http://www.databreaches.net/?p=5493
Update: T-Mobile confirms some data theft
June 9, 2009 by admin Filed under: Breach Incidents, Business Sector, Hack, U.S.
I received an updated statement from T-Mobile overnight. Their revised statement confirms that at least some data were stolen, but they do not confirm that the breach described on the the Full Disclosure mail list was as extensive as the hackers claimed when they posted, “We have everything, their databases, confidental documents, scripts and programs from their servers, financial documents up to 2009.” The company reports:
To reaffirm, the protection of our customers’ information and the security of our systems is paramount at T-Mobile. Regarding the recent claim on a Web site, we’ve identified the document from which information was copied, and believe possession of this alone is not enough to cause harm to our customers.
T-Mobile reports that they are continuing to investigate the claims and “have taken additional precautionary measures to further ensure our customers’ information and our systems are protected.”
That may be all we hear for a while:
At this moment, we are unable to disclose additional information in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, but customers can be assured if there is any evidence that customer information has been compromised, we would inform those affected as quickly as possible.
Jeremy Kirk of IDG News Service apparently received the same press statement and adds a bit more detail on Computerworld.
Why didn't someone think of this years ago?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090608103130461
Breach Data-Sharing Site Started
Monday, June 08 2009 @ 10:31 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The risk management technology company Intersections Inc. and the Identity Theft Assistance Center were expected to unveil Breachcenter.com [ http://breachcenter.com/tiki-index.php ] today, a Web site where companies that have suffered a data breach can share their experiences.
Since data breaches often catch companies unprepared, the flow of information about the incidents tends to be slow, which can aggravate the harm, John Scanlon, Intersections' chief operating officer, said in an interview last week.
Source - Securities Industry News
Comment.: Read their Privacy Policy if you are thinking of registering with the site.
[From the article:
Anne Wallace, ITAC's president, said that one of the challenges faced by Breachcenter.com is that "the kind of people who are in charge of planning and response to a breach may not be used to sharing their thoughts. They may not be used to social networking."
She and Scanlon said that, to address this, their organizations are planning to encourage companies to participate on Breachcenter.com.
The site's focus is a "wiki," a community-fueled knowledge base that includes information about how best to address these concerns. Intersections and ITAC both plan to contribute to blogs on the Web site, as well as to a discussion group.
How will they respond? If I logged on using my favorite alias (a certain local law school professor) will he disappear to Guantanamo?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090608122851536
Subpoena seeks names -- and lots more -- of Web posters
Monday, June 08 2009 @ 12:28 PM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Free speech should be practiced only by those who are ready to deal with the consequences, which just might include a knock on the door by a friendly federal investigator wanting to know if you posted an anonymous comment on a Web site. Were you advocating violence or confessing to breaking the federal tax laws?
This is not a hypothetical.
On May 26 the Review-Journal published an article about an ongoing federal tax evasion trial. The primary defendant, Las Vegan Robert Kahre, stands accused of tax fraud for using the rather inventive argument that he could pay people in U.S. minted gold and silver coins based on their precious metal value but for tax purposes use their face value, which is many times less.
The story was posted on our Web site. When last I checked nearly 100 comments were appended to it, running the gamut from the lucid to the ludicrous.
This past week the newspaper was served with a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. attorney's office demanding that we turn over all records pertaining to those postings, including "full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers ... the IP address," et (kitchen sink) cetera.
[...]
Bottom line: We could fight the federal subpoena, at considerable expense, and lose. Our attorneys are now trying to see if we can limit the scope of the information sought.
What the prosecutors don't appear to understand is that we don't have most of what they are seeking. We don't require registration. A person could use a fictitious name and e-mail address, and most do. We have no addresses or phone numbers.
To add prior restraint to the chilling effect of the sweeping subpoena, we were warned: "You have no obligation of secrecy concerning this subpoena; however, any such disclosure could obstruct and impede an ongoing criminal investigation. ..."
