Medium sized, but worth a mention...
Last month, Schnucks Markets,
a multi-state chain of grocery markets, disclosed that customers at
some of its stores had become victims of card fraud. I duly entered
the reports in DataLossDB.org, but didn’t post anything on this
blog.
This past week, I emailed Schnucks to
ask for some more details. They declined to answer any specifics,
but just today issued a statement that does address some of the
questions I had posed to them:
Leaders of St.
Louis-based Schnuck Markets, Inc., today announced that between
December 2012 and March 29, 2013, approximately 2.4 million credit
and debit cards used at 79 of its 100 stores may have been
compromised. The company emphasizes that only the card number and
expiration date would have been accessed – not the
cardholder’s name, address or any other identifying information.
Schnucks has
posted a list
of the 79 stores and specific dates for each store at
www.schnucks.com. In
addition, Schnucks has distributed a timeline
of the actions taken to investigate, find, contain, and share
information about the cyber-attack, as well as a personal video
message from Chairman and CEO Scott Schnuck.
“On behalf of
myself, the Schnuck family, and all of our 15,000 teammates, I
apologize to everyone affected by this incident,” said Scott
Schnuck.
… Schnucks has
worked with its payment processor to make sure all potentially
affected card numbers are sent to the credit card companies so that
they may continue sending alerts to the issuing banks. Those
banks will then be able to take steps to protect their cardholders,
such as adding enhanced transaction monitoring or reissuing a new
card. Many banks have already taken these steps.
“Customers have
asked me if it is safe to shop at Schnucks,” continued Schnuck.
“Yes, we believe it is, and we will work hard to keep it that way.”
… Schnucks
provided the Secret Service and FBI with information about the
methods and tools used by the attacker and has worked and will
continue to partner with law enforcement to apprehend those
responsible.
The press release incorporates an FAQ
for consumers.
This is an example of good
transparency by a breached entity. They disclosed the breach as
soon as they became aware of it (even if it took from December to
March to become aware of it and even though they had to be told by
their card processor to look for a breach), and they updated their
reports by revealing more of what they found as they found it,
including the numbers affected.
What makes sense and what is legal
don't always agree...
V. John Ella of Jackson Lewis writes:
The Fourth
District Court of Appeal for the State of California expanded the
tort of “public disclosure of private facts” under that state’s
common law right to privacy in a case involving a claim by an
employee against her supervisor and employer. Ignat
v. Yum! Brands, Inc. et al, No. G046434, (Cal. Ct. App.
March 18, 2013). The plaintiff in that case suffered from bi-polar
disorder and occasionally missed work due to the side effects of
medication adjustments. After returning from such an absence, the
plaintiff alleged that her supervisor had informed everyone in her
department about her medical condition and that, as a result, she was
“shunned” and a co-worker asked if she was going to “go
postal.” The plaintiff filed suit alleging a single cause of
action for invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts.
Read more on Lexology.
This is a good case for all employers to consider, as the issue of
how much co-workers can be told if an employee is out on medical
leave or for other personal reasons comes up fairly frequently. To
avoid possible legal problems, it would make sense (to me, anyway)
for an employer to ask the employee, “Your colleagues are concerned
about you – how much do you want me to tell them about what’s
going on?”
Now you can't even trust a pigeon...
"SHEPHERD-MIL, a UAV
which looks like a native bird with the same flight performance,
will be featured at HOMSEC 2013. This UAV is characterized by the
glide-ratio and noiseless motor that make it invisible, silent and
unobtrusive in sensitive missions. SHEPHERD-MIL is equipped with
cameras and geolocation software. The system is especially suitable
for border surveillance missions, firefighting, and anti-drug
trafficking operations amongst others."
We'll probably need at least one in
every state.
