http://www.databreaches.net/?p=648
NE: E-mail spurs NECC to file libel suit
Posted January 14th, 2009 by admin
A Nebraska college is suing the unknown person or people who sent an e-mail to state officials and the news media that college officials say was intended to embarrass the school.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Madison County District Court says the e-mail signed by “necc–student” complained that a Northeast Community College student was caught hacking into the college’s computer system. The e-mail said students were not properly informed of the breach.
Read more on KTIV
N.B. I was not aware of any such incident or allegation, and a Google search does not return any results showing that any media source or blog had reported the original allegations.
Initiating the debate?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090115070341531
Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Program Legal
Thursday, January 15 2009 @ 07:03 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans’ private communications may be involved.
The court decision is expected to be disclosed as early as Thursday in an unclassified, redacted form. It was made in December by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which has issued only two prior rulings in its 30-year history.
[...]
The court ruling grew out of a previously undisclosed challenge from a telecommunications provider, which questioned the constitutional authority of the executive branch in ordering it to capture and turn over international communications without court authority, according to the person with knowledge of the opinion.
Source - NY Times
Related Is this the best strategy?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090115072410770
FISA Could Change Under Obama
Thursday, January 15 2009 @ 07:24 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
With one legal step, President Obama could undo the retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies allegedly involved in warrantless wiretapping that he opposed as Sen. Obama.
And a hint about what he intends to do could come Thursday at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Eric H. Holder Jr., who would be the man to pull that string as Obama’s attorney general.
A decision to short-circuit retroactive legal immunity for the telecoms would be but the first step in a series of potentially momentous legal, administrative and legislative maneuvers in the aftermath of a 2008 law (PL 110-261) that appeared to set aside troublesome surveillance-related debates, but may not have.
Source - CQ Politics
Related - What Obama Can and Should Do to Stop Telecom Immunity EFF, November 19, 2008
Blame the computer?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090115063348925
High court OKs using evidence from search arising from error
Thursday, January 15 2009 @ 06:33 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that drug evidence found during an unlawful arrest arising from a computer error about a warrant could be used at trial against the defendant.
When police mistakes that lead to an unlawful search arise from "negligence … rather than systematic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements," evidence need not be kept from trial, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority in the case from Alabama.
[...]
"The most serious impact of the court's holding will be on innocent persons wrongfully arrested based on erroneous information carelessly maintained in a computer database," Ginsburg wrote for the dissenters. [That is an accurate quote, but it made me wonder if she is suggesting that NO arrests be made based on data from computer system until it has been verified by a human? Is all digital data fruit of the poisoned tree? Bob]
She cited findings from the Electronic Privacy Information Center that government databases are rife with errors.
Source - USA Today Related - EPIC's Amicus Brief [pdf]
Towards an understanding of why “people can be so stupid!”
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090115065140334
How We Are Tricked Into Into Giving Away Our Personal Information
Thursday, January 15 2009 @ 06:51 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
We human beings don’t always do as we have been taught, and organizations are poorly prepared for IT security attacks that target human weaknesses. Since it is difficult to change people’s behavior, it doesn’t help to provide training about how to behave securely. This is shown by Marcus Nohlberg in his dissertation at Stockholm University in Sweden in which he studied attacks that are called social engineering in IT contexts.
Source - Science Daily
[For the dissertation, go here: http://diva-portal.org/su/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=8379 click on “fulltext” Bob]
File this in the “Passwords are never adequate security” folder
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F15%2F1334222&from=rss
GPUs Used To Crack WiFi Passwords Faster
Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday January 15, @08:43AM from the security-tools-yeah-right dept. Security
MojoKid writes
"Russian-based ElcomSoft has just released ElcomSoft Wireless Security Auditor 1.0, which can take advantage of both Nvidia and ATI GPUs. ElcomSoft claims that the software uses a "proprietary GPU acceleration technology," which implies that neither CUDA, Stream, nor OpenCL are being utilized in this instance. At its heart, what ElcomSoft Wireless Security Auditor does is perform brute-force dictionary attacks of WPA and WPA2 passwords. If an access point is set up using a fairly insecure password that is based on dictionary words, there is a higher likelihood that a password can be guessed. ElcomSoft positions the software as a way to "audit" wireless network security."
