Job~ma for Tom.

They're trying the woman who created the false profile on MySpace that allegedly caused that girl to commit suicide [link] .

Although, technically, they are trying her for internet violations. I don't quite know how I feel about them pursing this. OTOH, this is the same woman who said that she didn't feel as bad about the girl committing suicide because she had tried it before.

Regardless of the outcome, I think it's good that it's coming to light in the form of a trial because I think things like cyber-bullying aren't taken anywhere near as seriously as they should be and the fact that it was perpetuated by a parent absolutely makes me froth at the mouth.

Here in Jacksonville, a couple of years ago, we had a cyber-bullying case that was taking place between two schoolmates-- a boy was sending threats and vicious messages to a freshman girl, that he was going to do her harm at school and freaked her out so bad her parents kept her home. The school administration wouldn't do anything because there was no proof that any of the threats had been perpetuated on school grounds, so beyond that, they claimed no jurisdiction and that they couldn't even prove that the boy himself had sent them.

So the little shit was allowed to continue attending school while the girl was so scared she couldn't.

When I was bitching about it at a family dinner, Lewis' aunt got really pissed at me, saying that she knew the principal of the school and that he was a good guy, blah, blah, blah and I was like, "He could be St. Francis of Assisi, he's still not doing his job. Instead of hiding behind semantics, he should be doing all he can to ensure that the learning environment remains safe."

She hasn't spoken to me since.

The school administration wouldn't do anything because there was no proof that any of the threats had been perpetuated on school grounds, so beyond that, they claimed no jurisdiction and that they couldn't even prove that the boy himself had sent them.

This is bullshit. Fine, they can't punish the boy because he didn't make the threats on school property, I get that. However, they can take steps to make sure that the girl feels safe at school, like alerting her teachers, making sure that she has an escort at all times (even another student), giving her a free pass to come to the principal's office if she feels unsafe, etc.

Primes do more than just hang out pretending to be cool and saying, "Just me and One, baby, that's all there is"?

Well, on a practical level, they're at the root of the RSA cryptography algorithm which may be keeping your email or online purchases secure (not, perhaps, the storage of your credit card numbers, but that's another issue entirely).

Also, they're the basis of... well, all other natural numbers! They're all either prime or the product of primes, which may sound obvious but is in fact tremendously powerful. And thus, you know, fundamental theorem of arithmetic.

(I know the conversation's moved on and all, I just felt the need to reply.)

On the plus side, maybe they'll lay off my boss. His lack of socialisation has not gone unnoticed by the higher-ups.

I say with love, William. When a bunch of actuaries are noteing poor socialization that's hardcore.

The encouraging bone marrow treatment possibility may lead me to be tested for being a donor. Over 20 years ago the doctors suggested I might be immune. We'll see how the research stuff goes. I'll be watching.

You're giving me happy goose bumps everywhere.

Ah the continual HIV test request. It's like the continual "Could you be pregnant?" "Is there any chance you're pregnant?" "Hey, let's do a pregnancy test just to be sure." I had after a car accident and before my x-rays. I appreciate their diligence, but I was strapped to a board and getting punchy and each reply was increasingly smartass. "I wish." "Not unless it's Jesus." "Wouldn't I be showing at 19 months?"

Fay, was it yours?

There's legal precedent that if his actions cause disruption in the school environment, the school can act.

Wisniewski v. Board of Education of the Weedsport Central School District upheld disciplining a student for a violent and threatening IM icon that was used when communicating with students while not on school grounds, and Layshock v. Hermitage School District also dealt with MySpace issues.

From an article I read:

From these precedents one can see that the law governing student cyberspeech is in a stage of early development. In an excellent analysis of Internet law, Verga has summarized as follows:

(a)Student cyberspeech created on-campus that is lewd, vulgar, or profane may be prohibited under Bethel v. Frazer.

(b) Student cyberspeech created off-campus that constitutes a "true threat" to school safety and school operation may be prevented under applicable Tinker review.

(c) Student cyberspeech cases are increasingly subject to a court's assessment of whether restraint was exercised or punishment meted out only after an assessment of the relevant facts by a reasonable recipient of the information. The reasonable recipient is normally a school official.

The article is in a book called "American Public School Law" and is written by Professors Kern Alexander and M. David Alexander.

These cases deal with threats against school officials, but I think it's possible to use the Tinker test to broaden that definition to fellow students. YourLegalOpinionMayVary.

(This is based on my current studies in Education and Law)

Well, on a practical level, they're at the root of the RSA cryptography algorithm which may be keeping your email or online purchases secure

Why does the numbers being prime make a difference? Does cryptography only work on whole numbers?

It has to do with choosing really large prime numbers and multiplying them, and... someone's going to come on in about two minutes and explain it really well and make me feel stupid, so I'd rather not try. Basically, it relies on the fact that every natural number has one, and ONLY one, decomposition into prime factors -- so there's only one pair of primes that will make this very large number, but there's no polynomial-time algorithm to compute the factorization (at least, not yet). Er, and there's a whole lot of exponents and modulos and subtracting going on as well, and I don't understand the whole thing. But... yeah.

Does cryptography only work on whole numbers?

Er. I don't think this is exactly an accurate description... cryptography USES only whole numbers (at least, the stuff I'm aware of -- and that's very little!), but it works ON whatever data you've got. Which, mind you, is still encoded in bits, so I guess you could say only whole numbers. I think.

That computer science degree was quite a while ago, and I could be talking out of my ass completely.