Entirely too much fun for too many people.
Three John Doe plaintiffs who were paying
customers of AshleyMadison.com have sued Amazon Web Services,
GoDaddy, and unnamed John Roe web site owners/operators who created
sites allowing people to search for individuals who might be in the
database.
In a complaint filed in Arizona federal court, the
plaintiffs – one from California, one from New Jersey, and one from
Maryland – allege that AWS and GoDaddy hosted stolen data for the
other John Roe defendants (the owners/operators of
ashleymadisonpowersearch.com, adulterysearch.com,
ashleymadisoninvestigations.com, and greyhatpro.com).
All of
the John Roe sites allegedly attempted to monetize use of the stolen
data.
The complaint alleges, for all defendants (ISP and
web site owners/operators):
- violation of California Penal Code §496 (Receipt of stolen property)
- violation of California Business & Professions Code §17200 (Unfair competition)
- Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
- Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030
And additionally, for John Roe web site
owner/operators:
- Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
The plaintiffs are represented by Kronenberger
Rosenfeld, LLP, a San Francisco law firm. The plaintiffs seek $3
million and a jury trial.
But here’s the thing: do the plaintiffs have
standing? Yes, information about them may have been stolen
and sites may have then used that stolen information, but do they
have standing to sue the defendants for receipt of stolen property
when it wasn’t their property that was stolen? Do they have
standing to make any CFAA claims if it was not their database that
was hacked or stolen or exposed? And doesn’t Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act immunize Amazon Web Services and GoDaddy
for this type of situation?
And even though the plaintiffs might potentially
have standing for the emotional distress claims, the complaint does
not allege any particularized concrete harm or imminent harm. The
complaint
asserts that information on all three plaintiffs was in the data
dump, but is silent on the nature of the information for each
plaintiff. It then claims:
Like most users, Plaintiffs have suffered damages, including severe emotion distress, due to the ability of Plaintiffs’ spouses, children, family members, community connections, business associates, and the public at large to identify Plaintiffs as Users of Ashley Madison. By this action, Plaintiffs seek compensatory damages in an amount to be proven at trial, but not less than three million dollars ($3,000,000).
So they’re not claiming that others have already
identified them through these sites or that they have experienced any
consequences at all of such identification. This seems to be about
what might happen and the worry customers have about what
might happen. Is this enough to survive a challenge to
standing? I wouldn’t think so, but then, I am not a lawyer.
There’s a lot about this complaint that puzzles
me, and I will be watching for updates.
Great thanks to Alexander
J. Martin for providing this site with a copy of the complaint.
“To err is human, to really screw up takes a
computer!” Perhaps a flawed backup process? Perhaps someone tried
to backup the data manually? Unlikely their insurance will cover
this.
On September 2, Heritage Foundation spokesman
Wesley Denton issued the following statement:
We experienced a malicious, unauthorized data breach of six-year-old documents on an external server that appear to contain personal information of private donors, who we are notifying. We are unable to verify the authenticity of files circulated online.
All Americans have the right to support causes without fear of harassment, and that is why we respect and work to safeguard our supporters’ privacy. The Heritage Foundation has over half-a-million members with diverse views who are united with a passion to advance conservative policies that make life better for all Americans.
Heritage is a nonpartisan research and educational institution and has a longstanding policy that we do not comment on private donor or internal staff communications.
Our internal servers were not part of this breach, and we have taken – and will continue to take – all appropriate steps to ensure that our members have the ability to support public policy organizations free from intimidation.
But their claims of a malicious breach or any
attempt to intimidate [???
Bob] are disputed by other details and evidence that
subsequently came to this site’s attention. DataBreaches.net was
sent a link to the torrent on Pirate Bay, which is prefaced with the
following comments:
All the juiciest docs from the recent Heritage Foundation data leak.
And just so we’re clear, it wasn’t a hack. Heritage backed up an email archive to a PUBLIC Amazon server and it got downloaded. Big surprise.
They fucked up. Big time.
Enjoy
DataBreaches.net reached out to Heritage
Foundation for a response to the allegations, but has received no
response as yet.
In the interim, a commenter provided additional
information that supports the claim above. On August 28, five days
before Heritage announced the breach, Jay Fuller had tweeted:
jay fuller
@jfuller290
Hey @cnn I have a story for you! Heritage Foundation leaks email
archive: http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/Debuhr/backup.zip
6:29 PM - 28 Aug 2015
That link is now 404, as Heritage reportedly took
the file down, but the subdomain (thf_media) supports the claim that
this was the Heritage Foundation’s subdomain. Steve DeBuhr is an
assistant director at the Heritage Foundation. Whether he was
responsible for uploading the backup file to his directory or for the
perms on the directory is unknown to DataBreaches.net. In any event,
however, it now seems clear that the foundation wasn’t
attacked, but had exposed their own backup file.
