Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Intel is intel, no matter the source...
Taliban said to use Facebook to gather info on soldiers
… According to Australia's Department of Defense's new report on social media (PDF), "the Taliban have used pictures of attractive women as the front of their Facebook profiles and have befriended soldiers" as a way to gather information.
These fake profiles are a cause for concern, notes the report. The goal of the report is to be a training guide and review for Australia's military in teaching its soldiers how and when to use social media.


Can a neighborhood restrict parking on public, city maintained streets? Can I declare you a second class citizen because you don't live in my neighborhood?
TX: Officials: Parking plan a ‘shot in the dark’
September 11, 2012 by Dissent
From the same state that is chipping kids while complaining about smart meters, there is a new parking plan that raises serious privacy concerns. Whitney Hodgin reports on the Galveston plan. Here’s the part of her report that raised @Privacyactivism’s eyebrows and mine:
Seawall businesses that choose to participate can choose to include a kiosk that allows visitors to complete the same process, as well as pay cash, or store employees can enter the customers’ information online themselves.
Parking will cost $1 per hour for up to 8 hours. Unlike downtown public parking, there will be no kiosks involved — just a phone and a credit card — because visitors will register their license plate numbers and pay for parking exclusively on a website.
That’s the only option you have — to enter your license number,” Maxwell said.
Four Galveston police cruisers will be outfitted with Automatic License Plate Recognition equipment similar to the technology used to identify license plates on interstate highways, and can read plates even if the vehicles are parked end-to-end, Maxwell said.
In addition to determining the parking status of each vehicle on the Seawall, police will also use the Automatic License Plate Recognition technology to see if there is an outstanding warrant on a vehicle, if the vehicle is stolen or an Amber Alert connected to the owner, he said.
Police will use the same approach to ensure that seawall visitors don’t beat the system by parking for free in adjacent neighborhoods, Maxwell said.
“What makes this system really great for neighborhood enforcement is that residents will register their license plates and the plates of their guests,” so police can identify and fine vehicles that do not belong, he said.
Wow. Talk about Big Brother. So even if you’re not using the parking but just live in the neighborhood, the police will have your license plate number and your guests’ license plate numbers? For how long will they retain these data? Can they be used as evidence in criminal prosecutions? What if a resident doesn’t want to provide their guests’ info? Will the guests then be ticketed even if they’re there legitimately?
And entering credit cards on a web site? What could possibly go wrong there?
*Sigh.*


Win friends and influence people! No attempt to encrypt or otherwise protect the user?
Activision Blizzard Secretly Watermarking World of Warcraft Users
September 11, 2012 by Dissent
This is not a security breach per se but I’m treating it as a privacy breach because WoW is revealing users’ IDs and server IP addresses without their knowledge or consent. On Slashdot, kgkoutzis writes:
“A few days ago I noticed some weird artifacts covering the screenshots I captured using the WoW game client application. I sharpened the images and found a repeating pattern secretly embedded inside. I posted this information on the OwnedCore forum and after an amazing three-day cooperation marathon, we managed to prove that all our WoW screenshots, since at least 2008, contain a custom watermark. This watermark includes our user IDs, the time the screenshot was captured and the IP address of the server we were on at the time. It can be used to track down activities which are against Blizzard’s Terms of Service, like hacking the game or running a private server. The users were never notified by the ToS that this watermarking was going on so, for four years now, we have all been publicly sharing our account and realm information for hackers to decode and exploit. You can find more information on how to access the watermark in the aforementioned forum post which is still quite active.”
Read more on Slashdot.


Ah, the mighty enforcer of goodness strikes again. “Let this be a warning. If you violate user privacy we might insist that you promise not to do it again! You have been warned!”
FTC Finalizes Privacy Settlement with Myspace
September 11, 2012 by Dissent
From the FTC:
Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a final order settling FTC charges that Myspace misrepresented its protection of users’ personal information. The settlement bars Myspace from future misrepresentations about its privacy practices, requires the company to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy assessments for the next 20 years.
The Commission vote approving the final order and letter to the public commenters was 4-0-1, with Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen not participating.
The FTC’s responses to commenters can be found here.


Not much detail with the listed sites, but lots and lots of sites!
September 11, 2012
New on LLRX - Privacy Resources and Sites on the Internet
Via LLRX.com, Privacy Resources and Sites on the Internet - Marcus P. Zillman's guide is a comprehensive listing of both free and low cost privacy resources currently available on the Internet. It includes associations, indexes and search engines, as well as websites and programs that provide the latest technology and information on Web privacy. This guide will help facilitate a safer interactive environment for your email, your internet browsing, your health records, your data storage and file sharing exchanges, and internet telephony.


Perspective
"China's largest e-commerce firm, Alibaba Group, expects to sell merchandise this year worth more than that sold by Amazon Inc and eBay combined. The company is aiming for 3 trillion yuan ($473 billion) in annual transaction value from its Taobao e-commerce units in the next 5 to 7 years, rising from the 1 trillion yuan of sales expected for 2012. 'From their annual reports we did a rough calculation and we were similar last year but we are growing faster than them this year, so this year we are probably larger than them,' Zeng Ming, Chief Strategy Officer of Alibaba, said of Amazon and eBay."


For my students...
September 11, 2012
New on LLRX - Tutorial Resources on the Internet
Via LLRX.com - Tutorial Resources on the Internet - Marcus P. Zillman's guide is a wide ranging and immediately useful listing of tutorial resources and sites on the Internet. This guide will assist you to discover, review and select the most relevant and reliable sources for your requirements, on topics that include: e-training, health sciences and biomedical research, educational opportunities for unemployed workers, effective web searching, statistical data mining, free college and university courses, programming in various open source applications, and technical support, user guides and repair services too!

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