Confirmation of the obvious?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=115

Data Breaches Undeterred by Laws or Common Sense

The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has released a press release with some mid-year statistics on U.S. breaches this year based on the 250 incidents (pdf) they have recorded through June 15.

One of their key findings is that both malicious attacks on databases and incidents involving paper breaches represent proportionally greater percentages of breaches than in past years. Malicious attacks, which they define as “insider theft” or hacking incidents, accounted for 36% of the 250 incidents, while incidents involving paper records accounted for more than 25% of the incidents this year.

The lack of encryption is still evident. ITRC reports that only 0.4% of the 250 incidents involved encrypted data or data that were protected by other strong methods. That figure may be an underestimate, however, since some laws specifically provide safe harbor from reporting and notification if data are encrypted. Another 7.2% of the 250 incidents reportedly used password protection, which often seems to be just basic user login/pass. Over 92% of the incidents reported no password or encryption protection at all.

ITRC’s complete press release can be found on their web site.

Another tool against censorship or a reaction to the RIAA?

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/06/16/205232/Researchers-Build-a-Browser-Based-Darknet?from=rss

Researchers Build a Browser-Based Darknet

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 16, @05:48PM from the easy-come-easy-go dept. security internet

ancientribe writes

"At Black Hat USA next month, researchers will demonstrate a way to use modern browsers to more easily build darknets — underground private Internet communities where users can share content and ideas securely and anonymously. HP's Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood have created Veiled, a proof-of-concept darknet that only requires participants have an HTML 5-based browser to join. No special software or configuration is necessary, unlike with darknets such as Tor. Veiled is basically a 'zero footprint' network, in which groups can rapidly form and disappear without a trace. The researchers admit darknets are attractive to bad guys, too, but they say they think these more easily set-up and dismantled nets will be more popular for mainstream (and legit) users."

In somewhat related news, reader cheesethegreat informs us that version 0.7.5 of FreeNet has hit the tubes.

If there was any doubt that technology was important to entire societies, this should put it to rest. It is also probable that this is their best source of intelligence at the moment.

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/twitter-iran/

U.S. Government Asks Twitter to Stay Up for #IranElection Crisis

June 16th, 2009 by Ben Parr

A short while from now, Twitter will go down for maintenance due to extraordinary circumstances: The #IranElection Controversy. Originally scheduled to perform maintenance last night, the work was moved to 2 PM PT today so that Iranians could tweet about the crisis.

… Well, it looks like Twitter may have had someone pushing for it not to go down last night, during peak Iranian hours: the U.S. State Department

(Related) A reminder of how competitive the e-world is...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook16-2009jun16,0,2582307.story

Facebook dethrones MySpace in the U.S.

The social networking website had 70.28 million users in May, topping its rival's 70.26 million, according to research firm ComScore.

Bloomberg News June 16, 2009

(Related) ...and how fragile.

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/myspace-layoffs/

MySpace Slashes 30% of Staff: Is the End Nigh?

June 16th, 2009 by Pete Cashmore

Governments giveth...

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/17/0114251/IRS-Now-Wants-To-Repeal-Cell-Phone-Tax?from=rss

IRS Now Wants To Repeal Cell Phone Tax

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday June 17, @08:07AM from the talk-amongst-yourselves dept. cellphones government usa

narramissic writes

"Last week the IRS caused an uproar when it requested public comments on ways to clarify a decades-old law, seldom enforced, that would tax personal usage of business cell phones. But IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said that the request for comments did not mean that the largely ignored rule would now be enforced. 'Some have incorrectly implied that the IRS is "cracking down" on employee use of employer-provided cell phones,' Shulman wrote. 'To the contrary, the IRS is attempting to simplify the rules and eliminate uncertainty for businesses and individuals.' And in fact, the IRS is now recommending that the law be repealed, saying that 'the passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete.'"

...and governments taketh away.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/16/1657255/A-Black-Day-For-Internet-Freedom-In-Germany?from=rss

A Black Day For Internet Freedom In Germany

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 16, @01:50PM from the sun-going-down dept.

Several readers including erlehmann and tmk wrote to inform us about the dawning of Internet censorship in Germany under the usual guise of protecting the children.

"This week, the two big political parties ruling Germany in a coalition held the final talks on their proposed Internet censorship scheme. DNS queries for sites on a list will be given fake answers that lead to a page with a stop sign. The list itself is maintained by the German federal police (Bundeskriminalamt). A protest movement has formed over the course of the last several months, and over 130K citizens have signed a petition protesting the law. Despite this, and despite criticism from all sides, the two parties sped up the process for the law to be signed on Thursday, June 18, 2009."

...and taketh away.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/06/16/2049224/UK-Government-Announces-Broadband-Tax?from=rss

UK Government Announces Broadband Tax

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday June 17, @05:02AM from the one-hand-giveth dept. internet communications government money

Barence writes

"The UK Government is planning a 50p-per-month levy on fixed-line connections to pay for next-generation broadband. The Government claims that market forces alone will bring fiber connections to only two thirds of the country, [Sounds like they are relying on the communications industry rather that their own economists... Bob] so it plans to use the 'broadband tax' to pay for the final third by 2017. The plans form part of the Government's Digital Britain report, which also see the UK guarantee connections of 2Mbits/sec for every citizen by 2012."

The report also threatens legal action and bandwidth restriction for repeat file sharers.

Vague as far as strategy, but it seems to cover most areas.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021610.html

June 16, 2009

The Digital Britain Report

"On 16 June the Government published The Digital Britain Report, its strategic vision for ensuring that the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy. The report provides actions and recommendations to promote and protect talent and innovation in our creative industries, to modernise TV and radio frameworks and support local news, and introduces policies to maximise the social and economic benefits from digital technologies."

Likely to have the other browsers scrambling.

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2009/06/16/

Opera Unite reinvents the Web

Cloud computing and Web-based applications will never be the same

June 16, 2009 — Oslo, Norway

Opera today unveiled Opera Unite, a new technology that shakes up the old client-server computing model of the Web. Opera Unite turns any computer into both a client and a server, allowing it to interact with and serve content to other computers directly across the Web, without the need for third-party servers.

… For Web developers, Opera Unite services are based on the same open Web standards as Web sites today. This dramatically simplifies the complexity of authoring cutting-edge Web services. With Opera Unite, creating a full Web service is now as easy as coding a Web page.