Update: Post-publication, I
received a note that there was another archive that was exposed on
the Amazon server – this one an email archive from Steve DeBuhr.
DataBreaches.net is in the process of obtaining it to inspect it, but
even the first leaked backup contains a wealth of personal details
about donors, including their names, addresses, phone numbers
(including cell phone numbers), the amounts of their donations to the
foundation, and personal notes about their health or family details
(such as “married to , who is his second wife”).
It is much cheaper and easier to monitor everyone
24/7 than to constantly adjust the hours of coverage for each
employee. Thinking managers would have tied this system into Payroll
– did the employee move to 2nd shift? Is the employee
on vacation? Etc.
Data Privacy Laws reports:
The Labor court of Appeals of Buenos Aires (Argentina) issued a new ruling related to labor privacy.
The case started when the company Fischer Argentina installed in all the smart phones of its vendors a software app (called Show position) that allowed the company to monitor the physical location of the employee. The software was monitoring location of the employee even after the end of the work time in the company including weekends.
Several employees sued the company requesting a ruling declaring the illegality of this practice and to have the conditions of the working relationship free of this surveillance.
Read more on Data
Privacy Laws.
These are so popular I expect the auto
manufacturers to build them in by default. I also expect to hack it
so it proves I was driving responsibly.
CBS New York reports that the Dept of
Transportation (DOT) is looking for 400 drivers to pilot a new
program. PogoWasRight.org
thinks you’re nuts if you sign up.
It’s a tiny black box about the size of a pack of gum that is installed right under the steering wheel. It will allow city officials under a program called “Drive Smart” to collect and access data about how you drive — if you drive like a maniac, or if you’re Mr. or Mrs. Slow Poke.
“It can tell the g-force of hard stopping or hard acceleration and a hard turn,” DOT senior project manager Alex Keating said. “So the driver, as well as the service provider, are able to look at speeds, hard-breaking events, time of day and basic GPS.”
City officials say they’ll use to information to make the streets safer, but drivers can also allow various DOT partners to use the information. Allstate, for example, will give you insurance discounts of 10-30 percent, and Metropia will get you home faster with less congested routes — all of it hooked up to smartphone apps.
Read more on CBS.
Gee golly wollopers, Batman! Maybe Amazon does
know more about selling ebooks online than the publishers! (Or maybe
it was just too late.)
E-Book
Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts
When the world’s largest publishers struck
e-book distribution deals with Amazon.com
Inc. over the past several months, they
seemed to get what they wanted: the right to set the
prices of their titles and avoid the steep discounts the online
retail giant often applies.
But in the early going, that strategy doesn’t
appear to be paying off. Three big publishers that signed
new pacts with Amazon— Lagardere
SCA’s Hachette Book Group, News
Corp ’s HarperCollins
Publishers and CBS Corp’s
Simon & Schuster—reported declining e-book revenue in their
latest reporting periods.
“The new business model for e-books is having a
significant impact on what [the big] publishers report,” said one
publishing executive. “There’s no question that publishers’
net receipts have gone down.”
A recent
snapshot of e-book prices found that titles in the Kindle bookstore
from the five biggest publishers cost, on average, $10.81, while all
other 2015 e-books on the site had an average price of $4.95,
according to industry researcher Codex Group LLC.
“Since
book buyers expect the price of a Kindle e-book to be well under $9,
once you get to over $10 consumers start to say, ‘Let me think
about that,’” said Codex CEO Peter Hildick-Smith.
The 21st Century Meat Market. Could
this hold for companies or products?
Instagram
Predicts Future Of Modeling Popularity
“Popularity” was defined as the number of
runway walks in which a new model participated during the Fall/Winter
2015 season in March. The use of Instagram data and computational
methods on a database of professional female fashion models will
figure out various parameters including hip, waist, height, dress and
shoe size, runways walked, modeling agency and eye color, before
coming up with the popularity level of a particular model.
The team disclosed that a high
activity on the site boosted by 15 percent the model’s odds of
getting anew contract. Studies have revealed that the
more popular a model was on Instagram, the more chances she had to
take part in runway presentations.
