Can there be viable crime statistics
without facts?
(Update
and Commentary): Why are states withholding the names of breached
entities?
[Release omitted]
Note that neither the Complaint
nor Plea
Agreement, both of which I obtained from PACER, reveal the name
of the restaurant in Stamford or the restaurant in New York where
both defendants also worked. Why not?
Well, it turns out that in this case,
we do know the name of the restaurants – because they were
revealed in the prosecution of the co-defendant. In March 2010,
another U.S. Attorney for Connecticut revealed
the restaurants as P.F. Chang’s and Grand Lux Cafe in Connecticut
and New York, respectively.
So why does the 2011 press release and
court filings carefully omit the restaurants’ names? I’ve
commented on this trend a number of times, as I do
think we’re seeing a disturbing and growing trend whereby
information is intentionally withheld from the public –
information that is of public concern and that the public should have
a right to know.
Are businesses putting pressure on
states not to reveal this information? I have no evidence of that,
but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I do know that states
that used to post breach notices online are no longer doing so.
Maryland has not updated its site since last year and New York
withdrew its site altogether. Budget cuts? Maybe. Coincidence?
Maybe. But I’d really encourage all states that retain central
depositories of breach notifications to post them online so that we
have more usable information about statistics and trends.
Good luck with a new “Geneva
convention” since it is highly unlikely that 'script kiddies,”
hackers or terrorists will ever read it, let alone agree to it.
(GCHQ is the British spelling for NSA...)
Stolen
information worth £300m recovered by GCHQ
September 5, 2011 by admin
Duncan Gardham reports:
Details stolen
from more than a million credit cards
across Europe, worth an estimated £300 million, have been recovered
by the GCHQ spy agency, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
William Hague, the
Foreign Secretary, said the agency had joined forces with the Serious
and Organised Crime Agency to obtain the information as part of the
ongoing cyber war against foreign states and criminals.
Read more on The
Telegraph. No indication as to who the data thieves were or
where/how the data were recovered.
[From the srticle:
A team of experts at GCHQ is understood
to be working with the military to develop internet tools to strike
back if states attack infrastructure such as water supplies,
electricity and banking.
Mr Hague is seeking to agree new rules
for cyberspace with China and Russia in order to put an end to such
attacks.
… He is hoping to set up a new
Geneva-style convention to govern cyberspace in the same way that a
conventional battlefield has rules.
It's not just Homeland Security.
Online
anonymity or pseudoanonymity is a threat – but only to businesses’
marketing plans
September 5, 2011 by Dissent
Two articles about online anonymity
that you may wish to read: Efic Pfanner’s piece, “Naming
Names on the Internet,” in the New York Times and Ben Grubb’s
piece, “Death
of anonymity online has net users fuming,” in The Age.
As both articles suggest, there
is a strong sense in some circles that arguments about accountability
are just a smokescreen for an ultimately financial purpose.
South Koreans recently learned the
dangers of requiring real names when over half of the population had
their personal information acquired by hackers.
As for myself, I never signed up for
accounts for MySpace, Facebook, Google+, etc. I use Twitter because
it allows me to use my pseudonym. And that’s just fine with me.
(Related) Why Irish Law is important?
Facebook
faces major Irish privacy investigation
September 5, 2011 by Dissent
Roisin Burke reports:
Facebook faces a
major probe by the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) following ‘big
brother’ type privacy complaints.
Facebook’s
Dublin HQ will be subject to a massive audit by the Irish watchdog
after a group in Austria lodged 17 complaints, claiming that even
after Facebookers delete information the social media giant’s
Dublin HQ keeps everything: data on who you’ve poked, tagged,
‘liked’, emailed, phone numbers — even information on sexual
orientation and political views. It can amount to thousands of pages
of information about you, the group, called Europe Versus Facebook,
asserts.
Every
Facebook user outside the US and Canada is protected by Irish privacy
law as the company’s international headquarters is here.
Read more on Independent.ie
Why bother breaking encrypted email
when you can use your own encryption...
Dutch
firm linked to many more fraudulent Net certificates
The number of fraudulent security
certificates issued by a hacked Dutch firm has ballooned from the 247
reported last week to 531, and the main purpose of the attack appears
to have been to spy on Iranian dissidents.
The list of domains for which
fraudulent Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates were issued by
DigiNotar, a root certificate authority, now includes sites such as
the CIA, MI6, Facebook, Microsoft, Skype, Twitter, and WordPress,
among others, according to a list released this weekend by the Dutch
Ministry of Justice. In the wake of the new revelations, the Dutch
government has reportedly expressed a lack of confidence in the
Netherlands-based company and taken control of it.
… The Gmail incident affected
mostly Iranian users, and it now appears the certificates might have
been issued for the purpose of spying on Iranian dissidents, perhaps
by the Iranian government.
Ah, to be a fly on the wall of the
Boardroom... T-Mobile “lacks” spectrum, but AT&T wants it
because of its spectrum... What's really going on?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20101726-94/t-mobile-may-miss-out-on-at-t-break-up-fee-report-says/
T-Mobile
may miss out on AT&T break-up fee, report says
AT&T may not be on the hook for the
fee under certain conditions, a source told Reuters in a story that
ran today.
… AT&T and T-Mobile were thrown
for a loop last week when the Department of Justice sued
to block AT&T's planned acquisition of T-Mobile, citing
concerns over the loss of competition in the industry. AT&T has
been scrambling
to keep the deal alive and is expected to offer up more
compromises to get the deal done.
Many in the industry expected AT&T
to complete the acquisition, swayed by the unusually large break-up
fees. Those fees are typical of M&A deals, ensuring some
protection to the seller if the transaction falls through. But the
large size, which includes $3 billion in cash and the balance in
services, assets, and a roaming agreement, suggested
AT&T was confident in its ability to close the deal.
The break-up fee would only be paid if
certain conditions were met, Reuters said. The deal has to receive
regulatory within a certain time, or the contract is deemed void.
The value of T-Mobile also can't fall under a certain level, which
could happen if the government requires that parts of the business
have to be sold to get the deal approved.
Without the break-up fee, Deutsche
Telekom is left with a weakened T-Mobile that has been hurt by the
publicity over the pending deal. Despite offering price cuts and
promotions, T-Mobile continues to lose its most valuable contract
customers at an alarming rate. In addition, it
lacks the spectrum to build its own true 4G wireless network.
The deal has proven to be a contentious
issue. AT&T has argued that the deal is
necessary to increase its spectrum position and allow for
a wider deployment of 4G services, and has boasted supported from
several states, its unions and technology companies. But opponents
such as Sprint Nextel, consumer advocate groups and other wireless
companies have argued that the deal would hurt competition and
innovation in the industry.
Resource?
University
of Michigan Guidelines for the Use of Social Media
The "Guidelines for the Use of
Social Media" document provides:
General
guidelines for sharing information that is not a matter of public
record
Specific
guidelines for posting to social media sites as an individual
Specific
guidelines for posting on behalf of the University
Safety and
privacy tips for social media
I have students and colleagues who use
LinkedIn. These might be useful to find those little inconsistencies
that contradict your resume...
2
Tools To Turn Your LinkedIn Profile Into A Neat-Looking Resume
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