Are these “We may have been hacked”
notices part of a preventive legal strategy or are they an attempt to
gather further information? I suspect the former, which means that
security breaches are finally showing on the legal radar...
WV:
City computers possibly hacked
January 20, 2012 by admin
Beth Sergent reports:
The City of Point
Pleasant may’ve been hacked.
According to a
press release from Mayor Brian Billings on Friday morning, the City
of Point Pleasant was notified from an outside agency
[i.e. the city had no clue? Bob] of a potential security
breach of its computer system. Billings’ statement said the
apparent breach was originated from an outside source.
Upon learning of
the potential breach, city officials immediately contacted the West
Virginia State Police who began an official investigation into the
matter.
Read more on Point
Pleasant Register.
[From the article:
“At the direction of the West
Virginia State Police, no further comment will be made by the City
due to the ongoing nature of the investigation,” Billings said.
[So it is possible the announcement was to gather
information Bob]
It remains unclear what
information, if any, was obtained during the apparent breach,
whether financial records, employee or customer records, or all of
the above.
(Related)
MA:
Retailer says it could have been hit by card info breach
January 20, 2012 by admin
Trevor Jones reports:
Ward’s Nursery &
Garden Center may be one of the businesses
at the center of a security breach resulting in fraudulent purchases
this month made with dozens of locals’ credit and debit cards.
Gregory Ward,
co-owner of the South Main Street store, said his
company was contacted by a bank regarding the possible
security breach, after which Ward’s immediately reached out to law
enforcement officials.
The exact number
of cardholders who’ve been affected is unknown at this time. But
it’s believed dozens of customers from various local and national
banks had their credit or debit card information stolen and used to
make fraudulent purchases around the world. It’s possible that
hundreds of customers’ information was stolen over
a two-month period concluding last week. [How could they conclude
that the thefts have ended? Bob]
Read more on The
Berkshire Eagle.
[From the article:
Ward stressed
that he isn't certain if the fraudulent activity can be tied to
Ward's, but his company has taken steps to shore up its security
systems.
… One local
bank official said on Thursday that the breach could be tied to a
single business, though the official declined to identify it.
…
Investigating officers from the Great Barrington Police Department
were unavailable on Friday. [These cops apparently
didn't ask for silence... Bob]
Someone knows what happened!
SU
shuts down online access after security breach
January 20, 2012 by admin
Anne Ryman reports:
Arizona State
University plans to have its online computer system back up by 7 p.m.
Thursday at the latest, following a security breach that forced a
shutdown.
On Wednesday
evening, ASU students and employees were told in a security text
alert that the university’s ASURITE computer system may have been
compromised and that all online services had been suspended.
This is the
university’s main online system, where students and employees put
in their passwords to log in and access classes and other services.
More than 300,000 people have accounts through the
system. [Wikipedia says they have just over 72,000 students, where do
the others come form? Alumni? Bob]
ASU
officials said an encrypted file containing user names and passwords
was downloaded Wednesday by an unknown person outside the university.
[Oh look! They know what happened and they encrypt their files!
They must actually practice what the teach! Bob] There
is no evidence that any information has been compromised, but all
online services were shut down as a precaution.
Read more on Tucson
Citizen. The system was subsequently restored.
[Quite a complicated
password reset schedule, described at:
http://asunews.asu.edu/emergencyinfo
Amazon again. Poor guys could probably
use some help from a Foundation they helped create...
Customer
data breach draws federal lawsuit against Nevada-based Zappos, parent
company Amazon
January 21, 2012 by admin
Associated Press reports:
Online retailers
Amazon.com and Zappos.com are being sued in Kentucky by a Texas woman
alleging that she and millions of other customers were harmed by the
release of personal account information.
[...]
Attorneys for
plaintiff Theresa D. Stevens of Beaumont, Texas, are seeking
class-action status on behalf of 24 million customers for what the
lawsuit alleges was a violation of the federal Fair Credit Reporting
Act.
Read more from AP in the Washington
Post.
Harmed how? From the story, there’s
no actual harm alleged at this point other than an increased risk of
harm, which courts have generally not recognized, and emotional
distress, which they also have not recognized. I guess we’ll have
to wait and see if this lawsuit also gets dismissed.
You can probably obscure your
involvement if you can make academics and law enforcement hack for
you. But then, every security professor needs a trophy subpoena...
Anonymous
Tricks Bystanders Into Attacking Justice Department
… A version of Anonymous’
voluntary
botnet software, known as LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Canon), was
modified to make it not so voluntary, drafting unwary bystanders,
journalists and even anons who don’t support DDoS tactics into
attacks on the U.S. Justice Department. Thursday’s trickery seems
not to have been central to the successful takedown of sites like
justice.gov, RIAA.com and MPAA.com, but not all anons are pleased
with forcing unwitting bystanders to join in a potentially illegal
action.
