At minimum, individuals who have their personal information stolen must find the value of their relationship with the organization spilling the data has diminished in value. (Although, I find it hard to think less of the VA than I did before they lost my data...)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071119072348287

Identity Theft Resource Center Releases Identity Theft: The Aftermath 2006

Monday, November 19 2007 @ 07:23 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

The Identity Theft Resource Center(R) released an important report today discussing the impact of identity theft victimization. This report was not based on a census survey but rather one that invited confirmed victims of identity theft in 2006 to respond to a series of 44 questions. These ranged from the emotional impact this crime has had on their lives and their ability to recover their good name to the financial loss to the business community in goods and services.

The following are highlights of The Aftermath 2006 study. Tables and additional data can be found in the full report on the website: http://www.idtheftcenter.org

• Uses of victim information: Nearly two-thirds of the 2006 sample reported that their personal information had been used to open a new credit line in their name, 29% reported their information was used for obtaining new cable/utility, and another 27% reported the imposter made charges to the victims' existing credit card accounts.

• Cost to Business: In 2006, respondents estimated the total value of all charges on fraudulent accounts in their name at $87,303. These figures ranged from $50 to $500,000. This reflects an increase of 78% from 2004 to 2006.

• Victim Time Spent: In The Aftermath 2006, victims spent an average of 97 hours repairing the damage done by identity theft to an existing account used or taken over by the thief. In cases where a new account was created, respondents in the 2006 study reported an average of 231 hours to clean up the mess. In some cases, respondents used such expressions "eight years and still working on it," "too many to count" or "endless."

• Costs to Victim: Respondents spent an average of $1,884 dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for damage done to an existing account only. These expenses include: postage, photocopying, childcare, travel, purchasing police or court records.

Source - Press Release

Related - Full Report

Because...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071119070800200

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, November 19 2007 @ 07:08 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee. Source - Chronicles of Dissent

Evidence that many no longer trust Comcast?

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/0442202&from=rss

Comcast Targets Unlicensed Anime Torrenters

Posted by Zonk on Monday November 19, @01:23AM from the hard-to-get-your-jpop-fix-without-it dept. Anime Businesses Networking The Internet

SailorSpork writes "According to a thread on the forums of AnimeSuki, a popular anime bittorent index site, Comcast has begun sending DCMA letters to customers downloading unlicensed fan-subtitled anime shows via bittorrent. By 'unlicensed', they mean that no english language company has the rights to it. The letters are claiming that the copyright holder or an authorized agent are making the infringement claims, though usually these requests are also sent to the site itself rather that individual downloaders. My question is have they really been in contact with Japanese anime companies, or is this another scare tactic by Comcast to try and reduce the bandwidth use of their heavier customers now that their previous tactics have come under legal fire?"

We need a law like this in the US!

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/19/0554235&from=rss

Losing Personal Info On A Laptop Could Get You Charged

Posted by Zonk on Monday November 19, @06:10AM from the going-to-need-handcuffs dept. Security Government Privacy IT

E5Rebel writes "The UK's data protection watchdog has called for legislation that would punish corporate or government officials with access to the public's personal data ... who lose it. Unencrypted laptops with this personal information which are lost or stolen will see their owners facing criminal charges. 'HM Revenue and Customs is among the organisations that have recently suffered high profile data security breaches as a result of laptops being lost or stolen. The HMRC laptop containing taxpayer data was encrypted - but other organisations have often failed to encrypt their machines.'"

Some people are getting a jump on the law...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071119071205860

Professor appeals fine

Albrecht seeks to clear penalty issued for lost flash drive

By: Adam Louis Issue date: 11/19/07 Section: Campus

Accounting professor William David Albrecht will appeal his case after the University charged him $9,810.58 for losing a flash drive containing sensitive information last May.

The flash drive contained P00 numbers of approximately 1,600 students and alumni, and, in addition, the social security numbers of 199 alumni. It was reported missing May 30, 27 days after Albrecht first noticed the flash drive had gone missing.

Is this an act of cyberwar? Sort of a trade embargo?

