At last! An indication that Sony is
finally getting serious...
jmobley6030
writes with a bit in Gamer Gaia about Sony pulling out the big guns
for their security infrastructure. Quoting:
"Months
after the great
PlayStation network attack things are starting to get back to
normal around the gaming world. While it doesn't seem like another
hack attempt will take place anytime soon Sony is fearful that it
could happen again. Sony
announced today via their corporate news feed that they have
hired
Philip R. Reitinger, a former Homeland security official, as
Chief Information Security Officer at Sony."
How pervasive is it? We may learn , if
this isn't appealed.
ACLU
Wins Round in Battle Against Warrantless Cell Phone Location Tracking
September 6, 2011 by Dissent
Jay Stanley of the ACLU writes:
Today the ACLU won
a significant victory in our battle to ensure that cell phones don’t
become Big Brother tracking devices. Following a
four-year fight, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit has ordered
the Department of Justice (DOJ) to comply with our Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request and turn over the names and docket
numbers in numerous cases where the government accessed cell phone
location data without a warrant.
Read more on the ACLU’s
site and congratulations to the ACLU and EFF on this ruling!
Another case of “We're gonna do this
unless you read the fine print...”
National
Opt-Out Campaign Informs Parents How to Protect the Privacy of their
Children’s School Records
September 6, 2011 by Dissent
Education New York & Information
Policy Watch has issued the following release:
As cases of
identity theft, database hacking, and the sale of personal
information increase daily, the need to protect children’s privacy
becomes even more urgent. Schools are a rich source of personal
information about children that can be legally and illegally accessed
by third parties. That’s why Education New York’s National
Opt-out Campaign is alerting parents to their rights under the
federal Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) to restrict
third-party access to their children’s information and encouraging
them to review their school’s annual FERPA notification at the
beginning of the school year.
You can read the full release on their
web site. And while you’re there, take a moment to check out
all of the student privacy resources Sheila has compiled, which
include state-level bills that may impact your child’s privacy.
Could the data on the silo be used to
defend a driver in court? Looks likely.
How
AAA Tracks Teen Drivers Without Completely Crashing Their Privacy
September 6, 2011 by Dissent
Kashmir Hill has an interesting column
over on Forbes. Here’s a bit of it:
Insurance
companies have started offering drivers “roadside assistance”
digital devices that can track and locate cars when drivers are in
need of help. As Wired notes, State Farm’s On-Star competitor,
In-Drive, can do more than just call a tow truck for
a stranded driver or locate a stolen vehicle, it can also track
driving habits, including “speed, time of day [driven], miles
driven, acceleration, braking and the number of left and right
turns.” Drivers who subscribe — for $5 to $15 per
month — will see their premiums go down if they prove to be safe
drivers.
[...]
AAA is currently
offering a similar program for teen drivers in California and Texas,
but it’s going about it differently. Cletus Nunes, a group manager
at AAA in charge of “ACE Teen Pilot Program,” thinks that their
competitors’ offerings are overly-invasive. “We’re sensitive
to the concerns of our members,” says Nunes. “They’re using
this data to rate drivers. They’re collecting information about
how you drive. We’re not.”
Read more on Forbes.
[From the article:
AAA members in California and Texas
(only states offering the program for now) can choose between two
programs: 1) Pay-as-you-drive insurance with roadside assistance, or
2) Teen safety with roadside assistance.
The first collects only mileage, says
Nunes, to set insurance rates accordingly (lower for light drivers,
higher for heavier ones), and can pinpoint a car’s location when
queried, though it doesn’t collect ongoing location info.
“We don’t collect where you are,
how fast you’re driving, acceleration, or anything like that,”
says Nunes.
The second program for teens, does
collect that information, using the same device (it can be switched
from one function to the other wirelessly). Nunes says the data is
not sent to AAA; it’s instead siloed on a server for parents to
access.
Fax machines are “sunk costs” –
“It's paid for and it still works.”
"Deep End's Paul Venezia waxes
befuddled on the ongoing existence of the fax machine. 'Consider
what a fax machine actually is: a little device with a sheet feeder,
a terrible scanning element, and an ancient modem. Most faxes run at
14,400bps. That's just over 1KB per second — and people are still
using faxes to send 52 poorly scanned pages of some contract to one
another. Over analog phone lines. Sometimes while paying
long-distance charges! The mind boggles,' Venezia writes. 'If
something as appallingly stupid as the fax machine can live on, it
makes you wonder how we make progress at all. Old habits die hard.
It just goes to show you: Bad technology generally isn't the problem;
it's the people who persist in using that technology rather than
embracing far superior alternatives.'"
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