This story has been quiet, but I guess things have been happening.

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6141625.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Sources: HP to settle civil complaint

By Ina Fried Story last modified Thu Dec 07 04:29:11 PST 2006

The California attorney general's office is expected to announce Thursday that it has settled civil complaints with Hewlett-Packard over the company's spying tactics, CNET News.com has learned.

The civil complaints are separate from the criminal charges already brought forward by the attorney general's office. Five people, including former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn, are facing felony charges in connection with HP's campaign to determine the source of unauthorized media leaks. All five have pleaded not guilty.

A lawyer for the attorney general's office confirmed that an announcement is scheduled for Thursday, but would not confirm or deny the civil settlement. CNET News.com reported last week that the state's top prosecutor was considering a civil complaint over HP's tactics.

An HP representative declined to comment.

As part of its effort to uncover the source of news stories, HP investigators employed the practice of "pretexting," or using false pretenses, to obtain the phone records of more than a dozen people, including board members, journalists and HP employees. The company also employed physical surveillance and sent a bogus tip with an electronic tracer to a CNET News.com reporter.

After the company's tactics came to light, Congress held hearings, and the FBI and Justice Department also launched probes. HP also faces a formal SEC inquiry into the matter.

The scandal also prompted the departures of Dunn, general counsel Ann Baskins and two other HP employees.

The number of leaks isn't the lever to move administrators, it's personal liability that gets their attention...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2006120612381177

U. of Kentucky: No changes made after 4 personal data leaks

Wednesday, December 06 2006 @ 12:38 PM CST - Contributed by: anonadmin - Minors & Students

Months after the last incident in a series of private information leaks, UK has not made any policy or personnel changes to enhance its data security. A series of four data-leaking incidents took place over four months from May to August this year. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Web site, these incidents compromised the confidentiality of more than 8,500 UK students' and employees' Social Security numbers.

Source - KY Kernel

Here is how you get management's attention.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3647631

ChoicePoint ID Theft Victims' Day Has Come

By Roy Mark December 7, 2006

Victims of the ChoicePoint identity theft scandal will soon be receiving claims forms to recover out-of-pocket expenses.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) mailed more than 1,400 of the forms Wednesday and made them available for download at the FTC ChoicePoint site. Restitution claims must be postmarked by Feb. 4.

The victims will be paid out of a $5 million fund established by ChoicePoint as part of its January settlement with the FTC. ChoicePoint also agreed to pay a $10 million fine for failing to adequately protect the consumer information in its databases.

... In February 2005, ChoicePoint disclosed that an ID theft ring gained access to the company's vital credit information. The breach involved more than 160,000 records.

In a complaint brought against ChoicePoint, the FCC said the company did not have reasonable procedures in place to screen prospective clients, turning over consumer personal data to customers whose applications raised obvious red flags.

Tools & Techniques: Software to manage an organization's network (add, delete or update software on employee's computer) has been available for years. You can even expect software vendors to “take control” of your PC to solve problems or demonstrate how to perform some obscure task. This is not such a great leap when many high speed networks are “always on”

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/82181

Prosecuting and security authorities to be allowed to search PCs online

07.12.2006 13:40

What the Minister of the Interior of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia Ingo Wolf had already proposed as a completely worked-out plan and the Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble hinted at in his program for strengthening the internal security of the Federal Republic, which has a price tag of 132 million euros, is now to become a reality: In addition to its previous rights the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) is to be given permission to access PCs of citizens of the Federal Republic online. In August of this year Mr. Wolf had already presented the draft bill of a new Protection of the Constitution Act, which, once adopted, will among other things give the Office for the Protection of the Constitution undercover access to "hard disks" and other "information technology systems" on the Internet. In November the Budget Committee of the Bundestag, the lower chamber of Germany's federal parliament, had moreover signed off on Mr. Schäuble's Program for Strengthening the Federal Republic's Internal Security, which the minister hopes will allow authorities to nip in the bud or at least contain terrorist and other threats by monitoring online forums more closely.

