A short follow-up. Probably all organizations will get reports like this. What is unusual is when the organization actually does something because of it. NOTE: If this breach impacts Strickland’s political career, expect a flood of laws to protect politicians.
Report warned Strickland of data risk
COLUMBUS (AP) — Months before a computer device containing the Social Security numbers and other personal information of more than 500,000 Ohioans was stolen from an intern’s car, the state was warned it was vulnerable to data theft, The Columbus Dispatch reported Friday.
Before he took office in January, Gov. Ted Strickland asked teams of experts to evaluate key areas of state government and submit findings and recommendations.
The team studying the Office of Information Technology concluded the state had “little to no policy guidance or standards” for protecting Social Security numbers and other sensitive information, according to a report prepared as part of Strickland’s transition team.
What weren't you thinking? Mug shots?
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/jun/21/istep-collage-causes-a-stir/
ISTEP collage causes a stir
By John Martin (Contact) Thursday, June 21, 2007
New Harmony (Ind.) School officials acknowledged Wednesday that a picture collage of students who did not pass the most recent ISTEP test has filtered out into the community.
They said the privacy breach violates a federal law and they are trying to determine why and how it happened.
The pictures were intended to be given only to faculty at New Harmony's public school, which has students in kindergarten through 12th grade, said Fran Thoele, superintendent of the school district.
... Asked if she thought the principal's motivational tactic was appropriate, Thoele replied, "If the teachers would have used it in the way it was Thoele said the leak of the pictures could be a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. [Huh? Bob]
... The principal's statement goes on to say that the school "is taking this very seriously," and "if the person responsible is found, they will be handled in accordance to school board policy regarding student confidentiality and ethical behavior.
"It is unclear why this teacher [Why is it a teacher? Bob] chose this type of act instead of using the proper school procedure to express concerns."
We can, therefore we must!
EUB fails integrity test by spying on residents
Paula Simons, The Edmonton Journal Published: Thursday, June 21, 2007
When the story started oozing out, it sounded almost too paranoid to be true.
The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, an arm of the Alberta government, has been hiring private investigators to monitor farmers and acreage-dwellers from central Alberta.
... The landowners oppose an application by AltaLink to build a new 500,000-volt transmission line from Wabamun to Calgary across their properties.
Tempers have been running so high, the EUB has actually banned members of the public, including affected property owners and opposition MLAs, from attending the "public hearings" in person.
Instead, they have to watch the proceedings from a separate building on closed-circuit TV. Not satisfied with that security measure, the EUB went one step further and hired private undercover agents to infiltrate those meetings.
The EUB says its agents were only supposed to monitor those watching the hearings, to watch for signs of violence.
But the farmers and their lawyers allege the private investigators also insinuated themselves into private solicitor-client conversations.
Coming soon to a country near you!
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/91539
Data Protection Commissioner deplores "trend towards a Big Brother state"
21.06.2007 14:51
Upon presenting his 8th Report Harald von Bose, the Data Protection Commissioner of the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, has publicly deplored the increasing degree to which the state and private companies crave and achieve access to the personal data of citizens. "Restraint and moderation are no longer much in evidence," he said on Wednesday in Magdeburg. "The trend towards a big Brother state defined by comprehensive registration, surveillance, evaluation and control has picked up pace significantly," he added.
Apparently they are done with Estonia...
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/22/021239&from=rss
Crackers Cause Pentagon to Put Computers Offline
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday June 22, @01:15AM from the better-safe-than-sorry dept. Security United States IT
Anarchysoft writes "As many as 1500 Pentagon computers were brought offline on Wednesday in response to a cyber attack. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported of the fallout both that the attack had 'no adverse impact on department operations' and that 'there will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences.' When asked whether his own e-mail had been compromised, Gates responded, 'I don't do e-mail. I'm a very low-tech person.'"
Do you think someone should tell them it's not just search engines?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062101143.html
EU Probe to Look at All Search Engines
By AOIFE WHITE The Associated Press Thursday, June 21, 2007; 7:13 PM
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A European Union probe triggered by concerns over how long Google Inc. stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines.
The EU's panel of national data protection officers said it's now concerned over the retention of data that the companies use to deliver more relevant search results and advertising. Some fear the data could be targeted by hackers and governments. [Most are completely oblivious... Bob]
Ubiquitous surveillance: No more taking tests in the nude, people. Please!
