http://www.courierpress.com/news/2006/dec/27/patients-warned-of-possible-identity-theft/

Patients warned of possible identity theft

By JIMMY NESBITT Courier & Press staff writer 464-7501 or nesbittj@courierpress.com Wednesday, December 27, 2006

A Deaconess Hospital laptop that contained private information on up to 128 patients [At least its not 128 thousand... Bob] has been missing for at least a month, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

The laptop, which was used in the respiratory therapy department to record medical and personal information, was reported missing near the end of November, said spokesman Sam Rogers. Hospital officials have not filed a police report, but the laptop is presumed stolen.

The hospital mailed letters Saturday to all affected patients, warning them of the possibility of identity theft. Rogers said the hospital waited to send the letters because their internal investigation took several weeks.

"We don't know if it's stolen or if it's still lost," he said. "We took the safest route to just notify the people and assume that it is stolen."

“We never look at the information we send out until someone complains...”

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/12/27/montana/000university.txt

University apologizes for mistakenly sharing student information

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - Montana State University has sent letters of apology to more than 250 students whose names and Social Security numbers were mistakenly shared with other students.

Eight students each mistakenly received a list of 30 or so students' names and Social Security numbers, school officials said.

School administrators said they do not believe the information was misused, but alerted the 259 students after being unable to immediately reach all of the eight who received the information.

... Humberger said the mistake occurred when a student working in the MSU loan office mailed out packets to eight students who had paid off their student loans. Each packet contained the contents of each student's file, with the original promissory note marked as paid. But each packet also contained an alphabetical list of 30 or so other students with loans. The name of the packet recipient was highlighted.

Stealing a laptop too much effort?

http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1167214008856

Internet Research Digs Up Private Matters

Carole Levitt & Mark Rosch Law Technology News December 28, 2006

I know your mother's maiden name, your date of birth, your address and the price you paid for your house. I also know the name of the person who officiated at your wedding, the names of your children (and their dates of birth), the number of times you've been divorced and how much you inherited from your great aunt. I know the amount of your liens, the type of tattoo you sport (and its location on your body), your political persuasion and your religion. I even know if you are mentally ill -- and I've never met you.

I know all this because you live in a jurisdiction where public records (state and local) are abundantly free and accessible by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. [Is there a database that describes what is available in each jurisdiction? Bob]

While public records are made available to give notice to and protect the public, and to advance commerce, savvy lawyers access public records because they contain treasure troves of government-held data about people and companies. This data can be useful for: 1) locating anyone who has "gone missing," 2) tracing heirs or 3) investigating the background of a potential client, new partner, a witness or the opposition.

But, what if public records are not available in the jurisdiction you're interested in? What if government agencies and commercial database companies require a requestor to provide his or her name and the reason for accessing someone else's public records? What if your target is always informed of your access to their records?

Or, what if more privacy laws are passed and a record that is public today becomes private tomorrow? For example, drivers' licenses, were considered public until federal legislation deemed them private in 1994 (Driver's License Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721 et seq.). But it took six years and a U.S. Supreme Court case to stop states from treating them as public and selling the data (Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000)). And there are still exceptions to the DPPA so the records may be accessible in some instances.

How likely are these scenarios about losing access to public records?

... Here are examples of how you can use Web sites to find people or to learn about their background:

• Social networking: Trying to track down someone's address and you've had no luck using their name? Consider tracking them through teenage children's names by visiting social network sites like myspace.com or www.facebook.com.

  These types of sites are now even sprouting up for boomers and elders, as evidenced by www.eons.com. Visit it to learn if the person you are trying to track has a profile.

  Social networking sites are not the only place people are posting personal information about themselves. A family law attorney recently shared an anecdote about the embarrassing information that her client posted to an online dating site discovered by the other side. To dig up dirt, see sites such as match.com or jdate.com.

  Classmates.com is not just for reconnecting with your long lost classmate. It's the secret weapon of many private investigators. Search by a woman's maiden name and you might discover her married name. Search by a company's name and date range to identify people who worked at the company where your client was sexually harassed. You just might find a willing witness.

