Monday I reported for
Jury Duty. Apparently they didn't think I would make a good juror.
(Could have been the “Hang 'em all” T-shirt) However, I was
impressed by the security. You could tell the guys working the gate
were from the jail next door. The TSA amateurs don't bother to have
you remove your wrist watch or to go through your “metal objects”
manually before scanning them. At least five times faster too with a
smaller crew.
Would you recognize
this as bogus? Watch the video. Note how he removes the skimmer, it
might prevent theft of your card data!
Simple
But Effective Point-of-Sale Skimmer
… A few months
back, this blog spotlighted a
professionally made point-of-sale skimmer that involved some
serious hacking inside the device. Today’s post examines a
comparatively simple but effective POS skimmer that is little more
than a false panel which sits atop the PIN pad and above the area
where customers swipe their cards.
Nicole Tachibana, one of the young (they all look young
to me) lawyers developing the Privacy Foundation Blog, sent this
interesting observation. I'll just add that it is the best
snapshot of a politician's mind I have ever seen!
Sen.
Rockefeller
has been leading an investigation into the privacy practices of data
brokers and websites. I was just wondering what his privacy policy
looked like. It is, to be polite, very simple.
…
here
is the link:
http://www.rockefeller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/privacypolicy
We can
make people safer by insuring 24 hour surveillance!
CBS New York reports:
The
NYPD wants business owners to help solve crime in one Harlem precinct
by turning their security cameras to the street.
As
1010 WINS’ Gary Baumgarten reported Saturday, police believe crime
has spun out of control in the 32nd Precinct, which is bounded by
St. Nicholas and Bradhurst avenues on the west, 127th Street on the
south, and the Harlem River on the north and east.
With
that in mind, the Precinct Cmdr. Rodney Harrison has asked local
businesses to help the NYPD by turning their security cameras outward
in an attempt to capture crime and assist police in capturing
criminals. The program has been dubbed “Grid Search.”
Read more on CBS.
(Related) As more
“personal surveillance tools” come into daily use, Big Brother no
longer seems so evil.
Sometimes Joe
Cadillic sends me links to articles that infuriate me. This is one
of them.
Victoria Woollaston
reports:
It’s
bad enough checking your partner’s phone when they leave the room,
or taking a peek at their Facebook page, yet a new app takes this
level of snooping not just a step further, but a giant leap forward.
The
mSpy app works on select smartphones including Apple, Android,
BlackBerry and Windows Phone and can be used to gain access to an
unprecedented level of personal information.
It
records phone calls, tracks a person’s location, lets users
remotely read texts, Skype, Facebook and Viber messages, view
browsing history and even see how much battery the phone has left.
Read more on Daily
Mail.
My Spy (mspy.com)
claims that the person doing the spying must own the device being
tracked, or the person being tracked must give their permission. And
they verify that…. how? Oh, look, here’s their disclaimer on
their web site:
Disclaimer
My
Spy (mSpy) is designed for monitoring your children, employees or
others on a smartphone or mobile device that you own or have proper
consent to monitor. You are required to notify users of the device
that they are being monitored.
Or what? Well,
according to their site:
My
Spy Legal Agreement
It
is a considered federal and/or state violation of the law in most
cases to install surveillance software onto a mobile phone or other
device for which you do not have proper authorization, and in most
cases you are required to notify users of the device that they are
being monitored. Failure to do so may result in a violation of
federal or state laws, if you install this software onto a device you
do not own or if you do not have proper consent to monitor the user
of the device.
We
absolutely do not endorse the use of our software for illegal
purposes.
In
order to purchase and download surveillance software from My Spy, you
must consent to and agree with the following conditions:
- You acknowledge and agree that you are the legal owner of the mobile phone or device onto which the software is installed, or that you have received the expressed, written consent of the device owner granting you the right to be the authorized administrator of the phone, it’s content and its users.
- If you install My Spy software onto a phone that is not owned by you, or for which you do not have proper consent, we are obligated to comply with law enforcement officials to the fullest extent of the law in these instances, or any instance where this use is deemed to be illegal by local, state or federal law. This obligation includes providing to the proper authorities any and all requested customer data, and any other purchase-related or product-oriented information.
- You agree that you will gain knowledge of all local, state and federal laws to ensure that you are in compliance with all laws and restrictions in your specific geographic region. It may be illegal in your area to monitor other individuals on a device whether or not your own the device. You agree that you will under no circumstances monitor any adult without their expressed prior knowledge and consent.
- You agree to the conditions in our End-User License Agreement, and you acknowledge and agree that My Spy is not liable for any incidental damage to you or your device, nor for any litigation or legal action that may arise as a result of the use, abuse or misuse of mSpy.
So it’s a pinky swear
privacy protection system, it seems. I wonder how much their
business would drop off if they sent a confirming email to the user
of the device?
Expect
more like this, if anyone bothers to ask...
Nursing
Careers Allied Health has an article on patient
privacy breaches when health care professionals use social media.
Perhaps the most concerning finding of the study they discuss is that
most nurses did not even think that what they were doing was a breach
of privacy. From the article:
In
the Nursing Times study, 27 per cent of nurses revealed they use
social media to share stories about working life.
Forty
one per cent of nurses in the survey reported their colleagues used
social media inappropriately, 32 per cent of those posts contained
information about patients and 12 per cent featured photos of
patients.
Ms
Bickhoff says one of the most common mistakes nurses make is
believing their decision not to name a patient means they are not
breaching patient privacy.
Read more on Nursing
Careers Allied Health;
Perhaps we could send a
couple bloggers to report what happens? Or a Professor to set them
straight?
Mark your calendars!
From the FTC:
This
spring, the Federal Trade Commission will host a series of seminars
to examine the privacy implications of three new areas of technology
that have garnered considerable attention for both their potential
benefits and the possible privacy concerns they raise for consumers.
As
the tools available to track, market to and analyze consumers –
often without their knowledge – grow, businesses are able to meet
consumers’ demands more efficiently and effectively. But these
tools may also carry significant risks to consumers’ privacy. The
seminars, taking place over three months, will shine a light on new
trends in Big Data and their impact on consumer privacy. The topics
will include:
- Mobile device tracking – tracking consumers in retail and other businesses using signals from their mobile devices. Mobile Device Tracking – 10 a.m. to noon, Feb. 19, 2014
- Alternative scoring products – using predictive scoring to determine consumers’ access to products and offers. Alternative Scoring Products – 10 a.m. to noon, March 19, 2014
- Consumer-generated and controlled health data – information provided by consumers to non-HIPAA covered websites, health apps and devices. Consumer Generated and Controlled Health Data – Date and location TBD
Good on ya, China!
Nice to know someone took over when the US dropped out. Perhaps
China will let us share some of the benefits, eventually and for a
price.
China
launches ‘Jade Rabbit’ rover to moon, precursor to manned mission
China took a
significant step toward eventually landing a person on the moon with
Monday’s successful launch of a rocket carrying its first moon
rover, the “Jade Rabbit.”
The rocket blasted off
from southwestern China at 1:30 a.m. Monday, a day after India’s
maiden Mars orbiter left Earth’s orbit on its journey to the red
planet, in what some observers characterize as Asia’s
new space race.
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