It takes time to sell those stolen credit cards...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080722053308642

WA: Thieves use stolen debit card info to get cash

Tuesday, July 22 2008 @ 05:33 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

The AP reports that a sheriff's spokesman in Washington says thieves using stolen debit card information withdrew thousands of dollars from individual bank accounts over the July 4 weekend. More than 60 victims have been identified so far.

Law enforcement believes that the personal info was stolen last August via skimmers placed on gas pumps at a particular ARCO station in the area.

(I'm impressed that they found this – unless of course it was still going on?) I hope the CSO's bonus wasn't based on “Number of months without an embarrassing security breach” or there'll be a ton of money to repay... I wonder who told them about the breach?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008072109550833

Heinemann-Raintree doesn't discover breach for over a year; customers now notified

Monday, July 21 2008 @ 09:55 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

A year and a half after an intruder accessed its customer database, Heinemann-Raintree, a Pearson Education affiliate that publishes books for school libraries and classrooms, discovered the breach and secured their web sites.

Personal information on customers included names, billing and shipping addresses, payment methods, and credit-card numbers. A total of 16 customers in New Hampshire were notified of the breach, but the total number of customers who had data in the database was not indicated. Nor did the company indicate whether it had determined exactly how many customers had their data accessed and whether there was any ongoing or subsequent access to the database.

In notifying its customers of the breach, Heinemann-Raintree's president, Graham Shaw, advised them to contact their credit card issuer to arrange for a new credit card. He also advised them how to place a credit card fraud alert on their accounts, but the company did not offer any free credit monitoring. Anyone with concerns would have to call the company's usual customer service number.

Source - Notification Letter [pdf]

Update: This includes other phone companies offering different takes on privacy. For some a subpoena is sufficient, for others only a search warrant will do... What should the rule be?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080722060833333

Phone data release in DeNaples case criticized

Tuesday, July 22 2008 @ 06:08 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

When Sprint-Nextel turned over detailed cell-phone records of prosecutors and police investigators to a defense attorney last month, a spokesman said the company was following the law.

But legal experts say the company had other options within state law, and two other large cell-phone companies say they would have handled it differently.

State Rep. Michael Vereb, of Montgomery County, who plans to introduce legislation to prevent a repeat of the incident, said he knew from his experience in law enforcement and the cell-phone industry that Sprint-Nextel had been too compliant.

Source - Philly.com

Making surveillance simple? You could use the RFID chip to trigger automatic defense systems (alarms, tasers, flamethrowers, shotguns, etc.) Perhaps we could implant the explosives with the chip and skip the warning alarms?

http://www.yjolt.org/10/spring/rosenberg-331

Involuntary Endogenous RFID Compliance Monitoring as a Condition of Federal Supervised Release--Chips Ahoy?

By Isaac B. Rosenberg View PDF Volume 10 Yale Journal of Law & Technology 331 (2008).

Among the many cutting edge technologies law enforcement agencies increasingly covet is radio frequency identification (“RFID”). Researchers predict RFID will become the most pervasive computer technology in history. Among the more extraordinary and controversial government uses of RFID—and the focus of this Paper—include implantation of subdermal RFID transmitters. Privacy concerns abound.

I thought this had ended months ago. I guess the prosecutors don't like to admit their ignorance... (But then, the defense wasn't too well handled either.)

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/778?ref=rss

Prosecutors criticized in pop-up porn case

Published: 2008-07-21

Thirteen months after a judge threw out a jury's verdict against former substitute teacher Julie Amero, supporters of the accused woman have turned up the heat on Connecticut prosecutors to drop all charges.

... The case came to the attention of security researchers in January 2007, after the jury returned a guilty verdict on four counts of risk of injury to a minor. A group of researchers obtained a copy of the hard drive and used forensics evidence to refute the statements of prosecutors and the expert witness in the case. Investigators belatedly sent the hard drive to the state's cybercrime lab which confirmed that the pop-up ads were caused by malicious code on the system, not by Amero's actions.


While the judge vacated the ruling, and gave the prosecutors the option of retrying the case, the state's attorneys have put the case on the back burning, leaving Amero in limbo, according to columnist Rick Green of the Hartford Courant.

We have to make it available, but not forever! (Next time: fifteen minutes!)

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080722062319703

Want to read DHS Privacy Impact statements? Better grab them fast, while they're still on the web

Tuesday, July 22 2008 @ 06:23 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Kudos to Cryptome, for catching this in the July 15 Federal Register:

[Federal Register: July 15, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 136)]
[Notices]
[Page 40589-40591]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr15jy08-60]

SUMMARY: The Privacy Office of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is making available sixteen (16) Privacy Impact Assessments on various programs and systems in the Department. These assessments were approved and published on the Privacy Office's Web site between January 1 and March 31, 2008.

