http://www.databreaches.net/?p=1969
NYPD civilian worker busted in mass cop-ID Theft
March 4, 2009 by admin
Reuven Blau reports:
A civilian official of the NYPD’s pension fund has been charged with taking computer data that could be used to steal the identities of 80,000 current and retired cops, sources said.
Anthony Bonelli allegedly got into a secret backup-data warehouse on Staten Island last month and walked out with eight tapes packed with Social Security numbers, direct-deposit information for bank accounts, and other sensitive material.
Read more on NY Post
[From the article:
Sources said he managed to get past a guard on Feb. 21, unplugged video cameras, and left with the stolen tapes.
Bonelli raised suspicion with comments he made at work last week.
The NYPD sent technology specialists to the site, where they discovered that the cameras had been disabled and the tapes were missing. [No one noticed? Bob] The tapes were found at Bonelli's home when he was arrested Saturday, police said
Another step toward Big Brother-ness?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090304072735895
AU: Latest police weapon: a secret search
Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 07:27 AM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
New powers to secretly search homes and computers of people suspected of crimes ranging from murder to organised theft are wider than those now used against suspected terrorists.
The new covert search warrants would give police up to three years to delay informing targets they had carried out a raid on their property.
Source - Sydney Morning Herald
[From the article:
The proposed covert laws became necessary after the Supreme Court found in 2007 that three covert searches on a children's author suspected of drug offences had been unlawful. [When you want to keep doing something that is illegal, you simply change the law. Bob]
… But the Premier, Nathan Rees, said: "If you are a serious criminal [Translation: not a cop Bob] you should be very anxious. We now will have the power to enter your home without you knowing and collect evidence for subsequent prosecutions."
Related
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090304170722247
EXCLUSIVE: Google Takes a Stand for Location Privacy, Along with Loopt
Wednesday, March 04 2009 @ 05:07 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Thanks in part to feedback from EFF, Google has chosen to take a strong and public stand on what legal privacy protections should apply if the government comes calling for the location data collected by Latitude, Google’s new cell phone-based friend-finding service. Google has decided to match the policy for dealing with law enforcement demands first adopted by its friend-finding competitor Loopt after consultation with EFF, a policy which relies on the strongest possible legal arguments for protecting users’ location privacy. The gist of the Latitude and Loopt policies? “Come back with a warrant.”
Source - EFF
There is a law journal article here!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10188981-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Google Health lets users share their online records
by Steven Musil March 4, 2009 9:45 PM PST
Google Health has introduced a new feature that lets users share their online health records with designated doctors, friends, and family members.
Google said the move was in response to users' concerns that care-givers and loved ones might not be up to date on all the details of a patient's health situation, especially in the event of an emergency.
… Recognizing the sensitive nature of sharing health records, Google said it has built in several security measures to preserve privacy. Users choose who can view their histories [Hard to do when you are unconscious. Bob] and the link to the patient's profile will work only in connection with those people's e-mail addresses ['cause no one knows my email address... Bob]--meaning the link won't work if it is forwarded to a third party. Users can also decide what information they want to share, and those allowed to view the profile will not have the ability to edit the information. [Can they add to it? Bob] Users will also be able to see exactly who has reviewed the profile.
However, one security measure that is a bit baffling is a feature that restricts the usability lifespan of the e-mailed link to only 30 days. Unless the user is diligent about regularly sending links to loved ones, this protection could negate the feature's value in the event of an emergency.
Google also announced a feature that allows users to print wallet- and letter-size hard copies of a their profile, including medications, allergies, conditions, and treatments. But again, the value of these printouts may be questionable if they are not updated and replaced regularly.
Google Health, which is dedicated to the digitization of health records, launched in May 2007. Microsoft has also planned a medical records service called HealthVault. President Obama, meanwhile, has made it clear that he plans to make digital health records part of his health care reform agenda.
Watch the Justices Rap!
“Damn dem lawyers,
damn their eyes,
we'll hit 'em in the puss,
with custard pies!”
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/03/america/03bar.php
The U.S. Supreme Court enters the YouTube era
By Adam Liptak Published: March 3, 2009
WASHINGTON: The first citation in a petition filed with the court last month, for instance, was not to an affidavit or a legal precedent but rather to a YouTube video link. The video shows what is either appalling police brutality or a measured response to an arrested man's intransigence — you be the judge.
Such evidence vérité has the potential to unsettle the way appellate judges do their work, according to a new study in The Harvard Law Review. If Supreme Court justices can see for themselves what happened in a case, the study suggests, they may be less inclined to defer to the factual findings of jurors and to the conclusions of lower-court judges.
… Three law professors accepted that invitation and made it the basis of an interesting study published in January in The Harvard Law Review. They showed the video to 1,350 people, who mostly saw things as the justices did. Three-quarters of them thought the use of potentially deadly force by the police was justified by the risk Harris's driving posed.
But African-Americans, liberals, Democrats, people who do not make much money and those who live in the Northeast were, the study found, "much more likely to see the police, rather than Harris, as the source of the danger posed by the flight and to find the deliberate ramming of Harris's vehicle unnecessary to avert risk to the public."