They will let me keep all those law
professor accounts, won't they? (Or will I have to threaten a Class
Action suit – I have enough aliases to form a Class)
Google
Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form
Google is experimenting with a new
signup form that eliminates the ability to create anonymous accounts.
The new form is part of an effort to expand the Google+ social
network by automatically adding every new Google account to Google+.
Because Google+ requires a name and gender the new signup form
effectively eliminates the anonymous Google account.
The new
account creation page can be found by following the links on
Google’s homepage.
O Canada
Our home and profitable land
Anthem of Canadian Class
Action Lawyers...
Ca:
Welcome to the new tort of ‘intrusion upon seclusion’
January 20, 2012 by Dissent
Heather Gardiner reports:
The Ontario Court
of Appeal has opened a Pandora’s box by recognizing a privacy tort
of “intrusion upon seclusion,” says one intellectual property
lawyer.
In Jones
v. Tsige, Sandra Jones and Winnie Tsige worked
at different branches of the Bank of Montréal but did not know each
other. Tsige began a relationship with Jones’ former husband and
over a period of four years, Tsige accessed Jones’ personal bank
accounts 174 times. Jones sued Tsige for invasion of privacy and
breach of fiduciary duty, and sought $20,000 in damages.
The Ontario
Superior Court dismissed Jones’ claim because there was no law in
Ontario that recognized a tort of invasion of privacy prior to the
Court of Appeal’s ruling.
By accepting this
new “intrusion upon seclusion” tort into Ontario law, Mark Hayes,
of Hayes eLaw LLP, says the court has opened the
floodgates for all kinds of invasion of privacy cases that were not
previously recognized. [Cool! Bob]
Read more on Legal
Feeds.
[From the article:
… “The key features of this cause
of action are, first, that the defendant’s conduct must be
intentional, within which I would include reckless; second that the
defendant must have invaded, without lawful justification, the
plaintiff’s private affairs or concerns; and third, that a
reasonable person would regard the invasion as highly offensive
causing distress, humiliation or anguish,” Justice Robert Sharpe
wrote in the ruling.
… The court also placed a $20,000
limit on the damages to be awarded to any individual under this new
tort. In this case, Jones was awarded damages of $10,000.
Although a $20,000 cap seems relatively
low, Hayes says it opens the floodgates for privacy class actions
seeking a much higher amount. “What’s going to happen is you’re
going to have claims that are being brought in respect of
organizations or individuals who are alleged to have committed this
tort against hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, millions of
people through data breaches, through investigations, through other
things, and class action lawyers will be then asserting claims on the
basis of $20,000 for each of those people.”
Interesting idea. What would you
compare it to? Is “best software available” sufficient or should
we shoot for “actually works, usually?” Should there be
certification of all Medical Device software?
"Lawyer Karen Sandler's heart
condition means she needs a pacemaker to ward off sudden death.
Instead of trusting that the vendor will create a flawless platform
for the device to operate, Sandler has demanded
to see the device's source code. Sandler's reasoning brings into
question the device's reliably, stability, and oddly enough,
security."
Interesting. I think the larger map of
Colorado proves beyond doubt that Kansas sucks...
January 19, 2012
DOE
provides detailed onshore wind resource map
"Wind Powering America (a DOE
program initiative) publishes an onshore wind resource map for the
United States, at 80 meters above ground and with resolution down to
2.5 meters. This map
was updated in March 2010, the first comprehensive update of U.S.
wind energy potential since 1993. The 2010 update to the wind
resource map raised the height at which the measurements were taken
from 50 to 80 meters above ground, addressing updates in turbine
technology and showing an increase in the total wind capacity
resource of the continental United States."
For my Statistics students.
January 19, 2012
Bizjournals
- Men hold educational advantage in 485 markets, women in 431
"Bizjournals On Numbers compared
the educational attainment of men and women in 942 metropolitan and
micropolitan areas, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010
American Community Survey. The percentage of
men possessing four-year college degrees is higher than the
comparable percentage of women in 485 markets. But women hold the
educational edge in 431 metros and micros. The two sexes broke even
in the remaining 26 markets. The accompanying database (scroll to
end of article) contains complete breakdowns for all 942 areas. Use
the tab to isolate a single state, or simply hit Search to see the
top-to-bottom rankings. The list can be re-sorted by clicking any
column header. (Click a second time to reverse the sort.)"
