Not much data at all...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070921060929779
City: Stolen computers held personal information on 3,500 people
Friday, September 21 2007 @ 06:09 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Older News Stories
The city of Columbus (Ohio) is offering identity-theft protection services to more than 3,000 people whose Social Security numbers were on three computers stolen from a warehouse.
The theft affected people who had signed up for the city's Mobile Tool Library, which lends power tools, lawn mowers and supplies.
Source - WTOL
Blame. It's a wonderful thing.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2185992,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Suit: Employee Fired for Reporting Breach
September 20, 2007 By Deborah Perelman
For one of the biggest healthcare data breaches in history, the lawsuits haven't stopped yet.
In December 2005, thieves broke into the parked van of an IT systems analyst for Providence Home Services, a Washington state health care company, stealing a computer bag with ten unencrypted tapes and disks holding information on what would turn out to be more than 365,000 hospice and home health care patients—everything from Social Security numbers and birth and death dates to diagnoses, prescriptions and insurance numbers. Data on doctors, including their Medicare and Medicaid and state license numbers, names, addresses and phone numbers were also missing.
Executives waited three weeks before informing patients about the stolen data, in what turned out to be the biggest data breach ever reported in Oregon. The state investigation and class-action lawsuit that followed ended in a $95,000 settlement payment by the healthcare provider to the state of Oregon to cover the cost of the investigation.
Now, in a lawsuit filed Aug. 28 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, near Portland, former Providence Home Services IT systems analyst Steven Shields is seeking $1 million in damages from his former employer for allegedly violating Oregon's whistleblower law.
Steven Shields, the employee who left the records inside the van, alleges in the lawsuit that he was fired for reporting the December 2005 incident to police. Whistleblower laws prevent companies from firing employees who make a good-faith report of wrongdoing. If employees are worried about losing their jobs, the law reasons, they may not do the right thing when a dangerous situation occurs.
... A contractor has since been hired to transport and store all sensitive data, instead of allowing employees to take it home.
Another rant against Ohio
http://www.privacydigest.com/2007/09/20/stolen+data+privacy+relevant+information
On stolen data with privacy-relevant information
September 20, 2007 - 10:43am — MacRonin
[Comments: On stolen data with privacy-relevant information: "
... Peter Murray Says: September 18th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Oh, I think the story is much more interesting that you are letting on. It would appear that the theft of the backup tape was not a backup of the OAKS system [the State of Ohio’s ERP system] itself; instead, it was some intranet fileserver where various datasets were stored that were used by “database analysts who were running tests on large files containing sensitive data on the I: drive.” An extract from the Ohio inspector general’s report beginning at PDF page 16 (report page 10) is included below:
The Ohio data spill is full of interesting twists...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070920143514766
(update) Data company, being sued by state, blames security breach on 'human error'
Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 02:35 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
Confidential data from Connecticut's computerized financial management network ended up on a backup tape stolen from a college intern's car in Ohio because of "human error," the company that implemented the problem-plagued system said Wednesday.
But an official in the union that represents state information technology employees said it believes the consulting company, Bermuda-based Accenture, transferred the Connecticut data to Ohio - where Accenture was the primary consultant on a similar system installed for the state government there - simply to save the firm time and money.
Moreover, she suggested that Accenture also might have used the Connecticut data to test similar projects elsewhere, because its consultants who worked on the state's $130 million CORE-CT project later were transferred not only to Ohio, but also "internationally."
Source - JournalInquirer.com
Perhaps we could require them to wear striped shirts (in the school colors) with student ID numbers?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20070921063618109
'Hey you': Profs can't use names of students
Friday, September 21 2007 @ 06:36 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Minors & Students
These days, University of Iowa professors, whether they know it or not, are supposed to get permission before calling on a student by name in their class.
In a new regulation based on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, that some are calling "bizarre," UI officials say using a student's name could be a violation of privacy.
Source - Iowa City Press-Citizen
So, why do we need all those cameras? (“It is better to look techie than to be techie” Hernando)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/2318220&from=rss
10,000 Cameras Ineffective At Deterring Crime
Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday September 20, @09:31PM from the clearly-we-need-more-cameras dept. Privacy Security Politics
Mike writes "London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million but an analysis of the publicly funded spy network has cast serious doubt on its ability to help solve crime. In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average. The study found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any. Could this be an effective argument against the proliferation of cameras or will politicians simply ignore the facts and press ahead?"
Another reason to let your kids use those social web sites – you can sue people!
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007092015542651
Family sues Virgin Mobile over teen's photo in ad
Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 03:54 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts
A Dallas family charges that Australia's Virgin Mobile phone company caused their teenage daughter grief and humiliation by plastering her photo on billboards and Web site advertisements without consent.
The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc.'s popular photo-sharing Web site.
Chang's family filed a lawsuit late Wednesday in state district court in Dallas against Virgin Mobile USA LLC, its Australian counterpart, and Creative Commons Corp., a Massachusetts nonprofit that licenses sharing of Flickr photos.
Source - Associated Press
Related - From the “sue-everyone-and-hope-someone-settles” department… (Commentary, blog)
Writing Science Fiction is one was to avoid Guantanamo...
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/2325240&from=rss
Cory Doctorow's Fiction About An Evil Google
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday September 21, @12:23AM from the government-search-engines dept. Google Privacy
ahem writes "I saw a link on Valleywag to a story written by Cory Doctorow about what would happen if Google got in bed with the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chilling, well written, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic for my tastes."
