Ringleader of RBS WorldPay Heist Faces Charges in US
Posted by kdawson on Saturday August 07, @08:23PM
Late in 2008, the most sophisticated and well-coordinated international e-crime yet pulled off netted $9 million for its perpetrators. We discussed the RBS WorldPay heist when news about it emerged, and the indictments some months later. Now one of the accused ringleaders has been extradited from Estonia to face charges in the US.
"...in the span of 12 hours around Nov. 8 [2008], the group hit 2,100 ATM terminals in 280 cities spanning the world, from the United States to Russia to Italy to Japan. ... Despite the technical and international challenges of the case, US investigators believe they were able to trace the scheme back to its origin. On Friday they brought one of the accused ringleaders from Estonia to Atlanta to face arraignment on several fraud charges — a rare appearance in US courts for an accused international hacker. Sergei Tsurikov, 26, of Tallinn, Estonia, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment to conspiracy to commit computer fraud, computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The increasing scope of foreign attacks comes as college students around the world are focusing heavily on technology degrees only to emerge into a difficult job market with low pay, officials said."
Privacy in the US. Should we add another column titled “Best Practice?”
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12709
What’s the Diff? CDT Comparison Chart on Current Privacy Bills
August 8, 2010 by Dissent
Justin Brookman writes:
Two weeks ago, CDT President Leslie Harris testified before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection on the two privacy bills currently being debated in Washington: the BEST PRACTICES bill from Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush and a draft bill from Congressmen Rick Boucher and Cliff Stearns. During her testimony, Harris promised that CDT would publish a comparison chart on the two bills. Today, CDT is releasing that chart, which analyzes both bills in detail and provides recommendations for reconciling them.
Read more on CDT.
(Related) Similar background, differing ideas of how to move forward.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12689
IN: In the service of privacy
August 7, 2010 by Dissent
A scandal in India involving Swami Nithyananda leads in to discussion of privacy law in India. From an article by Shamnad Basheer, a professor in intellectual property law at the National University of Juridical Sciences:
One might argue that Indian law only recognises a right to privacy within the meaning of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, which guarantees to every citizen the “right to life”. In other words, unless the state is directly involved in an infraction that implicates the privacy of a citizen, a court cannot interfere. But even here, one might argue that by failing to prevent invasions of privacy by other private citizens, the state breaches its constitutional duty. Such an argument was implicit in the notorious murderer Auto Shankar’s case, where the court grappled with the issue of whether or not sordid details of the serial killer’s life could be published without his consent.
Justice Jeevan Reddy of the Supreme court held in that “The right to privacy is implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed to the citizens of this country by Article 21. It is a “right to be let alone”. A citizen has a right to safeguard the privacy of his life, family, marriage, procreation, motherhood, child-bearing and education among other matters. None can publish anything concerning the above matters without his consent, whether truthful or otherwise and whether laudatory or critical. If he does so, he would be violating the right to privacy of the person concerned and would be liable in an action for damages.”
In other words, the court was suggesting that breaches of privacy by non-governmental actors were also to be prohibited by laws such as the common law of privacy. Unfortunately, the contours of this law are uncertain, as we have not had many privacy cases in India.
All this is set to change, as the government is now seriously considering a comprehensive statute to protect privacy. It has constituted a panel of senior officials headed by Shantanu Consul, secretary (personnel) in the Department of Personnel and Training, to prepare a draft law in this regard. The key challenge of this law will be to determine the extent of “privacy” accorded to citizen’s data and the circumstances in which such privacy can be abrogated in the larger interests of the State and the public.
Read more in the Times of India
(Related) The official European position?
http://www.docuticker.com/?p=37913
Europe: Overview of information management in the area of freedom, security and justice
This communication presents, for the first time, a full overview of the EU-level measures in place, under implementation or consideration that regulate the collection, storage or cross- border exchange of personal information for the purpose of law enforcement or migration management. Citizens have a right to know what personal data are processed and exchanged about them, by whom and for what purpose.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0385:FIN:EN:PDF
(Related)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12698
The Great Privacy Debate on WSJ
August 7, 2010 by Dissent
Jim Harper writes:
I have a piece on Internet privacy in the Wall Street Journal today. It’s one side of a “debate” on Internet privacy and tracking. I say be careful what you give up if you thwart online tracking—personalization, free content, and other goodies may go by the wayside.
