http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090406145717281
WI: Dane County to remove social security numbers from online documents
Monday, April 06 2009 @ 02:57 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The Dane County register of deeds is offering to remove Social Security numbers from online documents after a local information security expert warned the data could be accessible to identity thieves.
.... After being contacted by Campana and the Wisconsin State Journal last month, Dane County Register of Deeds Kristi Chlebowski said her office will remove the numbers from online documents for anyone who submits a written request starting April 20. Requests can be mailed to P.O. Box 1438, Madison, Wis. 53701.
Source - Wisconsin State Journal
Related? Internet (digital) crimes aren't real crimes? Is there a minimum amount of information that must be released? Perhaps enough to prevent further crimes?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090407051414226
UK: Lawyers argue for card fraud details to be made available to victims
Tuesday, April 07 2009 @ 05:14 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Lawyers in Scotland have launched a case against a leading bank, arguing that it should be made to change its data strategy and provide details of instances of credit card fraud.
The move comes after Clydesdale Bank cited the Data Protection Act in refusing to divulge the details of how £8,500 came to be missing from an 87-year-old man's bank account.
Source - QAS
[From the article:
"If someone were hit over the head with a brick, they would be treated as a victim and yet in this case, they are not."
In response, the bank has stated that it takes data security issues very seriously and that it routinely carries out extensive investigations and secures criminal convictions. [Which is exactly as responsive as saying, “I had a cheeseburger for lunch yesterday.” Bob]
Competitor Intelligence gathering is to be expected, but this article raises a few questions: 1) What was worth hacking into their competitor's system? 2) Who tipped the cops?
Three charged with computer crime
by Tom MacCallum 3 days ago
Three Rockingham Realtors have been arrested by the Rockingham Police Department on charges they allegedly gained access computer information of another Realtor without authorization.
… Hayden of Exit Realty Platinum Friday morning said she was “still in shock.”
She said, “We didn’t know about it until we were informed, and the police did their job.”
This touches a lot of my hot-buttons. I've advocated a government built (rather than a monopolist built) network for years. Let's hope the Aussies don't screw it up and that others copy it.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/07/004241&from=rss
Australia To Build Fiber-To-the-Premises Network
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 07, @02:21AM from the no-censorship-on-the-wire-of-course dept. Networking Government
candiman writes
"The Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, has just announced that none of the private sector submissions to build a National Broadband Network was up to the standard, so instead the government is going to form a private company to build a fiber to the premises network. The network will connect to 90% of premises delivering 100Mb/s. [Let's hope that is the “readily available today” technology and that much higher speeds will be common before they are done. Bob] The remaining 10% will be reached with wireless and satellite delivering up to 12Mb/s. The network cost has been estimated at 43 billion AU dollars over 8 years of construction — and is expected to employ 47,000 people at peak. It will be wholesale only [Why force me to use an ISP? Bob] and completely open access. As an Australian who voted for the other guys, all I can say is, wow."
“Hey, we think it's funny!” (Another indication that management is not monitoring their system.)
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090405/2130444402.shtml
Zecco's Bad April Fool's Joke: Gives Away Millions In Fake Money; Users Start Trading With It
from the how-to-define-a-bad-idea dept
Well here's an idea that must have sounded good at one point. Upstart online brokerage Zecco (already known for pulling attention-grabbing stunts) had the bright idea for April Fool's Day to load up users' balances with much more money than they actually had -- sometimes millions more. Except... it looks like they never bothered to make sure people couldn't use that money. So plenty of users started making trades with the fake money... and when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a "$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee." Oops.
Update: Consumerist has updated their post with a message from Zecco claiming that it was not an April Fool's joke, but noting "Some clients may experience incorrect display of Buying Power and Account Balances." It's not entirely clear how those "incorrect displays" were apparently off by millions in some cases.
Update 2: Zecco is again insisting this was not an April Fool's joke and that it was "a bad feed" from a vendor. It's not entirely clear why it took the firm 5 days to explain that, however...
Related (at least the Management didn't bother to check part)
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=2834
Memo: remember to lock the bank
April 7, 2009 by admin
In February 2008, a news story from the UK caught my eye. A 5 year-old boy had wandered into a branch of HSBC that had been left essentially open overnight due to what the bank subsequently described as a malfunction with the door catch.
Now there’s another story out of the UK that also involves a bank left open overnight. This time, it’s the Low Fell Barclays branch, and the bank said the problem was due to unnamed contractors failing to lock the door as they left.
In somewhat typical British understatement, a spokesman for Barclays said, “We will be reviewing the circumstances with the third party contractor, whose standards appear to have fallen short on this occasion.”
Ya think?
Strange speculation, isn't it?
http://www.atthebreach.com/blog/is-your-identity-stolen-every-18-months/
April 06, 2009
Is Your Identity Stolen Every 18 Months?
In the recently release financial institution data breach study by Kevin Prince at Perimeter eSecurity. The first part of the study breaks down just what we don’t know about data breaches.
Economics of the Internet?
