It's official. Clerks have more rights than ordinary, second-class citizens.
Texas governor signs law that exempts clerks from privacy laws
Documents with Social Security numbers can be posted online
Jaikumar Vijayan
April 02, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has signed into law a bill that allows the state's county and court clerks to disclose "in the ordinary course of business" Social Security numbers contained in documents held by their offices.
It is the logical thing for congress to do... Isn't it? (a domestic CIA)
Don't create new spy unit
Leave domestic surveillance to FBI; it can be better overseen by courts
April 2, 2007
The clock is ticking on the FBI. Rooting out terrorists inside the United States, before they can detonate bombs or crash planes, is tough, essential duty. Since 9/11 it has been the FBI's No. 1 job. But chronic sloppiness and mismanagement demands an answer: Is the FBI up to the task?
... "The FBI is again at a crossroads," says Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont). It has to do better or risk being relieved of intelligence duties.
But a new domestic spy agency with no responsibility for criminal prosecutions would operate in the shadows, beyond constitutional constraints policed by the courts. That would invite abuse. And an agency whose only reason for being was to spy on people in the United States would inevitably find reasons to justify perpetual spying. It would pose a threat to the privacy and liberties that make this nation the standard for individual rights and the rule of law. The FBI, which ultimately must answer to the Constitution, needs to get this right.
All that fuss for nothing?
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2007/02/c9232.html
Privacy Commissioner concludes investigation of SWIFT
OTTAWA, April 2 /CNW Telbec/ - The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, today announced the conclusion of her Office's investigation of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a European-based financial cooperative, that supplies messaging services and interface software to a large number of financial institutions in more than 200 countries, including Canada.
In her Report of Findings, made public today, the Commissioner confirmed that SWIFT is subject to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Canada's private sector privacy law, and that the organization did not contravene the Act when it complied with lawful subpoenas served outside the country and disclosed personal information about Canadians to foreign authorities. However, she emphasized that making use of existing information-sharing regimes, with built-in privacy protections, would allow for greater transparency for citizens.
April 2, 2007
Think this will help?
http://www.theolympian.com/131/story/75518.html
FCC adopts new phone privacy rules
JOHN DUNBAR Associated Press Writer
You'll have to provide a password if you want to get your account information from your telephone company under new privacy rules approved Monday by the Federal Communications Commission.
The rules were created to safeguard against pretexting, the practice of impersonating a phone customer to gain access to his phone records.
If the load on the network isn't a great enough concern, consider the e-Discovery implications...
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/56601.html
Should IT Departments Be Worried About the iPhone?
By Greg Murphy MacNewsWorld Part of the ECT News Network 04/02/07 4:00 AM PT
Apple's iPhone will likely be a hot seller, and it will only add to the many WiFi-enabled smartphones employees are increasingly bringing into the work environment. With so many unfamiliar wireless devices being used within the walls of their organizations, IT departments must take steps to ensure their networks remain secure.
... It may be premature to declare the iPhone to be IT's Achilles heel, but there is no doubt that WiFi-enabled smartphones have corporate IT departments on edge. Numerous experts and analysts have observed that the iPhone is not intended to be an "enterprise" device, and very few benevolent CFOs are going to approve the purchase of pricey iPhones for their employees. Yet CIOs know that millions of them are going to be coming into the workplace anyway.
That fact alone points to one of the most profound changes in IT over the past decade. Ten years ago, it was virtually unheard of for employees to bring their own computers and other network devices to the office. Now, it happens in every office, every day. Your VP of Sales declares that he or she cannot live another day without a Blackberry -- and soon every salesperson is carrying a new smartphone.
... With nearly half of companies today simply reimbursing their employees' mobile telecom expenses, workers often make their selections with little or no input from IT.
... When employees are making these decisions, IT inevitably loses control. To make matters worse, as these phones provide more and more of the functions of a PC (and store almost as much information), they become even more of a security threat since tiny phones are infinitely easier to lose or steal than PCs.
The iPhone (and WiFi-enabled devices from other providers) up the ante even further. Now, employees will want to connect their unmanaged, non-secure WiFi-enabled phones directly to the corporate network -- and expect IT to support them in the process.
... When IT fights its users and tries to prevent them from using the technology they want, IT usually loses in the end -- and simply invites employees to find new, creative and usually non-secure ways to use their devices anyway.
