http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=1796
Customers alerted to BlueCross data breach
By Dissent, January 10, 2010 9:32 am
Customers of Chattanooga-based insurer BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee slowly are being notified by mail of a potential breach of their personal information.
This week, BCBS will provide updated data to the public on exactly how many customers were exposed when 57 hard drives were pilfered in October from a storage closet at the insurer’s Eastgate Town Center branch, said company spokeswoman Mary Thompson.
“We’ve reach a critical mass with our analysis of the information, and this week we think we can update the public,” Ms. Thompson said. “We’re going to be doing a really full breakdown of how many were potentially exposed.” Letters are being mailed in batches as the data is being combed over and the breaches are discovered, Ms. Thompson said.
Read more on TMCnet.com.
I wonder what states attorney general will say about notifications that are months after the breach occurred.
Hacking/Security: New technology does not mean you can forget old lessons.
Security Flaw Makes It Easy To Bypass Verizon Droid Screen Lock
by Jason Kincaid on January 11, 2010
… The security feature, when working, requires users to input a pattern using onscreen dots before they can access most of the phone’s features (the iPhone offers a similar option).
Exploiting the bug is fairly simple: while receiving an incoming call on a Droid that has its Lock screen activated, you can simply hit the dedicated ‘Back’ button to bypass the lock and jump to the homescreen.
Note that if the cops had waited four (4) hours, they would have known they were arresting the wrong man. Were they concerned he was going to flee the country? ...attack a gipsy? ...give credit to the next shift? ...run for parliament?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=6882
UK: Businessman is arrested in front of wife and son… for ‘anti-gipsy’ email that he didn’t even write
January 11, 2010 by Dissent Filed under Court, Featured Headlines, Non-U.S., Surveillance
James Millbank reports:
A wealthy businessman was arrested at home in front of his wife and young son over an email which council officials deemed ‘offensive’ to gipsies – but which he had not even written.
The email, concerning a planning appeal by a gipsy, included the phrase: ‘It’s the ‘do as you likey’ attitude that I am against.’
Council staff believed the email was offensive because ‘likey’ rhymes with the derogatory term ‘pikey’. [Thanks! That's a new one to me. I'll add it to my vocabulary. Bob]
The 45-year-old IT boss was held in a police cell for four hours until it was established he had nothing to do with the email, which had been sent by one of his then workers, Paul Osmond.
But police had taken his DNA and later confirmed they would be holding it indefinitely.
Read more in The Mail.
Does someone want to tell the UK that 1984 was supposed to be a caution, not an aspiration?
Interesting. “My interpretation must be correct, because I agree with it completely!” Imagine how a Chief Privacy Officer would react, if they had one.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10431741-71.html?tag=digg2
Zuckerberg: I know that people don't want privacy
by Chris Matyszczyk January 10, 2010 1:40 PM PST
(Related) Is this what Zuckerberg is seeing? It's not new. I have mentioned many times that the first tool you learn to use remains a favorite and people face a dual task (unlearn the old tool, learn the new one) before they can switch.
Tech Tools Fostering "Mini Generation Gaps"
Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 10, @02:27PM from the you-way-twitter-i-say-facebook dept.
Hugh Pickens writes
"The NY Times has an interesting report on the iGeneration, born in the '90s and this decade, comparing them to the Net Generation, born in the 1980s. The Net Generation spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently while the iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group, and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks. 'People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. 'College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.' Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, says that the iGeneration, unlike their older peers, expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and don't have the patience for anything less. 'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen."
Read below for another intra-generational wrinkle.
Another intra-generational gap is the iGeneration comfort in multi-tasking. Studies show that 16- to 18-year-olds perform seven tasks, on average, in their free time — like texting on the phone, sending instant messages, and checking Facebook while sitting in front of the television; while people in their early 20s can handle only six, and those in their 30s about five and a half. "That versatility is great when they're killing time, but will a younger generation be as focused at school and work as their forebears?" writes Brad Smith. "I worry that young people won't be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to," says Vicky Rideout, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Ignorance of the privacy policy is no excuse. Is there sufficient demand for a review service to translate terms & conditions into simple English and notify users when they change? (I doubt it, but anything is possible.)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=6887
Site’s terms still enforceable even if users never read them
January 11, 2010 by Dissent Filed under Court, Internet
Jacqui Cheng reports:
We’re all guilty of skipping over a site’s terms and conditions, but don’t go crying to the courts if there’s something in there that comes back to bite you. Another court has upheld a site’s “browserwrapped” terms of use, saying that they were displayed prominently enough that it’s the user’s fault for not reading them.
