card's index.
Here is an example of how the Deal Card and Score Card look when playing the French version of four-players on LeTarot.net which is excellent game shareware. This screenshot illustrates a deal when i was sitting in the South chair versus three robots (West, North, East) and i have displayed the Tournament scorecard as well. This four-player version is standardized in France, and is the world's most commonly recognized style of the game of Tarot Trumps.
For comparison, my photo here today is of my hand-written Deal and Score Cards in which the three-player version is played using a Cosmic Tribe deck instead of a Nouveau Bourgeois. I have a few of my own quirky notations for keeping track of player chair positionings and bidding levels, but the overall structure of the contracting, discarding, announcing, tricking and scoring are along the same general format as the other versions. I have my own style of naming the indices of the face cards, Key terminals, trump cards of the Void, et cetera; but it basically goes according to the traditional gaming structures.
The four-player game has eighteen tricks which produce seventy-two cards, and the "Chien" (dog/ bitch/ widow/ contractual extra cards) has six cards which are part of the bidding and/or discarding, so the seventy-eight cards are divided thusly. The three-player game has twenty-four tricks, in addition to the two tierces (triplets) from the Bitch, again resulting in all seventy-eight cards being used for each deal. On the Score Card the moves of the dance can be enumerated from A thru Z: the tricks are played A thru X, then the tierces Y and Z are for noting the discard (or Bitch, depending upon the bidding.)
In addition to the bids and tricking, the scorecard also has notations for several kinds of bonuses. When a player has the Wizard number 1 Ace of Trump in the last trick on the table (Trick "X" in the three-player version) he earns the "Magick Trick" bonus. In rare cases of a "Chelem" ("Slam" is when a player wins every single trick on the table) the Wizard might be used during trick "W" while the Demon (0 Joker Excused) might play during trick "X". So i have a notation near tierces W, X, Y and Z to indicate their dispositions. When a player announces an intentional Slam (rather than making a covert attempt) a minor adjustment to the notations on the top row ("chair" labels) can be used to indicate their bonus or penalty. When a player has a Handful announcement, they are asking for bonus points when they reveal their supermajority of Trump cards. The Trump cards which they select for revelation are then recorded in the vertical column between the tricks and the score subtotals, so all players will be able to remember precisely which Trumps have been forecast for bonus gambles.
Finally, i keep an additional few notations on the score card related to some meta-computations. These are merely for my own statistical amusement, in an attempt to try to analyze how people might theoretically go about placing certain kinds of "side bets" when they are uninvolved in the game. From the viewpoint of spectators, cheerleader friends, and impartial scorekeepers, this information might eventually help to demonstrate patterns of player behavior as reflected by the bids, announcements, tricks, scores, and tournament accumulations.
This particular dance card is for my current game in progress (the 22nd Invocation of Titanomaxia), and is paused as Trick J was completed. More than half of the tricks remain to be played on the tableau, but the contractor is already assured of success. The rest of the moves from K thru X will merely be a competition to determine how much profit the contractor will be able to accumulate beyond his minimum target. The contractor will receive a bonus score for displaying his Simple Handful ("Poignée") and he might be lucky enough to keep his Ace of Trump for the very end, to earn a bonus Magick Trick during move X. When they finish this Deal number 4, that will be the end of Channel 7 (the seventh tournament interval of the Ultimate Saga). Then they will be free to hard-shuffle the deck and configure different seating arrangements of players for future tournaments. The meta-score of the appendix player (the "Dix") who is sitting on the sidelines for the 9th time will accumulate an amount purely for the mathematical amusement of the impartial Oracle.
The actual cards on the tableau, with the accumulated Tricky Piles so far, and the contractor's exposed Handful, are shown in my next photo.
Here y'go
Image by Brother O'Mara
I find these kinds of 'how I did it' shots fascinating - I enjoy seeing the workspace around the final shot. I guess I don't have to specify that this is the setup for this shot here. Now I'm interested in knowing if you like seeing this kind of thing.
Oh, and originally this was not like this in my mind at ALL, as in there was an entirely different concept involving hands, backlight, and outdoors. I had an entire set of flatware frozen - two forks, two spoons, and a knife. When I tried to take it out of the tray the ice broke and I ended up with the jagged ice shape (with only 3 utensils) which I liked enough to use. So basically what I'm saying is that this entire shot came about because of a bad break, some kind of pun intended.
Sorry for the quality of the shot - I had to take it hand-held in low light because my other tripod was out in the trunk of my car and it was COLD last night and I'm lazy.
Welcome, Cards
Image by mtsofan
How do you select cards for the Holidays you celebrate? How much thought do you invest in the choice? Do you prefer to send greetings that are funny, or those that reflect the deeper meaning of the observance? Do you create cards with photos of your family, or enclose a mini-newsletter to fill folks in on your adventures in the past twelve months? Is your choice more arbitrary than any of the above possibilities? Or, perhaps the price of postage has led you to give up cards altogether.
My wife and I make a selection from the internet, and we try to choose cards with a message of peace or world community. This year, we bought two designs from www.syracuseculturalworkers.com.
How about you?
062007 moo cards!
Image by rachel a. k.
My moo cards came! They're so cute! :D Is anyone interested in trading some? Probably the only ones I don't want to trade are the ones with my husband in them, those make me giddy and you probably don't want pictures of my husband, anyway.
(they're almost life size if you view the original!)
Leave a note if you want one.
There are two of some, so be sure to check the note on them to see if I say there's another on available!
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