Update

http://www.databreaches.net/?p=7066

Heartland: Judge to Hear Motions to Dismiss Suits

September 9, 2009 by admin Filed under Financial Sector, Hack, Malware, Of Note, U.S.

Linda McGlasson of BankInfoSecurity.com updates us on the status of lawsuits against Heartland Payment Systems and Heartland’s motion to dismiss:

There are two class action suits — one on the consumer side and the second on behalf of the financial institutions affected by the massive breach. Earlier in June, a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) panel decided the suits would be held in Houston.

A separate set of securities cases, all filed in New Jersey, will be consolidated and brought to one court later this fall. The MDL panel will decide on those cases in October, Coffman notes. “Heartland is trying to get them consolidated and heard in Houston as well,” he says.

[...]

Coffman said that the biggest battle during the August 24 hearing was discovery; specifically, what Heartland will be required to produce now and what will be deferred until next spring after Heartland’s anticipated motion to dismiss is argued. Heartland already has filed a motion with the Court asking that all discovery be stayed until after the Court rules on the motion to dismiss. Coffman anticipated that the Court will rule on Heartland’s motion to stay discovery shortly.

Read the full coverage on BankInfoSecurity.com

[From the article:

Coffman estimates that the number of financial institutions impacted by the data breach is much higher than the 670 reported on BankInfoSecurity's list (http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1200). Coffman believes the list probably reflects only about 20 percent of the institutions that have replaced compromised credit cards and debit cards and absorbed their customers' unauthorized charges.

“We can, therefore we must!” Sears wanted to know everything about you so they can sell you the appropriate Craftsman wrench? I suspect there is a more sinister reason. (But then, I'm a professional paranoid.)

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3720

FTC approves final consent order in Sears tracking software case

September 9, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Businesses, Featured Headlines, Govt, U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a final consent order in the matter of Sears Holdings Management Corporation, following a public comment period, and authorized the staff to provide responses to the commenters of record. According to the FTC’s administrative complaint, Sears represented to consumers that software it was placing on their computers would track their “online browsing.” The FTC charged, however, that the software also monitored consumers’ online secure sessions – including sessions on third parties’ Web sites – and collected consumers’ personal information transmitted in those sessions, such as the contents of shopping carts, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, library borrowing histories, and the sender, recipient, subject, and size for Web-based e-mails.

According to the Commission, the software also tracked some computer activities that were not related to the Internet. Only in a lengthy user license agreement, available to consumers at the end of a multi-step registration process, did Sears disclose the full extent of the information the software tracked. The complaint charged that Sears’s failure to adequately disclose the scope of the tracking software’s data collection was deceptive and violates the FTC Act.

Under the consent order settling the charges, in addition to destroying information previously collected, if Sears advertises or disseminates any tracking software in the future, it must clearly and prominently disclose the types of data the software will monitor, record, or transmit. This disclosure must be made prior to installation and separate from any user license agreement. Sears also must disclose whether any data will be used by a third party.

The Commission vote approving the final order was 4-0. (FTC File No. 082-3099)

Source: FTC

Related: Decision and Order. Other case-related documents are linked from here.

Canada is dealing with some serious Privacy issues – and not always getting it right... Could this infect our Congress?

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3725

“Protecting Privacy for Canadians in the 21st Century”

September 10, 2009 by Dissent

Resolution of Canada’s Privacy Commissioners and Privacy Enforcement Officials on Bills C-46 and C-47

(Related) Eliminate the need for warrants

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3723

Privacy commissioners urge caution on expanded surveillance plan

September 10, 2009 by Dissent

(Related) “It's for the children.”

http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3718

B.C. private schools hire private eyes to check parental gang ties

September 9, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Non-U.S., Youth

Sam Cooper reports:

Several Vancouver private schools are screening applicants to determine if their families are linked to gangs and pose a risk to students and staff.

“We have recently been engaged by private schools in the Vancouver area to conduct due diligence on the families of prospective students,” Kim Marsh, managing director of private investigation firm IPSA International, confirmed to the Vancouver Province.

Marsh, a former RCMP inspector who headed a police organized-crime unit, won’t identify the schools, for privacy reasons, but he acknowledged “it’s fair to say” his business has increased following the shooting of West Point Grey Academy parent Betty Yan, in April.

Read more on Canada.com.