A website’s terms and conditions are indeed enforceable, even if users weren’t forced to actually go to a T&C page at any point in time. That’s according to the Missouri Court of Appeals, anyway, which has upheld a previous ruling in a lawsuit that brought into question the enforceability of ServiceMagic’s Terms of Use. Still, one of the judges made clear that only reasonable terms would be upheld—no jumping on one foot while spinning plates for you.
Read more on Ars Technica.
What does this actually tell us? Newspapers have cut their society pages, no longer have 'feature' articles on the local bowling team, and find it cheaper to reprint the news wires rather than pay a dozen journalists. Have all the events no longer covered by the papers found new life in the blogs? Probably.
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/023225.html
January 10, 2010
Pew - How News Happens: A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City
"The study, which examined all the outlets that produced local news in Baltimore, Md., for one week, surveyed their output and then did a closer examination of six major narratives during the week, finds that much of the “news” people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information. And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media—most of them newspapers. These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets. The local papers, however, are also offering less than they once did. For all of 2009, for instance, the Sun produced 32% fewer stories on any subject than it did in 1999, and 73% fewer stories than in 1991, when the company still published an evening and morning paper with competing newsrooms. And a comparison of one major story during the week studied—about state budget cuts—found newspapers in the area produced only one-third as many stories in 2009 as they did the last time the state made a similar round of budget cuts in 1991, and the Baltimore Sun one seventh as many. Yet the numbers suggest the addition of new media has not come close to making up the difference."
I follow this blog to learn a little about electronic discovery. I've noticed that he has recently been videotaping and then cutting his law school lectures into short, single topic videos. I think this is the future of teaching – imagine a database of such videos to accompany textbooks and lectures.
e-Discovery Team
For backup purposes only, of course.
http://lifehacker.com/5444274/five-best-dvd+ripping-tools
Five Best DVD-Ripping Tools
Try a new browser every week. You never know what might delight you.
http://sixrevisions.com/tools/10-web-browsers-you-probably-havent-heard-of/
10 Web Browsers You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
January 10th, 2010 by Cameron Chapman
For my hacker and forensic students
6 Free Password Recovery Tools for Windows
By Tina on Jan. 10th, 2010
PasswordFoxThis tool effortlessly recovers all user names and passwords stored in Firefox.
ChromePassChromePass is a password recovery tool that reveals usernames and passwords stored in Chrome, Google’s internet browser.
IE PassViewThis utility shows usernames and passwords stored by Internet Explorer.
MessenPassMessenPass revovers passwords from the following Instant Messengers: AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Digsby, GAIM/Pidgin, Google Talk, Messenger, ICQ, Miranda, MSN Messenger, MySpace IM, PaltalkScene, Trillian Windows Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger.
Mail PassViewMail PassView can recover passwords stored in the following applications: Eudora, Gmail (if stored in Gmail Notifier, Google Desktop, or Google Talk), Group Mail Free, Hotmail / MSN mail (if stored in a MSN / Windows / Live Messenger program), IncrediMail, Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Netscape, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail (if saved in a Yahoo! Messenger application).
Free Word / Excel PasswordThis password recovery tools can crack Word or Excel passwords
[Also see:
Simon introduced Ophcrack – A Password Hack Tool to Crack Almost Any Windows Password.
Guy has previously revealed How To View Passwords Hidden Behind Asterisk Characters.
Saikat showed you How To Recover Lost Gmail Password With A SMS Message.
And in case you have forgotten your Windows Administrator password, there are several ways to recover or reset it.
Karl shows you how to Recover Your Windows XP Administrator Password With The Installation Disk,
T.J. found 3 Ways to Reset Forgotten Windows Administrator Password, and
Jack has 5 Tips to Reset The Administrator Password in Windows XP.
Finally, Varun explains How To Reset Any Linux Password.
Tools for Teachers
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/editorone-creating-educational-videos/
EditorOne: Website For Creating Educational Video Mashups
By Israel Nicolas on Jan. 2nd, 2010
It is easy to find online video editing tools that work well nowadays and we even suggested the Top 5 Tools To Make A Home Movie Online For Free. However, only a few are designed with public awareness and educational themes in mind. EditorOne is a crafty website for creating educational videos with thematic clips tailored for educators, museums, non-profits, advocacy groups, and more.
Similar Tools: Vuvox, ClipGenerator, and Masher.
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