Close to home
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071112114634362
Clients' Legal Info Found Dumped In Lawyer's Trash
Monday, November 12 2007 @ 11:46 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. -- Police collected 17 boxes filled with Social Security numbers and other personal information from a trash container behind an office building in Colorado on Sunday.
... they appeared to be from the office of W. Dan Mahoney, an attorney who works in the building, and who admits throwing them in the trash.
Source - CBS
Is this a wise policy?
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/edmonton/story.html?id=3d6e58be-07f3-4bde-92a6-99376d0ff4a8&k=74424
Personal information on students stolen
edmontonjournal.com
EDMONTON - Personal information about 560 Catholic school students has been stolen, after a school bus employee had her purse stolen.
The purse contained a memory stick with the names, addresses and phone numbers of kindergarten, Hand in Hand pre-school program and special needs students in the school district, the district said in a press release Monday.
The school board was informed of the theft a week earlier by the school bus company involved, R.L. Smith Transportation Inc. The school bus employee left the memory stick in her purse in the trunk of her car, which was then stolen. When the car was recovered, the purse and its contents were missing.
The bus company has routinely sent a copy of student information with their bus drivers. [Why would they even have this information? Bob] City police are investigating the theft. The employee is not longer with the company.
Catholic schools says letters have been sent home to all affected parents, and extra security methods have been put in place. [All the measures that should have been in place before? Bob]
Effective immediately, the school district has asked school bus companies not to let their employees carry student information outside the office. Four of the five companies have complied, it said, and the fifth has promised a response this week.
All information about students must now be encrypted on memory sticks, as well as password protected, says the school district. The lost information is not encrypted.
Let's hope there was language in the contract covering something like this...
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2215792,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
Attackers Snatch Member Data from 92 Nonprofits
November 12, 2007 By Lisa Vaas
Attackers have stolen passwords and accounts from 92 nonprofits by infiltrating systems at Convio, the leading online marketing company for nonprofits.
Affected nonprofit organizations include the American Museum of Natural History, Working Assets, CARE and Free Press.
According to a letter sent by Convio to one of the affected organizations, the e-mail addresses and member passwords were downloaded without authorization from 92 GetActive clients between Oct. 23 and Nov. 1. GetActive is an application that Convio acquired with the nonprofit eCRM software company, also named GetActive, in February.
The attacker or attackers had prepared to steal the same information from another 62 GetActive clients, but the attempt was foiled when Convio discovered the breach late in the day on Nov. 1.
"The attack was carried out by an outside party who temporarily gained limited access to our systems," the letter said. "As soon as this attack was discovered, we took immediate steps to correct the situation. We are confident that these steps have restored the security of our systems. We are also cooperating with federal authorities to investigate the illegal access and data theft."
According to Convio, no credit card or other personal data was lost in the breach, only e-mail addresses and passwords. A spokesperson for Convio told eWEEK that Convio doesn't store credit cards, although the legacy GetActive application does to some extent.
... Convio is recommending that its client organizations notify any constituents with user-created passwords that might have been disclosed. Some of those individuals might use the same e-mail address and password with multiple online service providers such as Yahoo or PayPal or even at banks or online merchants, any of which could open them up to compromise of those additional accounts. Individuals who are affected should change their passwords at such accounts as soon as possible.
Convio is also warning GetActive users to be on the alert regarding e-mail that appears to be from a brand name organization that urges recipients to visit a Web site to provide personal or financial information because an account may have been compromised or deactivated. Such e-mail would come from phishers running a scam, as legitimate businesses wouldn't ask for such information.
Convio has created a query within its dashboard that can be used to identify which members of an organization's list might be affected.
“HI! Could you give me all my personal information – I seem to have forgotten it.”
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2007111217370286
Commerce Bank Issues Identity Theft Warning
Monday, November 12 2007 @ 05:37 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
Note: social engineering or something else? More details would help...
Commerce Bank officials have sent letters to the affected customers regarding an investigation of identity fraud.
