Our Security is so strong, you'd need years of schooling to break it. (Somewhere between 9 and 12 years by my calculations) Fortunately, we have managers with several weeks of experience on the job!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080316090513765

FL: Student Hacks Into School District Computer

Sunday, March 16 2008 @ 09:05 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Breaches

Broward School District officials are asking employees to closely monitor their financial records after a Coconut Creek high school student hacked into a district computer and collected personal data.

The Atlantic Technical High School senior collected Social Security numbers and addresses of district employees. The school district employs more than 35,000 people. A district spokesman said the student has been suspended for two weeks, pending expulsion.

Source - Local6.com

...because...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080317070213285

Data “Dysprotection:” breaches reported last week

Monday, March 17 2008 @ 07:02 AM EDT 4Contributed 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

Sort of like having a tag on your house key that says “If found, please mail to...” Another reason to use a surrogate identity...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080317070356512

GPS may 'lead thieves' to your home

Monday, March 17 2008 @ 07:03 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: Other Privacy News

Motorists are being warned that thieves who steal GPS devices from cars could then use the device to find out where the car owner lives and rob their home as well.

Most users program the electronic mapping devices with their home address so the gizmo can map out the quickest route to where the owner lives.

... The RACV is warning motorists of the potential threat after reports from Britain of homes being ransacked and a $45,000 sports car being stolen by thieves who followed directions using a stolen GPS to owners' houses.

Source - The Age

No false positives? (Now that everyone knows the cards can be hacked, we should go public with the monitoring story before someone puts two and two together... )

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/16/1612203&from=rss

UK's MI5 Wants Oyster Card Travel Data

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 16, @01:15PM from the you-can-trust-us dept. Privacy

Boiled Frog from a Nation of Suspects writes

"The Oyster card, an RFID single-swipe card (which was recently cracked), was introduced to London's public transport users purportedly to make their lives easier. Now, British Intelligence services want some of the benefits by trawling through the travel data amassed by the card to spy on the 17 million Britons who use it. The article notes, "Currently the security services can demand the Oyster records of specific individuals under investigation to establish where they have been, but cannot trawl the whole database. But supporters of calls for more sharing of data argue that apparently trivial snippets — like the journeys an individual makes around the capital — could become important pieces of the jigsaw when fitted into a pattern of other publicly held information on an individual's movements, habits, education and other personal details. That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects."

No Privacy issues here. No medical benefits either?

http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_8596444

State bill may open medical records

Dan Abendschein, Staff Writer Article Created: 03/16/2008 06:17:34 PM PDT

Pharmaceutical companies could gain access to medical records to send reminders to patients to refill prescriptions, if a state bill is passed.

It allows pharmaceutical companies to purchase the information from the pharmacies that serve individual patients. But it does force those companies to disclose on mailings to the patient that the pharmacy profited from selling the information.

... The proposed amendment would force pharmacies to get written consent from customers on receiving mailings when they fill their prescriptions.

Calderon said, however, he does not support the amendment.

"It would make the bill meaningless," said Calderon. "It's been demonstrated that people won't sign up voluntarily." [“We have to force people to do this even if they repeatedly tell us they don't want to...” Bob]

Searching for a viable business model... (This is a bit puffy, so you'll have to search for the meat in the article.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/18064095/the_future_according_to_radiohead

The Future According to Radiohead

How Radiohead ditched the record business and still topped the charts

MARK BINELLIPosted Feb 07, 2008 6:00 AM

... In Rainbows, Radiohead's seventh album, was released in October, and any talk of its content was immediately overshadowed by its method of delivery. As everyone knows, the band, in a surprise announcement, decided to release the album as a download on its Web site, where fans could pay whatever they wished, anywhere from nothing to £99.99 (about $212). Though Radiohead have refused all requests to release official numbers, even the estimates of the online survey group comScore — estimates that the band dismisses as low — would make the experiment a success. According to comScore, a "significant percentage" of the 1.2 million visitors to Radiohead's Web site in October downloaded the album, and while comScore claims only two out of five downloaders paid anything at all, the payers averaged $6 per album — which, factoring in the freeloaders, works out to about $2.26 per album, more than Radiohead would have made in a traditional label deal. And that's just downloads: Released on January 1st, the CD version debuted at Number One in the U.S. and Britain.

What is going to happen when thousands of cellphone video recorders start reporting on the Olympics? Can China block them all?

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9895277-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

China blocking YouTube to suppress Tibet rioting?

Posted by Steven Musil March 16, 2008 5:13 PM PDT

People all over China are reporting that access YouTube.com has been blocked, possibly in connection with a Chinese government crackdown on Tibet, according to a colleague of mine at CNET Asia.

Every few months my friend buys lunch for 30-50 potential terrorists – okay, lawyers – but how could any tell the difference? Now we know this is getting reported. (NOTE: This explains why Gov. Spitzer's transactions were flagged even though they were all under the statutory limit... )

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/017823.html

March 16, 2008

Gov't Requirements for Banks to Provide Suspicious Activity Reports

Newsweek: Unintended Consequences - Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act

• "The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop [“We don't need no stinking permission!” Ghost of J. Edgar Bob] on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs—Suspicious Activity Reports—to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn't comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. They began ranking the risk levels of their customers—on a scale of zero to 100—based on complex formulas that included the credit rating, assets and profession of the account holder." [“If you're rich and in politics, we look at everything. No telling when we might need your vote.” Ghost of J. Edgar Bob]