text:
Dance for a cause
To the editor: The Friends of the Rockingham Ballroom was recently approved by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable corporation. What does this mean? It means that we will not have to pay taxes on the donations which we've worked so hard to get for the mandated fire sprinkler system for the Rockingham Ballroom. It also means that donations to our group are tax-deductible, which we hope will prompt more contributions as we begin the third and final phase of our fundraising.
We want to publicly thank the Newmarket Historical Society for their role in this major accomplishment. In April the Historical Society held an informative program on the history of the Rockingham Ballroom. The event was televised on the local cable channel 13, which allowed the entire community to learn about the Ballroom's history. Then, when the IRS questioned whether the Ballroom had been designated as a historical entity, the Historical Society passed a resolution to do so. The day after that resolution was received, our application was approved. We believe that their support was critical to our success.
On Saturday, Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m., the final phase of our fundraising will be kicked off by another Newmarket-based legend: The Spectras. Tickets are $15 in advance and available at www.FOTRB.org. As a result of the Newmarket Historical Society's support, contributions are now tax deductible.
Patti Blanchette
Friends of the
Rockingham Ballroom
About Dover Police Station
To the editor: Having had the opportunity to tour the Dover Police Station once during that last several years I was immediately surprised by two situations in the station. My first impression was the lack of room in there and thinking it was subpar to say the least, and from what I remember even the proximity of the desk stations made me wonder how they could even have a private conversations with a suspect or witness. There was a desk in the hallway and I asked if it was getting moved somewhere and they said no that's a work station.
The need for a Police Station has been neglected for far too long and should be a top priority now. The current 14,000 sq. ft. police station was probably very good in 1933 but I believe long ago ceased to meet the police department's work space needs effectively. This station in plain and simple terms is extremely overcrowded, and while I give the department credit for making do all this time and making the best of the situation the time to move forward is now.
Dover is a community that certainly offers a lot to its citizens and I for one would like to make sure that the people who protect and serve us have the means to do so in an updated facility that will benefit not just the department but the community as well. If anyone thinks that Dover should not build a station very soon they should probably take a tour of the current facility before they make that decision. I think you will be surprised too.
Jim Welch Jr.
Hassan vs. moms
To the editor: A few summers back, the NH Seacoast faced some EEE tragedies in consecutive years: a Newton woman died and a Newfields little boy lay in a hospital fighting for his life. Local moms formed 'Moms Against EEE,' called a Harvard scientist, began a public education movement, met neighbors, town and state officials. With their Harvard PhD, these wonderful moms identified a reasonable and environmentally sensitive plan: pre-treatment of mosquito larvae in the early spring breeding season would substantially reduce the compounding effect of mosquito populations in the fall. With longer, warmer seasons, mosquitoes now multiply by a full additional generation by late summer. But what about the ponds and wildlife? The preventative plan was environmentally safe. What about the alternative of spraying at dusk? It was a bad choice: limited impact along roads and only when mosquitoes were flying, more expensive, and more dangerous for humans.
The moms took their Harvard education across the street, across town, and across NH. Large private property owners signed on. Town managers signed on. It was grass roots at its best on a bipartisan, non-political approach. They were honored by the CDC. But what about state owned land? The State's response? Go fog yourself. Maggie Hassan's response? She sided with the state against the moms. And not until Governor Lynch made his executive decision to put human health first did Maggie do an about face.
We need to know how Maggie Hassan will respond to constituents in times of need. With West Nile and EEE in the news, I am reminded of those wonderful moms a few years back. And from that experience, when taxpayers need help from Maggie Hassan … she just won't be there to help them.
Luke Pickett
To the editor: If you reside in Somersworth's Ward 2, you perhaps wonder who you may want to vote for on
Nov. 6 or via absentee ballot at an earlier date, here are some recommendations that very old Somersworth resident friends and I have produced to provide you with a list of options for you to consider as follows and as you vote: Note: These candidates were "fed up" with what was going on in the political world and unselfishly decided that it was time for them to step forward and do something.
Governor: Name: "Maggie Hassan" is a critical name to remember as a Democrat.
Executive Council: The name "Van Ostern" is very essential to remember when voting.
Representative in Congress: There isn't a choice — it is Carol Shea-Porter if you really care.
NH State Senator: His name is Professor David Watters — super candidate!
NH State Reps: Greg Burdwood, Peter Bixby, Stephen Kettle are super candidates.
Sheriff: David Dubois is a Number one candidate without a doubt!
Register of Deeds: Lynn Williams with vast experience on the job.
Register of Probate: Patty Cole with tons of experience as well.
Strafford County Commissioners: Leo Lessard and Robert Watson and Mr. Maglaras are experienced candidates.
Hope that this information will be of value to you as you vote this year. By voting this way, you will be help the NH House return to civility which was missing for the past few years.
Thank you for voting — it is extremely important especially this year.
Richard B. "Dick" LaBonte
To the editor: After reading Muriel Moore's "Knowing the real Barack Obama, " (in your Oct. 2 Community Commentary), I must paraphrase the words of Joseph Welch, spoken during the 1954 Senate anti-communist Hearings of Senator Joseph McCarthy and ask, have you no sense of decency?