Source - Las Vegas Review-Journal
On the other hand...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090609060816127
PA: Wiretap law applies to text messages, court rules
Tuesday, June 09 2009 @ 06:08 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled yesterday that the state's wiretapping law applies to text messages, and that police need a warrant in order to intercept them.
Source - Philly.com
[From the article:
A Superior Court panel ruled that police violated the law when they used a cellular phone taken from two men arrested on marijuana-trafficking charges and sent fake messages that drew in other suspects.
Also related Anonymity isn't a license to libel...
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090609061206901
Ca: Controversy rages over Internet privacy rights
Tuesday, June 09 2009 @ 06:12 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
Every day, people post scores of comments online under avatars and pseudonyms thinking no one will know who they are. But two recent Ontario court rulings have struck a blow to the notion of a “reasonable expectation of privacy” on the Internet.
Source - Law Times
[From the article:
But in what surprised some observers, she decided that information related to an IP address isn’t private in the first place. “In my view, the applicant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information provided by Bell considering the nature of that information.
This story is more interesting than I originally reported. Imagine what would happen if there was a real pandemic. Come in contact with a carrier, get shot! (In order to protect our citizens we had to kill them?)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10258981-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Japan to try GPS phones to prevent pandemics
by Dong Ngo June 8, 2009 11:43 AM PDT
Just recently, Softbank Mobile, Japan's biggest cell phone carrier, signed a deal with Aoyama Gakuin University to provide iPhone 3Gs to 1,000 students to keep tabs of their attendance via the phone's Global Positioning System. The company now has a plan to equip the same amount of elementary-school students with GPS phones.
However, the purpose this time is much more serious than nabbing truants. As reported by the Associated Press, this is to test how GPS-enabled cell phones can help track the spreading of an infectious disease and stop it from becoming a pandemic.
This government-backed experiment uses a virtual sickness that is highly contagious. A few months from now, a few students will be chosen to be "infected" with this sickness. Their movements will then be tracked via their cell phones and compared with other students. Stored GPS data can then be used to determine which children have crossed paths with the infected students and are at risk of having contracted the disease.
Related? Perhaps there is enough data in this database to track anyone in the UK?
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20090609060510337
UK: Opt out or your number’s up for mobile phone privacy
Tuesday, June 09 2009 @ 06:05 AM EDT Contributed by: PrivacyNews
The first directory service that claims to be able to find any British mobile phone number is expected to cause a row over privacy when it begins operation next week.
For a £1 charge, 118800.co.uk will be able to connect customers of its service to any of Britain’s 42 million mobile phones, it says.
The directory, which goes live on June 18 and already contains “millions” of mobile numbers and their users, is the first of its kind in the UK. ...... People not wishing to be included on the list must inform the directory by text or phone that they wish to opt out. They will be charged their standard network rate and face a wait of four weeks before their number is excluded.
Source - Times Online
[From the article:
The service has been developed using data bought from market research businesses.
… Though the company says that its policy is not to include under-18s on the directory, where parents have given their children mobile phones they will also need to text from the children’s phone to exclude them.
Not too far out (end of 2009) Imagine the implications we could get that kind of speed from ISPs!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10260394-94.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Juniper revs Ethernet to 100Gbps
by David Meyer June 9, 2009 5:48 AM PDT
Think of all the parents who wouldn't even know their children were blabbing the same information!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10260183-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Twitter user says vacation tweets led to burglary
by Elinor Mills June 8, 2009 5:31 PM PDT
Here's either a cautionary tale or an example of social-media paranoia. An Arizona man believes that his Twitter messages about going out of town led to a burglary at his home while he was away.
Israel Hyman posted to approximately 2,000 followers on Twitter that he and his wife were "preparing to head out of town," that they had "another 10 hours of driving ahead" and later, that they "made it to Kansas City."
