There seems no end to the innovative ways organizations can spill data...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070810063301208

5,800 students at risk of ID theft, Loyola warns

Friday, August 10 2007 @ 06:33 AM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A Loyola University computer with the Social Security numbers of 5,800 students was discarded before its hard drive was erased, forcing the school this week to warn the students about potential identify theft.

Source - Sun-Times

More (but not unique) methods of spilling data...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070809163315599

Navy secretary laments continued loss of private data

Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 04:33 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

PogoWasRight.org Editor's note: I don't remember seeing 100 incidents involving breaches of information involving the Navy in the past 19 months. Once again, it is clear that we only hear about the tip of the iceberg...

The Navy continues to wrestle with maintaining control of service members’ personal information. “Unfortunately, numerous naval messages, media attention and changes to policy have had only a limited impact on improving our handling and safeguarding of [personally identifiable information], and losses have continued,” Navy Secretary Donald Winter wrote in a July 7 message to all Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

... In the past 19 months, Navy officials reported more than 100 incidents of such information of being lost. Those incidents affected more than 200,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, including retirees, civilians and dependents, according to Winter’s message.

The cases involved lost or stolen laptop computers and thumb drives, material erroneously posted on Navy Web sites, stolen or misplaced documents, e-mail messages with attachments forwarded in error, and documents thrown away intact, the message reads.

Source - FCW

[From the article: This isn't the first time breathalyzer source code has been the subject of legal scrutiny. A Florida court ruled two years ago that police can't use electronic breathalyzers as courtroom evidence against drivers unless the source code is disclosed. Other alleged drunk drivers have had charges thrown out because CMI refuses to reveal the Intoxilyzer source code.

No doubt they learned how from US companies...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070809120619604

ISPs suspected of massive identity theft in Korea

Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 12:06 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Police are investigating South Korea's two biggest ISPs on suspicion that they broke identity theft laws on more than seven million occasions. The two companies, KT and Hanaro Telecom Inc, are suspected of signing up more than seven million customers for services without their permission, according to police sources cited by local media today.

... Hanaro Telecom has also been accused of illegally sharing subscriber contact information with outside firms, which then contacted the customers in an attempt to sell products to them.

Source - IT Week (UK)

I'm surprised it took so long...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007080915524542

BREAKING: Citing Four-Day Old Surveillance Law, Bush Seeks Dismissal of Lawsuit Challenging NSA Spying

Thursday, August 09 2007 @ 03:52 PM CDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts

Four days after President Bush signed controversial legislation legalizing some warrantless surveillance of Americans, the administration is citing the law in a surprise motion today urging a federal judge to dismisss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program. The lawsuit was brought by lawyers defending Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The lawyers and others alleged the threat of surveillance is chilling their First Amendment rights of speech, and their clients' right to legal representation. ... Justice Department lawyers are asking (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to toss the case, citing the new law -- which says warrantless surveillance can continue for up to a year so long as one person in the intercepted communications is reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

The motion is set to be heard in federal court in San Francisco this afternoon. THREAT LEVEL will be there.

Source - Threat Level (blog)

Hackers looking for a “Get out of jail free” card will be following this one closely!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/09/2043254&from=rss

DUI Defendant Wins Source Code to Breathalyzer

Posted by Zonk on Thursday August 09, @05:23PM from the one-way-to-fight-the-man dept. Software The Courts

MyrddinBach writes "CNet's Police Blotter column looks into a Minnesota drunk driving defendant case with a twist. The defendant says he needs the source code to the Intoxilyzer 5000EN to fight the charges in court. Apparently the company has agreed to turn over the code to the defense. 'A judge granted the defendant's request, but Michael Campion, Minnesota's commissioner in charge of public safety, opposed it. Minnesota quickly asked an appeals court to intervene, which it declined to do. Then the state appealed a second time. What became central to the dispute was whether the source code was owned by the state or CMI, the maker of the Intoxilyzer.'"

Background

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=51182&lastestnews=1

United Kingdom: ICO Guidance On Collecting Personal Information On Websites

09 August 2007 Article by Hannah Sutcliffe

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recently published a ‘Good Practice Note’ on the collection of personal information using websites. This provides some practical guidance which will be relevant to any business that collects or processes personal data via its website.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/practical_application/collecting_personal_information_from_websites_v1.0.pdf

This is amusing. I have several people in mind, just ignore that digital camera I'm pointing at you...

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9757829-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

JibJab's 'Starring You!' is the greatest office time-waster in history

By Caroline McCarthy – August 9, 2007, 2:51 PM PDT

Trust me--I know procrastination. But this one really takes the cake.

