Be careful what you assert – it will come back to haunt you.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080124173603384
Fallon Community Health Plan reports data breach affecting 30,000 members
Thursday, January 24 2008 @ 05:36 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
Fallon Community Health Plan said this afternoon the names, dates of birth and Medicare identification numbers of approximately 30,000 Senior Plan members was on a laptop computer stolen earlier this month from a Boston-based vendor of the HMO.
The health plan said it will offer free credit monitoring services for 12 months to those affected by the data breach. Fallon health plan officials said the data was not password protected or encrypted, in violation of the company's policies.
Source - Telegram & Gazette
Related - Security breach compromises Fallon patient data
[From the article:
The vendor discovered the theft Jan. 2 and originally said the material had been encrypted. But the health plan, with the assistance of a forensic technologist, came to the conclusion Jan. 14 that the information was not protected.
Am I missing something?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080124154243827
(follow-up) WI: 3 fired over privacy breaches, state agencies say
Thursday, January 24 2008 @ 03:42 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches
... three people — two state employees and one who worked for a company hired by the state — have been fired over security concerns.
Two Department of Revenue workers were fired for not meeting the department’s standards related to the handling of confidential data, Ervin said. He would not disclose other details other than to say the workers were not directly involved in any of the problem mailings. [“Yes, they had nothing to do with the data spill... so we fired them!” Bob]
The employee responsible for a mailing including Social Security numbers on the label to 260,000 SeniorCare, BadgerCare and Medicaid recipients also has been fired, said Kevin Hayden, secretary of the Department of Health and Family Services.
Source - Green Bay Press Gazette
[From the article:
The state also now has its own employees reviewing EDS mailings, Hayden said. “We have our eyes watching their team,” he said. [Finally they grasp the obvious! Bob]
Ya Schweinhund, no papers no education!
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080124151906503
UK: No student loan without ID card, says government
Thursday, January 24 2008 @ 03:19 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Non-U.S. News
Students will be "blackmailed" into holding identity cards in order to apply for student loans, the Tories have warned.
According to Home Office documents leaked to the Conservative party last night, those applying for student loans will be forced to hold identity cards to get the funding from 2010.
Anyone aged 16 or over will be expected to obtain a card - costing up to £100 - to open a bank account or apply for a student loan.
Source - Guardian
Related - Silicon.com: Students revolt against being ID card "guinea pigs"
They need to pass the Waterboarding is Okay Act.
http://www.out-law.com/page-8826
RIPA could be challenged on human rights
OUT-LAW News, 24/01/2008
The Government's new powers to force the handover of encryption keys could be vulnerable to a legal challenge under the Human Rights Act's guarantee to a fair trial. People who refuse keys or passwords face up to five years in jail.
The ultimate in asymmetric warfare -- “Today I think I'll shut down China...” And there are no laws to stop me?
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/24/2151233&from=rss
Cyberwarfare in International Law
Posted by Zonk on Thursday January 24, @05:19PM from the thorny-issue dept. The Military Security The Courts
belmolis writes "If the CIA is right to attribute recent blackouts to cyberwarfare, cyberwarfare is no longer science fiction but reality. In a recent op-ed piece and a detailed scholarly paper, legal scholar Duncan Hollis raises the question of whether existing international law is adequate for regulating cyberwarfare. He concludes that it is not: 'Translating existing rules into the IO context produces extensive uncertainty, risking unintentional escalations of conflict where forces have differing interpretations of what is permissible. Alternatively, such uncertainty may discourage the use of IO even if it might produce less harm than traditional means of warfare. Beyond uncertainty, the existing legal framework is insufficient and overly complex. Existing rules have little to say about the non-state actors that will be at the center of future conflicts. And where the laws of war do not apply, even by analogy, an overwhelmingly complex set of other international and foreign law rules purport to govern IO.'"
...and it's Open Season!
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1201169135484
No 'Insider Trading' Found in Alleged Data Hacking
Beth Bar New York Law Journal January 24, 2008
A man who allegedly hacked into the Thomson Financial network from Ukraine and subsequently used the non-public information cannot be penalized for "insider" trading, a federal judge has ruled.
Southern District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Dorozhko, 07 Civ. 9606, that defendant Oleksandr Dorozhko's alleged "hacking and trading" did not violate §10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, the section that bans insider trading.
Thus, she refused a request by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to preliminarily enjoin Mr. Dorozhko from gaining access to the profits he made after he allegedly hacked into Thomson's network in October and discovered IMS Health's negative earnings announcement, which the company had yet to release.
Based on this information, the SEC said Mr. Dorozhko purchased $41,670 worth of put options. The next day, as soon as the market opened, he sold the options for $328,571.
In her Jan. 7 decision, Judge Buchwald said the case highlighted a "potential gap arising from a reliance on fiduciary principles in the legal analysis that the courts have employed to define insider trading, and the courts' stated goal of preserving equitable markets."
Even small firms need backups No professional organization would ever fail to back-up... (See next article)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325285,00.html
Angry Employee Deletes All of Company's Data
Thursday , January 24, 2008
Call it a tale of revenge gone wrong.
When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss's phone number listed — she assumed she was about to be fired.
So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years' worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.
... It didn't take Steven Hutchins, owner of the architectural firm that bears his name, much time to figure out who'd done it — Cooley was the only other person who had full access to the files.
... Hutchins told one TV station he'd managed to recover all the files using an expensive data-recovery service.
Well, maybe a little bit... (And their terms of service say they owe their customers a big “Oops!”)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_8067027?nclick_check=1
Charter apologizes after accidentally emptying 14,000 e-mail accounts
Associated Press Article Launched: 01/24/2008 12:15:23 PM PST
ST. LOUIS - Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.
There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company.
Interesting.
Growth of gaming in 2007 far outpaces movies, music
By Eric Bangeman | Published: January 24, 2008 - 07:31PM CT
2007 was a banner year for video gaming, and the industry has the figures to prove it. The Entertainment Software Association announced today that total sales for 2007 were $18.85 billion, with $9.5 billion of that spent on games (both PC and console) and $9.35 billion on consoles.
Game sales for the year were weighted very heavily in favor of the consoles. In fact, PC games accounted for only 9.5 percent of total gaming sales.
I is a fi-los-e-fer!
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-02/st_thompson
Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing
By Clive Thompson Email 01.18.08 | 6:00 PM
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