Inside job or simple passwords?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071127171256226

(update) Convio: Hacker used employee's password

Tuesday, November 27 2007 @ 05:12 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

The Associated Press is reporting that a hacker used an employee's password to get at Convio's data.

Prior Coverage- here, here, here, and here.

They're kidding, right?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071128032646480

FTC report: identity theft fell; results disputed

Wednesday, November 28 2007 @ 03:26 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Identity theft among Americans is down, according to a belated — and controversial — report issued by the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday.

The FTC says 8.3 million adults, or 3.7% of all Americans over the age of 18, were victims of identity theft in 2005. That's far fewer people than the 10 million the FTC reported in 2003.

The results, released more than three years after the last FTC report, immediately drew skepticism from computer security experts, who say a surge in cybercrime is feeding an increase in identity-theft-related cases.

"The numbers are unreliable," says Avivah Litan, an analyst at market researcher Gartner. (IT) Litan wrote a report, released this year, that showed an increase in identity-theft among American adults, to 15 million, in the 12-month period ended in August 2006. "The methodology is flawed. I think that's why they delayed the report," she says.

Source - USA Today

Related - FTC Report [pdf]

A whole new lexicon?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071128035057114

Robert Ellis Smith: Scary Stuff

Wednesday, November 28 2007 @ 03:50 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Other Privacy News

Government and corporate officials responsible for compliance with privacy laws in Canada and Europe are using a whole new language in 2007. Much of the jargon has passed by the American public. So listen up. This is important.

At their annual meeting this fall in Montreal, there was little of the traditional talk among the international privacy people about the nuts and bolts of data protection. Instead, there were urgent and distressed discussions about "uberveillance," "ambient technology," "ubiquitous computing," [Hey! I made the list! Bob] "ingest­ible bugs" and nanotechnology.

Source - Forbes

(Props, Realtime IT Compliance)

This is new...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071127150653379

NY Court of Appeals Allows Defendants to Privately Question Plaintiff's Doctors

Tuesday, November 27 2007 @ 03:06 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts

In a major decision today from New York's highest court, defendants have been granted permission to privately interview the treating physicians of a personal injury plaintiff after the close of discovery. In permitting this, the Court appears to have cast aside the privacy provisions of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

The decision in Arons v. Jutkowitz is expected to open a small floodgate of attempts by insurance companies and defense lawyers to privately approach treating physicians without the knowledge or permission of the patients and take statements without their counsel or any court reporter being present.

Source - New York Personal Injury Law Blog

On the other hand...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071127150924271

Feds cancel Amazon customer ID request

Tuesday, November 27 2007 @ 03:09 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: In the Courts

Federal prosecutors withdrew a request for a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. after U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker ruled that customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits private from the government and that the subpoena might have a chilling effect on people ordering books online.

In his opinion, which he recently unsealed over prosecutor's objections, Judge Crocker wrote:

"The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their knowledge or permission," Crocker wrote. "It is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else."

Source - Associated Press

Plenty of time...

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016653.html

November 27, 2007

New Privacy Rules Imminent, Another Privacy Change Contemplated

US Courts: "New rules providing privacy protection for case files posted online in the federal district, bankruptcy and appellate courts are scheduled to take effect December 1, 2007. Some of the rules represent a change in Judicial Conference policy. Meanwhile, a Judicial Conference committee is studying a related privacy issue: Whether courts should restrict Internet access to plea agreements in criminal cases, which may contain information identifying defendants who are cooperating with law enforcement investigations. The new rules were proposed by the Judicial Conference in accordance with the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires that each court make publicly available online any document filed electronically. The rules require parties to redact certain personal information from each filing. The Act required the Supreme Court to prescribe rules “to protect privacy and security concerns related to electronic filing of documents and the public availability..of documents filed electronically.” The new privacy rules include Civil Procedure Rule 5.2, Criminal Rule 49.1 and Bankruptcy Rule 9037. Appellate Rule 25 was amended to incorporate the new privacy directive. The rules can be found here."

I can read all week!

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016661.html

November 27, 2007

Universal Digital Library Completes 1.5 Million Book Digitization Milestone

News.com: "The Universal Digital Library, a book-scanning project backed by several major libraries across the globe, has completed the digitization of 1.5 million books and on Tuesday made them free and publically available. The online library offers full text downloads of works that are in the public domain, or for which the copyright holder has been given permission to make available. Having the backing of prominent institutions such as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, however, the collection goes far beyond the widely available classics, though those are there, too..." According to the director of intellectual property for the Universal Digital Library, Michael Shamos, "But once books are digitized and stored on servers around the world, it becomes impossible for any one government to destroy all the copies of a book. Once it's there it remains immortal."

Onward to their doom?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/27/2130227&from=rss

Stay Lifted, Novell Vs. SCO Can Go Forward

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 27, @05:11PM from the please-turn-to-chapter-seven dept.

A number of readers suggest we check out Groklaw, where PJ is reporting that a bankruptcy judge has granted Novell's request to lift the stay so that its trial against SCO can proceed in Utah. The judge concluded that Judge Kimball is the best one to decide how much SCO owes Novell, and that SCO cannot make any "reorganization" plans — including any "fire sale" of assets — until it knows this figure.

How to be a geek-law icon!

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/27/1552214&from=rss

A Discussion of SCO's Fate With Groklaw's Pamela Jones

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday November 27, @12:08PM from the going-down-the-tubes dept. The Courts Caldera Unix

An anonymous reader writes "The SCO Group's current fate can be neatly summarized by the title of Pamela Jones' very first article on the case, back in May 2003 — 'SCO Falls Downstairs, Hitting its Head on Every Step.' In the intervening years PJ and Groklaw can be credited with unearthing and exposing many of the flaws in SCO's case, most notably, obtaining and publishing the 1994 settlement in the USL vs BSDi case. An article at the ITPro site interviews PJ about SCO, the impact of Groklaw and future of free software and the law."

Two of my favorite things: Lists & Free! How can I resist?

http://www.creditpanda.com/blog/2007/17-ways-to-get-free-books

17 Ways to Get Free Books

You can never have too many books, so we are delighted to share with you some ways to get them for free. From children’s books to technical books, there are numerous resources that offer literature for free. Some of the following sites offer actual printed books, while others feature electronic books (aka “ebooks”). Please bear in mind that the list is alphabetized, not ordered by importance.

http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2007/11/27/search-multimedia-academic-lectures-by-keyword/

Search Multimedia Academic Lectures — By Keyword

27th November 2007

Technology Review has an interesting article on a new offering from MIT — a tool that allows users to search over 200 academic lectures by keyword. The Lecture Browser is available at http://web.sls.csail.mit.edu/lectures/ .

I think this site is supposed to work in Firefox but I had no luck. I would get the “searching” window and no actual results. It worked fine in IE. [Shame on MIT! Bob]