Ms. Moore casts the president as a sympathizer of Islam, a friend of terrorists, and an associate of communists. She claims that he rejects the Christian traditions of Christmas and Easter, and that he got into Harvard Law School only by bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia.
And what is the source of these "facts?" They are taken from Joel Gilbert's "Dreams from My Real Father." This despicable "documentary" DVD has been sent to thousands of New Hampshire citizens in recent weeks, so that they also can know the real Barack Obama. At long last, have you no sense of decency?
Character assassination cannot and never will change the facts. And these are the facts: President Obama took over a country in disarray and has put us on the path to recovery. It took eight years of Bush mistakes and misguided policies to get us to that point. It is unreasonable to expect a complete recovery in less than four years. Mr. Romney wants to resurrect the Bush policies that led us to the brink of another Great Depression. These include more tax cuts for the rich, less government regulation, and massive defense spending. These policies did not work before and they will not work now. That is why I do not support Mr. Romney, and not because of the schools he attended or the wealth he has accumulated.
President Obama will continue to change America for the better. Mitt Romney will erase the progress we have made and put us back on the road to ruin. No amount of character assassination will change that.
John F. Eckert
Ovide for governor
To the editor: I am writing to endorse Ovide Lamontagne for governor of New Hampshire.
I have had the privilege of meeting Ovide on 5 different occasions. Each time I'm more impressed with him. I don't know when I've met a gentleman more genuine than he is, next to the Honorable Senator, George Lovejoy.
Ovide is a lifetime resident of our great state and is truly concerned about it's future. He is a solid conservative, steadfast in his beliefs, with real solutions for a better N.H.
He will review and reform the current tax code, striving to be the most pro-business and pro-family state in the union. He will cut the red tape in Concord that inhibits business growth. On energy, he will work to deregulate our energy industry and introduce free market reform to lower utility costs. He believes in lower spending and a balanced budget. He will stand for families and business and against special interest groups. He supports right to work, positioning N.H. with no income or sales tax to become an attractive and inviting business relocation state.
He will uphold our Second Amendment rights whether it's for self defense, hunting or sports, it is part of our heritage. Ovide will advocate protecting these rights.
Once again, I am proud and delighted to support Ovide. He is sincere, and has great character and values. If you haven't met him, you need to. Go to a fund raiser or have one in your home with friends and family, but support him in whatever way you can, you'll be glad you did. Go to his web site www.ovide.com.
With a strong republican state senate, state house and a strong, conscientious, conservative as governor, we can continue to move this state towards an inviting economic recovery for new business and families. Ovide will be bring prosperity and pride back to New Hampshire. Every Vote Counts on Nov. 6.
Shona Bowen
To the editor: I have a question — Why are some individuals banned from certain Localities for alleged lewd sexual behavior and other individuals are not?
Would you call this a double standard?
Muriel M. Lucas
Gainesville, Ga.
Formerly from Durham
Letters to the Editor - Oct. 10, 2012
Dance for a cause


text:
Ace picks a two ball from the first round of the St Jude's Classic
Members' Bet of the Day: Charl is the darling
Up to £100 bet credits
Open Account Offer. Up to £100 in Bet Credits for new customers at bet365. Min deposit £5 and 1x settled bet requirement to release Bet Credits. Min odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Time limits and T&Cs apply.CLAIM YOUR OFFER
£30 Free Bets
Register & login to 888sport and make your first deposit with promo code 30f. Place your first bet of £10+. Get two £10 Free Bets and a £10 Free Bet for mobile upon bet settlement!CLAIM YOUR OFFER
Bet £10 Get £15
18+ New customers only. £10 min deposit. Terms & conditions apply.CLAIM YOUR OFFER
Up to £50 Welcome Bonus
New Customers only; Min. deposit £15 (no Skrill/Neteller); Bonus amount is 100% of deposit up to £50; Offer can be claimed once per household; Wager the qualifying deposit and bonus amount 8x within 30 days to convert bonus winnings into real money; Wagers must be on min. odds of 4/5 on singles or acca bets with min. odds of 2/5 per selection to qualify; Max. stake contribution to wagering requirement is the value of your bonus; Certain bet types are excluded; See full terms; Terms apply; 18+CLAIM YOUR OFFER
Bet £5 Get £30
New Customers only. Deposit and place a £5 qualifying bet at odds of 2.00 or greater within 7 days of opening a new account; excludes cashed out bets. Receive 2x £10 Free Sports Bets, valid on set events only at odds 2.00 or greater, expires in 7 days, plus a £10 Casino Bonus, expires in 7 days. Wager the Casino Bonus 35x to withdraw winnings. Credit/Debit card deposits only. Geographical Restrictions and T&Cs Apply. Please Gamble ResponsiblyCLAIM YOUR OFFER
£40 Money back
New customers only. 18+, BeGambleAware.org. Min deposit £10. Money back as bonus. Wagering requirements: Sportsbook 3x at min. odds of 1.40 (2/5), Casino 25x. Only one bonus can be used at a time, Sportsbook bonus must be wagered before using the Casino, unless the bonus has been forfeited. Bonus will expire after 7 days of opt-in. T&Cs apply.CLAIM YOUR OFFER
Bet £10 Get £30
18+. UK+IRE only. Min first bet £10. Must be placed within 14 days of account reg. £30 credited as 3 x £10 free bets. Not valid with CashOut. Free bet valid for 7 days.T&Cs Apply.CLAIM YOUR OFFER
£10 Risk Free bet
*New Customers only, limited to one per person. If your first bet loses Paddy Power will refund you up to £10 in CASH. Max refund £10. Only deposits made by card or Paypal will qualify for this promotion. T&Cs Apply. See site for details of Paddy's Rewards Club.CLAIM YOUR OFFER

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Edinburgh Business School will use the information you have provided to contact you with information on our products and services. For more information see our terms and conditions.
