Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Isn't this a clear failure of management? Is no one checking?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071203165715290

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics employee info exposed

Monday, December 03 2007 @ 04:57 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Almost 4,300 Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. employees had their personal information exposed to employees with access to the company network after the security settings on a file that was supposed to restrict access to Human Resources Dept. personnel was inadvertently removed. The file was exposed for approximately six months. [Six months and no one noticed? Bob] The personal information on employees dating back to 2002 may have included home address and telephone number, pre-employment screening information, compensation and other employment data, and social security number.

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. is a subdivision of Johnson & Johnson, and the file was available to any authorized user of the Johnson & Johnson (North America).

OCD arranged for free credit monitoring services for those affected.

Source - Notification letter to NH DOJ [pdf]



Because...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071203080837119

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, December 03 2007 @ 08:08 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.

Source - Chronicles of Dissent



Another perspective?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071203151225391

The Information Security Forum Releases Report on Dangers of Information Leakage

Monday, December 03 2007 @ 03:12 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

The Information Security Forum (ISF) today released a report on the dangers associated with information leakage. The report provides guidelines on how to identify, address and avoid such security breaches. To access the full report, visit https://www.securityforum.org/html/view_pub01.asp. This and other security issues will be discussed at the ISF 18th Annual World Congress, taking place December 9 – 11, 2007, in Cape Town, South Africa.

Source - WebWire



The defenders of copyright strike again?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/015229&from=rss

MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 03, @09:05PM from the sauce-for-the-goose dept. GNU is Not Unix

bobbocanfly writes "Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their 'University Toolkit' after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, Garrett eventually emailed the group's ISP and the violating software was taken down."


“There are lies, damn lies, and ISP advertising...”

http://techdirt.com/articles/20071203/030737.shtml

Traffic Shaping In The UK: Who's Honest And Who's Not...

from the sound-familiar? dept

While we've mostly been focused on the debates over traffic shaping and false advertising in the US with the likes of Comcast and Verizon in the US, there's an interesting parallel over in the UK. Just like Verizon, it appears that Virgin Media's broadband offering is advertised as unlimited, even as the reality suggests quite differently. It's "unlimited within a fair-usage limit." That sounds like "limited" to me. In fact, the article notes, a Virgin Media user paying for unlimited service could find his bandwidth suddenly capped after just 20 minutes of straight downloading. That seems like quite a limit.

Much more interesting, however, is the story of Plusnet, an ISP that was recently bought by BT. It does traffic shaping, but unlike just about every other ISP, is incredibly honest and upfront about what it's doing. This is exactly what many people have been telling Comcast it should do. There are supporters of Comcast's efforts who insist that if Comcast did such a crazy thing as to actually tell its customers what it's doing, it would ruin the whole plan. However, the details from Plusnet show that's not the case at all. Plusnet makes it very clear what it's doing, explains to users what to expect, and even helps them understand when it makes more sense to use high bandwidth applications. According to the few supporters of Comcast out there, this would never work -- and yet, it clearly does work for Plusnet. Not only that, the article notes that Plusnet's customer satisfaction rating has been growing steadily. So, once again, we'll ask what could possibly be wrong with Comcast telling the truth about the fact that it's using traffic shaping to prevent certain actions?



Tipping points are worth considering... If they are real.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/235241&from=rss

MP3 Format Still Gathering Momentum

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 03, @07:40PM from the thrashing-of-expiring-dinosaurs dept.

PoliTech sends us over to Billboard.com for a detailed article about the coming tipping point in the music business in favor of MP3. The two biggest drivers pushing Warner and Sony BMG toward MP3 are an upcoming massive Amazon-Pepsi download giveaway and a positive move by the usually maligned Wal-Mart (according to sources): "...Wal-Mart [alerted] Warner Music Group and Sony BMG that it will pull their music files in the Windows Media Audio format from walmart.com some time between mid-December and mid-January, if the labels haven't yet provided the music in MP3 format."



“Und next, ve vill require RFID chips!” No doubt it greatly improved the educational experience...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071204055357589

N.J. college makes GPS mobiles mandatory

Tuesday, December 04 2007 @ 05:53 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Minors & Students

Montclair State University is one of the first schools in the U.S. to use GPS tracking devices, which along with other security technology are increasingly being adopted on campuses in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre last spring.

.... Two years ago, well before Virginia Tech, Montclair State made the cellphones mandatory for all first-year students living in dorms at the largely commuter school in suburban New York City. Now, all new full-time undergraduates — whether they live on campus or off — are required to buy them. About 6,000 students have them now

Source - AP via USA Today



For your Security Manager...

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/044215&from=rss

Wireless Keyboard "Encryption" Cracked

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 04, @05:47AM from the hardly-needs-a-brute dept. Security Input Devices Wireless Networking

squidinkcalligraphy writes "While everyone is going on about wireless network security, it seems few have considered that increasingly common wireless keyboards can be vulnerable to eavesdropping. Particularly when the encryption is pitifully weak. All that's needed is a simple radio receiver, sound card, and a brute-force attack on the 8-bit encryption used. Passwords galore! Bluetooth, it seems, is safe for the moment."



Something useful for everyone...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016710.html

December 03, 2007

New on LLRX.com for November 2007



Fortunately, I have several in my advanced math class...

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/1646246&from=rss

Chimps Outscore College Students on Memory Test

Journal written by arbitraryaardvark (845916) and posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday December 03, @01:11PM

from the well-when-the-rewards-are-bananas dept.

AP's Malcolm Ritter reports that young chimpanzees were better at remembering a series of numbers flashed on a screen, than the Japanese college students used as a control group. Scientists plan to repeat the experiment using 5th graders against the great apes.

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