Friday, September 24, 2010

Are we seeing indications of another Heartland type breach or is this just speculation on the part of the police? Difficult to tell, but where would you go for proof? Perhaps there is already an organized “users group” for stolen cards.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=14100

(Update) NE: Police Track Credit Card Thefts

September 23, 2010 by admin

More on the rash of credit card and debit card fraud being reported in the Lincoln, Nebraska area that was reported earlier this week. KETV reports:

Lincoln police said someone who hacked into a national database may be responsible for helping identity thieves go on shopping sprees with credit card numbers.

Investigators said more than 100 accounts have been hacked in Lincoln alone.

[...]

Police said some of the victims of the credit card thefts live on the East Coast, Canada and England.

“Possibly, a nationwide database was accessed, allowing these numbers to get out,” said Lincoln police Officer Katie Flood.

Floods said investigators are looking to see if the breach came from a Lincoln business.

Read more on KETV.

[From KETV:

"It's like, somewhere out there, there's a supermarket for thieves," Poley said.



You go to the easiest-to-hack website with the most useful information.

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=14109

Three plead guilty to using Franklin County Court website as part of ID theft conspiracy

September 23, 2010 by admin

In a case that became a cautionary tale for court websites and the need to redact personally identifiable information that could be used for ID theft, three Columbus residents have pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal credit accounts belonging to people whose identities they stole from a government website in 2006.

Katura Mozelle, 23, pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost to one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Kinte Green, 30, pleaded guilty before Judge Frost on September 20, 2010 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. His sister, Fatima Green, 33, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Norah McCann King on June 25, 2010 to one count of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

A statement of facts read during the plea hearing said that Ms. Mozelle and Mr. Green executed a scheme to defraud federally insured financial institutions by obtaining and using personal identifiers of individuals to take over existing accounts or to open new credit accounts.

Ms. Mozelle and Mr. Green accessed the Franklin County Municipal Court website between July 2006 and August 2007. They would enter random Social Security numbers until locating an individual who had been through the Franklin County Court system. Once they located an individual on the website, they would obtain a name, address, date of birth and driver’s license number. They used this information to get a credit report of the individual. They then would contact the financial institutions on the credit report and file for a change of address or report a card lost or stolen. New cards were sent to Fatima Green’s residence. [Clearly, these goys were not too bright... Bob] Using the fraudulently obtained cards, Mozelle and Kinte Green would buy merchandise from various stores and online shopping sites. Merchandise was often shipped to Fatima Green’s residence.

“Investigators found that they were able to access the information for as many as 70 individuals and took over up to 14 accounts,” Stewart said. “Law enforcement began investigating after a victim reported unusual activity on one of their accounts to Worthington Police.”

Bank fraud is punishable by up to 30 years imprisonment. Conspiracy to commit bank fraud is punishable by up to five years imprisonment, and aggravated identity theft is punishable by a mandatory two-year prison term consecutive to any other time served. Judge Frost will set a date for sentencing.

Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Ohio



For my Criminal Justice students: The technology of crime... For my Business students: The evils of micro-management...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20017493-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Teller accused of texting robber during bank heist

Technology is such an enabler. Even when it comes, allegedly, to robbing a bank.

… Recently, there was a serious robbery at the Texas Credit Union in Arlington. It happened after closing time, when the robber allegedly emerged from the bathroom in order to relieve the bank of $183,000.

According to NBC Dallas Fort Worth, police happened upon the alleged robber Tyce Von Franklin shortly after the heist, when he was allegedly going 54mph in a 40mph zone. Upon stopping him, police found some incriminating items, including a large amount of cash and a surgical mask.

However, they began to suspect this was an inside job when they surveyed footage from the bank and saw one of its tellers, Kyle Lightner, sending texts shortly before the robbery.

Quite coincidentally, the police say, Lightner was texting Franklin. One text allegedly read: "Don't forget yo sunglasses." Which might, to some, seem slightly odd. Especially as the alleged robber was, indeed, reportedly wearing sunglasses.



Interesting argument.

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=14548

Privacy has a price tag of $5,000

September 23, 2010 by Dissent

Bill Morem has an opinion piece about the detailed U.S. census survey that gives the issue a “human face:”

Tom Bolton is in a pickle, a dilemma that may leave his wages garnished by the government to the tune of $5,000. He’s staring down the barrel of such a fine because the Atascadero resident is refusing to give the U.S. Census Bureau about 28 pages of details of his private life.

Read more in the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Morem doesn’t argue that the survey is illegal, but he does suggest that the rich may have greater privacy because they can afford to just write a check to the government for failure to fill it out. I hadn’t quite thought of the inequity that way before, but he does have a point: those who can afford to pay the fine can have greater privacy than those who can’t.



This should make my wife's blood boil. She's already taken her Doberman into a DU Law School classroom to “discuss” the finer points of Animal Law (and the Doberman doesn't even have a degree)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=14565

UK: Dog-owner prevented from finding microchipped pet under Data Protection Act

September 23, 2010 by Dissent

You can’t make this stuff up.

Laura Roberts reports:

Dave Moorhouse’s Jack Russell terrier, Rocky, was stolen in 2007 and he was informed earlier this year that the microchip provider had discovered details of his dog’s new address.

