Doesn't the IRS always blame the
taxpayer? The process to correct this should be rather
straightforward...
Tax
fraud victims sue IRS for refund
January 3, 2012 by Dissent
Elaine Silvestrini reports that some
victims of ID theft/tax refund fraud are mad as hell – at the IRS –
and they’re not going to take it any more:
As far as Jay
Gordon is concerned, the Internal Revenue Service was the victim of
someone who used Gordon’s identity to commit tax fraud, and now
Gordon and his wife are victims of the IRS.
“I know we’re
not the only ones,” said Gordon, who described his predicament as
“ridiculous, asinine, whatever you want to call it.”
The Gordons have
filed what they hope will be a class-action lawsuit against the U.S.
government on behalf of a growing number of Florida
residents who are having trouble getting their tax refunds because
someone else filed tax returns to obtain fraudulent refunds in their
names.
Read more on Tampa
Bay Online.
War by other means? Isn't an attack on
citizens an act of war? That was our 9/11 argument, right?
Saudi
Hackers claim to post personal information of 400 thousand Israelis
(updated)
January 2, 2012 by admin
Sefi Krupsky and Oded Yaron report:
A hacker claiming
to be a member of a group of Saudi hackers called Group-XP, hacked
into Israel’s leading sports website – One, and posted what he
claims is the personal information – including credit card numbers
– of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
People who visited
One’s website, on Monday, were redirected to a page on pastbay.com,
where a message by a hacker who identified himself as xOmar 0
suggesting visitors download a linked file containing a database of
Israelis and their personal information, including names, addresses,
and credit card, telephone, and ID numbers.
Read more on Haaretz.com.
Ynet
reports that a student who analyzed the data claims that although
there are 400k entries, only 18,000 of them are
unique.
Update Jan. 3: The
Jerusalem Post reports:
The details of
some 15,000 Israeli credit cards were posted on the One sports
website by an international group of hackers. The group targeted
three credit card companies: Isracard, Leumi Card and Cal. The Bank
of Israel clarified that victims of the incident would be protected
under the Debit Card Law.
Additional coverage from The Jerusalem
Post can be found here.
Globes,
an Israeli site, adds:
The hacking of the
ONE website has already been rectified and it is functioning
normally. ONE CEO Udi Milner said, “One of our servers was broken
into tonight. Our IT team identified the breach and neutralized it
within minutes. The matter is being dealt with.”
The Saudi hacker,
who calls himself OxOmar, announced online that he succeeded in
stealing information including names, addresses, id numbers,
telephone numbers, and of course, credit card details including
expiration dates and security numbers listed on the back of the card.
The hacking of the
ONE website was carried out in order to publicize the theft of
Israeli information and the download link. The ONE website does not
store Israeli credit card details. Visitors to ONE’s website are
transferred to a free uncensored text hosting site called PasteBay
which is where the information is located.
Additional coverage can be found on The
Los Angeles Times.
Mandatory “Opt Out!” Well, not
exactly...
California’s
Privacy Class Action Litigation Du Jour: “Shine the Light” Law
January 3, 2012 by Dissent
Theodore J. Kobus III reminds
businesses that trolling lawyers are looking for opportunities to
file class-action lawsuits where statutory damages are available
without any showing of harm:
Privacy class
action litigation is hot in California and a new wave of lawsuits are
being filed under California’s
2003 “Shine the Light” law, codified in Cal. Civ. Code
Section 1798.83.
This privacy law
affects most businesses with as few as 20 employees and allows
individuals to learn about how a business sells and shares their
personal information. Companies that
do business with California residents must either allow their
customers an opportunity to opt out (without charge) of
having their information shared, or the company must make a detailed
disclosure of how personal information was shared in the past
calendar year for direct marketing purposes. For businesses without
a storefront operation, there may be additional requirements for
disclosing the business’s privacy policy, including a detailed
posting on its website.
Read more on Baker Hostetler Data
Privacy Monitor.
No “Arab Spring” in Belarus? (Want
to bet?)
"A new law in Belarus prohibits
people from using 'foreign' websites. The law requires that all
companies and individuals who are registered as entrepreneurs in
Belarus use only domestic Internet domains for providing online
services, conducting sales, or exchanging email messages. The tax
authorities and the secret police are authorized to investigate
violations."
(Related) Is this the same thing but
designed to look like it has popular (if not democratic) support?
"Web surfers in Europe might
soon be asked to 'flag' for law enforcement follow-up any web
content they suspect incites terrorism, under an plan a group of EU
governments has put to the internet industry. The plan asks for
ISPs, search engines, web hosts and everyday users to play a larger
role in identifying suspect content. Google already has a similar
feature on YouTube — will we see it in the browser?"
I can see increased demand for a new
Law School class: “Finding Dirt on Facebook: for fun and profit”
"A recent survey conducted by a
UK based divorce website disclosed that 33
percent of behavior divorce petitions filed cite Facebook as a cause
for filing for divorce in 2011. In 2009 this figure was 20 per cent.
5000 people were surveyed by Divorce-Online, the UK divorce website,
during 2009 and 2011 covering Facebook as a means to check behavior
of spouse with the opposite sex and spouses using the social
networking platform to comment about their exes post the separation.
Three
reasons that came out on the top for listing Facebook in divorce
petition were
inappropriate
messages sent to the opposite sex,
posting nasty
comments about exes, and
friends on
Facebook reporting about spouse's behavior."
An exciting new way to get out of jury
duty?
Man
tries to Facebook friend defendant, removed from jury
… It seems, though, that Jock might
not have found jury duty exciting. He had reportedly already been
posting to his Facebook page that it was actually a little on the
tedious side. Even more touchingly, his friends were reportedly
offering him advice on that very same Facebook page on how to get
himself removed from the jury.
Still, what appears to be fact is that
Jock tried to friend Victoria Milerman, a defendant in a personal
injury civil case.
Jock explained that this had nothing to
do with her pulchritudinous nature. Instead, he told the
Herald-Tribune: "I accidentally friend requested her. I didn't
think it was a big deal. I didn't think I would get picked for the
jury."
Just another time waster?
January 01, 2012
Google
Adds Elections Hub to News Portal
Google.com/Elections:
"From the nineteenth century’s pamphlets to the twentieth
century’s TV ad revolution, our elections have always been shaped
by how we communicate and consume information. There’s no question
that the Internet is set to deliver more political information,
opinion and news than any other medium throughout the 2012 U.S.
elections. The web offers candidate and issue info to voters;
networking and fundraising platforms for campaigns;
and research and productivity tools for journalists.
Today, just in time for the Iowa Caucuses, we’re launching
google.com/elections,
an election hub where citizens can study, watch, discuss, learn
about, participate in and perhaps even make an impact on the digital
campaign trail as it blazes forward to Tuesday, November 6, 2012."
Did you miss any of these?
HBR's
Best Videos, Infographics, Podcasts, and Slideshows of 2011
… Our most-watched video was
"Rethinking
Capitalism" with Harvard Business School professor Michael
Porter.
'cause sometimes these are handy...
Monday, January 2, 2012
… sometimes you might want to
actually capture and draw on a webpage to point out to others
specific elements of that webpage. Here are three free tools for
doing just that.
Awesome
Screenshot is a great Chrome and Safari browser extension for
capturing, annotating, and sharing screenshots
Bounce
is a neat application that not only allows you to make annotated
screen captures of websites but also allows you to instantly share
those screen captures with others.
Markup.io
is a free service that enables you to quickly draw and write on any
webpage.
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