Self-paced learning offers you the freedom to study when you like, where you like.
Choose any programme; from MBA to DBA. Our online distance learning programmes have a flexible structure that lets you choose when to start and when to take your exams.
Study your MBA on a Heriot-Watt University campus.
In the UK, choose from full-time, MBA (focused on entrepreneurship) or part-time MBA.
On-campus in Dubai choose from full- and part-time MBA.
On-campus in Malaysia we offer a part-time MBA.
We have an international faculty, thousands of like-minded students and alumni across the globe.
Graduate with us and you're ready to take your career to a whole new level.
You can also study with our Learning Partner, Griffith College in Ireland.
Study full- or part-time in Dubai taught by local and visiting faculty.
7 core
2 electives
Our flagship online programme is an in-depth study of business management principles.
7 core and 2 electives
Study part-time in Edinburgh, learn key business disciplines.
Study part-time, mostly at weekends, on our inspirational HWU campus in Putrajaya.
Choose from MScs in Financial Management and Marketing.
5 core courses
4 elective courses
Choose from; Strategic Planning, Marketing, Finance, Human Resource Management and Oil and Gas Management
7 core courses
4 specialist elective courses
Take your career to the next level with this our research-based doctorate and PhD.
3 research methods courses and your thesis
Study in your home by self-paced distance learning. Study on campus in the UK. Or join your fellow students at our Learning Partners in Sweden, Ireland, Greece, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.
You can choose one route or combine them. It's up to you.
Griffith College was established in 1974, and is now Ireland's largest independent third level institution. Edinburgh Business School began working with Griffith College in September 2011 when Griffith became an Approved Learning Partner. Griffith College offers both full-time and part-time scheduled, taught programmes in English, as well as virtual support for distance learning students.
You may be entitled to exemptions from core and elective courses on our masters programmes.
From faculty message boards, past papers and online self tests to peer-to-peer networks and dedicated adivsors.
Access Faculty message boards, view past exams papers and more. You can also organise your studies, order your next course and book your exams.
The username and password are: demo
Our students have lots to say about studying, the Edinburgh Business School experience and life in general.
Drop-in to see what they're saying...
We offer local examinations to all our students. Each course is assessed by a one three-hour examination. You can sit your exams in March, June, August and December.
You can study course-by-course and pay as you learn, or sign up for two or three courses at once. Our fees are flexible.
This site uses cookes to improve your browsing experience, by continuting to use this site you consent to this. For more information please see our Cookie Policy.


text:
WHISTLER - If it's sportsmanship you seek, don't luge.
Because as Calgary's Ian Cockerline accurately, and bluntly, put it Saturday:
"Luge isn't fair."
Not when you're trying to win. And medal pressure is what Canadians were feeling when they restricted foreign athletes from broad access to their infamously difficult track leading up to the Games.
"There is no fair system. There's home tracks for everybody," Cockerline said.
"If we'd given everybody a lot of runs, we would have got in trouble for doing that, because there's pressure on us to win medals. There's money invested in it. It's really what it comes down to at the end of the day, I suspect."
While the gamesmanship may have been both within the rules and common, it drew criticism even before relatively inexperienced slider Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed during a Friday training run. Now, under the extensive shadow cast here by Kumaritashvili's death, some in the luge community are calling for change.
"Is this the result when you get too much protectionism?" asked Ron Rossi, CEO of USA Luge.
"The Canadians have to be answerable to their position on training. A track like this demanded the weaker athletes get more time.
"I'm going to propose some changes. I'm going to propose more training for the athletes.
"It's a terrible tragedy but I hope that maybe in the end we can change some rules and never see something like this ever happen again."
Access rules haven't changed in about 40 years. They call for the course to be opened up to the foreign luge community for a test event and two training weeks in the year leading up to the Olympics. From there, it's up to the host country to decide who can and can't train on the track. A group of athletes lobbied for more time two years ago but were ignored.
"It's based on an old style thinking that the home team should have an advantage for the Games," Rossi said. "Nobody would argue that. But the home team has an advantage anyhow. They can train any day and get 500 or 1,000 runs. So what's the difference if the international folks take another 50 runs?"
Canadian coach Wolfgang Staudinger said limiting access is normal, and said Canada offered more training time than in any previous Games.
Rossi said he will push the International Luge Federation to double training access before the next Olympics.