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/06/2341227&from=rss
New Fundamental Law of Network Economics
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 07, @08:13AM from the move-over-metcalfe dept. Networking Science
intersys writes
"A new fundamental law of economics has been formulated by Rod Beckstrom, former Director of the National Cyber Security Center. In Words: The value of a network equals the net value added to each user's transactions (PDF) conducted through that network, valued from the perspective of each user, and summed for all. It answers the decades-old question of 'how valuable is a network.' It is granular and transactions-based, and can be used to value any network: social, electronic, support groups, and even the Internet as a whole. This new model or law values the network by looking from the edge of the network at all of the transactions conducted and the value added to each. One way to contemplate the value the network adds to each transaction is to imagine the network being shut off and what the additional transactions' costs or loss would be. [an old Risk Analysis technique. Bob] Beckstrom's Law replaces Metcalfe's law, Reed's law, and other concepts which proposed that the value of a network was based purely on the size of the network (and in the case of Metcalfe's law, one other variable)."
I don't think I'm going to like this one. (The links may be bad...)
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021038.html
April 06, 2009
CRS: Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative: Legal Authorities and Policy Considerations
Follow up to April 5, 2009 posting Senate Staff Working Draft of Cybersecurity Act of 2009, see this related CRS report: Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI): Legal Authorities and Policy Considerations, March 10, 2009
"In response to the CNCI and other proposals, questions have emerged regarding: (1) the adequacy of existing legal authorities—statutory or constitutional—for responding to cyber threats; and (2) the appropriate roles for the executive and legislative branches in addressing cybersecurity. The new and emerging nature of cyber threats complicates these questions. Although existing statutory provisions might authorize some modest actions, inherent constitutional powers currently provide the most plausible legal basis for many potential executive responses to national security related cyber incidences. [Democrats didn't believe this when Bush was in office and Republicans won't believe it now that Obama in is charge. Bob] Given that cyber threats originate from various sources, it is difficult to determine whether actions to prevent cyber attacks fit within the traditional scope of executive power to conduct war and foreign affairs. Nonetheless, under the Supreme Court jurisprudence, it appears that the President is not prevented from taking action in the cybersecurity arena, at least until Congress takes further action. Regardless, Congress has a continuing oversight and appropriations role. In addition, potential government responses could be limited by individuals’ constitutional rights or international laws of war. [...so, pretty much anything up to and including nuclear weapons? Bob] This report discusses the legal issues and addresses policy considerations related to the CNCI."
Perhaps this is the birth of a new RIAA-like wave of lawsuits? Would a backlash/boycott make the AP irrelevant/obsolete/history?
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/07/1250236&from=rss
AP Says "Share Your Revenue, Or Face Lawsuits"
Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 07, @09:35AM from the involuntary-disassociation dept. The Media News
eldavojohn writes
"The Associated Press is starting to feel the bite of the economic recession and said on Monday that they will 'work with portals and other partners who legally license our content and will seek legal and legislative remedies against those who don't.' They are talking about everything from search engines to aggregators that link to news articles and some sites that reproduce the whole news article. The article notes that in Europe legislative action has blocked Google from using news articles from some outlets similar to what was discussed here last week."
This is why newspaper ad revenue is dropping like a stone. (Who are the other 3 and can I invest n them?)
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/06/1952209&from=rss
97 of Top 100 Classified Sites Are Craigslist
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 06, @04:54PM from the newspapers-still-dying dept.
According to a recent report, 97 of the top 100 classified sites are just localized versions of Craigslist, up from 88 just last year. Combine that with a massive rise in traffic to classified sites in general and you have a recipe for one raging behemoth.
"Craigslist isn't just crushing the newspaper industry and crowding out other classified sites. It's also taking an increasing slice of total U.S Internet traffic: the site's market share in February was up 90% year over year, accounting for about 2.5% of total US Web site visits."
...but if a supermarket tabloid ran a headline claiming that a mystic/alien/talking cat had made the same warning, thousands would have left town!
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/06/1935246&from=rss
Scientist Forced To Remove Earthquake Prediction
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 06, @04:11PM from the not-quite-your-average-psychic dept.
Interesting idea for organizing a list of tools.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/alternativeto-net-find-new-applications-for-your-os
AlternativeTo.net - Find New Applications For Your OS
… The most “reviled” ones are actually spotlighted on the main page, under the “Applications that many users want to replace” heading.
Will these help my students do better research?
5 Wikipedia Tools For The Information Junkie
icon1 Posted by admin in Freelance, Miscellaneous, Social Media on 04 6th, 2009
More tools for students (and me)
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/tutorialpro-net-where-knowledge-becomes-success
TutorialPro.net - Where Knowledge Becomes Success
Nowadays it is extremely important for everybody to know how to operate a wide range of software applications. This is true when it comes to web development, computer programming and both web and graphic design.
Times have changed and these tools are not exclusive to professionals - they are also used by students to prepare school projects, as well as by kids to play, draw, etc.
Some of my students wanted one of these. Perhaps we could make it a club project?
Build Your Own Multitouch Surface Computer
Posted 04/07/09 at 12:00:00 AM by Alex Castle
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