• Blogs: If you need to learn about someone's background, cell phone or fax number, read their blog. People typically add personal information to their blogs, not to mention provide a taste of their personality. For example, judging from the entries on a well-known lawyer's blog, he clearly has a dry sense of humor. This is something you would not learn from his profile at his traditional law firm Web site. Look for blogs at search.blogger.com.

• Podcasts: What better way to learn about someone than listening to their podcast? You might learn about the opposition expert's real opinion as you listen. Search for general topic podcasts at Ipodder, www.ipodder.org and legal topic podcasts at The Blogs of Law, www.theblogsoflaw.com.

• PowerPoint presentations: Some expert witnesses' Microsoft PowerPoint presentations from conferences get posted to their Web site or the conference Web site. You may not only be able to learn what that person really thinks by viewing PowerPoints online, but by looking in the editing mode, you can read their notes.

  Find PowerPoints by using the Advanced Menu on Google (or Yahoo), entering a person's name into the search box and then limiting your results to the file format PPT.

  Better yet, is there some inside information you could retrieve from a corporate presentation posted online? Inside information from Google Inc. was uncovered this way. Locate someone's PowerPoint presentation by searching at www.google.com/advanced_search.

• Google Groups: Is your client -- the one who was involved in an automobile accident -- on methadone? Do you believe another client had no notice until November 2002 that his company's product was defective? Take a walk through the community of Google Groups to see if your client publicly discussed his woes in a discussion group, or if others are discussing your client's products. The results might change your case strategy.

When the public record floodgates narrow or are closed completely, the amount of information you can find about people will only be limited by the time and energy you have to surf the Internet -- and your ability to think outside the box.

Related...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20061226/192351.shtml

Law Enforcement Just Can't Let Go Of Their Big Database Obsession

from the more-data,-more-data,-more-data dept

The various law enforcement agencies and groups around the US just can't give up on their desire to have big centralized databases, no matter how many problems it might cause. And, every time one effort is stopped, another one springs up in its place. There was, of course, the famed Total Information Awareness project that was shelved after it got a ton of negative publicity, and was later renamed the Terrorism Information Awareness project, because no one wants to be against "terrorism," right? Then, of course, there was the famed MATRIX system (not the movie) that would allow various state law enforcement groups to easily access similar databases from other state law enforcement groups, and would then spit out a "terrorist quotient" for any particular person to see how likely you were to be a terrorist (like a credit score, but more ridiculous). That got shut down after a wave of negative publicity as well. Yet here we are again, as the Washington Post reports that the Justice Department, the DEA and a bunch of other federal law enforcement officials are working on a big centralized database system called OneDOJ, which will let state and local police officers tap into federal law enforcement case files.

There are some obvious benefits for law enforcement agents to have such information at their fingertips. After all, some people believe it was a lack of critical data sharing that made law enforcement miss some important connections that might have tipped them off to what the 9/11 hijackers were up to. However, centralized database systems like this also open up a ton of potential problems as well. There are always questions about how accurate the data is, for example. Remember the guy who was arrested due to a database error? Then, of course, there are all the issues that come about from opening up this data to more people. Even if the people who are supposed to access it are in law enforcement, that's no guarantee it won't be misused. Remember the cop who used a law enforcement database to spy on his ex-wives? And the MATRIX system we discussed above was brought down in part due to a bunch of crooks hacking into the system, which doesn't inspire much confidence. In the meantime, of course, law enforcement officials are spending more time (and taxpayer money) using private databases rather than the ones they built themselves, not that they have any better quality control or security.

Roswell? The grassy knoll? Fluoride in the water supply?

http://people.howstuffworks.com/ref/declassified.htm?cid=rss1

Which secret government documents will be declassified on December 31?

by Julia Layton December 23, 2006

This New Year's Eve, at midnight on the dot, hundreds of millions of pages [Two day's worth? Bob] of U.S. government secrets will be revealed. Or at least they'll no longer be official secrets -- it may actually take months or more for the National Archives and Records Administration to make those pages available for public consumption. The NARA is already dealing with a multi-million page backlog.

