How much is encryption worth?
By Dissent,
September 20, 2012
Michelle McNickle reports:
The recent data
breach at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Associates once again screams the message:
Encryption, encryption, encryption! The provider has agreed to pay a
$1.5 million fine to theDepartment
of Health and Human Services (HHS), after allegations were made
that Mass. Eye and Ear failed to comply with certain requirements of
the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards that govern
the security of individually identifiable health information.
Read more on InformationWeek.
We've been trying to reduce paperwork,
like warrants...
LAPD
Joins Feds In Skirting Fourth Amendment With Cell Phone Tracking
Devices
September 21, 2012 by Dissent
Tim Cushing reports that the use of
software such as StingRay to triangulate
and determine cell phone location is on the rise:
local law
enforcement members have been availing themselves of them. LA
Weekly, using recently obtained FOIA documents, discovered that the
Los Angeles Police Department (along with police in Miami, Ft.
Worth and Gilbert, AZ) has obtained and deployed the questionable
StingRay.
Read more on TechDirt,
keeping in mind that Congress failed again to update ECPA and the
Governor of California has had a bill sitting on his desk for almost
a month that would require a warrant for cell phone location data.
He has neither signed the bill into law nor vetoed it.
(Related) From almost a year ago...
DoJ:
Stingray cellphone tracking device falls under Fourth Amendment, but
don't ask about it
This allows “Traffic Analysis” (to
determine who the terrorists are talking to) but won't be able to
tell if they are ordering an attack or a pizza...
AU:
ASIO, Roxon defend data-retention proposal
September 21, 2012 by Dissent
Shipping data overseas is not the only
Australian proposal generating controversy these days. Josh Taylor
reports:
Following
widespread
criticism of the government’s
proposal to require internet service providers (ISPs) to retain
unspecified customer data for up to two years, the Australian
Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and Attorney-General Nicola
Roxon have taken the unusual step of releasing public submissions on
the proposal, defending the need to retain the data.
Read more on ZDNet.
[From the article:
In the submission, published yesterday,
Roxon said that she didn't have a "specific data-retention
model" planned at this stage, but that the government does not
intend for the content of communications data, such as emails, SMS
messages, or phone calls, to be included in the scheme.
Roxon pointed to the controversial
EU Directive on Data Retention that was created in 2004, which
requires companies to keep a log of the source, destination, date,
time, duration, type, and the equipment used in making the
communication for between 6 and 24 months.
(Related) “If you don't know how to
control it, ban it!”
AU:
Coalition joins fight against privacy law reform
September 21, 2012 by Dissent
One argument I often hear against
privacy reform is that it will stifle innovation or commerce. In
Australia, proposed reform would almost certainly do that. Jane Lee
and Georgia Wilkins report:
The Coalition has
joined big banks and telcos in their fight against proposed
laws that aim to prevent them from sharing personal information about
customers with companies overseas.
Government
amendments to the Privacy Act would restrict companies from sending
valuable information about customers’ credit-worthiness offshore –
unless the receiver was formed in, or controlled from, Australia.
This would affect
companies that outsource information to international call centres,
data-processing centres and data stored in the cloud.
Read more on The
Age.
“Holy Mackerel, Batman!” OR TSA
strikes again! (Because we heard Al Queida is developing a bait fish
bomb.)
Would-be terrorists hoping to sneak
weapons and other contraband through U.S. ports on and in the hulls
of ships may be thwarted by a robotic tuna fish under development for
the government.
Insight! How to game the cy
pres decision make sure you are fairly
considered for a share of cy pres funds.
Settlement
in Facebook Beacon case upheld
September 21, 2012 by Dissent
A challenge to the Ninth Circuit’s
approval of the settlement in the Facebook Beacon class action
lawsuit has failed. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals writes:
The question
presented is whether the district court abused its discretion in
approving the parties’ $9.5 million settlement agreement as “fair,
reasonable, and adequate,” either because a Facebook employee sits
on the board of the organization distributing cy pres funds
or because the settlement amount was too low. We hold that it did
not.
Read the opinion in Ginger McCall
v. Facebook here.
It sheds light on
how the court views cy
pres awards
when there are a number of organizations that are relevant to the
nexus of the complaint.
Wendy Davis of MediaPost
covers the decision and reports that McCall is deciding whether to
appeal.
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