Third, the scientists turned their attention to
the models’ Instagram accounts.
Generally
speaking, a model will be in a greatly disadvantaged position if she
does not have an Instagram account, or has one with a low
number of likes and comments, as that will often translate to a
poorer performance on the runway. The survey focused on qualitative
data determining whether the comments were positive or negative.
… The researchers also looked at the Instagram
accounts of the more established models.
“Being more active played in your favor”, said
Ferrara.
Models who posted more photos on Instagram were
more likely to be billed as top models. Meanwhile, the
positivity or negativity of the comment did not impact popularity.
The tone of the comments did not affect popularity. An
above the average number of likes was able to lower these odds by 10
percent, but the researchers couldn’t tell for sure why.
Our analysis suggests that Instagram is as important as being cast by a top agency in terms of its ability to predict success on the runway.
It shows for instance, that an additional inch
over the average height doubles a model’s chances of walking a
runway.
(Related) Looks like the candidates think it's
true for them.
Candidates are competing hard to go viral on
social media in 2016.
President Obama may be big on selfie sticks, which
he recently took to the Alaskan wilderness, but campaigns are looking
for even more creative ways to court voters and drum up enthusiasm.
On the Democratic side, the hashtag #FeelTheBern
has become synonymous with Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) upstart
campaign and helped translate the online presence to large crowds on
the trail.
… Here’s a look at some of the most
memorable attempts by campaigns to go viral this summer:
One of the more memorable viral attempts came with
Sen. Rand Paul’s (Ky.) mid-July
video taking a chainsaw to the tax code in an effort to “kill”
it. In the clip, which got more than 150,000 YouTube views and was
teased
more than a week earlier on Instagram, Paul also torched stacks of
papers and fed them to a wood chipper to sell his plan for a
simplified tax code and flat tax rate of 14.5 percent.
Following that stunt, Paul’s campaign released a
smartphone app allowing Apple and Android users to create memes and
selfies bearing his likeness. The app reportedly contains a hidden
arcade game letting players zap the campaign logos of Paul’s
rivals.
… After Donald Trump revealed Sen. Lindsey
Graham's (R-S.C.) cell phone number in late July, the senator starred
in an elaborate video
with IJReview instructing people on "how to destroy your
cell phone."
… Donald Trump towers over the 2016 field in
social media, using it as a weapon against political and media foes.
The outspoken billionaire is particularly active on Twitter, using it
several times daily for personally criticizing opponents, sharing
flattering polls and engaging supporters.
Trump’s affinity for the social network is
reaping big buzz online as he creeps toward Hillary Clinton’s 4.17
million followers. Trump
has also more recently embraced Instagram as his platform
of choice for launching broadsides against his 2016 rivals.
I heard a similar story on AgriBusiness TV while
waiting for the local news to come on. (Yes I get up early) Got me
thinking that there might be a market for analysis tools for home
gardeners, even if you had to hire someone to analyze your soil.
WSJ –
Startups Put Data in Farmers’ Hands
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Sep 5, 2015
Big data moves into the collective sphere of
farmers who use it now directly to plan and manage all phases of crop
production – WSJ.com: “Farmers
and entrepreneurs are starting to compete with agribusiness giants
over the newest commodity being harvested on U.S. farms—one
measured in bytes, not bushels. Startups including Farmobile LLC,
Granular Inc. and Grower Information Services Cooperative are
developing computer systems that will enable farmers to capture data
streaming from their tractors and combines, store it in digital silos
and market it to agriculture companies or futures traders. Such
platforms could allow farmers to reap larger profits from a
technology revolution sweeping the U.S. Farm Belt and give them more
control over the information generated on their fields. The efforts
in some cases would challenge a wave of data-analysis tools from big
agricultural companies such as Monsanto
Co. , DuPont
Co. , Deere
& Co. and Cargill Inc. Those systems harness modern planters,
combines and other machinery outfitted with sensors to track
planting, spraying and harvesting, then crunch that data to provide
farm-management guidance that these firms say can help farmers curb
costs and grow larger crops. The companies say farmers own their
data, and it won’t be sold to third parties…”
For my Math students.
Top of the everyday tools list has to be Desmos
and Wolfram
Alpha; there are also numerous
calculators and resources available; this collection is
on Mathematics
for students which means students can use anything
themselves at home having seen it demonstrated in class. I also like
to display definitions, the Reference
page on Mathematics for students has very useful
dictionaries and glossaries.
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