But in theory if not in immediate practice, what was set in motion by the Clinton administration in 1995 is coming to fruition. Executive Order 12958 declared that in 2000, every classified document 25 years of age or older would be automatically declassified unless the classifying agency had already sought and received that document's exemption (anything that could cause an "identifiable" risk to national security, would violate a person's privacy or involves more than one agency is exempt). After two three-year extensions granted by the Bush administration in response to cries from the CIA, FBI, NSA and other agencies that they didn't have the manpower to review all of their papers in time, the final deadline has arrived. And President Bush is enforcing it.

Scholars of history, conspiracy theorists and freedom-of-information activists everywhere are doing a happy dance like none you've ever seen. We're talking about a treasure trove of historical documents, secrets that have been kept for decades, suddenly stripped of its Top Secret, Secret or Confidential status.

... So what can we expect to learn when these pages become accessible to the public? We're not talking about small secrets here. Experts says the documents will tell us about the inner workings of such events and periods as World War II; the Cold War; the McCarthy-era search for Communist sympathizers in the United States and the very real presence of Soviet spies in the U.S. government's upper ranks; the Cuban missile crisis; the Vietnam War and the government's anti-war-protestor activities including surveillance and penetration of activist groups; the CIA's secret experiments with LSD; the Camp David Accords that resulted in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt; the Iran hostage crisis in 1979; and the Soviet Union's attack on Afghanistan that same year.

... For more information on declassified government documents and related topics, check out the following links:

• CIA: Frequently Requested Records

• NARA: Declassified Records

• NSA: Declassification Initiatives

Sources

• "Automatic Declassification Deadline Looms." Secrecy News. Dec. 21, 2006.

• "Declassified Documents." Michigan State University Libraries.

• "Secret no more." Capitol Hill Blue. Dec. 22, 2006.

• Shane, Scott. "U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25." The New York Times. Dec. 21, 2006.

• "US Opens 25-year-old Files on State Secrets." Buzzle.com. Dec. 22, 2006.

Tools & Techniques Trivial, but interesting

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/start.html?pg=6

How to Foil a Phone Thief

... Of course, the US is a cell tech backwater, but firms in other countries are working on innovative antitheft products for mobiles. Some act as deterrents, others help recover the phone, and a few just satisfy your primal urge for revenge. Now, if we could just get these things stateside.

You don't suppose the company that manufactures the slot machines also makes e-voting equipment? “Sorry, you candidate won due to a software error...”

http://newsrush.blogspot.com/2006/12/all-bets-off-as-casino-refuses-to-pay.html

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

All bets off as casino refuses to pay jackpot

Two men from Manitoba have hired a lawyer and are threatening legal action after a Winnipeg casino refused to pay out more than $209,000 in slot-machine winnings.

The men were playing a computerized version of Keno last week when they matched all five numbers on the screen.

The machine said the win was worth a jackpot of $209,716.40. The casino said it was a software error.

... It says nickel machines normally don't pay out more than $3,000.

... "My clients saw what the payout was. As they were playing, they saw what five numbers would have gotten someone. It's not disputed that it was on the screen."

But Olynik said the slot machines have a sticker on them advising players that a "malfunction" voids all winnings. [Attention e-voting manufacturers! Bob]

... External Source: http://www.cbc.ca

Tools & Techniques

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/software/send-anonymous-text-messages-224575.php

Wed December272006

Send Anonymous Text Messages

Ever want to text someone anonymously? Hit up AnonTxt and just enter in an alias, a subject, and the message itself, and it'll be quickly sped to the cellphone number of your choosing.

Of course, the message appends "anontxt" to the sender's name, so the recipient knows where it's from. So if you really want to spoof someone's phone—say to make your co-worker think your boss is flirting with her—you'll have to look elsewhere. And you can contact anontxt to block your number if someone is pranking you repeatedly.