For all my future lawyers (God help
them)
January 20, 2012
Winter
2012 Law School Transparency Index Report
- "As a new year unfolds and the debate about legal education reform continues, efforts in furtherance of law school transparency remain critical. While transparency of law schools' post-graduation employment data will not solve all of legal education’s problems, it can put pressure on the current law school model and thereby act as a catalyst for broader legal education reform. This is true whether it occurs through the process of seeking transparency or because of the information that such disclosure ultimately reveals. Having had their long-standing practice of withholding basic consumer information called into question, law schools have responded with new attempts at disclosure in advance of the ABA’s new requirements. Adequate disclosure should be easy to achieve; law schools have possessed ample information, in an easy publishable format, for many months. But as the findings of this report show, the vast majority of U.S. law schools are still hiding critical information from their applicants.
- This report reflects LST’s analysis of the class of 2010 employment information available on ABA-approved law school websites in early January 2012."
Internet Economics: Are we talking
cash or “box tops?”
"Facebook's 27-year-old
founder, Mark Zuckerberg, isn't usually mentioned in the same breath
as Ben Bernanke, the 58-year-old head of the Federal Reserve. But
Facebook's early adventures in the money-creating business are going
well enough that the central-bank comparison gets tempting. ...
Initially, the Credits-based economy was confined to the virtual
world’s trifles. Credits could be spent to buy imaginary gold bars
for aficionados of Mafia Wars, or bouquets of
virtual flowers for birthday postings on friends’ Facebook
accounts. This new form of digital money was cute but essentially
useless for mainstream activities. Lately Credits have become more
intriguing. Warner Brothers this summer offered movie-goers a chance
to watch Harry Potter and The Dark
Knight for 30 Credits apiece. Miramax and Paramount
countered with film-viewing offers, too. In a provocative post this
week on Inside Facebook, guest blogger Peter Vogel argues that
Credits
in the next few years will become more of a true currency.
Facebook's 800 million worldwide users represent a lot of buying
power. He figures Credits could evolve into commercial mainstays for
digital movies and music."
Bless George Lucas for allowing this.
A great way to waste 2 hours...
Finally!
The 'Star Wars Uncut' director's cut is here
This is "Star
Wars Uncut," a project to remake George Lucas' 1977 classic,
entirely from fan-made scenes. And while the in-progress results
have been available all along for all to see, the project's
developers had never publicly released their finished product. Until
now.
You know you might be a geek when:
Useful MindMap?
Friday, January 20, 2012
A few months ago I wrote Playing
With Pearltrees - A Great Way to Organize the Web. Last night I
was exploring Pearltrees again when I came across a Pearltree titled
Free Technology for Teachers. While the name is the same as my blog,
I did not have anything to do with creating that particular
Pearltree. That said, many of the resources cataloged in the Free
Technology for Teachers Pearltree are excellent resources that I
have used and or written about here in the past. If you're looking
for a good visual collection of technology resources, take a look at
the Pearltree
embedded below.
I expect a ton of heated back and
forth, pro and con, and even outright fisticuffs on this topic. Here
a just a few of the stories...
iPad
a Solid Education Tool, Study Reports
More and more schools are jumping on
the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the
classroom. Apple’s education-related
announcements yesterday will no doubt bolster the trend, making
faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.
But today another data point emerged,
demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In
a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1
courses, and found that 20 percent more students (78
percent compared to 59 percent) scored ‘Proficient’ or ‘Advanced’
in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper
textbook counterparts.
… In the public school sector, more
than 600
school districts have adopted a 1:1 iPad program. [There
are about 15,000 public school districts in the United States Bob]
(Related)
How
Will Teachers Pay For Apple's New iBooks? Sites Like DonorsChoose.Org
… While the new books will be much
cheaper than regular textbooks, iPad prices remain $499 to $829,
depending on connectivity options and amount of storage.
One way to help bridge the gap:
nonprofits like DonorsChoose.org,
which matches donors with teachers in need of supplies.
[Might be easier to
start “The Institute for Teaching Technologies” and look for
Grants Bob]
(Related) I told you there would be a
flip side...
Opinion:
Why Apple’s iBooks Initiatives Won’t Revolutionize Education
… The core focus of business is to
address a problem. And the problem in education when it comes to the
digital space isn’t a lack of content or publishing solutions; the
problem is discovering quality.
Education has enough content. There is
more generic content out there for any individual subject than is
possible to know. There are digitally proficient teachers who
customize and repackage that content and those tools in ways that are
appropriate for the students in their classes — from kindergartens
and high schools into colleges and universities. Anyone in education
knows there is a fast-growing community of teachers online doing
their best to share the best tools, the best content and the best
news ideas that they can. But what educators and parents alike are
asking is, “Where do I find the best-quality content?”
Useful to have?
