Wednesday, July 02, 2008

At last! A case where the organization breached can't say, “We have no reports that the data has been used.” Note that they still weasel-word the press release, despite the evidence.

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080702064950203

Baptist Health alerts patients to ID theft

Wednesday, July 02 2008 @ 06:49 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Baptist Health has sent letters warning about 1, 800 patients that the hospital system’s records may have been breached, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has learned.

The notification came after the arrest of a Baptist Health employee at a Wal-Mart store on 25 counts of financial identity fraud.

Source - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

[From the article: Among the items found during a search connected with the arrest of Hill was personal information for 24 other people, including “screen shots” — printouts showing the exact appearance of the images on a computer screen — that showed victims’ personal information.



This technique is well documented on a number of YouTube videos. What made them think they could ignore it?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080702075754180

Fingerprint payment already hacked

Wednesday, July 02 2008 @ 07:57 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Equipment used to let customers at an Albert Heijn supermarket in Breukelen pay by fingerprint has already been fooled by a rubber copy, news agency ANP reports, quoting website Webwereld..... Albert Heijn said the system was being tested so the company could learn from mistakes and make improvements.

Source - DutchNews.nl

[From the article: A man went through the till system with a rubber copy of someone else’s fingerprint on his own finger. Neither the system nor the till operator noticed, ANP said.



We don't need no stinking security...” A. Victim

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-9981954-57.html

July 1, 2008 11:28 AM PDT

Researchers: 637 million browser users at risk

Posted by Robert Vamosi

... Overall the authors found that roughly 40 percent of users were using insecure versions of Web browsers. Among the least compliant were users of Internet Explorer, which currently dominates the Internet browser market.

[The paper: http://www.techzoom.net/publications/insecurity-iceberg/index.en



Good morning, Mr Phelps...” You can almost hear the theme music in the background... (Should make e-Discovery a joy...)

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/privnote-com-self-destructive-electronic-messages/

PrivNote.com - Self Destructive Electronic Messages

In spy movies self destructive messages and notes are a veritable staple; in real life, you probably don’t have that luxury or thrill of auto-exploding secret messages, at least not until now. With Privnote, you can send Mission Impossible style notes to friends, colleagues, and contacts. Now, of course, your messages won’t actually blow up or burn; however, the link to the note is destroyed once it is clicked, so it can only be seen once. If someone else happens to intercept the note before the intended recipient gets to it, that person will know. Privnote will also send you a notification as soon as the message is read. Should you regret sending a note, you can destroy it yourself before any eyes have a chance to glimpse it. Privnote is absolutely free to use.

https://privnote.com/



Quotes & Statistics

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/070108-mcafee-spam-experiment.html?hpg1=bn

Diary of a deliberately spammed housewife

What happened when 'Penelope Retch' answered her spam e-mail By Ellen Messmer , Network World , 07/01/2008

... The idea of the Spammed Persistently All Month (S.P.A.M.) experiment — which fittingly started on April Fool's Day — was to have 50 volunteers from around the world answer every spam message and pop-up ad on their PC.

... Each S.P.A.M. volunteer saw an average of 70 spam messages arrive in their in-box each day, with men receiving about 15 more per day than women.

[The Report: The Global SPAM Diaries.

[The blogs: http://www.mcafeespamexperiment.com/usa.html

[A related podcast: Download today's podcast



This question will be resolved in November. We can only hope that the election will be resolved too...

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1304#comments

Vendor misinformation in the e-voting world

July 1st, 2008 by Dan Wallach

Last week, I testified before the Texas House Committee on Elections (you can read my testimony). I’ve done this many times before, but I figured this time would be different. This time, I was armed with the research from the California “Top to Bottom” reports and the Ohio EVEREST reports. I was part of the Hart InterCivic source code team for California’s analysis. I knew the problems. I was prepared to discuss them at length.

Wow, was I disappointed.



