Police push for carriers to store texts The Tech Chronicles

FILE PHOTO: The first SMS text message was sent 20 years ago on December 3rd 1992 over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom. The text of the message was â€œMerry Christmasâ€ from a man named Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 handset. Please refer to the following profile on Getty Images Archival for further imagery. http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=155270687&EditorialProduct=Archival#1 BEIJING, CHINA: A man uses his mobile phone for messaging in an underpass in Beijing 20 July 2004. China has 300 million cost-conscious cellphone users, many of whom have taken advantage of the fact that a short text message is charged only 0.1 yuan (one cent). AFP PHOTO/Peter PARKS (Photo credit should read PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) less FILE PHOTO: The first SMS text message was sent 20 years ago on December 3rd 1992 over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom. The text of the message was â€œMerry Christmasâ€ from a man named ... more Photo: Peter Parks, AFP/Getty Images Photo: Peter Parks, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Police push for carriers to store texts 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Here we go again.

Cnet reported Monday that a group of law enforcement agencies is trying to slip a provision into a pending privacy bill requiring mobile carriers to retain customers' text messages for at least two years.

It's easy to see why police and district attorneys would want these gigantic data sets preserved: Text messages have become increasingly popular tools in law enforcement investigations, providing evidence employed in drug, robbery and fraud prosecutions.

But it would effectively require private companies to gather information on at least tens of millions of innocent paying customers, in case a few of them break the law at some point.

It echoes the push by Republicans last year - at the behest of the Justice Department - to force Internet service providers to store a year's worth of data on every customer, on the same "just in case we someday need it" rationale. HR1981 was specifically geared to help police prosecute people downloading or distributing child pornography. It was sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), he of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) fame.

The current bill in question, a much-needed and overdue update of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, has been moving in a pro-privacy direction. Late last month, a Senate panel approved the latest version, which requires police to secure a warrant in order to search a person's online data, including e-mail messages. In many cases, those can currently be accessed with as little as a subpoena.

At its heart, the bill just grants digital documents the same legal protections long afforded to those in a person's physical file cabinet.

But at just about every turn, law enforcement groups have continually sought to make digital communications easier to access, even though they often reveal more about what we say, think and do.

Text messages can be particularly revealing, both because so much of our communications now occurs via SMS, and because of the nature of some of those conversations (ahem: sexting). By its nature, a person's text feed also reveals potentially intimate information about a second party, who isn't necessarily the subject of an investigation.

Law enforcement groups have complained that Sen. Patrick Leahy's proposed update of ECPA would make it harder to pursue criminal prosecutions. And they're right. But it will also make it harder to pry into the lives of innocent people. Given the checkered history of overzealous domestic surveillance in this nation (for more, see the Church Committee report on the "Overbreadth of Domestic Intelligence Activity"), that's a trade-off worth making.

But here's another concern: If I don't trust companies to properly secure and responsibly use the information they want to collect about me, the last thing we want to do is force businesses to hold on to mounds of data that most are currently content to delete after a few days.

No help from Yelp: Once again, a local restaurant and online review site Yelp find themselves at odds.

After just 10 months in business, Jake's on Market, at 2223 Market St. in San Francisco, closed over the weekend. However, first-time restaurant owners Tim Travelstead and Brad Becker didn't go out quietly; instead, they created a buzz with a farewell note on the front door of the shuttered restaurant.

In addition to thanking loyal customers and staffers, the letter also calls attention to "amusing and demoralizing" Yelp reviews that complained about, among other things, the color of the servers' T-shirts and fictitious dishes.

"We had people criticize dishes that we never served, food that never existed here," Travelstead said. "You don't know if it's a competitor trying to knock you down or if it's a disgruntled person.

"The frustrating thing is that Yelp doesn't do anything about it. As a small business, we don't have any recourse other than Yelp policing their own site, which they don't."

Travelstead says that he contacted Yelp about the misleading information, only to be told that Yelp "can't or won't" change them. He also finds fault with Yelp's infamously secret algorithm, which he says censored legitimate positive reviews.

That said, Yelp did contact him - as soon as Jake's opened earlier this year - about advertising. He declined.

"I think the issues with Yelp are felt most acutely in the restaurant industry," he said. "In most other industries, people don't look to Yelp in the same way in the Bay Area that they do for restaurants. I think that's too bad. I wish there were better tools out there."

As for the future, Travelstead and Becker say they'll rely on their already-established careers in law and nonprofit work, respectively.

Resume-killing words: If your resume says you're "creative," "organizational," "effective," "motivated" and have "extensive experience," you need to fire up your computer and start rewriting. Those are the top five most overused buzzwords used on LinkedIn in the United States.

In fact, "creative" was the most overused buzzword for the second consecutive year, meaning most people still aren't being, well, creative enough, according to LinkedIn's annual study of the most overused words and phrases found on the professional social network.

Buzzwords could be a buzzkill for recruiters who are scouring LinkedIn for new talent.

"If you want opportunity to come knocking, you've got to make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the pack," said LinkedIn career expert Nicole Williams. "Millions of professionals say they're 'creative,' so set yourself apart by describing and linking to projects you've worked on that truly were different, unique and compelling."

"Extensive experience" has at least dropped from its No. 1 spot two years ago.

Rounding out the top 10 are "track record," "innovative," "responsible," "analytical" and "problem solving."

The top buzzwords and phrases change by country: It's "multinational" in Egypt and Indonesia; "motivated" in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom; "responsible" in France; "effective" in India; "specialized" in Spain and "analytical" in Switzerland.

- James Temple, Paolo Lucchesi, Benny Evangelista