I'm sure there must be “nothing but games” stores out there somewhere, but most serious gamers wouldn't spend time to drive to and from the store when they could spend it playing their games.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/05/0655225&from=rss
How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive?
Posted by Soulskill on Thursday March 05, @05:18AM from the shortly-after-blizzard-conquers-the-earth dept.
GamesIndustry is running an interview with Theodore Bergquist, CEO of GamersGate, in which he forecasts the death of physical game distribution in favor of digital methods, perhaps in only a few years. He says, "Look at the music industry, look at 2006 when iTunes went from not being in the top six of sellers — in the same year in December it was top three, and the following year number one. I think digital distribution is absolutely the biggest threat [traditional retailers] can ever have." Rock, Paper, Shotgun spoke with Capcom's Christian Svensson, who insists that developing digital distribution is one of their top priorities, saying Capcom will already "probably do as much digital selling as retail in the current climate." How many of the games you acquire come on physical media these days? At what point will the ease of immediate downloads outweigh a manual and a box to stick on your shelf (if it doesn't already)?
One of those articles than stops me in my tracks. Why? Probably lots of reasons, but most are logistical. Now if they replace Windows with Linux, they've really got something.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/04/2234259&from=rss
Microsoft Windows, On a Mainframe
Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 04, @05:47PM from the operating-systems-plural dept. Windows Microsoft Operating Systems
coondoggie writes with an excerpt from Network World:
"Software that for the first time lets users run native copies of the Windows operating systems on a mainframe will be introduced Friday by data center automation vendor Mantissa. The company's z/VOS software is a CMS application that runs on IBM's z/VM and creates a foundation for Intel-based operating systems. Users only need a desktop appliance running Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client, which is the same technology used to attach to Windows running on Terminal Server or Citrix-based servers. Users will be able to connect to their virtual and fully functional Windows environments without any knowledge that the operating system and the applications are executing on the mainframe and not the desktop."
[From the article:
According to the company's Web site, users will be able to create a PC in 15 seconds, have it operational in 15 minutes and use it once or have it permanently without worrying about depreciation of hardware.
… The z/VM hypervisor already natively supports the ability to run hundreds to thousands of Linux servers on a single mainframe.
… "The product has been a bear for the development group but the thought of being able to run 3,000 copies of Windows [Compare: Windows license fee X 3000 v. Free X100,000 Which give you bang for the buck? Bob] on one System z so fascinated the team that we needed very little additional incentive," Mantissa CEO and founder Gary Dennis said on the IBMVM list serve site last summer when he introduced the z/VOS concept.
E-Discovery A case for adding Data Mining/Data Analysis to the various Computer curriculums. Also some great examples for my Forensics classes.
http://ralphlosey.wordpress.com/
Jason Baron on Search - How Do You Find Anything When You Have a Billion Emails?
March 4, 2009
Geek stuff and the potential to create an ad hoc network with your friends/collaborators.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/05/0415249&from=rss
LimeWire Brings Darknets To All
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 05, @07:57AM from the yes-have-some dept. Social Networks Technology
An anonymous reader writes
"LimeWire's new version lets people create private darknets with contacts on any Jabber server (like GMail or LiveJournal). It's different than the recent p2p darknet announcement because it doesn't use onion routing. Sharing with a friend connects directly to that friend. If you're worried about exposing personal information, LW5 doesn't share documents with the p2p network by default."
This is interesting. Return articles, images and videos related to the search! Definitely worth a look.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/daymix-com-news-of-the-world
Daymix.com - News Of The World
A visit to this portal seems a good idea if you are looking for a fresh way to access all the news appertaining to you the most. In general terms, Daymix aims to show its users the latest information on any topic. This includes not only news that have been reported by major online agencies and channels but also blog posts and the buzz surrounding these topics as of late. Of course, the site also includes media contents, and photographs and videos top the list.
Very simple. I think I have several uses for this one!
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/online-stopwatch-chronme-com-time-yourself
Online-Stopwatch.Chronme.com - Time Yourself
http://www.online-stopwatch.chronme.com/
This new solution is nothing more and nothing less than an online stopwatch that you can employ to see how you are managing your time. Essentially, it will let you record daily activities and then save reports to your computer in a very straightforward way indeed.
In order to use this system, you simply press the “Start” button and get down to what has to be done. Once you are finished, simply click on the “Stop” button and then proceed to add a label that describes the activity. You repeat the process as many times as you desire, and once you have compiled the full list you can download it to your desktop, or open it using Excel.
Evil business model: We build a site like this and then we assign realllly hard homework problems!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090304/od_nm/us_france_homework_odd_1
You do the math. Or pay a website to do it..
Wed Mar 4, 1:21 pm ET
PARIS (Reuters) – "You can't do it? We're here to help," says the homepage of a new French website where children can pay for older students to do homework for them.
On faismesdevoirs.com (domyhomework.com), children will be able to buy answers to simple maths problems for 5 euros ($6), while a full end-of-year presentation complete with slides and speaking notes will cost 80 euros ($100).
… Schoolteachers reacted with outrage. [Because they didn't get a cut? Bob]
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