However, they refused to pass on the animal’s whereabouts claiming it would breach the Data Protection Act.

Last week a court refused Mr Moorhouse’s request for a court order compelling Anibase, the microchipping database, to reveal the name and address of the new owners.

Mr Moorhouse, 56, from Huddersfield, West Yorks, said: “What’s the point of having your pet microchipped if you can’t get him back?”

Indeed.

Read more in the Telegraph.



Wouldn't this be the same as searching your garbage? But do Police look through everyone's garbage searching for some crime to charge them with?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=14568

If you sell or discard your own cellphone….

September 23, 2010 by Dissent

Remember that you may have no reasonable expectation of privacy for whatever you leave on the phone, as this news report by Beth Wurtmann out of New York demonstrates.

State Police confirmed that they are actively investigating whether graphic pictures found on used cell phones were uploaded to the Internet improperly.

The cell phones were reportedly sold at a business in the Wilton Mall that pays cash on the spot for used phones and iPods. Police were combing computers and websites to see if pictures left behind by customers were used illegally.

Read more on WNYT



“Yes we want to ensure your Privacy, but we also want to define the Privacy we ensure.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=14571

Testimony in today’s House hearing on ECPA

The written testimony of today’s witnesses on ECPA reform is available online at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_100923.html.


(Related)

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/ecpa-reform-why-digital-due-pr.html

ECPA reform: Why digital due process matters



No doubt the French are more efficient... Or maybe they'll just hire more judges?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/24/0942227/In-France-Hadopi-Reporting-Begins-With-Only-10000-IP-Addresses-Per-Day?from=rss

In France, Hadopi Reporting Begins, With (Only) 10,000 IP Addresses Per Day

Posted by timothy on Friday September 24, @08:12AM

mykos writes with an excerpt from TorrentFreak that says the automated enforcement of France's three-strikes law known as Hadopi is now coming into effect:

"The scope of the operation is mind boggling. The copyright holders will start relatively 'slowly' with 10,000 IP-addresses a day, but within weeks this number is expected to go up to 150,000 IP-addresses per day according to official reports. The Internet providers will be tasked with identifying the alleged infringers' names, addresses, emails and phone numbers. If they fail to do so within 8 days they risk a fine of 1,500 euros per day for every unidentified IP-address. To put this into perspective, a United States judge ruled recently that the ISP Time Warner only has to give up 28 IP-addresses a month (1 per day) to copyright holders because of the immense workload the identifications would cause."

[From the article:

Under France’s new Hadopi law, alleged copyright infringers will be hunted down systematically in an attempt to decrease piracy. Alleged offenders have to be identified by their Internet providers and they will be reported to a judge once they have received three warnings.

A judge will then review the case and hand down any one of a range of penalties, from fines through to disconnecting the Internet connection of the infringer.



It's not the facts, it's how you spin the facts...

http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/09/23/2240233/E-Books-Are-Only-6-of-Printed-Book-Sales?from=rss

E-Books Are Only 6% of Printed Book Sales

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 23, @06:53PM

"MIT's technology blog argues that ebook sales represent 'only six pecent of the total market for new books.' It cites a business analysis which calculates that by mid-July, Amazon had sold 15.6 million hardcover books versus 22 million ebooks, but with sales of about 48 million more paperback books. Amazon recently announced they sell 180 ebooks for every 100 hardcover books, but when paperbacks are counted, ebooks represent just 29.3% of all Amazon's book sales. And while Amazon holds about 19% of the book market, they currently represent 90% of all ebook sales — suggesting that ebooks represent a tiny fraction of all print books sold. 'Many tech pundit wants books to die,' argues MIT's Christopher Mims, citing the head of Microsoft's ClearType team, who says 'I'd be glad to ditch thousands of paper- and hard-backed books from my bookshelves. I'd rather have them all on an iPad.' But while Nicholas Negroponte predicts the death of the book within five years, Mims argues that 'it's just as likely that as the ranks of the early adopters get saturated, adoption of ebooks will slow.'"



For my website students (who must embed movies in their websites)

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/imovietube-watch-full-movies-online-legally/

iMovieTube: Watch Full Movies Online, Legally & Free

Movies can be the perfect solution to your boredom. But if boredom strikes unexpectedly and you do not have a DVD handy, you could watch a movie on the internet instead for free. Downloading movies from torrent sites is not advisable because it is illegal; [Let's not generalize guys... Bob] instead, there is a great website called “iMovieTube” that you could visit for online movies.

www.imovietube.com

Similar tools: QuickSilverScreen, DivXOnly, VideoHybrid and Inner-Live.


(Related)

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/cinecatalog-tagged-search-movie-downloads/

CineCatalog: Tagged Search For Trailes & Movie Torrent Downloads

Are you looking for the one place to get movie torrents easily? If you are, you should check out CineCatalog, a simple search engine for finding movie trailers and verified movie torrents. This gallery lets you search a growing collection of movie downloads, organized and tagged so that users can search or browse the database easily.

www.cinecatalog.com/index.php

Similar Tools: Jinni, Mubi, Watch-Movies, and Movski.

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