Friday, June 04, 2010

How can you be “in control” of data you don't even know about? The first report http://www.databreaches.net/?p=9904 in early February said 208,000. By the end of the month http://www.databreaches.net/?p=10122 that had grown to 359,000.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12016

(update) 860,000 more Avmed members may have had IDs stolen

June 3, 2010 by admin

Bob LaMendola reports:

An additional 860,000 Avmed members than originally thought may have had their identity data compromised when thieves stole two company laptops in December, officials said Thursday.

The laptops contained social security numbers and other personal information for as many as 1.2 million Floridians with Avmed health insurance, the company and state Attorney General said. The company said there’s no evidence any personal data was misused as a result of the theft.

Read more in the Chicago Tribune.


(Related) Again, this is no solution if you don't know who has your data or if the data is unencrypted during transfer.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12027

UK: Call for ban on physical transfer of digital files

June 4, 2010 by admin

Andrew Charlesworth reports:

A complete ban on using physical media to transfer digital files has been called for in a recent report, which found that nearly one in five companies is still using couriers such as the postal system to send media containing large or sensitive files.

This is despite the well-publicised data breach caused when the HMRC misplaced a number of discs in 2007 and the publication of the Poynter Report two years ago.

Read more on Computing.co.uk



Breaches do get a bit complicated...

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12035

Digital River sues over data breach

June 4, 2010 by admin

Dan Browning reports:

A massive data theft from the e-commerce company Digital River Inc. has led investigators to hackers in India and a 20-year-old in New York who allegedly tried to sell the information to a Colorado marketing firm for half a million dollars.

The Eden Prairie company obtained a secret court order last month to block Eric Porat of Brooklyn from selling, destroying, altering or distributing purloined data on nearly 200,000 individuals. Digital River suspects that the information was stolen by hackers in New Delhi, India, possibly with help from a contractor working for Digital River.

Read more in the Star Tribune.

[From the article:

"I fully suspect that Mr. Porat hacked the hacker," said Christopher Madel, an attorney with Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi who's overseeing Digital River's investigation.



Are these the best areas for research or the best research proposals?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=10785

Canada’s Privacy Commissioner awards $500,000 to 13 projects to advance frontiers of privacy research

June 3, 2010 by Dissent

Today, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart announced the recipients of her Office’s 2010-11 Contributions Program, which funds privacy research and public education initiatives.

Recipients of this year’s Contributions Program are advancing research in a number of areas of interest to Canadians and others around the world:

* Targeted online advertising
* Data-sharing between governments and commercial organizations through national security programs at the border and at airports
* Video surveillance in public spaces by commercial organizations
* The privacy implications of patient websites, online health record databases and other “Health 2.0” tools

“The pace of technology has meant we must face new privacy challenges everyday – online, at the airport, on our streets and in our homes,” says Ms. Stoddart. “Research projects like these help all of us become better informed to meet those challenges.”

For a full list of the successful recipients and their projects from 2010-11, visit: http://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/cp/2010-2011/cp_bg_e.cfm.



What happens online, stays online... Forever.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=10803

AU: Court uses Facebook to serve paternity test order

June 4, 2010 by Dissent

Kim Arlington reports:

In a case which highlights the difficulties of keeping a low profile when you have a Facebook account, a court has ordered that the social networking site be used to serve legal documents on an elusive father in a child support dispute.

The federal magistrate who made the order, Stewart Brown, said the Adelaide case was unusual but ”demonstrative of social movements and the currency of the times”.

[...]

It is believed to be only the second time in Australia that legal documents have been served via Facebook; a Canberra law firm used it in 2008 to serve notice of a judgment on two borrowers who defaulted on a loan.

Read more in The Age.



This just rubs me the wrong way, but it does serve to illustrate how lame the argument that all media is used to steal music and movies.

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/10/06/03/1730254/FTC-Staff-Discuss-a-Tax-on-Electronics-To-Support-the-News-Business?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

FTC Staff Discuss a Tax on Electronics To Support the News Business

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 03, @02:03PM

dptalia links to this piece describing a staff discussion draft from the Federal Trade Commission, writing

"The FTC is concerned about the death of the 'news.' Specifically newspapers. Rather than look to how old media models can be adapted to the Internet, they instead suggest taxing consumer electronics to support a huge newspaper bailout. Additionally, they suggest making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them."

Note, though, "The good news in all this is that the FTC's bureaucrats try hard to recommend little. They just discuss. And much of what the agency staff ponders are political impossibilities."



A (non-pornographic) graphic. Probably not for my Statistics students...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20006703-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Sunday is most popular day for online porn

by Chris Matyszczyk June 3, 2010 3:36 PM PDT

Sometimes, statistics can go some way to defining the state of a civilization.



For my Website class

http://www.friedbeef.com/8-places-to-get-free-stock-photos-for-your-website/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Friedbeef+%28FriedBeef%27s+Tech%29

8 Places to Get Free Stock Photos

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