Another unencrypted laptop stolen. I
try not to report too many of these – but I don't want anyone to
think the frequency of laptop theft has dropped either. Or the
frequency with which management fails to ensure they are encrypted.
Renee Slandera reports
that the William Jennings
Bryan Dorn VA Medical Center
in Columbia, South Carolina is notifying more than 7,000
patients that a laptop stolen from the
Respiratory Therapy Department in February contained their names,
dates of birth, and partial Social Security numbers.
Since the laptop
was stolen, Dorn officials say all laptops connected to medical
devices have been protected.
Why the heck weren’t they already
protected before now?
WIS has uploaded a copy of the
notification letter, here.
It indicates that the laptop was discovered missing on February 11,
and may also have included patients’ weight, race, and the results
of their respiratory tests.
“It doesn't have to be true, it only
has to fool the voters!”
"Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)
should know better. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
claimed to told NBC News that the Operation Ababil U.S. bank
disruption DDoS campaign could be stopped, if
only private businesses had unfettered access to top-flight U.S.
government threat intelligence. Not coincidentally, Rogers is
the author of CISPA (now v2.0), a bill that would provide legal
immunity for businesses that share threat data with the government,
while allowing intelligence agencies to use it for 'national
security' purposes, thus raising the ire of privacy rights groups.
Just one problem: Numerous security experts have rubbished Rogers'
assertion that threat intelligence would have any effect on banks'
ability to defend themselves. The bank disruptions aren't
cutting-edge or stealthy. They're just about packets overwhelming
targeted sites, despite what Congressionally delivered
intelligence [I like that
phrase Bob] might suggest."
(Related)
House
to amend CISPA in secret
Now is a good time to ask for more
money to “solve the gun problem.”
The
ATF Wants ‘Massive’ Online Database to Find Out Who Your Friends
Are
The ATF doesn’t just want a huge
database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It
wants one that can find out who you know. And it won’t even try to
friend you on Facebook first.
According to a recent solicitation from
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau
is looking to buy a “massive
online data repository system” for its Office of Strategic
Intelligence and Information (OSII).
… A follow-up document from the ATF
clarifies a few things. The database will not “consolidate
multiple databases” the ATF already has access to — like
LexisNexis
and Thomas Reuters. The
bureau is seeking to buy an existing database
system and not fund the development of a completely new one.
This is just one reason why I'm proud
to be FROM, (as in, far from) New Jersey...
Remember that ridiculous
lawsuit by Vernon Township against individuals to whom it had
accidentally released employees’ Social Security numbers? There’s
an update. Jessica Masulli Reyes reports:
The individuals
who received the Social Security numbers of 119 Vernon employees were
ordered by a judge to sign certification saying that the confidential
information was deleted and not disseminated.
But, in turn,
state Superior Court Judge Edward Gannon determined on Friday that
Vernon, which filed the suit, must pay all of the individuals’
attorney and court costs, while also creating a township corrective
action plan to ensure the release of private information does not
happen again.
Read more on the New
Jersey Herald. Apparently, the township had a brief shining
moment of rational thought after their initial intention to sue for
invasion of privacy:
Vernon initially
accused the individuals and newspaper of tampering with the document
to unveil the hidden columns in the computer spreadsheet, but Kelly
later said that this was no longer the case and did not include it in
a brief field with the court.
All in all, this is still one of the
stupidest lawsuits I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a bunch. The
township should have just asked the recipients to delete the files
from their drives and sign a certificate saying they had done so.
Instead, the town jumped to a heavy-handed approach that may have
defamed the hapless recipients of the township’s breach. So now in
addition to the costs of offering credit monitoring to the 119
employees whose SSN were disclosed, the town also incurred court
costs for itself and the defendants.
Just. Plain. Stupid.
Clearly, “French intelligence”
is 'le oxymoron” which will invoke the “effet Streisand.”
"The French domestic
intelligence agency DCRI has forced a Wikipedia administrator to
delete an article about a local military base. The administrator,
who is also the president of Wikimédia France, has been threatened
by the agency with immediate reprisals after his initial refusal to
comply. Following a discussion
on the administrator's noticeboard, the article (which is said to
violate a law on the secrecy of the national defense) has been
reinstated
by a foreign user. Prior to pressuring the admin, DCRI contacted the
Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which refused
to remove the article. WMF claimed the article only
contained publicly available information, in accordance
with Wikipedia's verifiability policy. While the consequences for
Wikimedia's community remain unclear, one thing is certain: The
military base article – now available
in English – will get more public awareness than
ever before."
This is typical of the confusion we
have in this country over guns. My experience with “wet paper”
ammunition was called a 'spitball” and required only an easily
concealed straw and a mouthful of paper. It was unlikely to cause an
overreaction (school lockdown and the SWAT team) Can't wait to see
how bad this could become.
