http://www.databreaches.net/?p=12042
(follow-up) Insurer says it’s not liable for University of Utah’s $3.3M data breach
June 5, 2010 by admin
Jaikumar Vijayan has a bit more on the suit filed by Colorado Casualty Insurance Co., who does not want to pay out for Perpetual Storage’s data breach involving the University of Utah. I thought the suit had been filed last month but it seems that it was just filed last week. Read more on Computerworld.
[From the article:
The breach occurred when burglars stole back-up tapes containing sensitive data on 1.7 million patients at the University's hospitals and clinics. The tapes were on their way to a storage facility when they were stolen from a car belonging to an employee at Perpetual Storage Inc., a Utah-based data storage company used by the University.
… The company claimed that the coverage it provided for Perpetual Storage did not mean it was obligated to pay any claims or judgments that the University might obtain against Perpetual as a result of the breach.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=10815
Lawsuits over Google Wi-Fi sniffing pile on
June 5, 2010 by Dissent
Robert McMillan reports:
Nearly three weeks after admitting that it had sniffed sensitive data from open wireless networks around the world, Google is now facing at least seven U.S. class-action lawsuits over its practice.
[...]
John Simpson, an advocate with California’s Consumer Watchdog, says that he’s not surprised to see so many class action lawsuits. “I think the reason that there are so many is because this is such an egregious intrusion into people’s personal privacy,” he said.
People don’t expect to have their Internet communications recorded, he said. [“People” might not, but my Computer Security students certainly do. Can you make your ignorance the basis for a lawsuit? Bob] “They may be naïve, but the average person is not a technologist, and when he or she sends an e-mail or communicates data to another Web site, they don’t expect that somebody’s going to come along and snoop and suck up that data and log it in their server for future analysis.”
Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In related coverage, McMillan also reports that the Missouri Attorney General has sent Google a letter:
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is asking Google to answer questions about how the company’s widespread wireless-network sniffing activities may have affected local residents.
In a letter to Google Friday, Koster says it’s not clear whether Google broke state law, but adds that “there can be no doubt that the company’s conduct implicates the privacy concerns of Missouri residents.” [Must be lawyer speak (or faulty journalism) because I see no implicature. Quite the reverse. But that may just be the semanticist talking. Bob]
(Related) Google street view.
Germany Finds Kismet, Custom Code In Google Car
Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 04, @03:27PM
"While waiting for a hard disk of Wi-Fi data that Google says its Street View cars gathered by mistake, the Hamburg Information Commissioner's office performed tests on a Google Street View car in a controlled environment with simulated wireless networks and issued the following statement: 'For the Wi-Fi coverage in the Street View cars, both the free software Kismet, and a Google-specific program were used. The Google-specific program components are available only in machine-readable binary code, which makes it impossible to analyze the internal processing.' [More difficult, but certainly not impossible – we do know what those instructions mean. Bob] Interestingly, a 2008 academic paper — Drive-by Localization of Roadside WiFi Networks (PDF) — describes a similar setup, and its authors discuss how they 'modified Kismet, a popular wireless packet sniffer, to optionally capture all packets received on the raw virtual interface.' Computerworld reports that lawyers in a class-action suit have amended their complaint to link a Google patent app to Street View data sniffing."
What happens when Privacy is not a design consideration.
NHTSA Complaint Database Oozes Personal Data
Posted by timothy on Friday June 04, @10:55PM
"Are your name, address, date of birth, driver's license number and Social Security number publicly available online? If you've been involved in an accident, they might be and you would never know. The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration solicits defect complaints from the public, which are hosted on NHTSA's public database. There are about 792,000 of these complaints currently online, and as the video at the link proves, many of them are improperly redacted. As a result, the most personal information imaginable is available to anyone who takes the time to troll the database. This is a clear violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, and NHTSA needs to shut down the database until it can control the personal data stored there."
The New Yorker covers Wikileaks
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=1
No Secrets
Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency.
I'm not sure if this is a tool to help you ensure your privacy or a simple “stalkers assistant”
Poyozo
Your personal information explorer
Poyozo is a Firefox extension that gathers and visualizes of your life's activities and information.
