I don't often post graphics, but I had a question: Visa told Heartland in October that they had traced the credit/debit card problem to them – did that cause insiders to bail out of the stock?

http://caps.fool.com/Ticker/HPY.aspx

How big is huge? Click on the map! (376 so far)

http://blog.proofpoint.com/

February 17, 2009

Clickable Map of Banks Affected by Heartland Payment Systems Data Breach

Disheartening, but fascinating: Check out BankInfoSecurity's clickable map of banks affected by the Heartland Payment Systems data breach.

Related Forgive me if this duplicates an earlier report, I find it difficult to keep them straight.

http://www.cuinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1213

Two New Suits Filed in Heartland Data Breach

Class Action Lawsuits Say Processor Failed to Safeguard Cardholder Data

February 16, 2009 - Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

… The law firm of Berger & Montague filed a class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging Heartland's failure to safeguard cardholder data when the company's computer systems were hacked and cardholder data was stolen.

… Previously, Chimicles & Tilellis LLP of Haverford, PA filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on behalf of Woodbury, MN resident Alicia Cooper, asserting that Heartland "made unreasonably belated and inaccurate statements concerning the breach."

… The third class action lawsuit filed in February against Heartland comes from Sheller P.C. of Philadelphia, PA. Sheller's suit against Heartland has similar charges against the payment processor.

Related Peer reactions. Some amusing quotes!

http://www.cuinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1212

Industry Reaction to Heartland Data Breach

February 16, 2009 - Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

… The perception that credit card data is 'safe' within the walls of a corporation is an illusion that we need to shatter.

… The first important point to note about the Heartland breach is that they were, by all accounts, PCI compliant.

… The breach at Heartland Payments is a reality check and another example of why we must all stop acting like it is the 1970s - when you kept your credit card in your wallet and the only way someone could get your number was to dumpster dive for your carbons. Today we must assume our credit card and other account information is out there for the taking.

… The real crime is that firms can very well protect all customer data and eliminate these breaches altogether quickly and easily, actually.

Local

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=1600

CO: City worker accused of stealing fellow employees’ identities

Posted February 18th, 2009 by admin

A Denver city worker will be formally charged this week with 18 counts of identity theft and nine counts of criminal impersonation.

Ray Taylor, 36, is also facing one count of theft.

The Denver District Attorney’s office says Taylor used the names, birth dates and other personal information of others, including current and former Denver city employees, to open credit card and bank accounts without their permission.

Taylor worked as a payroll clerk for Denver’s Career Service Authority, and prosecutors say he had access to personal information through his position.

Read more on 9News.com

I don't think they like it...

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/38616?page=0,0

Obama’s Electronic Health Records initiative could usher in a new wave of ID theft

By jheary on Mon, 02/16/09 – 4:39pm

… But the plan or direction on how to get us there is completely missing from the stimulus bill. When the government throws lots of money at a problem before they have a viable plan or even the framework of a plan in place disaster usually strikes.

It's no surprise that Google's CEO wears a “'Bama's Buddy” T-shirt. Perhaps we need a “shadow site” to analyze and point out the opacity?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10167373-46.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Recovery.gov shuns transparency, blocks Google

by Chris Soghoian February 19, 2009 5:41 AM PST

The Obama administration has apparently opted to forbid Google and other search engines from indexing any content on the newly launched Recovery.gov.

Is this further evidence that the administration's much-publicized commitment to transparency is simply hype?

The “get tough” trend continues.

http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090218152540945

VA: ID Theft Law Headed to Governor's Desk

Wednesday, February 18 2009 @ 03:25 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews

A bill that makes it easier for prosecutors to go after identity thieves is on its way to the Governor's desk. The state senate unanimously passed Albemarle County Delegate Rob Bell's bill. It expands the existing identity theft law to include anything of value, including your credit rating.

Source - NBC29

[From the article:

"The reason identity theft is different is after the crime is over with, there's a whole lot of clean-up that has to be done," said Del. Rob Bell (R-58th District). "So this bill would empower the Attorney General to help the victim get his credit report back together and allow the court to assess costs to the criminal for the cost of getting your credit back together."

Website tool.

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/webreader-readspeaker-com-speech-enabling-your-site

WebReader.ReadSpeaker.com - Speech Enabling Your Site

http://webreader.readspeaker.com/

Presented by the ReadSpeaker folks (the forerunners as regards converting texts on sites to voice, back in the year 1999), WebReader is a new service that lets your visitors listen to your page or blog. The system is implemented by adding a button to your site that when clicked upon will read either the whole page or any specific portion that you determined beforehand.

This button can be easily added, as all you have to do is pasting a snippet of HTML or using one of the provided plug-ins. You must also specify the language and choose between a male or female voice to read out your site.

We don't tell our students about sites like this until the end of the website class.

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/devhub-com-publishing-monetizing-your-site

DevHub.com - Publishing & Monetizing Your Site

http://www.devhub.com/

Building and monetizing a site is made a suppler task thank to online resources such as this one. Generally speaking, it covers the process from start to finish: it lets you build the site from scratch (and without any technical knowledge on your part), put it on the WWW and monetize it by placing products which are specifically geared towards your public. What’s more, once this has been taken care of you will be able to analyze traffic figures and see reports detailing revenue, in the hope of extending your outreach.

An account can be created at no cost, and the sites you can create are meant to work on all major browsers in the market today.

Let's bring back the days when we could cane students – avoiding the need to call police.

http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/18/1653245&from=rss

Student Arrested For Classroom Texting

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 18, @04:52PM from the the-strong-arm-of-the-education-system dept.

A 14-year-old Wisconsin girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to stop texting during a high school math class. The girl denied having a phone when confronted by a school safety officer, but a female cop found it after frisking her. The Samsung Cricket was recovered "from the buttocks area" of the teenager, according to the police report. The girl was banned from school property for a week, and is scheduled for an April 20 court appearance for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. I applaud the adults involved for their discretion and temperance in this heinous case of texting without permission.

Global Warming! Global Warming! NOTE: This is not unusual in Scientific Reports. (It's called the “I didn't look out the window” syndrome.) Neither is it unusual for “fanatics?” to grasp anything that seems to support their position and never retract/correct their “proof.”

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/19/0420255&from=rss

Arctic Ice Extent Understated Because of "Sensor Drift"

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, @07:57AM from the give-it-a-few-taps dept. Earth Science

dtjohnson writes

"The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has been at the forefront of predicting doom in the arctic as ice melts due to global warming. In May, 2008 they went so far as to predict that the North Pole would be ice-free during the 2008 'melt season,' leading to a lively Slashdot discussion. Today, however, they say that they have been the victims of 'sensor drift' that led to an underestimation of Arctic ice extent by as much as 500,000 square kilometers. The problem was discovered after they received emails from puzzled readers, asking why obviously sea-ice-covered regions were showing up as ice free open ocean. It turns out that the NSIDC relys on an older, less-reliable method of tracking sea ice extent called SSM/I that does not agree with a newer method called AMSR-E. So why doesn't NSIDC use the newer AMSR-E data? 'We do not use AMSR-E data in our analysis because it is not consistent with our historical data.' Turns out that the AMSR-E data only goes back to 2002, which is probably not long enough for the NSIDC to make sweeping conclusions about melting. The AMSR-E data is updated daily and is available to the public. Thus far, sea ice extent in 2009 is tracking ahead of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, so the predictions of an ice-free north pole might be premature."