http://www.databreaches.net/?p=9603
For sale: Personal details of millions of Ladbrokes gamblers
January 23, 2010 by admin Filed under Business Sector, Insider, Non-U.S., Of Note
Jason Lewis and Sandra White report:
The confidential records of millions of British gamblers who bet with top bookmaker Ladbrokes have been offered for sale to The Mail on Sunday.
The huge data theft is now at the centre of a criminal investigation after this newspaper was given the personal information of 10,000 Ladbrokes customers and offered access to its database of 4.5 million people in the UK and abroad.
Last night we alerted Ladbrokes to the damaging security breach and handed the customer files to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Britain’s data watchdog, which immediately began to investigate.
The records include customers’ home addresses, details of their gambling history, customer account numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers and email addresses.
Ladbrokes last night also called in the police and began contacting customers to reassure them that their credit card details, passwords and other financial information were safe.
The database was offered for sale by a mysterious Australian. [Aren't they all? See below. Bob] He claimed to be a computer security expert who had worked at Ladbrokes in Britain.
During protracted negotiations via email and in one phone call, the man, who gave his name only as ‘Daniel’, claimed to represent a company based in Melbourne, Australia.
The company, DSS Enterprises, is run by Dinitha Subasinghe, a Sri Lankan-born IT expert.
Last night, Mr Subasinghe denied any involvement in the data theft. He designs websites and also runs a wedding planning business with his British-born girlfriend Charlene King.
Read more in The Mail on Sunday.
(Related)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=7264
New records of UK convicts sent to Australia go online
January 24, 2010 by Dissent Filed under Internet
New records of more than 55,000 convicts transported to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries have gone online for the first time.
They contain details of people who were shipped to Australia and were subsequently pardoned or served out their sentences.
Family history website Ancestry.co.uk said the records could be accessed for free for seven days from 24 January.
The company estimates more than two million Britons have convict ancestors.
The convict registers of conditional and absolute pardons 1791 to 1846, and the New South Wales certificates of freedom 1827 to 1867 have been launched online.
Read more on BBC.
For your Security Manager You know smartphones are (formal or informal) parts of your information system. How do you secure them? (Includes a list of risks with suggestions for dealing with them)
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/345297/Smartphones_Need_Smart_Security
Smartphones need smart security practices
Yes, it's 'blue and plays music,' but that cute smartphone is also a serious computer that must be secured
By Mary Brandel January 18, 2010 06:00 AM ET
“Best Intentions” does not trump “I Can Use It To My Advantage” It is easy for managers (and lawyers) to ban everything except what is actually mandatory. ("All that is not forbidden is mandatory, and all that is not mandatory is forbidden" The Once and Future King, E. B. White)
http://www.phiprivacy.net/?p=1897
Blundering past HIPAA
By Dissent, January 24, 2010 8:12 am
Cory Franklin, a physician, has a commentary on HIPAA in the Chicago Tribune that begins this way:
Recently, at my local Starbucks I asked the barista behind the counter about a medical problem she had that will require surgery. Her answer left me astonished, “Management said I can’t talk about my health — it’s a HIPAA violation.”
This shows what a farce things have become with HIPAA, the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Forget for a moment about the kind of management that mandates such nonsense. From the outset, this law has been poorly understood and badly implemented.
[Nasty/paranoid thought: Management made that decision because several employees had communicable diseases. How would you counter that rumor? Bob]
Attention China! It's all in how you frame your request. (What's that Emerson quote about “consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds?”)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10440115-71.html
How Google's Nexus One censors cuss words
by Chris Matyszczyk January 23, 2010 11:33 AM PST
… You see, the pungently polite people at Reuters were playing with their Nexus One when they noticed something about its built-in voice-to-text feature.
Every time they said something naughty into the phone, the naughty word came out as "####"--and not just "f---." It even censored the "S" part of BS.
Reuters immediately called Google and screamed at them: "What the #### are you miserable ############# playing at?"
… Apparently, the censorship is not because Google is trying to clean up the world and turn it into the nicest parts of Alabama. No, the company is worried about what might be transcribed. [I wonder if lawyers can get this feature turned off? Bob]
"We filter potentially offensive or inappropriate results because we want to avoid situations whereby we might misrecognize a spoken query and return profanity when, in fact, the user said something completely innocent," Google told Reuters.
(Related)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=7256
Text Messages in China to Be Scanned for ‘Illegal Content’
January 24, 2010 by Dissent Filed under Internet, Non-U.S., Surveillance
Sharon Lafraniere reports:
Expanding what the Chinese government calls a campaign against pornography, cellular companies in Beijing and Shanghai have been told to suspend text services to cellphone users who are found to have sent messages with “illegal or unhealthy content,” state-run media reported on Tuesday.
China Mobile, one of the nation’s largest cellular providers, reported that text messages would automatically be scanned for “key words” provided by the police, according to the English-language China Daily newspaper. Messages will be deemed “unhealthy” if they violate undisclosed criteria established by the central government, the newspaper said.
[...]
Kan Kaili, a professor of telecommunications at Beijing University, called the routine surveillance of cellphone messages a violation of privacy rights and the Chinese Constitution.
Read more in The New York Times.
(Related)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10440129-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Italy trying to clamp down on Internet videos
by Natalie Weinstein January 23, 2010 2:37 PM PST
Here are a few blogs I'm thinking of adding to my daily RSS feeds.
http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2009/50-best-blogs-for-privacy-nuts/
50 Best Blogs for Privacy Nuts
http://www.uslaw.com/law_blogs/category/Health+Law
Best Health Law Blogs
USLaw Blog Index
The economics of privacy. (Specifically, behavioral economics) His Italian accent is a bit heavy, but you get used to it.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=7250
Alessandro Acquisti – Protecting Privacy in a Public World (video)
January 23, 2010 by Dissent
For those of you who missed Alessandro Acquisti’s talk about his research demonstrating how relatively easy it is to guess a person’s Social Security number, his talk — including broader issues of protecting privacy in a digital world — was recorded live. The entire talk was about 90 minutes:
[Video is also available at: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/4114564
(Related) This is not new. I think I should teach several of these techniques in my Data Mining/Data Analysis class.