When he came home, he found that someone had broken into his house and stolen thousands of dollars worth of video equipment he used for his video business, IzzyVideo.com, which he uses for his Twitter account.
Lawyers never look anything up – this guy must be a librarian.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/021542.html
June 08, 2009
Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites for Attorneys and Legal Professionals.
Timothy L. Coggins, Legal, Factual and Other Internet Sites forAttorneys and Legal Professionals, XV RICH. J.L. & TECH. 13 (2009).
"This listing of Internet sites for legal, factual, and other research presents a variety of sources for attorneys, law students, law librarians, and others who use the Web. Initially developed for an Advanced Legal Research course and a continuing education session for legal assistants and paralegals, the listing includes sites for primary authorities, both federal and state, as well as URLs for other types of information such as names of possible expert witnesses and biographical and background information about individuals."
If you grab stuff from the web, these might be useful...
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-useful-clipboard-replacement-utilities-for-windows/
4 Great Alternative Clipboard Managers For Windows
Jun. 7th, 2009 By Damien Oh
Copying and pasting text in Windows is as easy as pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on your keyboard right? That’s what I’ve always thought and it is even true until now. However, after discovering some of the useful clipboard manager applications out there, I found that copying and pasting is not just restricted to simple keyboard shortcuts. With a little imagination, it can do lot of things and make your life easier and more efficient.
Freeclip Arsclip Yankee Clipper 3 Ditto-CP Clipx Clipguru
Using a Mac? Not to worry, Jackson wrote about the best free clipboard managers to run on Mac OS X.
Just what we want to teach: Don't do anything unless you get paid for it! (Also known as teacher excuse #317. “My students didn't learn because we didn't pay them to learn.”)
Kids Score 40 Percent Higher When They Get Paid For Grades
Posted by samzenpus on Monday June 08, @02:14PM from the show-them-the-money dept.
A large number of schools participating in a pay-for-grades program have seen test scores in reading and math go up by almost 40 percentage points. The Sparks program will pay seventh-graders up to $500 and fourth-graders as much as $250 for good performance on 10 assessment tests. About two-thirds of the 59 schools in the program improved their scores by margins above the citywide average. "It's an ego booster in terms of self-worth. When they get the checks, there's that competitiveness -- 'Oh, I'm going to get more money than you next time' -- so it's something that excites them," said Rose Marie Mills, principal at MS 343 in Mott Haven. Critics, who are unaware that most college students don't become liberal arts majors, argue that paying kids corrupts the notion of learning for education's sake alone.
Related? Clearly this is inevitable, but there is no guidance, and no clear strategy. What has to be delivered and how? Kindle anyone?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/09/1243211/California-To-Move-To-Online-Textbooks?from=rss
California To Move To Online Textbooks
Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 09, @09:07AM from the let's-keep-some-things-written-down-though dept.
Hugh Pickens writes
"Last year California spent $350m on textbooks so facing a state budget shortfall of $24.3 billion, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled a plan to save money by phasing out 'antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks' in favor of internet aids. Schwarzenegger believes internet activities such as Facebook, Twitter and downloading to iPods show that young people are the first to adopt new online technologies and that the internet is the best way to learn in classrooms so from the beginning of the school year in August, math and science students in California's high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review. 'It's nonsensical — and expensive — to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form,' writes Schwarzenegger. 'As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace.'"
The next GM (Garage Motors) Do you think there is a market for these, perhaps in kit form?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/06/homemade-solar/
Homemade Solar Quadricycle With Room For The Dog
By Ben Mack Email Author June 8, 2009 6:30 am
The Solar Human Hybrid is a street-legal quadricycle with a solar-powered electric motor to help you along, room for three friends to join you in the fun and even a spot for groceries and your dog. Best of all, it was built by an eighth-grader who’s willing to show you how to make one yourself.
… Just about everything anyone would need to know if they wanted to build one is available on the Dixon’s website.
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