"Twenty-five
miles due south of Salt Lake City, a massive construction project is
nearing completion. The heavily secured site belongs to the National
Security Agency. The NSA says the
Utah Data Center is a facility for the intelligence community
that will have a major focus on cyber security. Some published
reports suggest it could
hold 5 zettabytes of data. Asked if the Utah Data Center would
hold the data of American citizens, Alexander [director of the NSA]
said, 'No...we don't hold data on U.S. citizens,' adding that the NSA
staff 'take protecting your civil liberties and privacy as the most
important thing that they do, and securing this nation.' But
critics, including former NSA employees, say the data center is front
and center in the debate over liberty, security and privacy."
According to University of Utah
computing professor Matthew Might, one thing is clear about the Utah
Data Center, it
means good paying jobs. "The federal government is giving
money to the U.'s programming department to develop jobs to fill the
NSA building," he says.
Inevitiable, I suppose. And lots of
people who don't know better will welcome this model.
Why
Facebook Could Finance Your Next Phone
Facebook Home was released last week
for six new high-end smartphones. But Facebook isn’t going to make
its mobile platform ubiquitous by targeting pricier devices; it needs
to blanket the low end of the market too. Which is why you should
expect the social network to start outright subsidizing smartphone
and even tablet purchases.
Facebook unveiled
its Facebook Home “apperating
system” earlier this month, pitching it as a way to move the
focus of mobile phone and tablets from software to people. The device
should be a boon to users who spend a lot of time chatting and
swapping photos on Facebook, but businesses will soon benefit, too:
Facebook plans to show advertisements right on the lock screen of the
device, interspersed with photos and status updates.
… Here’s how it might work:
Facebook could offer to pay mobile subscribers’ out-of-pocket costs
for a device like, say, the $200 Samsung Galaxy Note II. In
exchange, Facebook Home would be allowed to show advertisements a bit
more often on the device and to report back a bit more tracking data
than it normally does (Facebook says Facebook Home tracks only the
same data as Facebook’s mobile app, plus some anonymized app
launching stats on rare occasion).
Facebook wouldn’t be the first
company to offer ad-supported discounts on digital devices. Amazon
does this already, knocking
roughly 30 percent off the price of a Kindle e-reader for those
willing to accept ads on the lock screen and holding down the price
of its Kindle Fire tablet by showing ads on all
of them. If you think about it, the entire ecosystem of devices
running the Android operating system is advertising subsidized, since
Google only gives away the mobile OS as a way of getting its ads into
more smartphones and tablets.
As long as they don't price it like
Cable TV...
Prepare
Your Eyeballs: E-Book Subscriptions Are Coming
E-books are getting the Spotify
subscription model.
Books have long been the last holdout
as music, movies, games and even TV shows and magazines have embraced
the subscription model. Pay a single monthly fee and you can gorge
on all the content you can cram into your eyes and ears. But on
Tuesday, Tim Waterstone, the founder of the UK bookstore Waterstones,
announced Read Petite, a subscription streaming service for short
fiction. It’s a baby step toward a new model that could shake up
an industry that has seen traditional books losing ground to e-books,
which comprised 22.5
percent of the book market in 2012.
… Waterson’s Read Petite would
give readers unlimited access to available book for a few bucks a
month. The service will launch this fall, and it will be interesting
to see how it is received by readers and, more importantly,
publishers.
One publisher that’s already on board
is F+W Media.
It offers subscriptions for its library of design, writing reference
and romance genres — genres that lend themselves to the all-you-can
eat subscription model, said Chad Phelps, chief digital officer.
… While specific genres lend
themselves to a subscription service, there is a market for the
two-three book a week reader. It’s just a question
of who will act first and how.
Could this be useful in our programming
classes?
"The Internet Archive has a
great collection of books, music, visual items and websites but, it
had one thing lacking up until now – software. This has changed
recently as The Internet Archive now claims to hold
the largest collection of software in the world. The expansion
at the Internet Archive has come through collaboration with other
independent archives like the Disk
Drives collection, the FTP
site boneyard, Shareware
CD Archive, and the TOSEC
archive. The archive doesn't hold just the
software – it also holds documentation as well."
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