http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081119061920499
MA: Teen pleads guilty to hacking spree
Wednesday, November 19 2008 @ 06:19 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
From his home in Worcester, he called 911 in Seattle and Georgia, reporting nonexistent crimes that resulted in SWAT teams being dispatched.
..... Dshocker obtained stolen credit card numbers and purchased items over the Internet. To evade arousing suspicion of credit card companies, he had packages sent to the homes of the card holders whose identities he had stolen. But before the packages arrived at their destinations, a confederate who worked at a major shipping company would reroute the packages to Dshocker's home, the indictment said.
From January 2008 to May 2008, he made 911 calls to police departments across the country, reporting bomb threats or that an armed gunman was at a school - hoaxes known as "swatting." To disguise his identity on those calls, he used a process of fooling caller identification equipment with stolen names and phone numbers, known as caller ID spoofing, the indictment said. He obtained addresses and phone numbers for the hoax by hacking into the records of Internet service providers.
Court records said he gained access to corporate computer systems, including the networks of Charter Communications, Road Runner, and Comcast, and would steal information about customers.
Source - Boston.com
[From the article:
From November 2005 to January 2008 he had controlled "botnets," networks of thousands of computers infected with a malicious software code, according to the indictment.
Who else do we know who “has a little list?” The “Lord High Executioner” and the Democrats.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081118171238414
UK: Victims cannot sue party (follow-up and update)
Tuesday, November 18 2008 @ 05:12 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Thousands of BNP members whose details were leaked will not be able to sue either the far-right group or the disgruntled former member suspected of publishing the list, leading lawyers said last night.
Although there was a “clear breach” of data protection law in publishing the list, the legal remedies available to those affected are sparse. Members will not be able to sue the BNP itself, Hugh Tomlinson, QC, a leading data protection lawyer, said. “It’s unlikely they’d have a remedy against the BNP, which seems to be a victim of someone unlawfully obtaining sensitive information which it held.
Source - Times Online
Update: Another article in Times Online reports:
More than 12,000 names, home addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail contact details were included in a major breach of data protection.
The identities and ages of school-children with family memberships were also disclosed. Some supporters were listed with comments such as “discretion required – employment concerns”. A number even had their hobbies recorded.
The BNP said that the revelation could leave its members vulnerable to violent attack.
Related? The cost of a security breach is trending up. Isn't this a good thing? (Of course in the UK, most breaches are from government agencies.)
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081118104825151
UK: Fines likely for data breaches
Tuesday, November 18 2008 @ 10:48 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The UK’s privacy and data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is seeking the power to fine businesses up to 10 per cent of their revenues for breaking data laws.
That penalty is the maximum punishment the Financial Services Authority can impose on companies that breach financial regulations. The ICO believes it should be able to enact the same penalty for companies that commit ‘serious and reckless breaches [of the Data Protection Act] resulting in harm to individuals’. The maximum penalty currently available to the ICO is £5,000.
Source - growthbusiness.co.uk
Related? No reason to do this since the law didn't go into effect until after the Christmas buying season...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081118132449836
Mass. delays enforcement of data security regs
Tuesday, November 18 2008 @ 01:24 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The Massachusetts’ Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation is postponing the compliance date for its identity theft data security regulations in light of the current economic crisis.
The general compliance deadline for the state’s 201 CMR 17 regulations was initially set for Jan. 1, 2009, but officials have pushed it to May 1. E
Source - GCN
Probably related too... Everything seems to be today.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20081119060705659
Congress Warned of Google Privacy & Security Risks After Google Markets Services to Staffers on Hill; New Video Shows Privacy Problems With Gmail
Wednesday, November 19 2008 @ 06:07 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Consumer Watchdog released a new on-line video exposing privacy problems with Google's Gmail service and other Google applications in the wake of Google's recent marketing efforts on Capitol Hill. At a speech in Washington D.C. today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged the group's privacy concerns and expressed an interest in addressing them. He said his concern was balancing performance and speed of the system with privacy and security demands.
The video -- which can be viewed at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/google -- shows that whether you use Google's Gmail or not, Google reads the contents of your emails, if the recipient uses Gmail. Consumer Watchdog also highlighted how the "auto save" function in many Google applications creates an unprotected communication for users even before a message is sent or a document submitted. Previously Consumer Watchdog had called on Google to adopt Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protection for transmission of information as a default.
Source - MarketWatch Press Release
Another technology that is spreading faster than thoughtful ways to control it.
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=2008111815453021
RFID Chips: A Privacy And Security Pandora's Box?
Tuesday, November 18 2008 @ 03:45 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A research article published in the current issue of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management suggests that Big Brother could be opening a privacy and security Pandora's Box if human rights, particularly regarding data protection are not addressed in the design of new RFID applications.
Source - Science Daily Press Release
[From the article:
Their increasingly widespread deployment means individuals do not necessarily know when, how and what kind of information about them is being transmitted at any given time from an RFID in a passport, in their shopping bags, or even when they visit the library
Antitrust alert? Or something Microsoft should have done years ago?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/18/2319243&from=rss
Microsoft To Offer Free Anti-Virus Software
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 18, @09:19PM from the another-industry-done-gone dept. Microsoft Security
Dynamoo writes
"The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"
You should get coffee while your computer boots...
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/18/1754236&from=rss
Should You Get Paid While Your Computer Boots?
Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 19, @12:02AM from the define-work-and-give-two-examples dept.
An anonymous reader notes a posting up at a law blog with the provocative title Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait for Vista to Boot Up?. (Provocative because Vista doesn't boot more slowly than anything else, necessarily, as one commenter points out.) The National Law Journal article behind the post requires subscription. Quoting:
"Lawyers are noting a new type of lawsuit, in which employees are suing over time spent booting [up] their computers. ... During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years. ... [A] management-side attorney... who is defending a half-dozen employers in computer-booting lawsuits... believes that, in most cases, computer booting does not warrant being called work."
At last, Quality videos
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10102144-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Monty Python launches YouTube Channel, tells users to stop stealing
Posted by Don Reisinger November 19, 2008 5:28 AM PST
Monty Python, the iconic comedy series, has launched a YouTube channel. And although the page features a slew of clips from the show, most noteworthy is its featured video, which blames users for "ripping" the show off.
"For three years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube," it says on the Monty Python YouTube page. "Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.
"We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.
Research... Honest!
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/019845.html
November 18, 2008
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."
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