[Alternatives from the comments: https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm (but it's online, so someone else controls it) or http://world.std.com/~reinhold/diceware.html
Best (most profound?) comment: “It just seems that who ever I vote for, some idiot politician gets elected anyway...”
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F14%2F2357254&from=rss
Biometric Passports Agreed To In EU
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 15, @12:45AM from the look-into-the-scanner dept. Privacy Government
An anonymous reader writes
"The European Parliament has signed up to a plan to introduce computerized biometric passports including people's fingerprints as well as their photographs, despite criticism from civil liberties groups and security experts who argue that the move is flawed on technical grounds. (Back in 2005 Sweden and Norway began deploying biometric passports.)"
Related. Suggests that increased volume and variations in image quality will be major problems.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/020312.html
January 14, 2009
State of the Art Biometrics Excellence Roadmap: Technology Assessment
Nextgov: "The FBI released on [January 13, 2009] a detailed study of the advancement of different kinds of biometrics -- from fingerprints to ear scans -- to lay out how the bureau might pursue the identification of individuals in the future."
Another attempt to create the e-Lawyer? Are they “practicing” law?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/rocketlawyer-com-legal-help-at-your-fingertips
RocketLawyer.com - Legal Help At Your Fingertips
Make a point of visiting this site in the event you are faced with any kind of legal difficulty and need a cost-effective solution, or if you want to inform yourself about legal documents as a whole.
The website is split into four different sections, and these map out the provided services. These include “Free legal help”, “Free legal forms” and “Legal document services”. The fourth and final section is entitled “Find a lawyer”, and by providing some basic information such as the City and the State along with the area of law you will be able to contact a legal expert that will meet your needs.
Moreover, the site features a collection of popular legal forms including employee agreements, corporate minutes and bylaws, and service contracts. Other documents such as promissory notes and living trusts are also included for you to have a good umbrella knowledge of different types of legal forms, and the set of responsibilities that each one entails. A very important feature of the site is that documents can be created easily with the assistance of the Rocket Lawyer team, and the process is described online under the pertinent heading.
Lastly, it must be mentioned that a series of videos that deal with issues like “When should I seek the advice of a Lawyer?” and “What happens if I die without a will?” are included for your queries to be resolved in as thorough a way as possible.
Told ya!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10143181-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
IPTV is on the rise
Posted by Marguerite Reardon January 14, 2009 4:17 PM PST
Phone companies around the world offering IPTV are expected to see a 32 percent increase in subscribers by 2014, according to a new report published by market research firm ABI Research.
ABI's report notes that while traditional satellite and cable TV platforms will likely continue to retain a foothold in most markets, new IPTV services that provide interactive television will grow to nearly 79 million subscribers over the next five years.
"(IPTV) usage will initially be concentrated in countries with established high-speed Internet technologies, such as France, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Hong Kong," [Note that the US is not included. We don't have “high speed” internet! Bob] Serene Fong, an industry analyst at ABI Research, said in a statement.
Will it be common for police to search computers when investigating any “leaving the scene” incident?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10143275-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Police Blotter: Google searches nab hit-and-run driver
Posted by Declan McCullagh January 15, 2009 4:30 AM PST
What: Google searches for phrases including "hit-and-run" nab California investment banker who claimed he believed he killed a deer instead of a person.
… Eventually their investigation led them to secure a warrant to search the home of Lee Harbert, a San Francisco-area investment banker who had been convicted three times for driving while intoxicated (apparently at least some convictions had been expunged). Inside his garage was a black 2000 Jaguar Vanden Plas that had been recently cleaned. It had body damage and police found one of the dead woman's earrings in the windshield well.
… This could have remained a he-said-she-said situation except for a detail that makes this case relevant to Police Blotter: Harbert's Internet searches.