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=7258
Computer security: fraud fears as scientists crack ‘anonymous’ datasets
January 24, 2010 by Dissent Filed under Other
Anushka Asthana reports:
Computer scientists in the US have discovered ways to “re-identify” the names of people included in supposedly anonymous datasets.
In one example, a movie rental company released an anonymous list of film-ratings taken from its 500,000 subscribers. Using a statistical “de-anonymisation” technique, the academics were able to identify individuals and their film preferences.
The discovery raises concerns about how safe it is to release personal information – such as medical records or mobile phone data – even if details such as names or national insurance numbers have been removed. There are fears the information could be accessed by criminals.
The discovery has led British researchers to raise the issue in a report they are writing for the European commission. Dr Ian Brown, of the Oxford Internet Institute and a co-author, said the example of the film list was relatively trivial. “But this raises concerns for more sensitive data such as medical records. Epidemiologists say they could do interesting research if they had access to more anonymous data. This shows it is difficult to do that in a way that can’t be reversed.”
Read more in the Guardian.
If they can do this for “everyone” they can do it for anyone.
http://hothardware.com/News/TomToms-IQ-Routes-Prove-Americans-Arent-Speed-Demons/
TomTom's IQ Routes Prove Americans Aren't Speed Demons
Friday, January 22, 2010 - by Shawn Oliver
… TomTom has just published a report that utilized lots of Speed Profiles data in order to provide the first fully detailed view of which interstate highways are the fastest and slowest in the United States.
[In other words, we know what road you are on, how far you drove, when you started and ended your trip... Get the picture? Bob]
Stock tip? Time to short AT&T? (Or stock manipulation by those who already have?)
Rumor — AT&T Losing iPhone Exclusivity Next Week
Posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 24, @09:10AM from the can-we-terminate-luke-wilson-now dept.
MojoKid writes
"An inside source over at HotHardware reports that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on 1/27, coincident with Apple's upcoming press event next week, though it's not yet clear what other carriers will be stepping in to pick up the iPhone. For anyone who has followed the saga, you may notice that you haven't seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement as of late. In fact, they have spent most of their time fighting Verizon's negative ad campaigns. This may not be all that surprising. Inside of AT&T, word is that the iPhone is causing more trouble than ever before. On some level, having the iPhone is hurting AT&T's image. Do you remember hearing about AT&T's 'horrible network' before the iPhone? The iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat."
For my Network friends. How can management object if the tool is free?
Nmap 5.20 Released
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday January 23, @10:32AM from the more-and-better dept.
ruphus13 writes
"Nmap has a new release out, and it's a major one. It includes a GUI front-end called Zenmap, and, according to the post, 'Network admins will no doubt be excited to learn that Nmap is now ready to identify Snow Leopard systems, Android Linux smartphones, and Chumbies, among other OSes that Nmap can now identify. This release also brings an additional 31 Nmap Scripting Engine scripts, bringing the total collection up to 80 pre-written scripts for Nmap. The scripts include X11 access checks to see if X.org on a system allows remote access, a script to retrieve and print an SSL certificate, and a script designed to see whether a host is serving malware. Nmap also comes with netcat and Ndiff. Source code and binaries are available from the Nmap site, including RPMs for x86 and x86_64 systems, and binaries for Windows and Mac OS X. '"
Something for my Computer Security class
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/auditmypc-security-and-monitoring/
AuditMyPC: Online Security & Monitoring Tools
Audit My PC is a free online suite of security and monitoring tools that could be useful to any computer user who wants to do things like a quick audit of his broadband speed and security check of his website or system. The tools are categorized under Security Tests, Online Tools, For Your Website, Security Tips and Something Else.
Similar websites: You Get Signal, Test Everything, ServerCheck and TraceBullet.
If I've mentioned this once I've mentioned it a dozen times. Porn is where you look for innovation and early adoption. That's why I do so much porn surfing research! (It's the electronic equivalent of reading the articles.) But seriously, there are some very useful tools described in this article.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/01/21/ultimate-porn-surfing-firefox-add-ons/
Off the clock: The Ultimate Porn Surfing Firefox Add-ons
by Sebastian Anthony (RSS feed) Jan 21st 2010 at 8:00PM
… Note: all of the links in this feature are safe. Don't worry: you should be fine to read this at work.
Humor I really really really want (some of ) these! Now all I need is a not-too-obvious way to slip this list to my wife.
http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Family-Lifestyle/15-Curious-Computer-Accessories.html
15 Curious Computer Accessories
Plug in to these playful, puzzling gadgets
By Brynn Mannino Posted January 22, 2010 from WomansDay.com
Might be fun, might be excruciating. Only one way to find out.
http://elgg.openschool.bc.ca/pg/groups/1623/math-20/
Math 2.0: Tools & Resources for 21st Century Learners
Are you wondering what blogs, wikis, and Web 2.0 have to do with teaching math? We are hosting a free and open Math Moodle week from Feb. 12 to 19th... The event is an opportunity for educators interested in teaching math to collaborate in the sharing of strategies, resources, ideas, questions and feedback about trying new technology tools in math class.
Register at http://tinyurl.com/ylmvd7n.
You can also take a look at the Doing the Math wiki (http://doing-the-math.wikispaces.com/) and add your information to the Meet & Greet page. This wiki is a work in progress, but will eventually become a cache for all resources shared during the event.
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