Kumaritashvili was ranked 44th in the world, and barely qualified for these Olympics. He had taken 26 runs on the course and opted out in January at a chance for more. Instead, he took part in a World Cup event in Europe because he needed to participate in five World Cups, the minimum required to compete in Whistler.
"In principal (26) is enough for an elite athlete to learn a track," Rossi said. "But it really isn't for some of these athletes who are on the fringe who are struggling and more inexperienced."
The Whistler Sliding Centre was not only considered one of the fastest in the world, it was also viewed as one of the most dangerous. The corner Kumaritashvili flew out of, hitting unprotected steel support beams, had already been spotted as a danger area. After a test event in November, a barrier at the corner was built higher.
"They knew they had a problem there right from Day 1," Rossi said. "They had people hitting that inside wall and going airborne.
"The question perhaps needs to be asked: If you were already concerned about it, and you already raised the wall why did you keep going? And why didn't you protect the posts at the chance maybe something could happen?
"Perhaps their feeling was it was raised high enough. I'm not the one to answer it but that's the kind of question that needs to be asked."
The barrier walls around the corner were built higher again after Friday's fatal accident.
On Thursday, Team USA luger Megan Sweeney had a nearly identical crash in training. Like Kumaritashvili, she double looped the curve. It's not unusual but the more experienced sliders know how to get out of it.
"It was almost the same exact crash, she just didn't go quite as high," Rossi said.
Sweeney said she didn't spend any time thinking about her crash. She didn't watch Kumaritashvili's either. She just kept going, trying to slide down the course as fast as she could both Thursday and Friday.
"There's something missing up here," said Sweeney, smiling and pointing at her head. "I'm not going to lie to you."
Maybe that's why the decision was made to slow the track down, lowering the men's start to where the women normally take off from. It makes things slower and safer, protecting luge sliders from themselves and their pursuit of speed.
Slowing down sliders is not something course designers have been able to do. The Whistler Sliding Centre was originally planned for speeds of about 137 km/h. But sliders have regularly hit more than 150 km/h.
"Who's held accountable?" Rossi said. "At this point, nobody.
"I suggested the FIL think seriously about putting some penalties on designers much like the conscrution business, I've thrown it out jokingly but maybe it's not that far off $1 million a mile per hour.
"You could have put the $10 million in a pot and built a curve, which they did in Germany a number of years ago, to slow the sleds down."


text:
Harvard, SurveyMonkey Offer Tool to Weigh Parent Engagement
Harvard, SurveyMonkey serve up template
A new survey tool that school districts and parent-teacher organizations can use to measure the quality of parent-school relationships has been created by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and released by SurveyMonkey, a Palo Alto, Calif., company, for widespread use by schools, districts, and parent groups.
The 71-item "question bank" covers seven areas of family engagement—from how much help students receive at home to how confident parents are in supporting their child's schooling. Districts can adapt the survey to suit their individual needs, and parents responding to it can do so online or on paper.
After introducing the survey last May, SurveyMonkey is working directly with 12 early-adopting districts on its deployment, and others are finding out about it online or via connections with Harvard. Educators and parent organizations can begin using the survey now without enlisting SurveyMonkey's help.
Karen L. Mapp, a lecturer on education at Harvard and the director of the education policy and management master's program there, provided her expertise in parent engagement to the survey's development.
"Districts are really trying to get parents more engaged in supporting their children's learning; there's more of an academic focus now on engagement efforts," she said. "Districts are saying, 'We want to change the paradigm on parent engagement, but we just don't have the tools to measure that.' "
Multiple Uses
At the same time, school districts that won Race to the Top federal grants pledged to measure school climate and collect data that includes information about how parents perceive school effectiveness.
Ms. Mapp, who was a family- and community-engagement official with the Boston district in 2003-04, said the questions in the tool can be used with that goal in mind as well.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education developed and field-tested a 71-question survey that schools can use via the SurveyMonkey website to solicit parents' feedback about their children's educational experience. The survey, divided into seven topical sections, can be offered in its entirety to a school community, or schools can select questions from the most relevant categories and add their own.
"When I was deputy superintendent, we didn't have anything like this. I was turning to my data colleagues saying, 'Can you develop a quick survey?' " recalled Ms. Mapp.
Schools and parent-teacher organizations will be able to use the results from the new parent survey to direct their parent-engagement efforts more effectively, according to Ms. Mapp. "It will give parents and schools more decisionmaking power about how to more effectively help their kids excel," she said.
Tens of thousands of schools have been using SurveyMonkey to poll their parent communities for more than a decade, according to Bennett Porter, the vice president of marketing communications for the company.
But not all questions are created equal. Many of the queries crafted by school officials missed aspects of family-school relationships that play key roles in students' performance.
"Given the number of people who are asking questions using SurveyMonkey, we noticed that there's a big opportunity to help people ask common questions in ways that are methodologically sound. … Let's take these questions and write them in a way that will minimize bias and the risk of getting bad data, because in the end, you're using the answers/insights gleaned from a survey to drive important decisions you're making for your school, so you want to be really careful to have good data," said Will Aldrich, SurveyMonkey's vice president of product.