In the finished program, which the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has seen, the Federal Ministry of the Interior declares the ability to search PCs without physical access to them to be a key component in the fight against terror. Searches of this kind "put a considerable strain on technical and human resources," the paper observes. But would nonetheless, according to the ministry, be considered an option when there were concrete grounds for suspecting that a criminal act had been or was about to be committed and a judge had given his or her approval. "Substantial resources" would be required to carry out such searches on a regular basis, the newspaper states. The Federal Ministry of the Interior apparently intended to engage in "nationwide PC screening," the daily quotes the expert on budget matters of the opposition liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) Jürgen Koppelin as saying. There was no legal basis for doing so, Mr. Koppelin, according to the paper, went on to say.

By the way, the bill of the new Protection of the Constitution Act, which Mr. Koppelin's fellow party member Ingo Wolf has proposed, is scheduled to be adopted by the parliament of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia today. How a screening of PCs protected by a firewall or tucked away behind a router with Network Address Translation is to be carried out the proposals of the politicians concerned with internal security remain conspicuously silent, however. Be that as it may an important element of Mr. Schäuble's Security Program is the establishment of an "Internet Monitoring and Analysis Unit " (IMAS) at the Joint Center for Defense against Terrorism (Gemeinsames Terrorismusabwehrzentrum; GTAZ), which is run by the police and the security forces in Berlin. Some 30 million euros are said to have been spent there on new hardware that makes it possible to eavesdrop on Internet telephone calls and closed chat rooms. The first task of the new surveillance unit is to increase the authorities' understanding of jihadists' machinations as they appear on the Internet. It has also been given the task to find ways to clear cyberspace of vicious, malevolent and inflammatory propaganda and remove such things as bomb-building manuals from the Net.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72250-0.html?tw=wn_politics_privacy_1

DHS Passenger Scoring Illegal?

By Ryan Singel 02:00 AM Dec, 07, 2006

WASHINGTON -- A newly revealed system that has been assigning terrorism scores to Americans traveling into or out of the country for the past five years is not merely invasive, privacy advocates charge, it's an illegal violation of limits Congress has placed on the Department of Homeland Security for the last three years.

The Identity Project, founded by online rights pioneer John Gilmore, filed official objections (.pdf) to the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, on Monday, calling the program clearly illegal.

The comment cited a little-known provision in the 2007 Homeland Security funding bill prohibiting government agencies from developing algorithms that assign risk scores to travelers not on government watchlists.

... A DHS spokesman said the language in the appropriations bill doesn't cover the ATS, and insisted the program is legal.

... Paul Rosenzweig, a high-level Homeland Security official, told Congress in September that the system had "encountered 4801 positive matches for known or suspected terrorists." However, it is unclear how many of those were correct matches.

... The comment period on the proposal, which ended Monday, will be re-opened on Friday for additional feedback. Comments can be submitted online using docket number DHS-2006-0060.

http://cbs4denver.com/local/local_story_340232534.html

Dec 6, 2006 8:33 pm US/Mountain

Jeffco DA Teaches Parents About Online Predators

Ericka Lewis Reporting

(CBS4) DENVER On Wednesday, Jefferson County's district attorney's office released a video on their Web site to make it easier for parents to teach younger children how to protect themselves against Internet predators.

... Access the video provided by the Jefferson County District Attorney's office.

Not such a big deal, my students divide by zero all the time, they just keep getting different answers each time.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/07/0416223&from=rss

Professor Comes Up With a Way to Divide by Zero

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 07, @02:01AM from the it-seems-so-obvious-now dept. Math Science

54mc writes "The BBC reports that Dr. James Anderson, of the University of Reading, has finally conquered the problem of dividing by zero. His new number, which he calls "nullity" solves the 1200 year old problem that niether Newton nor Pythagoras could solve, the problem of zero to the zero power. Story features video (Real Player only) of Dr. Anderson explaining the "simple" concept."

Dilbert summarizes society in three panels...

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2006152711207.gif