JibJab, as you probably know already, made a name for itself by creating corny (yet socially relevant) musical skits that superimposed the heads of politicians and celebrities onto cartoon bodies. Now that user-generated content is nothing new, it almost seems overdue that JibJab would introduce a "make your own" feature. But now, at long last, here it is: "JibJab Starring You!"

The concept, at least according to the creators, is to JibJab yourself by uploading a photo, easily crop it with the Flash-based tools to make a bobblehead-like image, and then revel at the absurdity of watching yourself dance the Charleston.

But don't let that fool you. The real purpose of "Starring You!" is to dig up photos of your boss and put them into any number of the dorky dance videos. As a bonus, most of them require two dancers, so you can use the likenesses of multiple co-workers--or choose from a small library of celebrity heads that range from Donald Trump to Barack Obama.

I'm not sure that 26 months is enough time for me to solve Rubik's Cube

http://blog.sciencenews.org/mathtrek/2007/08/cracking_the_cube.html

Cracking the Cube

By Julie J. Rehmeyer

Daniel Kunkle can solve a Rubik's Cube in 26 moves. Or at least his computer can.

Kunkle, a computer scientist at Northeastern University in Boston, has proved that 26 moves are enough to solve any Rubik's Cube, no matter how scrambled. That's one move below the previous record. In the process of cracking the cube, he developed algorithms that can be useful for problems as disparate as scheduling air flights and determining how proteins will fold.

Customer Service?

http://www.pcw.co.uk/vnunet/news/2196285/man-sues-online-florist

Man sues online florist for revealing affair

Say it with flowers, send her a triffid

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 09 Aug 2007

An online florist is facing a million-dollar legal case after it revealed one of its customers was sending flowers to his girlfriend.

Leroy Greer is suing 1-800-Flowers after it sent a thank you card for using its service to the man's home address. His wife opened the card and queried the order, which was then faxed through to her.

The fax contained details of the order and the message "Just wanted to say I love you and you mean the world to me! Leroy". The order also included a stuffed animal.

Greer's wife amended the fax, sent it to her husband and has sued for divorce. He is now suing the florist for a million dollars in the Texas Southern District Court.

Interesting topic for a dissertation...

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/maybe-surveilla.html

Maybe surveillance is bad, after all

By John Borland August 08, 2007 | 7:55:38 AM

Privacy advocates have a problem.

People who want to increase the amount of surveillance in society, whether it's wire-tapping, closed-circuit cameras, or data mining, have an easy argument. There are terrorists and criminals out there, and these tools can help stop violence and crime, they say.

Philosopher Sandro Gaycken, a PhD student at Germany's Institut für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung in Bielefeld, wants to give pro-privacy forces stronger arguments to counter these concerns. Speaking today at the Chaos Communication Camp, he conceded that activists' justifications for their concerns often fail to resonate with the broad public. Many anti-surveillance arguments are based on vaguely emotional concerns, or appeals to abstract values, as opposed to the hard facts of suicide bombers or commuters killed on the subway.

In response, Gaycken argued that there are well-established psychological consequences to being watched, observed consistently in studies. People change, tailoring their behavior to fit what they believe the observer wants (or in some cases actively rebelling against those wishes).

Now imagine a society where everyone knows they are or may be watched as they walk through the streets, or while surfing online. That – as in societies like Hitler's Germany or Soviet Russia – will have tangible and widespread psychological consequences, reinforcing conformity, and literally crippling the ability to make autonomous and ethical decisions, he argued.

An analogy might be the well-studied population of children with overprotective mothers, the philosopher said. Studies show that such children tend to be indecisive, dependent on others, have little "ethical competence," and often live suppressed and unhappy lives.

As or more disturbing may be the political implications of having a surveillance infrastructure in place.

Many philosophers reject the notion that given technologies are inherently politically neutral, Gaycken said. Surveillance, for example, can be used to support democratic values of freedom, equality, and state neutrality – but its tendency to create a watched and a watching class lends itself better to totalitarianism. In a country such as Germany, which has seen democracy slide into the Nazi state, such a warning resonates strongly.

"Surveillance stabilizes totalitarianism, and destabilizes democracy," Gaycken warned.

One of my Tech correspondents send in this tip...

The Evolution of the iPhone?

Apple Computer announced today that it has developed a computer chip that can store and play music in women's breast implants.

The i-Tit will cost $499 or $599 depending on the size. This is considered to be a major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.