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/18/1824230&from=rss

China In the Habit of Copying And Redirecting US Sites?

Posted by Zonk on Sunday November 18, @04:42PM from the not-the-way-you-play-the-game dept.

Want to know why US web companies have trouble making it China? gaz_hayes passed us a link to the blog commiepod, which suggests that successful US websites are targeted by 'Chinese government backed companies.'

"These companies copy the site, deploy it on a .cn domain, and then DNS poison or forcefully lower the bandwidth the US site. Just a few weeks ago google.com and google.cn were DNS poisoned across the entire Chinese internet and were being redirected to their Chinese competitor Baidu. This probably explains Google's 3rd quarter market share in China."

This is a fairly serious accusation; anyone else have first-hand experiences that would back this up?

Research? Entertainment!

http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/11/18/directory-of-museum-podcasts-and-other-museum-information/

Directory of Museum Podcasts and Other Museum Information

18th November 2007

I love finding Web sites for niches I didn’t know existed. In this case it’s a Web site devoted to podcasts for museums, with some additional information about museum blogs. Museumpods is at http://www.museumpods.com/index.html.

... There’s a directory of museum and educational widgets, a number of listings and directories (including a Museum Exhibition Design Firm Directory, Museum Open Source Directory (short), museum jobs, and more.

Related

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016560.html

November 18, 2007

British Museum Launches Searchable Collection Database

"Welcome to the British Museum collection database. When complete, it will contain a record of every object in the Museum collection. This is the first release and contains records for the collection of two-dimensional works (almost entirely drawings, prints and paintings) from all over the world. New records and images are being added every week as work on the database continues... The entire database contains records for more than 1,698,000 objects. It is still in its early stages, and work is continuing to improve the information recorded in it. In many cases it does not represent the best available knowledge about the objects. This is being added as fast as possible, but will take many years."

• Collection database search - Currently 262,565 objects in the collection are available online 98,745 of these have one or more images. This currently comprises the Museum’s collection of 2-dimensional pictorial art."

• Rembrandt reaches the web - James Fenton taps into an online treasure trove, Saturday November 10, 2007, The Guardian: "...The website is unrestricted and you can print off any image. A battle was won before this was allowed to happen, and the result is that anyone - student, teacher or amateur - can get hold of a decent A4 reproduction of the drawing or print they are interested in, for personal use. For scholarly use, there will shortly be an automatic downloading option that gives a free image (for use in a scholarly article or book) of a suitable quality for reproduction. This is going to make an amazing difference in academic life, and it is part of a general trend (begun by Mark Jones at the V&A) of public institutions not charging for educational use of copyright material."

As I start my Small Business Management class, these articles are useful.

http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9819669-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

21st Century "abundance" business models: Lessons from Google and Red Hat for Facebook and open source

Posted by Matt Asay November 18, 2007 1:50 PM PST

... 20th Century software business models focus on scarcity because they're founded upon 20th Century conceptions of property (actually, their origin is a few centuries older than that, but never mind). Scarcity is the absolute wrong way to build a software business in the 21st Century with the rise of digitization. It is pointless and fruitless to insist that the digital world act like the physical/analog world and build business models that conform to this false view of the world. To thrive in the new software world, we need to embrace its changes rather than fight them.

... To get at the principle, it's useful to look at the successful business models of a few 21st Century pioneers, including Google and Red Hat:

Does this suggest a business model to you?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/google-magazine/

Google Magazine?

Michael Arrington

An interesting patent was granted to Google on November 8, titled “Customization of Content and Advertisements in Publications.”

A number of blogs picked it up and speculated that Google may soon begin to offer users the ability to create customized, printed magazines from Internet content. And print ads included in the magazine would be customized, too.

Image manipulation. Make your own evidence?

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9819054-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

'Seam carving' photo resizing now for video

Posted by Stephen Shankland November 19, 2007 4:00 AM PST

MONTEREY, Calif.--In August, researchers unveiled a new way of shrinking or expanding photos called seam carving. Now it turns out the technique applies to video, too.

Dilbert explains why consultants get the big bucks...

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2666690071119.gif