A rather rare type of story... (More typical is the Dan Rather defense)
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/20/202201&from=rss
Daniel Lyons of Forbes Admits Being Snowed by SCO
Posted by Zonk on Thursday September 20, @06:01PM from the very-glad-this-is-over dept. Caldera The Courts The Media Linux
certain death writes "Daniel Lyons of Forbes Magazine has admitted to being snowed by SCO, regarding their lawsuit over Linux and SCO code. He specifically mentions Groklaw's role in the case, and regrets his early articles giving the company the benefit of the doubt. 'I still thought it would be foolish to predict how this lawsuit (or any lawsuit) would play out. I even wrote an article called "Revenge of the Nerds," which poked fun at the pack of amateur sleuths who were following the case on a Web site called Groklaw and who claimed to know for sure that SCO was going to lose. Turns out those amateur sleuths were right. Now some of them are writing to me asking how I'd like my crow cooked, and where I'd like it delivered. Others in that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them. The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.'" [and we'll never let you forget it! Bob]
This debate seems to be heating up...
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070920/165947.shtml
Perhaps Up North 'Unlimited' Means Something Different Than It Does Here
from the haven't-we-been-through-this-before dept
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a connectivity provider limiting how people use their connectivity -- as long as it's clearly laid out in how they pitch the service. Unfortunately, too many of these services advertise "unlimited" service, but mean the exact opposite. In the US, Verizon Wireless used to do this. When confronted on it, they tried to doubletalk their way around the issue, claiming that it was "unlimited data for limited types of data" (read that phrase a few times). However, eventually, Verizon Wireless realized how ridiculous this was and started to back off the claims of unlimited data. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking hasn't reached the folks at Bell Canada, who are apparently advertising an unlimited service, while hiding an awful lot of "limits" within the terms of service. Again, there's nothing wrong with them deciding they need to limit the service -- but if they're going to do so, they shouldn't be advertising it as unlimited. It's amazing that no one's been charged with false advertising for these types of misleading ads. [Yet Bob]
Related
Comcast speaks out on bandwidth caps, says they only affect 0.01% of users
By Eric Bangeman | Published: September 19, 2007 - 11:40PM CT
Over the past several days, there have been a number of rumors and lots of discussion about the issue of bandwidth caps and Comcast. There have been a number of reports of users having reached some sort of bandwidth limit—reportedly 90GB—and having their service cut off by America's largest cable ISP. Ars spoke to Comcast today in an attempt to find out what's going on.
Read this!
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5780.html
How to be a Customer
Published: September 20, 2007 Author: John Quelch
99 percent of marketing focuses on how to sell to customers. Very little attention is paid to why and how customers should sell themselves to marketers. As a customer, do you ever think about how you can get a leg up on your competition—the other customers competing for the attention and goodwill of the seller?
Attention SiFi fans!
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/21/0227240&from=rss
Heinlein Archives Put Online
Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday September 21, @05:09AM from the plenty-to-read dept. Sci-Fi Entertainment
RaymondRuptime writes "Good news for fans of the late SF master Robert Heinlein, 2 months after his 100th birthday celebration. Per the San Jose Mercury News, 'The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive — housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 — have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while making the collection easily available to both academics and the general public... The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of Heinlein's complete manuscripts — including files of all his published works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts.' You can skip the brief article and go straight to the archives."
Haven't I been saying the same thing?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070919/230654.shtml
No One Ever Said Free Is The Business Model -- But It Absolutely Should Be A Part Of The Business Model
from the a-little-bit-of-confusion dept
Following Rupert Murdoch's latest hints that he's going to take down the paywall at the Wall Street Journal, a bit of a debate has developed about whether or not it's a good idea. Dow Jones executives are apparently against the idea (ironically, published in a "free" article on their site). However, the WSJ's Kara Swisher is all for it. Watching the debate unravel, however, I keep seeing people arguing against the idea, using similar logic to what I saw in the comments earlier this year when I wrote about how "free" is an essential part of many business models (if you know how to leverage it). It's typified by Mark Potts, who declares: "Free is Not a Business Model," in dismissing the commentary in support of a freeing both the NY Times and the WSJ. Unfortunately, it seems like Potts is blinded by the word free and forgets to look past it. No one is saying that "free" is the business model. They're simply saying that free is a component of the business model -- just as it's been a component of business models for ages ("the free trial," "buy one, get one free" "buy now and we'll throw in a free toaster"). Arguing that free isn't a business model is missing the point. The argument is actually over how you use free as a part of your overall business model. In fact, that's exactly what Swisher is doing in her piece, where she suggests a number of related business models that are all helped if the WSJ makes its core content free. It's the same thing that we're saying when we suggest that musicians are better off making their content free. It's not that free is the business model. It's that the free stuff helps promote other business models that can make more money.
Convergence: Never miss an episode of the Lone Ranger again! (Next: TV on demand – they've been promising for 20 years!)
http://www.killerstartups.com/Mobile/cellecast--On-Demand-Radio-Thru-Your-Cell-Phone/
Cellecast.com - On Demand Radio Thru Your Cell Phone
CelleCast enables its users to listen to their favorite radio shows and audio entertainment directly from their cell phones. Dial CelleCast’s direct line to access their audio catalog. Select the programs you want to hear and listen on your own time. Programs can be fast forwarded, paused and rewound for your listening convenience. Listeners can manage their playlists online for later listening. There’s also a TalkBack feature which enables users to record and deliver messages to their favorite talk show hosts. For an ad free experience listeners can subscribe for $9.95 a month or a discounted $14.80 for five months.
One radio show you should listen to...
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13371
NPR’s long, hard look at the RIAA
Bill Clinton's stress reliever? (Watch to the end...)
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