When police searched Harbert's house, they examined his computer. They found evidence of Google searches a few days after the accident for search terms including "auto glass reporting requirements to law enforcement," "auto glass, Las Vegas," auto parts, auto theft, and the Moraga Police Department. He allegedly also searched for "hit-and-run," which led him to a Web page dealing with the death of Gurdeep Kaur saying police had a lead on what vehicle they were looking for
Remember those stories about people who read the entire encyclopedia from aardvark to zxumonious (yes, I made that up)? We are now able to store multiple-lifetime reading volumes on our home computers. We really need tools to sort through the chaff.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F14%2F2126204&from=rss
Wikipedia Gears Up For Explosion In Digital Media
Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 14, @04:23PM from the until-there-is-only-one-site-on-the-internet dept. The Internet IT
jbrodkin writes
"Wikipedia is gearing up for an explosion in digital content with new servers and storage designed to handle larger photo and video uploads. Until early 2008, the user-generated encyclopedia's primary media file server had just 2TB of total space, which was not enough to hold growing amounts of video, audio and picture files, says CTO Brian Vibber. 'For a long time, we just did not have the capacity [to handle very large media files],' he says. Wikipedia has raised media storage from 2TB to 48TB and the limit on file uploads from 20MB to 100MB. Ultimately, Wikipedia wants to eliminate any practical size limits on uploads, potentially allowing users to post feature length, high-quality videos. 'The limits will get bigger and bigger to where it will be relatively easy for someone who has a legitimate need to upload a two-hour video of good quality,' Vibber says."
Toolkit: Close but no cigar – should be an RSS feed or a Tweet – email is so last century!
Video-alerts.com - Know When Interesting Videos Surface
This site will be more than useful if you wish there were a sort of way of knowing when videos that could appeal to you hit YouTube. As you can see from its name, what Video-Alerts does is to send you an e-mail notification whenever a piece that matches criteria that you have specified beforehand graces the popular video hosting service.
Such a solution is provided at no cost, and you will be able to supply up to ten relevant keywords to be taken into consideration. As well as being used to follow your best-loved performers or artists, this system doubles as a tool for keeping abreast of industry news and developments. Likewise, you can use it to find out when someone mentions or reviews any of your products.
As a conclusion, this site will empower you to be the first to watch relevant videos as they come along, and do so in a flexible manner. Visit www.video-alerts.com for additional information, or for setting the scene for some future video-oriented antics on the spot.
Interesting. (There are probably sites like this in the US) Peek at technologies before they come on the market.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/hotindianstartups-com-indian-startups-database
HotIndianStartups.com - Indian Startups Database
http://www.hotindianstartups.com
An online database that covers one of the most prolific regions in the world of technology, Hot Indian Startups is there to show people all over the globe how things are shaping up from the word go.
The site has a prototypical layout – EG, you can see the most recent additions to the database on the main page, whereas the most popular sites are spotlighted for you to have access to the pick of the bunch in an immediate fashion.
Of course, a search tool is included to let you streamline proceedings, whereas the featured sites are arranged in different categories like “Entertainment”, “Social” and “Technology” to mention but three.
Also, remember that the site is user driven, so that if you live in India and want to promote your new site, then this online resource is more than likely to see you through. Just sign up and you are ready to submit your own piece to the site.
For the Swiss Army folder. Might be useful for setting up those online students...
http://www.killerstartups.com/Video-Music-Photo/glance-net-screen-sharing-made-easy
Glance.net - Screen Sharing Made Easy
Glance is a screen sharing solution that has just been launched. It makes for sessions where up to 100 members can take part, and the user can not just share his screen with them, but also view and control the screens of every member.
Upon singing up, you will receive a personal URL which is where all your sessions will take place. The uses this solution can be put to are many, and these include web demos, webinars, online training, and remote tech support. Phone conferencing is also provided for free with every account.
Glance works on all major platforms, and the supported browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari. It must also be stressed that it can work with firewall settings without creating any kind or conflict or compromising security
This solution is also very customizable, as the pages guests see when they join or leave a session can be modified and branded at will, whereas a Glance button can be added to your website for members to connect straightaway and save time in the process.
You can see a flash demo that highlights the finer points of the service online, and a tour can also be scheduled to these purposes. A free trial is likewise provided, so that you will know exactly what to expect if you decide to become a customer of the company.
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