Always informative...

http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Security/15678146-fe5b-48a1-b40e-9292b90214c8.html

Privacy commissioner probes cloud computing

Ann Cavoukian’s office looks at services to host software and data over the Internet and raises questions about the protection of users’ information. Consider her key identity management suggestions

By: Shane Schick ComputerWorld Canada (29 May 2008)

... In a white paper published Wednesday, Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian discussed the changing landscape for individual information as software moves to Web-based services from companies such as Google, IBM or Amazon. The 30-page document provides an overview of cloud computing as well as the technological building blocks Cavoukian says are necessary to protect data from those who shouldn’t see it.



I love list and I love blogs, how could I resist?

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/018705.html

July 01, 2008

The Top 100 Law and Lawyer Blogs

Criminal Justice Degree Guides: "The Top 100 Law and Lawyer Blogs Law blogs, also known as blawgs, are plentiful these days. In fact, there are probably thousands to choose from and more appear each week. For that reason, it may be difficult for you to narrow down which ones are worth a regular read. Whether you are a lawyer, law student or merely interested in the subject, we’ve attempted to cut through the chaff and provide you with what we regard as the top 100 law and lawyer blogs listed below. It was very difficult to choose only 100 blogs from the myriad of successful law blogs. In an effort to remain fair, you will find a variety of subjects covered with the following blogs. Not only are high-profile general law blogs included, niche blawgs are also offered for your consideration. Since it would be impossible to rank them according to importance, they are categorized according to subject and then alphabetized."



For my website class

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/widgenie-com-easy-widget-creation-tool/

Widgenie.com - Easy Widget Creation Tool

Widgenie is a data visualization tool geared at non-tech folks. It allows bloggers, businessmen, housewives, priests, anyone basically, to create widgets or visual information charts for publishing on the web’s most popular sites like Facebook, Wordpress and iGoogle. Users can import data from Excel spreadsheets, CSV files and data feeds from Widgenie’s partner sites. After the data is input, it can be customized via a drag and drop editor—no coding whatsoever is required. Colors, size, headings, fonts and more can all be customized according to user preferences. All changes can be previewed within Widgenies viewing window. On the social side, you’ve to a community forum called ‘Inside the Lamp’ where you can find tips, advice and buzz about new widgets and tool developments. There are tutorials to guide you through making your own widgets, and if you need extra help you can always consult the Widgenie community.

http://www.widgenie.com/index.html



Think what this could do for education... Students “forced” to write about what they learn – even if they don't know they are learning.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13641_3-9982617-44.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

July 1, 2008 10:16 PM PDT

The writing organization: knowledge management made easy

Posted by Tim Leberecht

... Make it mandatory for every employee to keep an internal blog and post at least once per week. Depending on their role, employees can blog about customer experiences, sales tactics, strategy, product improvements, organizational design, competitors, market trends, and even gossip. Potential productivity losses are outweighed by the value of knowledge that is being generated and shared.

And what is productivity anyway these days? "Productivity (...) is exactly the wrong thing to care about in the new economy," writes Kevin Kelly in his "Maxims for the Network Economy": "In the coming era, doing the exactly right next thing is far more fruitful than doing the same thing twice." Blogging helps identify the right thing. [Hear that, readers? Bob]

[How can you resist a “Maxim” like: The surest way to smartness is through massive dumbness. Bob]



We need a guide that explains exactly, step-by-step, what our students should not do...

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/01/1838205&from=rss

Expensive Books Inspire P2P Textbook Downloads

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 01, @02:50PM from the psst-can-I-borrow-your-con-law-book-for-a-bit dept. Education Books The Internet Technology

jyosim writes

"A site called Textbook Torrents is among the many sites popping up offering free downloads of expensive textbooks using BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer networks. With the average cost of textbooks going up every year, and with some books costing more than $100, some experts say that piracy will only increase."

Having just completed graduate school, I can attest that quite a few books are in that more-than-$100 range, and that they're heavy besides. But the big-name textbook publishers are much less interested than I am in open textbooks, even if MIT has demonstrated that open courseware is feasible, and Stanford and other schools have put quite a bit of material on iTunes.

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