The letter states that a Commerce employee gave out personal information -- including Social Security and loan account numbers -- to outside parties.
Source - NBC 10
Because terrorists love Mickey Mouse
http://www.local6.com/news/4724689/detail.html
Finger Scanning At Disney Parks Causes Concern
POSTED: 5:12 pm EDT July 14, 2005 UPDATED: 10:47 am EDT July 15, 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The addition of finger scanning technology at the entrances of Walt Disney World theme parks for all visitors has caused concern among privacy advocates, according to a Local 6 News report.
[I think it's a step in the wrong direction," Civil Liberties Union spokesman George Crossley said. "I think it is a step toward collection personal information on people regardless of what Disney says.]
Tourists visiting Disney theme parks in Central Florida must now provide their index and middle fingers to be scanned before entering the front gates.
What we've been saying for years!
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2215951,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594
SCO Guilty of Lying About Unix Code in Linux
November 13, 2007 By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
In the United States, SCO's Linux/Unix litigation has been stalled out while the company's bankruptcy trial is being dealt with. In Germany, however, several court cases have found SCO Group GmbH, SCO's Germany branch, guilty of lying about Linux containing stolen Unix code.
In the first case, reported on by Heise Online, the pro-Linux German companiesTarent GmbH and Univention found that SCO was once more making claims that Linux contained Unix IP (intellectual property). Specifically, SCO GmbH made the familiar claims that "As we have progressed in our discovery related to this action, SCO has found compelling evidence that the Linux operating system contains unauthorized SCO UNIX intellectual property (IP)." This was followed by the usual threat "If a customer refuses to compensate SCO for its UNIX intellectual property found in Linux by purchasing a license, then SCO may consider litigation."
How can a little tiny country like Israel claim to have the largest database? Perhaps it includes a copy of the US databse...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071112120510670
Knesset panel okays Western world's largest database for police use
Monday, November 12 2007 @ 12:05 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News
The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved Monday morning the establishment of a police search engine, which, if passed by the Knesset, would be the largest legal database in the Western world for police use.
The database is to include names, unlisted and listed phone numbers, Internet addresses, computer and modem numbers, and cell-phone identifiers to pinpoint signals and allow the police to track individual conversations.
Source - Haaretz.com
If this was a test of the market, I'd say we'll see more like it.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/12/2235200&from=rss
Wal-Mart's $200 Linux PC Sells Out
Posted by kdawson on Monday November 12, @09:55PM from the ok-there's-a-market-for-it dept. Linux Business Enlightenment
hankmt writes "About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 Linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz VIA C7 processor and 512 MB of RAM. While the specs are useless for Vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. T he machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses (it may still be available in some stores). And the product sales page at wal-mart.com is full of glowing reviews from new and old Linux users alike."
Why be President (Salary $400,000) when you can get a share of the next Google?
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/11/news/newsmakers/gore_kleiner.fortune/
Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC
The recovering politician is teaming with a legendary venture capitalist and bigtime moneyman to make over the $6 trillion global energy business. A Fortune exclusive
By Marc Gunther and Adam Lashinsky, Fortune November 12 2007: 2:49 PM EST
This might be useful for my students... Not sure I'd trust them with anything personal.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/zoogmo--Protecting-Your-Data/
Zoogmo.com - Protecting Your Data
Have you become frustrated with loosing your data? Do you always forget to backup four files? Zoogmo.com has the solution to your problem. Zoogmo backs up your data over the internet or within a LAN on your computer or your family/friend’s computer. If you have Windows XP or 2003 with a broad band connection you can you can install the Zoogmo software and backup your data. Zoogmo gives you unlimited space and you can have an unlimited number of partners for free. Zoogmo keeps your files safe; you don’t need to worry about if your computer viruses affecting your data. If your connection is interrupted during a file transfer don’t worry you files will be safe because there is a built in retry system to automatically reconnect. Backing up your files is quick and easy with Zoogmo.com.
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