Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Couldn't they nail them down?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071016180018370

Home Depot Laptop With Personal Employee Data Stolen

Tuesday, October 16 2007 @ 06:00 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Team 5 Investigates has confirmed that a Home Depot laptop containing the personal information of 10,000 employees has been stolen from the home of a worker in Massachusetts.

.... Team 5 Investigates has confirmed that the laptop was stolen from the personal car of an unnamed Massachusetts employee, while the car was parked at his residence. Home Depot will not disclose the city or town.

Source - Boston Channel



Another one? I would love to know what disciplinary action will be taken.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5216944.html

Laptop goes missing with data on workers

Administaff says information covers 159,000 past and present

By L.M. SIXEL Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Oct. 15, 2007, 10:54PM

Administaff is warning 159,000 of its current and former employees that a company laptop containing confidential information about them has gone missing.

... An employee had taken the computer home and stopped to go grocery shopping, said Richard Rawson, Administaff's president. The next day — on Oct. 3 — the laptop was no longer in his car. [If he didn't need to use the laptop, why did he take it home? Bob]

The laptop is password-protected, but the personal information was not saved in an encrypted location, which is a "clear violation" of company policies, [If that is the policy, why don't they enforce it by installing software that forces encryption? Bob] according to an Administaff announcement.


Another “Policy” that is unlikely to be followed...

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2199122,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

TSA Demands Encryption Following Dual Laptop Loss

By Lisa Vaas October 16, 2007

All data must be encrypted, the TSA orders, after the loss of laptops holding hazmat driver data.



Read this!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071016083502159

Schneier: Security Risks of Wholesale Telephone Eavesdropping

Tuesday, October 16 2007 @ 08:35 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Surveillance

A handful of prominent security researchers have published a report on the security risks of the large-scale eavesdropping made temporarily legal by the "Protect America Act" passed in the U.S. in August, and which may be made permanently legal soon. "Risking Communications Security: Potential Hazards of the 'Protect America Act'" -- dated October 1, 2007, and marked "draft" -- is well worth reading

Source - Schneier on Security



Guidelines!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007101616325298

World Privacy Forum gives keynote speech to AHIMA on medical identity theft; outlines an 8-point plan for best-practice response

Tuesday, October 16 2007 @ 04:32 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Medical Privacy

Executive director Pam Dixon spoke to thousands of AHIMA delegates in Philadelphia sharing the latest information on medical identity theft and outlining a new 8-point plan for responding to the crime. Dixon specifically asked for the creation of national guidelines for dealing with medical identity theft victims, the ability for victims to set red flag alerts in their health care files, that providers train and have dedicated personnel to help medical identity theft victims, "john and jane doe" file extractions, a focus on resolving insider access to patient information, risk assessments specifically for medical identity theft, and educational efforts. The information in the speech was based on the latest World Privacy Forum research in the area of medical identity theft.

Speech - Medical Identity Theft: Issues and Responses (PDF)



Opening the Class Action floodgates?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071017082644945

Bill would let ID theft victims seek restitution

Wednesday, October 17 2007 @ 08:26 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Fed. Govt.

A bipartisan bill that would let victims of identity theft seek restitution for money and time they spent repairing their credit history was introduced on Tuesday in the Senate.

The legislation would also give federal prosecutors more tools to combat identity theft and cyber crime, according to sponsors Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Source - Washington Post

[From the article: The bill would also eliminate a requirement that the loss resulting from damage to a victim's computer must exceed $5,000 for prosecution; make it a felony to use spyware or keyloggers to damage 10 or more computers; and expand the definition of cyber crime to include extortion schemes that threaten to damage or access confidential information on a computer.



Closing the “public Information loophole?”

http://www.topix.net/news/privacy/2007/10/judge-feds-can-withhold-worker-records

Judge: Feds Can Withhold Worker Records

“They waved the terrorism flag and the judge bought it.”

A judge says the federal government can legally withhold the names, salaries and positions of more than 900,000 federal employees from a university agency that for years has made the information public.

Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue determined the privacy rights of the employees could be compromised by release of the information to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University.

The judge also agreed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that the release of certain information could compromise national security. Read more

Full story: Available on Topix from The Associated Press - 12 hrs ago



How broadcast TV will die? (Lists a number of free TV sources on the Internet.)

http://www.news.com/Watching-TV-on-the-laptop-and-on-the-cheap/2100-1026_3-6213895.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

Watching TV on the laptop--and on the cheap

By Elinor Mills Story last modified Wed Oct 17 04:00:03 PDT 2007

... I went on a search for some of my old--and new--favorite TV shows on the Internet. The one caveat: it had to be free, because this TV dilettante wasn't paying for anything other than my phone and DSL broadband service.



10 TED videos... (I've used the Statistics talk in my class)

http://digg.com/videos/people/The_Ten_Videos_to_Change_How_You_View_the_World

The Ten Videos to Change How You View the World watch!

lifehack.org — I believe that a sign of good information is that it makes you think. If reading a book, listening to a lecture or watching a video doesn’t change how you think, it probably isn’t that important. But if you encounter something that forces you to change your views, even if you don’t completely agree with it, you’ve found something valuable.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/miscellaneous/the-ten-videos-to-change-how-you-view-the-world.html



Boy that Vista is one nifty operating system. Almost a good as Windows 3.1! Be sure to tell your techies they need to get this fix!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/16/1658230&from=rss

Vista Runs Out of Memory While Copying Files

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 16, @02:02PM from the how-hard-can-it-be dept. Bug Windows

ta bu shi da yu writes "It appears that, incredibly, Vista can run out of memory while copying files. ZDNet is reporting that not only does it run out of memory after copying 16,400+ files, but that 'often there is little indication that file copy operations haven't completed correctly.' Apparently a fix was scheduled for SP1 but didn't make it; there is a hotfix that you must request."



Attention Wife! Do not fall for this... Please! (Send us money or we'll shoot this dog!)

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071015/213517.shtml

New Nigerian Scam Involves Cute Little Puppies

from the sucker-born-every-minute-ooo!-puppies! dept

The infamous "Nigerian 419" scam has been around for quite some time now. Having evolved since its original premise, the latest version of the scam preys upon dog lovers by goading them into paying exorbitant amounts of money to adopt nonexistent puppies from afar. In contrast to the original version of the scam, which appealed to people's greed, this latest version is unique in that it preys on the charitable -- people with big hearts that are looking to help out a few poor puppies. Whereas some may have held victims partly culpable in scams where the victims were looking to cash in on a large windfall, in the case of the puppies, it's hard to find fault in these scammed good Samaritans.

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