SurveyMonkey reached out to Harvard to identify which questions would produce accurate information that districts could rely on as meaningful for their assessment and decisionmaking about parent involvement. The company funded a research grant for the Harvard Graduate School of Education to underwrite the research and development of the questions. Mr. Aldrich declined to disclose the amount of the funding.
Hunter Gehlbach, an associate professor in the school of education, led the team that developed the survey between September 2011 and May 2012—a very aggressive turnaround for academic survey designers, he said.
Arriving at the "right questions" has been an arduous process, he said. "Everyone's taken surveys, and they think it's real simple, but there's a huge amount of science behind it," said Mr. Gehlbach, who explained that four doctoral students, Sofia Bahena, Lauren Capotosto, James Noonan, and Beth Schueler followed a rigorous six-step process under his guidance.
Topic Areas
Starting with a review of the academic literature, interviews, and focus groups with parents, the researchers developed a series of questions around seven "constructs" or topic areas.
"Even with all the advance research, you don't want to have supreme confidence that you've designed the right items," Mr. Gehlbach said. "So we went to the experts, the academics and practitioners. We made some changes based on their feedback, and took the [questions] to parents, to make sure they not only understood the wording of the items, but that they resonated with the language."
That exercise proved to be eye-opening. "For example, in a topic like 'parental support,' one thing the literature picks up on is 'parents helping with homework.' ... In focus groups, the parents actually tell us, 'No, no, no, that's not so right. We don't help our children with specific homework questions; we focus on getting our children to understand the overall content they are learning in class.' "
As a result, no questions using the word "homework" appear in the survey. Instead, questions focus on helping a child understand the content he or she is learning in school.
"The literature is incredibly helpful, but you can't just take the academics' word for it," said Mr. Gehlbach. "You have to check in with the parents as well."
'Student Engagement'
Another area where parents diverged from academic language was in the use of the term "student engagement." Parents had different interpretations of what that means, so the survey designers chose "classes that motivate children to learn," rather than mentioning "student engagement" anywhere.
In defining the answers—which academics call "response anchors" like "very satisfied," "somewhat satisfied," and "not at all satisfied"—Harvard researchers relied again on science and best practices to ensure that parents' answers would produce meaningful data.
Harvard's goal was to group the questions into discrete scales so that the survey would offer flexibility to users interested in a particular subject area. The seven constructs measured by the scales are:
• Parental support: How much help are students getting at home?
• Child behaviors: What habits have students developed that shape their success?
• Parent engagement: How engaged are parents in their child's schooling, and what potential barriers exist?
• Parent self-efficacy: How confident are parents in supporting their child's schooling?
• School climate: How do parents view their school regarding academic and social standards?
• School program fit: How well do a school's academic program, social climate, and organizational structure meet a student's needs?
• Parent roles and responsibilities: How do parents view their roles, as well as teachers' roles, in different aspects of their child's education?
The surveys will be useful in many scenarios, such as helping educators get a baseline measure of how parents perceive the school climate, determining what kind of learning-related behaviors students are engaged in at home, and identifying where the strengths and weaknesses are in a school's relationship with parents, Mr. Gehlbach said.
Broad Access
Schools and parent groups can access the Question Bank, a repository of questions anyone can use for free to ensure a survey has well-written questions. To ask more than 10 questions in a survey via the SurveyMonkey platform, organizations would be charged according to one of three plans, ranging in cost from $17 per month to $65 per month. The top level offers the most analytical and support options.
Mr. Aldrich said that working with the first cohort of early-adopting districts will give his company a good idea about what tactics work best to maximize response rates. In general, choosing the scales that are most relevant to a district will help, as will keeping the surveys on the shorter side. Parents can be invited to participate by email, with reminder emails sent to only those parents who did not respond.
"Everything about SurveyMonkey is intended to be self-serve and easy to get started," said Mr. Aldrich at SurveyMonkey, explaining that schools and organizations are under no obligation to talk to the company first. "The template is available now, and schools are using it now."
Recognizing the digital divide that exists for some respondents, he said the surveys can be completed using the paper-and-pencil method as well. The questions have also been translated into Spanish.
Offering a Resource
SurveyMonkey officials declined to name school districts that are using the survey. But Michael Sarbanes, the executive director of the office of engagement for the Baltimore public schools, said he is aware of it through his participation in the District Leaders Network on Family and Community Engagement, held at the Institute for Educational Leadership, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. He called the new survey a good resource.
"We have our eye on it. One of the critical pieces in [our] work is getting actionable information … that is real-time and practical enough that you can adjust what you're doing based on the input you're getting. I think this will be a helpful tool for that," Mr. Sarbanes said.
Vol. 32, Issue 17, Page 10Published in Print: January 16, 2013, as Survey Tool Aims for Fresh Eye on Parents
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.


text:
Every Christopher Soghoian production follows a similar pattern, a series of orchestrated events that lead to the public shaming of a large entity—Google, Facebook, the federal government—over transgressions that the 30-year-old technologist sees as unacceptable violations of privacy. Sometimes he discovers these security flaws by accident, other times because someone has pissed him off, but mostly because he's parked at his computer all day looking for security flaws.