This
DIY Cardboard Rifle Can Fire Paper Pellets 75 Feet
Paper pellets make great projectiles —
just ask any schoolkid. Paper
Shooters, rifles made primarily out of cardboard, can fire those
paper pellets up to a distance of 75 feet, lending a degree of
professionalism to a pursuit that is usually more of a hobby.
Developed by a team of designers that
includes former Nerf engineers, in collaboration with Bang
Creations, the Paper Shooters kit comes with all the tools needed
to build the working gun. Apart from the plastic firing mechanism,
the gun is pretty much all cardboard, and the three varieties —
Digital Ops, Golden Touch and Zombie Slayer — look surprisingly
realistic (although perhaps only if you’re James Bond in the case
of Golden Touch).
The creators have just launched an
Indiegogo campaign
for $72.000, to satisfy the minimum order number required to begin
manufacturing kits in China, and to raise additional funds for
further die-cutting tools and molds.
“I’m an entrepreneurial 29-year-old
from Manchester who loves designing new products,” said Mike
Howarth of Team Paper Shooters by email. “This is my first product
— designed initially in my apartment — and has just blossomed
from there into a really great piece of kit. This is my first
product, although there are lots more to come!”
Each kit contains a plastic firing
mechanism and skeleton, layers of cardboard “skin” for the gun
that are either glued or clipped on, eight gold shells, 50 pieces of
pre-made ammunition, a mold for making new ammunition out of paper
(any soft paper will do) and a target in the shape of a zombie’s
head.
Howarth said: “The plastic is merely
a ‘skeleton’ (minimum amount) as it shoots wet paper ammo that
the user makes themselves.” The soft paper pellet ammunition fits
into cartridges the shape of real bullets, and creating a cardboard
gun that could handle moisture was a particular challenge.
The cartridge casings eject out of the
side every time the user reloads, just like a real semiautomatic
rifle. Apparently, the pellets have aerodynamic qualities similar to
Airsof rounds
(“the accuracy is very good up to 65 feet [20m], then probably
drops slightly after that,” says Howarth), so they are actually
quite dangerous if not treated with respect. It’s very much for
teenagers, not children, with an age guidance of 14-years-old and up.
According to Howarth, “the ‘gunsmith experience’ is definitely
the main selling point”.
Also, while the kits come predesigned,
“users can absolutely print their own card frame as we supply
the card template blueprints via email with every kit,” Howarth
said.
It’s not quite 3D-printing
an actual gun, but it’s a lot safer and a lot more legal.
(Related)
Meet
the 'Crypto Anarchist' Who Wants Everyone to Print Their Own Guns
Just because you have the ability to 3D
print guns, doesn't, of course, mean that you have to. But -- law of
large numbers -- somebody is going to. And that somebody isn't just
going to print their own guns, but they're going to make it their
cause, and devote their time and energy to making sure other people
can too. That person, in America today, is 25-year-old Cody R.
Wilson.
Motherboard's excellent
documentary, above, has
given us a deep dive into the mind of this person -- his
political beliefs, his hopes, the ideologies he seeks to undo. What
you see is someone who is deeply engaged in the ideas behind his
project; someone who isn't just making, but who sees his creations as
political acts, as arguments. He directly says: "We're trying
to prove a point."
Tools for my Ethical Hackers.
Wi-Fi Guard is a great little piece of
freeware that works on Windows, Mac and Linux with the aim of making
your home Wi-Fi connection more secure. It works by detecting
currently connected devices and notifying you when new devices show
up on your network. This makes it easy to detect if someone else has
connected to your wireless without you knowing.
My weekly amusement...
… A new bill proposed in the
California state legislature would create a fourth
division of the state’s higher education system. According to The
Chronicle of Higher Education, it would establish the “New
University of California,” “an institution with no
faculty and no tuition that, like the University of California,
would be governed by a board of 11 trustees and one chancellor.”
… The open-access publishing
startup Unglue.it
(one of my picks for the
best education startups of 2012) announced this week that
textbook publisher De
Gruyter will offer 100 of its titles on the crowdfunding
platform. Books that raise $2100 will be “unglued” —
released in a DRM-free digital format under a Creative Commons
license.
… The
Saylor Foundation announced
that it’s made agreements with 7 colleges and universities that
will offer transfer credits to students who pass
exams after taking Saylor’s free online courses. The
institutions: Charter Oak State College, The City University of New
York (CUNY) Baccalaureate for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies,
Colorado Technical
University, Excelsior College, Granite State
College, Thomas Edison State College, and the University of Maryland
- University College; and the classes are Corporate
Communications, Western Political Thought, and Business Law &
Ethics.
… Arizona
Phoenix College
math instructor James Sousa has posted some 2,600 video tutorials
online, all under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Sousa, who has been
teaching math for 15+ years, has posted all the work on YouTube as
well as on MyOpenMath.com. More details via the Creative
Commons blog.
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