Monday, April 30, 2007

Again data is lost by a contractor. I wonder what remedy is in the contract.

http://www.koat.com/news/13217242/detail.html

UNM Employee Information Stolen

Laptop Taken In California

POSTED: 6:49 pm MDT April 28, 2007 UPDATED: 6:56 pm MDT April 28, 2007

University of New Mexico officials said personal information for 3,000 employees may have been stored on a laptop computer that was stolen.

The university notified the employees by e-mail that some personal information may have been on a laptop taken Wednesday from a San Francisco office.

University officials learned of the theft Friday from an outside consultant working on UNM's human resource and payroll systems.

The university says the laptop is believed to have names, e-mail and home addresses, UNM ID numbers and net pay for a pay period for staff, faculty and a few graduate students.

University officials said they don't believe there's any significant risk of identity theft. Officials with the school said that without passwords, ID numbers can't be used to access university systems.



Purchasing the tool isn't quite as useful as actually using the tool... However it does suggest you knew what you should have been doing!

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/4F82B863EF709A05CC2572C90081FFCC

IRD laptops were not encrypted

Spokeswoman says that the department is "considering implementing this improved encryption capability", indicating it has not already done so

By Randal Jackson, Auckland | Monday, 30 April, 2007

Inland Revenue laptops, some of which are expected to be among 106 computers that could not be accounted for in a department asset check, are not encrypted to protect any data they might contain.

An Inland Revenue spokeswoman says Hewlett-Packard provides the department’s laptops and these contain TPM (Trusted Platform Module) functionality. However, she adds the department is “currently considering implementing this improved encryption capability”, indicating it has not already done so. [Are they also considering such advanced features as email and word processing? Bob]

TPM is a specification for storing secured information, including the secure generation of cryptographic keys.

The spokeswoman says Inland Revenue does have levels of security around its notebook computers.

“This includes power-on BIOS password and layers of authentication to protect access to sensitive information,” she says. “Our policy is not to store taxpayer information on local drives.”



Anyone like to co-author “The Decline and Fall of e-British e-Empire?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2494230.ece

Britain becoming a Big Brother society, says data watchdog

By Sophie Goodchild Published: 29 April 2007

Britain is in danger of "committing slow social suicide" as such Big Brother techniques as surveillance cameras and recording equipment spread into every aspect of our lives, the nation's information watchdog will warn this week.

A new report from Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, will say that the public needs to be made more aware of the "creeping encroachment" on civil liberties created by email monitoring, CCTV and computer tracking of our buying habits.

... He will also call for greater regulation of companies that supply surveillance technology which provides "convenience or safety for the more affluent majority", but not for the vulnerable such as children, immigrants and the elderly. [England for the upper-class! Bob]]



Progress?

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=47798&searchresults=1

New Zealand: The Tort Of Privacy

29 April 2007 Article by Grant Slevin

In this article, Grant Slevin, a solicitor with Wynn Williams & Co, advises that the New Zealand Court of Appeal has recently indicated that it is now possible to sue publishers in tort for breaches of privacy.

In past years there have been sporadic instances in which orders have been made to prevent the publication of private...



Always something useful

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/014708.html

April 29, 2007

New on LLRX.com for April 2007



Imagine that – the facts are not as important as making people feel good?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070427/022155.shtml

Gowers Admits That Evidence Suggests UK Should Shorten Copyright Length, Not Extend It

from the could-have-mentioned-that-earlier dept

Late last year in the UK the infamous "Gowers Report" on intellectual property was issued, while it recommended not extending copyright terms on performances, some of us felt that the report was too balanced for its own good. Gowers seemed to go out of his way to make sure the report gave a little to everyone -- and therefore basically gave nothing to anyone. Rather than looking at the fundamental issues, it just tried to give a little bit here to one side and a little bit there to another. Of course, the copyright term extension got the most attention -- with supporters of term extension mistakenly thinking that copyright is a welfare system to perpetually support musicians rather than an incentive system for the creation of new content. Now that the report is all published and done with, apparently Andrew Gowers is willing to admit that when they did their actual research and investigation, they found that the economic evidence supported making copyright terms even shorter than the existing 50 years. However, recognizing that decreasing the length would have created howls of outrage from the industry that still thought it had a chance for extending the term, he simply recommended leaving it alone. Of course, it should come as no surprise to those of us around here that the economic evidence would suggest society is better off with shorter copyright terms -- but it's disappointing that Gowers had to wait until well after the report was released to even make that basic point. At least it's one more hole in the myth that longer copyrights must be good for society. The entire interview makes for an interesting read, though (as fits with his report) Gowers keeps focusing on the importance of "balance" between two opposing extremes, as if they're competing. At some point it would be nice for people to realize that there are solutions where everyone can benefit.



What do you men, “La la la le la” isn't a lyric?

http://lyricwiki.org/Main_Page

LyricWiki.org

LyricWiki is a free site which is a source where anyone can go to get reliable lyrics for any song from any artist without being hammered by invasive ads.

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