When he finds one, Soghoian, a PhD candidate in computer science at Indiana University Bloomington, learns everything he can about it and devises what he sees as a viable solution. Then he alerts the offending party and gives them a chance to fix things, explaining that if they don't, he'll go public with his discovery. (OK, sometimes he skips the give-them-a-chance step.) When the inevitable wave of media coverage starts breaking, Soghoian is often the first expert that reporters turn to for sound bites—about stories he has effectively handed them. In the end, the security holes get patched, and Soghoian gets more notoriety and more work. He's vertically integrated.
"If Chris Soghoian points out a technology-related privacy problem, then it should probably be taken seriously," says Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff attorney at San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which tackles free speech and privacy issues. "Nobody else is doing what Chris does—at least not at his level."
Consider Gmail. Everything you send and receive through Google's email servers is automatically encrypted using secure sockets layer, or SSL, which is indicated by the letters https at the beginning of a Gmail URL. It wasn't always so. Google used to keep SSL off by default; it can slow things down a bit. It was left to users to figure out how to opt in for extra security.
Soghoian interned at Google in the summer of 2006 and says that, like many Google employees, he was issued an encrypted laptop. He found it unacceptable that the company wasn't offering the same level of protection to the public. So three years later, when a fellowship at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society gave him access to free legal counsel and contacts to numerous tech-world leaders, he persuaded 36 of them, including Ronald Rivest (the R in RSA encryption algorithm) to sign an open letter urging Google to make SSL the default. He sent the letter to reporters and to then Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Soghoian won't claim direct credit, and Google won't give it (or deny it). But hours after the letter was published, Google changed its position, claiming that it had been planning to make SSL the default for Gmail. Seven months later, it did so. "All of the privacy lawyers at the big Internet companies now have Chris on their radar," says Caspar Bowden, a former Microsoft exec who recently moderated a panel on privacy organized by Soghoian. "He has a natural talent for bringing issues to a head, making real changes to corporate and government policies, and communicating the issues to the wider public. Organizations will probably feel bruised by the encounter but will realize in time they have been moved to a better place. Few people can do that, and Chris is a rare example of a genuinely strategic activist."
The impression that Soghoian is trying to become a Ralph Nader for the Internet age is only strengthened by his personal style—rumpled, alternately charming and grumpy, as righteous as he is intelligent. He's notoriously frugal; he bikes everywhere, and he lives in a basement room of a Washington, DC, house he shares with four roommates.
And he talks. A lot. With a slight British accent—the product of a childhood spent in London—he speaks in 1,000-word bursts with nary a like, y'know, or pause. Whether he's talking to staffers on the Hill, presenting at conferences, or giving interviews, he's direct, confident, focused, and unwavering. "I can walk into a room and explain how a cookie works or how geolocation tracking works or how encryption works or why data retention is a bad idea," he says. "This is what I'm good at."
Soghoian was born in San Francisco in 1981, his mother a social worker and his father a jazz musician and computer engineer. When Soghoian was a year old, the family moved to London, where his father had a job as a computer engineer.
He has been using computers for as long as he can remember. When Soghoian was 11, he persuaded his headmaster to sign paperwork that let him head over to King's College London computer lab, where he used email, jumped into Usenet groups, and explored the nascent World Wide Web. As a teen, he took evening classes in computer science at a community college. He finished high school at 16 and went to James Madison University in Virginia to study computer science. There he talked his way into a few graduate-level security classes, which piqued his interest in the field.
In 2006, Soghoian enrolled in the PhD program at Indiana University Bloomington's School of Informatics and Computing. During the late summer of that year, the 25-year-old was en route to Indianapolis from that most public of venues, the Burning Man festival in Nevada, when privacy became a much more personal issue. At the airport in Reno, Transportation Security Administration agents told him he couldn't take his Middle Eastern lunch through security. He wrote about it on his security-themed blog, Slight Paranoia.
Them: You can't take these on board. They're liquids.
Me: No. They're solid foods. The hummous is more of a paste than a liquid.
Them: You can't take it through.
Me: I realize that hummous and Al Qaeda come from the same part of the world, but, well, so does algebra.
Soghoian was pulled aside for a thorough search.
Once he got back to Bloomington, Soghoian set about exposing what he saw as the absurdity of TSA procedures. He devoured papers on airline security, looking for loopholes and back doors. Then he realized he could make his point simply by altering a Northwest Airlines eticket he had on his PC from a recent flight. The October 18 blog post he wrote about it, titled "Paging Osama, please meet your party at the information desk," explained how to bypass the FBI's no-fly list in 10 easy steps.
Soghoian's Targets
Over the past five years, the technology activist has delighted in publicizing the questionable practices of powerful organizations.
In October 2006, Soghoian revealed a TSA security breach by publishing a method for printing fake boarding passes, which earned him an FBI apartment raid. The TSA began to close the loophole the following June.
In 2009, he created TACO, a security plug-in for Firefox that enables users to opt out of targeted advertising.
Soghoian published an open letter to Google, in June 2009, calling for automatic encryption for Gmail users. Seven months later, Google made encryption the default. The following year, he filed an FTC complaint against the company for providing search info to third parties.