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070619/194045.shtml
Online Test Takers To Have Their Every Move Watched By Special Webcams
from the we're-watching-you.... dept
For years now, there have been questions about the increase in high-tech cheating among students. One solution, of course, is to change the way students are measured, recognizing that collaboration is important so that working together and using additional sources is encouraged (you know, like in the real world). However, there still can be times where a good old fashioned test might make sense -- and that gets even more difficult when you're dealing with an online only school trying to give an online exam. A few years ago we discussed one school that was testing the use of a webcam system to take regular snapshots of the student while they took the test. It appears that just that type of technology is becoming increasingly popular for online test taking, with some believing it's more effective at preventing cheating than traditional proctored exams. The new camera system records a 360 degree view (to make sure there's no one behind the camera helping out), records all audio as well and even requires a fingerprint to make sure you're really who you say you are. It also has some method for alerting monitors to suspicious activity (such as if someone starts getting a bunch of questions right soon after taking a phone call). All in all, it sounds pretty thorough -- though, we're sure someone will figure out an effective way around it before too long. In the meantime, some are suggesting that such a system is too invasive -- but as long as the test-taker knows what he or she is getting into, it's hard to see how that's a problem.
Ubiquitous surveillance: What are you doing in that womb, kid?
NJ lawmakers approve HIV testing for pregnant women, newborns
By TOM HESTER Jr. Associated Press Writer June 21, 2007, 10:15 PM EDT
TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey on Thursday moved to require both pregnant women and some newborns to be tested for HIV.
... It requires all pregnant women be tested twice for HIV, once early and once late in the pregnancy, unless the mother asks not to be tested.
It also requires newborns to be tested if either the mother has tested positive or her HIV status is unknown at time of birth.
... The American Civil Liberties Union and women's groups contend the bill deprives women of authority to make medical decisions.
"Women's privacy rights and choices are as constitutionally valid as any other citizen, regardless of reproductive status," said Maretta J. Short, New Jersey's National Organization of Women president.
... According to the Kaiser Foundation, a nonprofit research organization focusing on U.S. health care issues, Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas require health care providers to test a mother for HIV, unless the mother specifically asks not to be tested.
Connecticut, Illinois and New York test all newborns for HIV, according to the foundation.
Seems to be a theme in the news today...
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/21/2032235&from=rss
E-Voting Report Finds Problems with Modern Elections
Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 21, @06:04PM from the i'm-going-to-count-these-again-if-you-don't-mind dept. Politics Technology
JonRob writes "The Open Rights Group has released a report on challenges faced by voting technology. Using the May 2007 Scottish/English elections as a testbed, researchers have collated hundreds of observations into a verdict on voting in the digital age. 'The report provides a comprehensive look at elections that used e-counting or e-voting technologies. As a result of the report's findings ORG cannot express confidence in the results for the areas we observed. This is not a declaration we take lightly but, despite having had accredited observers on location, having interviewed local authorities and having filed Freedom of Information requests, ORG is still not able to verify if votes were counted accurately and as voters intended.' The report is available online in pdf format for download."
So a willingness to share your source code should be a competitive advantage, right? (ES&S must have good lawyers...)
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070620/190152.shtml
Appeals Court Says E-Voting Company Doesn't Need To Reveal Source Code
from the this-again? dept
Back in January, a district court turned down the request from the losing candidate in a Florida election trying to see the source code of the e-voting machine, since it appeared to lose a ton of votes. The judge in that case worried that exposing the code to experts for review (not to the whole world) would somehow violate the company's trade secrets. An appeals court has now agreed, and will not force ES&S to hand over the code even though a report between the two cases showed that ES&S knew its machines were buggy while experts like Ed Felten show that a bug in the software could explain the mistakes found in the system. But, of course, protecting the "trade secrets" of a company that can't program straight is apparently more important than, say, a functioning democracy.
Is this a hospital's responsibility under HIPAA? If they discover a situation like this can they ignore it? It looks like they believe they are required to investigate...
http://web.theparisnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=682838f39bee1784
Blog sued by hospital
By Bill Hankins The Paris News Published June 20, 2007
Essent Healthcare, parent company of Paris Regional Medical Center has filed a lawsuit in Lamar County’s 62nd District Court against unknown “bloggers,” contending a blog — http://the-paris-site.blogspot.com — has defamed the hospital and that bloggers are breaking the law in releasing patient confidential information.