My “opponent” is Nicholas Carr, whose identity and arguments I didn’t know as I wrote, nor likely did he mine. His is a good piece that lays out the many legitimate concerns with online tracking. Must be nice to be the maximal-privacy “good guy”!
Read more on the Technology Liberation Front.
Raises a few questions... If a sex offender moves into your neighborhood, do they check everyone to see if there is a “relationship” or are they looking for potential future victims?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=12696
In turnabout, Ohio ex-con gets data on neighbors
August 8, 2010 by Dissent
Julie Carr Smyth reports:
Neighbors routinely get a picture and a name when a sex offender moves next door. In a turnabout, an Ohio sex offender has received private information about his neighbors, including their Social Security numbers.
The material was shown to The Associated Press by convicted rapist Pearly Wilson, who was mistakenly given the information by a prosecutor. [That's a fairly large mistake, isn't it? Bob] The data also contain the names, addresses and birth dates of nine of Wilson’s one-time neighbors on Columbus’ east side.
Read more on Independent Record. Not surprisingly, the neighbors want to know why their details were in his files to be given to him. As they say, they didn’t do anything wrong, so why are they in some database?
Another perspective on government software systems...
CIA Software Developer Goes Open Source, Instead
Posted by kdawson on Saturday August 07, @03:43PM
jamie found this piece, at Wired's Danger Room from a couple of days back, about an encouraging sign for the growth of open source in the military / intelligence sphere.
"For three years, Matthew Burton has been trying to get a simple, useful software tool into the hands of analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency. For three years, haggling over the code’s intellectual property rights has kept the software from going anywhere near Langley. So now, Burton’s releasing it — free to the public, and under an open source license."
[From the article:
“The Department of Defense spends tens of billions of dollars annually creating software that is rarely reused and difficult to adapt to new threats. Instead, much of this software is allowed to become the property of defense companies, resulting in DoD repeatedly funding the same solutions or, worse, repaying to use previously created software,” writes John M. Scott, a freelance defense consultant and a chief evangelist in the military open source movement. “Imagine if only the manufacturer of a rifle were allowed to clean, fix, modify or upgrade that rifle. This is where the military finds itself: one contractor with a monopoly on the knowledge of a military software system.”
This looks quite promising...
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/theguidedb-pdf-manual-search-engine/
TheGuideDB: Free Pdf Manual Search Engine
There are lots of guides and tutorials available online. The problem is, they can be so scattered that it is hard to find the exact guide that can really help you. Fortunately, we have the Guide DB, a Google-powered pdf manual search engine for useful PDF guides. With this website, you can find all PDF guides that you need in one place.
Similar Tools: PDF and eBook Search Engine.
You can check out our very own Makeuseof PDF Guides.
How much is too much?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/connectcv-com-a-new-approach-to-resumes
ConnectCV.com - A New Approach To Resumes
Just like everything else, the job market has been radically modified by its encounter with the Web 2.0. Static resumes that are made up of nothing but text are no longer sufficient for most employers. [They requie entertainment? Add your YouTube sing along! Bob] They are looking for resumes that can showcase what a candidate can do in more ways than one, and the richer the resume is then the higher chances that a candidate has of actually landing a job. More than anything, the process of submitting a resume addressed to a HR department is becoming more and more obsolete.
That is something this site exemplifies, as it will let you create a direct connection with job providers. That is, you don’t have to submit anything. You will have a hosted resume (whose privacy you can also set down at will) and you can let people who are looking into filling a vacancy connect with it directly. You can even let them verify your qualifications right away.
The site will also let you store and use professionally-formatted job applications. Besides, ConnectCV lets you keep track of all the jobs that you have applied to. In that sense, it is a true career management platform.
[Would you hire this guy? http://www.connectcv.com/sample-resume/
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