Sprint Nextel
While working for the FTC in the fall of 2009, Soghoian secretly recorded a Sprint Nextel executive admitting that his company gave user data to law enforcement some 8 million times in one year. The recording was featured on The Colbert Report (punch line: "Can you hear me hear you now?"). The following year, a Ninth Circuit Court judge cited the Sprint recording in a decision about how Fourth Amendment protections relate to GPS tracking.
In December 2009, Soghoian released a list of the prices companies charge the government for handing over private data. This past July, he went on NPR to explain phone spoofing and voicemail hacking. He later appeared on CBS Evening News and demonstrated the technique by breaking into his own voicemail.
Federal government
Soghoian coauthored a paper, published in March, that explains how governments are able to spy on allegedly secure websites; for example, a federal agency could use a surveillance device from the likes of Arizona-based Packet Forensics to route around encryption software.
In April, he blogged about Dropbox's backdoor access to user data. Two days later, Dropbox clarifies its terms of service.
He helped expose Facebook as the unnamed entity behind a PR campaign in May to push negative stories about Google's privacy policy.
In June, Soghoian persuaded AT&T to require passwords for user voicemail accessed from their own phones.
"TSA doesn't have access to the Airline's computer systems," he wrote. "Thus, they have no real way of knowing if a boarding pass is real or not. All they can do is verify that the name on the piece of paper (which may or may not be a boarding pass) matches the ID they have been given." In other words, if you were on the no-fly list, all you had to do was buy an eticket under a fake name and save it as HTML. You could then go into the HTML code and replace the fake name with your real one, print the ticket, and present it and your ID at security, which has no computers to check the no-fly list or confirm that the name on the ticket matches airline records. At the gate, where ID is not required, you could use your original boarding pass with the fake name, which, when scanned, wouldn't come up as a no-flier.
Soghoian spread the word to the media—including Wired.com—and the workaround quickly made headlines. On October 27, US representative Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who was then a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called for the arrest of whoever was responsible. When the FBI showed up, Soghoian asked the agents to wait a moment, went to his computer, and posted a quick note to his blog—"FBI are at the door. Off to chat."—then told them to come back with a warrant. They did. "Having my own computer seized by the FBI turned what had been an academic interest in privacy into something that directly impacted my life," Soghoian says. "I saw firsthand how a massive government agency can, in my opinion, abuse its power to go after a critic of government policies. That one experience made it very easy to see the government as an adversary, against which I continue to fight."
But Soghoian is not against fighting from within the system. Once Markey realized the perpetrator was a grad student who studied security, he backed down and even suggested that the Department of Homeland Security give Soghoian a job "showing public officials how easily our security can be compromised." DHS passed, but three years later, the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection recruited Soghoian as a staff technologist. "They didn't have anyone doing this," Soghoian says. "That's the equivalent of the EPA not having any environmental scientists on staff."
His first act at the FTC was to refuse to submit to the required background check. "I shouldn't have to sacrifice my own privacy to protect consumers," he says. The FTC brought him in anyway to, in his words, "add technical weight to their privacy-enforcement team and to help them find new cases." Emboldened by his new position, Soghoian attended the October 2009 Intelligence Support Systems World conference, a sort of South by Southwest for security wonks—cops, intelligence-gathering experts, surveillance-tech vendors, and telecom brass who gather to discuss everything from the Patriot Act to the latest spyware. It's known informally as the Wiretapper's Ball.
Soghoian managed to record a Sprint Nextel executive boasting that the company had provided user location data to law enforcement agencies some 8 million times. Naturally, Soghoian made the tape public. Stephen Colbert—among others—picked up the story, which was later cited by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case concerning police surveillance tactics.
When Soghoian's contract came up in August 2010, the FTC chose not to renew it. Soghoian claims his boss's boss told him the conference stunt was the reason. (The FTC wouldn't confirm this.)
Regardless, Soghoian says going to the conference was worth it. "I shaved for the first time in several years and put on a cheap suit," he says. "I felt like a secret agent, infiltrating the enemy's HQ. It was easily the most creepy yet exciting place I've ever been."
After leaving the FTC, Soghoian went back to living off his savings, a graduate stipend, and income from a fellowship and consulting work. And he has found plenty of opportunities to continue his privacy crusade. He files up to four Freedom of Information Act requests each week, an arcane task that he says delights him, and he has an ongoing suit against the Department of Justice for its refusal to hand over 600 pages of documents related to the FBI's use of GPS tracking.
Last spring, he and some friends discovered a flaw in the privacy policy of Dropbox, the cloud service that allows users to sync files across multiple devices. The company failed to disclose that it had a back door into that data. Soghoian wrote a blog post about the flaw. "The response from the tech community and paying users was instant and vicious," he says. Dropbox subsequently updated its privacy policy, disclosing its access to data stored on its servers. (The company declined to comment for this article.)
A few weeks later, he received an email from an employee at the PR giant Burson-Marsteller offering to help him write and publish a smear piece about Google's privacy policy. The effort was being funded by an unnamed client. Soghoian refused. Instead, he posted the exchange online and tweeted about it. The media picked it up, and Dan Lyons of The Daily Beast determined that the client was Facebook, which quickly found itself engulfed in a storm of bad publicity.