DATES: The Privacy Impact Assessments will be available on the DHS Web site until September 15, 2008, after which they may be obtained by contacting the DHS Privacy Office (contact information below).

[...]

All currently available PIA statements can be found- here on DHS's web site.

Surveillance – it's not just for Big Brother any more. Lots and lots of Little Brothers (and strange Uncles) have access to the technologies.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Retail/Enhancing-Webbased-Video-Surveillance/?kc=rss

Enhancing Web-Based Video Surveillance

By Dan Berthiaume 2008-07-21

... "We have extended the capability well beyond video surveillance," said Matt Steinfort, CEO of Envysion. "It provides better insight into remote locations. You can understand and improve the customer experience and employee environment. Video is now a strategic management tool that provides insight into your operations."

Related (and predicted) Instant publication of those “Rodney King” moments... Now you really have to think about restricting cell phones. Protesters will have them, jurors might broadcast their deliberations, students can immortalize their professors...

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63887.html

Qik Lets Video Cell Phones Broadcast to the World

By Walaika Haskins TechNewsWorld 07/21/08 2:49 PM PT

Qik has opened its beta program, letting anyone with a compatible cell phone video camera broadcast their own videos on the Web. The idea could take off with Web 2.0 fiends who simply must be connected at all times, but questions about the service's financial and legal feasibility

Tools & Techniques for gaming the system...

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/slydial-com-avoid-talking-and-go-right-to-voicemail

Slydial.com - Avoid Talking and Go Right to Voicemail

... This tool allows you to dial any mobile number and be directly sent to the recipient’s voicemail. No need to fret about the awkward conversation. The recipient will be able to instantly listen to your message, and will also see a missed call with your number on their cell phone screen. Additionally, you also may upload your contact list to the Slydial website and leave voice messages right from your own computer.

http://slydial.com/

Probably more a barely noticeable nibble...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/20/AR2008072001641.html

Cybersecurity Will Take A Big Bite of the Budget

By Walter Pincus Monday, July 21, 2008; Page A13

President Bush's single largest request for funds and "most important initiative" in the fiscal 2009 intelligence budget is for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, a little publicized but massive program whose details "remain vague [If we don't have specific goals we can't be criticized for missing them... Bob] and thus open to question," according to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Think of it as a large format iPhone... Main comment: You gotta let us customize (hack) it!

http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/22/050233&from=rss

TechCrunch Wants To Create an Open Source Tablet

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 22, @08:20AM from the i-prefer-gelcaps dept. Portables Hardware

RKo618 writes

"TechCrunch announced that they are planning to design their own $200 web tablet device. Quoting: 'The idea is to turn it on, bypass any desktop interface, and go directly to Firefox running in a modified Kiosk mode that effectively turns the browser into the operating system for the device. Add Gears for offline syncing of Google docs, email, etc., and Skype for communication and you have a machine that will be almost as useful as a desktop but cheaper and more portable than any laptop or tablet PC.' The aim is for the tablet to run on modified open source software, which will be released back to the community along with the specifications for the hardware."

Related (Just in case you thought TechCrunch was alone in this field...)

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/63883.html

CherryPal Mini PC Makes Firefox the OS

By Walaika Haskins TechNewsWorld 07/21/08 1:27 PM PT

The CherryPal C100 is a new, small, inexpensive desktop designed to perform all its functions online, right down to data storage. [Perhaps we need a legal article on the topic: How to locate digital evidence in the Cloud? Bob] The device runs a version of Debian Linux behind the scenes; however, the browser is really the application through which the user interfaces with the machine. Essentially, Firefox is the unit's operating system.

Cue the theme music: Daaaa dum, daaaa dum, da dum, da dum da dum...

First Lawyer: “We deserve to take the first bite!”

Second Lawyer: “But your honor, we have bigger teeth!”

Third Lawyer: “I can feel the feeding frenzy coming on!”

Judge: “Would you gentlemen please stop circling the defendant?”

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080721145121354

ME: Lawyers meet in Hannaford case

Monday, July 21 2008 @ 02:50 PM EDT Contributed by:PrivacyNews

More than 20 attorneys from across the country gathered this morning at federal court in Portland for the first conference in the class-action lawsuit against Hannaford Bros.

Two competing groups of lawyers told U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby why they should be the lead counsel in the case.

Source - Maine Today

More amusing lawyer stuff...

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080722082354417

Ex-con sues AmEx, says it aided search for him

Tuesday, July 22 2008 @ 08:23 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

A disbarred Manhattan lawyer who pleaded guilty to statutory rape has sued the American Express Co. for giving police credit card information he says led to his capture.

Source - Yahoo! News

Oh the horror! Changing a fundamental law of nature – could this be due to sub-prime mortgage crisis or perhaps Global Warming?

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/07/turns-out-por-1.html

Turns Out Porn Isn't Recession-Proof

By Betsy Schiffman July 21, 2008 | 2:12:55 PM