Saturday, September 27, 2008

“Encrypt data.” Which word don't you understand?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080926170315942

Safety fears for 50,000 RAF staff after personal files are stolen

Friday, September 26 2008 @ 05:03 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

THE safety of 50,000 RAF staff was in jeopardy last night after raiders stole their personal files from a high-security base.

Defence chiefs fear the dossiers may fall into the hands of terrorists who could attack veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

... The records, on three USB hard drives, were stolen from RAF Innsworth, Glos. Police believe it may be an inside job. [Only because they had to get by perimeter security Bob]

... The files, on all personnel who served between 2002 and 2008, also contained details of several hundred reservists. Worryingly, they include home addresses, bank account numbers, and confidential medical records of the volunteers.

Source - The Mirror

[From the article:

The worrying break-in happened on Wednesday September 17. It was discovered by security guards. [So it was not a case of “they might be misplaced...” Bob]



How much is that in dollars stolen?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080927063151683

Jp: Thieves accessed auction Web site 1.5 million times

Saturday, September 27 2008 @ 06:31 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Yahoo Japan Corp.'s auction Web site has been illegally accessed about 1.5 million times since May with codes and passwords stolen from members from an Internet protocol address in China.

Access information was used without owner knowledge to sell items such as fake luxury-brand goods, and account holders were charged auction fees by the company for transactions they did not initiate.

Source - daily Yomiuri

[From the article:

Yahoo Japan initially claimed it did not find any internal leaks of users' personal information and demanded that users pay auction fees.



No one noticed?

http://breachblog.com/2008/09/26/fwcs.aspx?ref=rss

Police inform Fort Wayne Community Schools of breach

Posted by Evan Francen at 9/26/2008 11:03 AM and is filed under Fort Wayne Community Schools,Nobody Knows

... The personal information of thousands of current and former Fort Wayne Community Schools employees was found on a man arrested on forgery and counterfeiting charges, school officials and police said Wednesday.

Steven Brown, arrested Sept. 17 by Fort Wayne police, was found with a life insurance document that included the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other information of every FWCS employee who received those benefits in 2004

... Police do not believe the information was used to steal anyone's identity, but school officials are encouraging employees who have had their identity stolen in the last four years to notify police to see whether there is a connection

... "There may be reason to believe that there was some identity theft in relation to this," Stockman said.



New Identity Theft law!

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080926125827333

President Bush Signs H.R. 5938 Into Law

Friday, September 26 2008 @ 12:58 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

On Friday, September 26, 2008, the President signed into law:

H.R. 5938, which authorizes the U.S. Secret Service to provide protection to former Vice Presidents, their spouses, and their children under 16 years of age for up to six months after the date the former Vice President leaves office; and makes several changes to Federal criminal law related to computer fraud and identity theft, including authorizing restitution to victims of identity theft for the value of the time reasonably spent attempting to remediate the harm incurred as result of the offense. [Does this make ID Theft more attractive to Class Action lawyers? Bob

Source - The White House

[From GovTrack: Bill Text:Summary | Full Text



Another ruling impacting Privacy. Could this be a trend?

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080926150019326

OH: Court overturns ID theft lawsuit against court clerk

Friday, September 26 2008 @ 03:00 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

Elected officials can be sued if they place your private information online and someone uses it to steal your identity, an Ohio appeals court ruled today in overturning a lower court ruling.

... The Cincinnati-based Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals issued an opinion today that reversed an earlier ruling on a lawsuit Cynthia Lambert filed against Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann.

Source - Cincinnati.com


Related

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20080927064028780

CO: Sensitive info still on state Web site

Saturday, September 27 2008 @ 06:40 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews

The secretary of state's Web site continues to expose individual Social Security numbers on business filings despite a recent round of document removals.

On Sept. 15, the agency removed about 90,000 scanned documents from the site after learning that scores of Coloradan's Social Security numbers had been accessible for nearly 10 months. Officials said that action should fix the problem.

... This week, Virginia privacy activist Betty "BJ" Ostergren told the secretary of state's office that still other business documents - in another section of the site - contained Social Security numbers.

Source - Rocky Mountain News



Is this a bug or a feature?

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/27/0038259&from=rss

Adobe Flaw Allows Full Movie Downloads For Free

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 26, @11:52PM from the it's-not-a-bug-it's-a-feature dept. Movies It's funny. Laugh. The Internet

webax writes with this excerpt from Reuters:

"[An Adobe security hole] exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. 'It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,' said Bruce Schneier ... The flaw rests in Adobe's Flash video servers that are connected to the company's players installed in nearly all of the world's Web-connected computers. The software doesn't encrypt online content, but only orders sent to a video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds, Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connection between the Adobe software and its players."

webax also notes that the article suggests DRM as a potential solution to the problem.