Inevitable? It should be interesting to see if they only offer objections or actually have a better idea. At minimum, we should assemble an “Arguments, Pro & Con” database so IP Law students can see what they will face.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/10/033209/Microsoft-Blasts-Google-Book-Deal?from=rss

Microsoft Blasts Google Book Deal

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 10, @04:50AM from the shaking-the-corporate-fist dept.

eldavojohn writes

"With authors, scholars, the DoJ and publishers ripping apart the Google book deal, it's Microsoft's turn. They're claiming it's frankly an illegal 'joint venture' and not a settlement. According to ZDNet, Microsoft's four complaints against the deal are:

1) Future infringements are covered by the settlement, affecting the exclusive rights of absent class members for the life of their copyrights.

2) The deal gives away to Google vast rights that were not contested in the underlying litigation. The lawsuits dealt with Google's displaying brief excerpts. Instead of compromising on that infringement, the parties instead agreed to give away the rights to display entire books.

3) The publishers who negotiated this deal each have undisclosed side deals with Google, which will likely give them better terms than the class will get.

4) The publishers plan to exclude their own works from the deal.

You might recall over a year ago Microsoft's own scanning effort died."

(Related)

http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/09/08/microsoft-s-objections-to-the-proposed-settlement-in-the-google-books-lawsuits.aspx

Microsoft’s Objections to the Proposed Settlement in the Google Books Lawsuits

Posted by David Bowermaster, Blog Administrator

Today, Microsoft filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York raising several objections to the proposed settlement in the copyright infringement lawsuits filed against Google in 2005 related to Google Books. You can find the brief here.

Microsoft's objections are among many filed raising concerns about the proposed settlement. Click here to view an index to other objections filed by a wide array of authors, publishers, academics, libraries, consumer advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, and companies around the world. Objections have also been filed recently by several governments, including Germany, France and the state of Connecticut.

Microsoft is sneaky-smart. It does you no good to be the best tool for the job if no one knows... That's where search keyword related adds come in...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/09/bing-loves-the-porn-hounds/

Bing Loves The Porn Hounds

by Michael Arrington on September 9, 2009

Bing is an excellent search engine. For one thing the surprising early reviews probably forced Yahoo’s hand as they entered into one of the dumber corporate transactions I’ve ever seen. So, kudos to Bing. Golf clap. Etc.

But one thing about Bing really stands out – it may be the best porn search engine ever created (see Badda-Bing Indeed). In private conversations Microsoft employees always said that the porn search feature was an unintended byproduct of good video search. But we always wondered if that was true.

Anyway, in May we noticed Bing ads on Google, which seemed a little ironic to us given how seriously the two companies compete with each other.

But one thing we didn’t notice until now is that Bing is also advertising on Google for the query “pornography.”

I need to use these in my classes.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022287.html

September 09, 2009

Sunlight Labs Posts Apps for America Winners

The Apps for America Winners [via Abi Morgan]:

• DataMasher: "DataMasher helps citizens have a little fun with those data by creating mashups to visualize them in different ways and see how states compare on important issues. Users can combine different data sets in interesting ways and create their own custom rankings of the states."

• GovPulse: "govpulse was built to open the doors of government to the people they work for. By making such documents as the Federal Register searchable, more accessible and easier to digest, govepulse seeks to encourage every citizen to become more involved in the workings of their government and make their voice heard on the things that matter to them, from the smallest to the largest issues."

• ThisWeKnow: "Our long-term vision for ThisWeKnow is to model the entire data.gov catalog and make it available to the public using Semantic Web standards as a large-scale online database. ThisWeKnow will provide citizens with a single destination where they can search and browse all the information the government collects. It will also provide other application developers with a powerful standards-based API for accessing the data."

(Related) For the next few years, Democrats will be defined as “well-off and well-educated” – making Republicans poor and ignorant.

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/022283.html

September 09, 2009

Pew Report: The Internet and Civic Engagement

The Internet and Civic Engagement, September 2009: "Just as in offline politics, the well-off and well-educated are especially likely to participate in online activities that mirror offline forms of engagement. But there are hints that social media may alter this pattern."

Geeky indulgence? Should be a source of interesting videos for my classes.

http://www.techvideobytes.com/

TechVideoBytes

The best online video search application where in which you can learn your favorite programming languages (or) can be familiar with upcoming designing tools (or) can view and listen what experts says in the online seminars and conferences (or) interviews with experts (or) useful advice from an expert and more can be viewed at one place.

Not sure BASIC is the best way to start, but at least it IS a start.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/learn-how-to-computer-program-with-microsofts-smallbasic/

Learn How To Program With Microsoft’s SmallBasic

Sep. 9th, 2009 By Guy McDowell

Somebody at Microsoft is doing things right in my humble opinion. What they’ve done with Small Basic is reintroduce hand-coding software, but with just a little less help than drag-and-drop or WYSIWYG interface.