In June, Soghoian persuaded AT&T to require customers to always enter a password to access voicemail, a policy that leaves users less vulnerable to phone hacking. He has been pressing T-Mobile and Sprint to do the same. After the Murdoch empire's News of the World phone scandal blew up last summer, Soghoian appeared on NPR, explaining how phone-spoofing technology allowed reporters to access voicemail illegally. The next night, he broke into his own voicemail on the CBS Evening News in front of 5.5 million viewers.
Soghoian's financial situation improved in August when he began a George Soros Open Society Foundations fellowship, which gives him a high-five-figure stipend and a research assistant. His fellowship project is a website called PrivacyReports.org, which will grade telecom and ISP privacy practices for the layperson. Search engines, email providers, cell phone companies, online backup services—Soghoian will break down each company's level of security and privacy protections. "Visitors will be able to know how long providers are retaining their text messages and whether they provide law enforcement easy access to your location data," he says. "People have a right to know what companies aren't telling them. My hope is that after a year, once I have the data up and it's proving to be useful, I can give it to the ACLU or someone like that to run."
And then? Soghoian says that under the right circumstances he'd consider another government job—ideally for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which advises the White House on matters of individual privacy. It has been inactive since 2008. "I don't want security clearance," he says. "I don't need a staff. I just want to be an ombudsman, with an office and letterhead and access to lawyers and a fax machine. I know it'll never happen. They're not going to want someone who has a track record of speaking truth to power using their soapbox to point out their flaws. But that would be an ideal gig."
Mike Kessler (@mikeskessler) is a freelance writer in Los Angeles. This is his first piece for Wired.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


text:
Under UAB policy, clinical investigations will undergo review and performance in accordance with federal regulations of the Food and Drug Administration pertaining to human subjects protections and investigational drugs, biological products, devices or test articles. The UAB IRB will make an assessment of whether or not a clinical investigation must be conducted under an investigational new drug (IND; 21 CFR Part 312) application or investigational device exemption (IDE; 21 CFR Part 812) and, when applicable, will determine that a valid IND or IDE is present before approving the research. Investigators are responsible for supplying sufficient information to the IRB to make its assessment. (See also: Procedure[s] to Ensure Handling of Investigational or Unlicensed Test Articles Meets Organizational Standards Relating to [PRO121 Pharmacy] [PRO141 Devices], Inventory Control, and Documentation.)
For studies involving investigational devices that are not exempt from the IDE requirements, do not have an IDE, and for which the sponsor claims is not a significant risk device, the IRB will make an assessment of whether the device is a significant risk device. When a study claims to involve a non-significant risk device, the sponsor through the investigator must supply the IRB with an explanation of its claim. The IRB will assess the risk status of the device according to the definition of significant risk device in FDA regulations. Whenever the IRB assessment categorizes a claimed non-significant risk device as a significant risk device, it will notify the investigator and, where applicable, the sponsor. In such circumstances, the clinical investigation may not be performed at UAB without an effective FDA IDE application for the device investigation or other FDA approval.
Whenever an investigator holds the IND or IDE for investigational uses of test articles, the investigator acquires all the responsibility of a sponsor of the clinical investigation under the IND or IDE. The investigator status changes to sponsor-investigator (21 CFR 312.3 for drugs, 31 see GUI307; 21 CFR 812.3 for devices, see GUI306). Sponsor responsibilities may be delegated to another person only by written agreement. Regulatory monitoring for clinical investigations performed by an investigator holding an IND/IDE will include monitoring sponsor responsibilities. For studies by an investigator holding an IND/IDE a member of the OIRB regulatory compliance staff will conduct a pre-startup monitoring visit to ensure an adequate plan to meet sponsor responsibilities is in place. The IRB will not issue approval until receipt of documentation of pre-study start up visit has satisfactorily completed.
Approved on March 1, 2010, by:
Richard B. Marchase, PhDVice President for Research and Economic Development
Ferdinand Urthaler, MDIRB Chair
Sheila Deters Moore, CIPOIRB Director


text:
Police: 'Internet cafes' covered up illegal gambling operations in Modesto
3 suspects arrested
Two illegal casinos were busted for posing as Internet cafes in Modesto, police said Thursday.
Officers served search warrants at two locations over the past two weeks, and arrested three people.
At the Modesto Business Center, 1940 Crowslanding Road No. 13, the Modesto Police Department said it found $802 in cash and more than 50 computers.
Sonia Haro, 37, is accused of running the illegal gaming establishment. Kenneth Sims, 49, also was arrested, and now jailed on possession of methamphetamine.
Both are from Modesto, police said.
Tied to an establishment at 3900 Pelandale Ave., No. 145, 43-year-old Kevin Fleck is accused of running the operation. Fleck is from Simpsonville, S.C.
At the location, a Boostmobile storefront, police found 30 computers and $833 in cash.
The investigation started about three weeks ago, when investigators took anonymous complaints from members of the community about local businesses and accusations of illegal gambling.