... While IT cannot always control what devices enter the building, it can -- and must -- maintain an accurate inventory of devices that connect to its wireless network. The wireless management system should maintain logs of every user session dating back years -- indicating exactly when each device appeared on the network, how the device authenticated, etc. IT must have a system to generate reports showing every new device and a way to review those reports to ensure that any unknown, unmanaged devices are connecting only to a guest network with limited access.
There is money somewhere, we just have to get it...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_15/b4029059.htm
Cold Cash From A Hot Site
APRIL 9, 2007 NEWS & INSIGHTS
Can MySpace pull in revenue fast enough for Rupert?
As numbers go, this one's a whopper. Last year MySpace users called up an average of 31.5 billion unique page views per month. That's as though everyone on the planet visited the site once a week. And yet, the big kahuna of social networking racked up a paltry $90 million in ad sales. Not exactly what Rupert Murdoch had in mind when his News Corp. paid $580 million for MySpace nearly two years ago.
Now Murdoch's bet may be about to pay off. This year, if everything goes according to plan, MySpace could generate ad revenues of some $271 million, figures Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Jessica Reif Cohen. She also predicts that in 2008 Fox Interactive Media, of which MySpace is the largest piece, will generate its first profit, an estimated $208 million (although an ad sharing deal with Google will account for some of that).
That's not to say getting there will be easy. Though page views were up 79% last month over the previous year, growth is slowing. Plus MySpace is aging: 41% of the traffic comes from people over 35 vs. 35% a year ago, says researcher Hitwise; not ideal for youth-obsessed advertisers. Then there is the small matter of putting ads on a site whose denizens are averse to anything that clunks up the experience. "Rupert was very straightforward," says co-founder Chris DeWolfe. "Don't compromise anything, but find a way to make money."
It wasn't his fault!
George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house
31.03.07
The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.
Somehow, I doubt they understood Orwell's warning...
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/02/britain.spying.reut/index.html
Survey shows Britons checking up on partners
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Britons are a nation of spies, rifling through their partners' text messages, tapping phone conversations and even tailing loved ones with web cams and satellite navigation systems, a survey reveals.
The most favored way of keeping tabs on a partner is checking their text messages, with more than half (53 percent) of those questioned admitting sneaking a peek. The number shoots up to 77 percent in the 25 to 34 age group.
The second most popular way of finding out if a partner has been a love-cheat is to read their e-mails -- 42 percent told the UK Undercover Survey that they had carried out such a ploy.
The third is the old-fashioned one of rummaging through a partner's pockets, (39 percent), a technique popular with women.
Men prefer to break another unspoken rule -- reading a partner's diary.
Neither is the spoken word safe from eavesdropping.
About one in three (31 percent) of those questioned in the survey, commissioned by the Science Museum in London, for its Science of Spying exhibition, said they covertly listened in on their partner's conversations.
A small number of the 1,129 people questioned, said they had even secretly recorded their partner's telephone conversations, using dictaphones or other such taping devices.
This method was the most popular with the over-55s age group, where one in 20 (5 percent) put their hands up. This age group also included people using web cams and GSM tracking devices.
Almost one in 10 (9 percent) have resorted to checking up on their partner by following them.
Harry Ferguson, former M16 agent, said: "Everyone has the ability to be a bit of a spy every now and again, and you don't need to have James Bond's gadgets to enter the world of espionage."
The Science of Spying exhibition ends in September.
We don't need Big Brother, we can do it ourselves!
Stalking Strangers’ DNA to Fill in the Family Tree
By AMY HARMON April 2, 2007 The DNA Age
They swab the cheeks of strangers and pluck hairs from corpses. They travel hundreds of miles to entice their suspects with an old photograph, or sometimes a free drink. Cooperation is preferred, but not necessarily required to achieve their ends.
If the amateur genealogists of the DNA era bear a certain resemblance to members of a “CSI” team, they make no apologies. Prompted by the advent of inexpensive genetic testing, they are tracing their family trees with a vengeance heretofore unknown.
“People who realize the potential of DNA,” said Katherine Borges, a co-founder of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, “will go to great lengths to get it.”
... Genetic testing companies encourage the use of cheek cells whenever possible, but that does not stop customers from dispatching DNA in a multitude of forms. For a premium, Family Tree DNA, a provider of the tests, has extracted genetic material from toothbrushes, hearing aids, nail clippings and postage stamps. (Hair remains tricky).
Dilbert explains the allure of PowerPoint...
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2091641070403.gif
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