… Currently, Poyozo imports your data from Google Calendar, Facebook, Listit, Skydeck, Twitter, Foursquare, Last.fm, Dopplr, Flickr, Wesabe and is able to track your location, the local weather and your web browsing history from the Firefox browser. Also, Poyozo can import data from any RSS feed.
Is this the Internet equivalent of a newspaper article that identifies locations where you can buy drugs?
http://torrentfreak.com/publishing-locations-of-pirate-movies-is-the-same-as-hosting-them-100603/
Publishing Locations Of Pirate Movies Is The Same As Hosting Them
Earlier, Dutch movie studio Eyeworks applied for a court injunction to stop Usenet community FTD from “making available to the public” their movie Komt een vrouw bij de dokter (A Woman At The Doctor).
In this case the “making available” wasn’t hosting or storing the movie, nor was it offering torrent or NZB links to it either. FTD allows users to report (or ’spot’) the locations of files which exist on Usenet. It is the publication of this information which Eyeworks was seeking to stop, an activity it believes is tantamount to publishing the movie itself.
… “I am flabbergasted by the court’s reasoning,” Engelfriet told TorrentFreak. “It is established caselaw that publishing hyperlinks or torrents (Mininova, Pirate Bay) is *not* the same as a publication. FTD does *less* than what Mininova or Pirate Bay does, but according to the court we are more liable than they are?”
Another “virtual” crime. What percentage of police resources should be spent investigating e-crimes?
http://gizmodo.com/5555523/virtual-furniture-amounting-to-thousands-stolen-from-habbo-hotel
Virtual Furniture Amounting To Thousands Stolen From Habbo Hotel
After 2007's mega-thousand thievery, more thieves have broken into the virtual Habbo Hotel and done away with thousands of dollars worth of furniture belonging to players. Up to 400 cases are being investigated now by Finnish police, would you believe.
Another reason to not use Facebook? Does this present a new/more valuable target for hackers? It certainly creates a trail for those overly 'clever,' audience-specific speeches that contradict each other. Perhaps it will force a return to simple, straight forward statements? Nah...
http://mashable.com/2010/06/03/facebook-us-politics/
Facebook Launches U.S. Politics Page
Facebook has launched a page devoted to U.S. politics, located at Facebook.com/USpolitics.
Rolled out at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, the page monitors how U.S. politicians, elected officials and political campaigns use Facebook to connect with citizens.
(Related)
http://www.fastcompany.com/1656089/google-youtube-politics-you-choose-campaign-tools
Google's Campaign Toolkit Will Make It Even Easier for Politicians to Annoy You Online
For your Security Manager and anyone using Windows Mobile
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20006882-245.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Malware found lurking in apps for Windows Mobile
by Elinor Mills June 4, 2010 3:52 PM PDT
Scammers are distributing apps for Windows Mobile-based smartphones that have malware hidden inside that makes calls to premium-rate numbers across the globe, racking up expensive bills unbeknownst to the phone's owner, a mobile security firm said on Friday.
Now this is interesting! HP deserves an 'atta-boy!'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/10239623.stm
Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online
Page last updated at 2:57 GMT, Saturday, 5 June 2010 3:57 UK
By Dhruti Shah BBC News
Electronics company Hewlett-Packard has donated a number of scanners to the centre in Milton Keynes so volunteers can begin the ground-breaking task.
Many of the records at the once-secret centre have not been touched for years.
… Simon Greenish, chief executive officer of the Bletchley Park Trust, said the plan was for the centre's entire archive to be digitised.
For my Small Business and Networking classes
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-set-up-a-small-business-computer-network/
How to Set Up a Small Business Computer Network
Think of it as “talking pictures” or is that name taken? Could be useful for my website students as “self-describing icons”
Friday, June 4, 2010
Fotobabble - Turn Pictures Into Audio Stories
Fotobabble is a free service that allows you to quickly turn a picture into an audio picture story. Using Fotoabble is easy, just upload an image to Fotobabble, allow Fotobabble to access your computer's microphone, and start recording your voice. You can comment on your photo, explain what's happening your photo, or tell a story related to your photo. When you've completed your recording you can save it in your Fotobabble account, contribute to a public gallery and or embed it into your blog.
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