For the “Security Hall of Shame” Computer forensics isn't foolproof.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331225,00.asp

The 10 Most Mysterious Cyber Crimes

09.26.08 by Corinne Iozzio

The best criminal hacker is the one that isn't caught—or even identified. These are 10 of the most infamous unsolved computer crimes (that we know about).

[Number 9:

Supermarket Security Breach (February 2008)Supermarket Security Breach (February 2008)

Overshadowed only by a T.J Maxx breach in 2005, the theft of at least 1,800 credit and debit card numbers (and the exposure of about 4.2 million others) at supermarket chains Hannaford and Sweetbay (both owned by the Belgium-based Delhaize Group) in the Northeast United States and Florida remains unsolved more than six months later. Chain reps and security experts are still unclear as to how the criminals gained access to the system; the 2005 T.J.Maxx breach took advantage of a vulnerability in the chain's wireless credit transfer system, but Hannaford and Sweetbay do not use wireless transfers of any sort. Without more information, the difficulty in tracking down those responsible grows exponentially.



Is this an indicator of future law or simply the Governator balancing the budget?

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/26/175252&from=rss

CA Legislature Torpedoes IT Overtime

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 26, @02:29PM from the but-it's-for-their-own-good dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention that a recent piece of California legislation is enabling tech firms to avoid paying their workers overtime. Originally designed to deal with bonds for children's hospitals, bill AB10 was completely rewritten to prevent lawsuit damages over overtime nonpayment.

"'This is the first time that the Legislature has done a takeaway of the rights of private-sector workers as part of the budget deal,' said Caitlin Vega of the California Labor Federation. 'We just think it is wrong. We think it will really hurt the groups of workers who will be expected to work through the weekend and not get paid.'"


Related? Documentation is often the last thing programmers think of... Now they won't even bother staying late to jot a few notes...

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/26/1933216&from=rss

Microsoft Documentation Declared Unfit For US Consumption

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 26, @04:38PM from the time-to-see-the-self-documenting-code dept. Microsoft It's funny. Laugh.

anomalous cohort writes

"Washington DC judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly announced during the ongoing Microsoft antitrust hearings that their documentation is unfit for US Consumption. This is relevant in an antitrust hearing as poor documentation on how to inter-operate with Microsoft's products is seen as an unfair barrier to entry for companies who compete with Microsoft. Others see this as yet another example of their crumbling hegemony or indolence as their empire burns."



Yet another free office suite joins OpenOffice and KOffice to compete with Microsoft Office

http://lifehacker.com/5055282/evolution-brings-linux-office-suite-exchange-support-to-windows

Evolution Brings Linux Office Suite, Exchange Support to Windows

Windows only: Evolution, the default office suite installed on most GNOME-based Linux systems, has a working port available for Windows systems. As its Linux fans know, Evolution has a serious focus on supporting and adapting to open standards: Full iCal support, IMAP access (I got a Gmail account working in minutes), integration with Pidgin's IM client, and support for GPG encryption. The big news for non-Outlook acolytes, however, is that Evolution can hook up to Exchange servers, though I haven't been able to test that personally. You also get contacts, memos, and tasks in the Evolution suite, and they're pretty robust in their own right. Evolution's Windows port is a free download for Windows systems; note that, while it installs, some have reported buggy operation in Vista.

Evolution for Windows [DIP Consultants]



Are yu ready to save the world?

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/26/1943246&from=rss

Google To Fund Ideas That Will Change the World

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 26, @05:20PM from the we-should-all-become-deities-the-end dept. Google The Almighty Buck

Peace Corps Online writes

"This week, as part of their tenth birthday celebration, Google announced the launch of project ten to the 100th, a project designed to inspire and fund the development of ideas that will help to change the world. T hey have called on members of the public to share their ideas for solutions that will help as many people as possible in the global community, offering a $10 million prize pool to back the development of those chosen as winners. 'We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition,' says Bethany Poole, Project Marketing Manager for Google. 'These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple — but they need to have impact.' The project's website asks entrants to classify their ideas into one of eight categories listed as Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter and Everything Else. Members of the public have until October 20th to submit their ideas by completing a simple form and answering a few short questions about their idea."

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