... “It is our duty as a healthcare entity and our obligation to the community to protect our patients’ rights to privacy,” said Kim Fox, a spokesperson for Essent. “We are morally and legally compelled to do everything we can to stop these violations.”
Part of my continuing rant that we will need “Virtual Law” experts in the very near future!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/20/virtual-goods-the-next-big-business-model/
June 20 2007
Virtual Goods: the next big business model
Susan Wu
This guest post is written by Susan Wu, a Principal with Charles River Ventures, where she focuses on digital media, software, and infrastructure. Susan is coproducing the Virtual Goods Summit this Friday at Stanford University - most of the companies mentioned below will be presenting.
People spend over $1.5 billion on virtual items every year.
... While people preoccupy
themselves with mocking the absurdities of some of these virtual worlds, the reality is that there are many businesses out there making meaningful amounts of money in virtual goods:
Tencent is one of the largest Internet portals in China with over 250 million active user accounts. They generated $100 million+ in Q1 of 2007 and over 65% of their revenue comes from virtual goods.
Habbo Hotel has over 75 million registered avatars in 29 countries and 90% of their $60 million+ yearly revenue comes from virtual goods.
Gaia Online does over 50,000 person to person auctions and 1 million message board posts a day- making them the 3rd largest auction site and the 2nd largest message board on the Internet. Their average user consumes 1200 page views a month. They employ 3 people whose sole job it is to open snail mail envelopes full of cash that people send in for virtual goods.
There’s a commonly held misperception that virtual goods are only for online gamers. Both Dogster and HotorNot are succeeding with a hybrid ad/virtual goods business model. Currently, over 40% of HotorNot’s revenue comes from virtual goods.
Major mainstream brands are now buying advertising in the form of virtual goods in social networks. Gaians can now purchase and pimp their virtual Scion xBs. Coca Cola and Tencent partnered to allow Tencent’s users to trade codes taken from real Coke cans for virtual objects in the Tencent network. Wangyou, a Chinese based social network, has also been extremely aggressive in experimenting with branded virtual goods.
... So why do people spend real money on virtual objects? There are four major reasons:
Virtual objects aren’t really objects - they’re services
... People on HotorNot are paying $10 to send the object of their affection a virtual flower - which is a staggering 3-4x what you might pay for a real flower!
Virtual objects create real value for people
... I see widgets fueling a massively distributed microtransaction economy in the not too distant future.
The cost of buying objects can be cheaper than “earning” them
You can make money off of virtual objects
Last year we were inundated with stories about Second Life’s first real estate millionaire.
Perhaps a simple re-work of other papers?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070620180003328
ANNOUNCE: FINAL CALL FOR STUDENT ABSTRACTS
Wednesday, June 20 2007 @ 06:00 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Other Privacy News
FINAL CALL FOR STUDENT ABSTRACTS
The Student "I": A student conference on privacy and identity
University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law October 25, 2007
Graduate and undergraduate students from all disciplines are invited to submit an abstract for The Student “I”, a student conference on October 25, 2007 at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada.
Preceding the Revealed “I” conference hosted by researchers from On the Identity Trail, this day long student conference brings together students from around the world, selected through a peer-review process, to present research relating to identity, privacy, anonymity, technology, surveillance, and other related topics engaged by the On the Identity Trail project.
Source - blog*on*nymity
Sure. Research. Right. Although I think the author got it right – as do most of the comments. Actually worth reading!
http://digg.com/business_finance/10_Sales_and_Marketing_Tips_I_Learned_From_Strippers
10 Sales and Marketing Tips I Learned From Strippers
Strippers are such great salespeople. Reall, they use a lot of highly effective sales and marketing techniques that can be applied in any business.
http://www.wisecamel.com/2007/06/20/10-sales-and-marketing-tips-i-learned-from-strippers/
For those who have the white bronco as their screensaver...
http://digg.com/celebrity/O_J_Simpson_s_Murder_Confession_Leaked_to_BitTorrent
O.J Simpson’s ‘Murder Confession’ Leaked to BitTorrent
In 2006 O.J Simpson announced he was releasing a book in which he would detail what would have happened, had he really committed the murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend in 1994. After public outrage, the book was shelved and 400,000 copies of the book were destroyed but now a digital version has been leaked to BitTorrent.
Story: http://torrentfreak.com/oj-simpsons-murder-confession-leaked-to-bittorrent/
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?bdmmd2lmuzy
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