Interesting
wording. (Only the Lakewood CO store was hit.)
P.F.
Chang's: 33 restaurants affected in data breach
The
restaurant chain P.F. Chang's China Bistro said Monday a security
breach first reported in June may have led to the theft of customer
data from credit and debit cards used at 33 restaurants.
An
intruder may have stolen card numbers and possibly names and
expiration dates of customers's credit and debit cards used over the
course of about 8 months. But the
chain has not determined that any specific card holders' data was
stolen. [Another way to say that: “We have no idea what was
taken.” Bob]
In
Monday's statement the chain updated its progress in investigating a
breach
first reported in June. The statement said all
card data has been processed securely at all locations since June 11.
The
security breach of their card processing systems occurred between
October 19th of 2013, and June 11th of 2014, one
day after the Secret Service made the company aware of the breach.
[“It's not like we can just turn off our compromised systems...
Well, we could, but then we'd have to process the cards manually and
that's like boring dude.” Bob]
…
If you dined at any of the listed
locations, between the dates noted, you are
strongly advised to review your financial records to determine if any
fraudulent activity has occurred since that time.
The
“Oops!” just keep coming.
Myles
Udland reports:
Target’s data
breach just got more expensive.
In
a statement, the retailer said its second quarter earnings will
include a $148 million charge related to losses regarding the massive
data breach which occurred during last year’s holiday shopping
season. This is more than the company previously estimated.
Read
more on BusinessInsider
Gamers
in Philadelphia are crooks? Thumbprints ensure the games haven't
been stolen? “We're just gathering data for the next thing in
Behavioral Advertising – 'Bail Bond ads!'”
Steve
Tawa reports:
The big video game retailer, GameStop, is now requiring its customers
in Philadelphia, but not in
the suburbs, to provide a fingerprint scan on certain
transactions.
When GameStop buys used video games from customers, the chain says it
is following a local law that allows the store to collect thumb
prints, which go into a
database to help law enforcement track down thieves who fence stolen
goods.
City Solicitor Shelley Smith says, however, the city is not requiring
GameStop to abide by the pawnbroker’s ordinance:
“What GameStop does doesn’t meet any of the elements of the
definition in the code, so the pawnbreaker ordinance doesn’t apply
to GameStop.”
Read
more on CBS
Philly.
[From
the article:
The
Philadelphia Police Department says the company is being proactive by
storing fingerprints in a secure database – LeadsOnline – which
is the nation’s largest online investigation system.
Still
want to allow BYOD in your corporation?
Most
Top Free and Paid Mobile Apps Pose Threat to Enterprises: Report
Mobile
app risk management solutions provider Appthority has analyzed 400 of
the most popular free and paid applications for Android and iOS
devices and presented the results in a report released on Monday.
The
risky behaviors identified by the company are related to the type of
data that's collected, and where the data is going, not outright
malware risks. According to Appthority's App Reputation Report for
the summer of 2014, most apps collect information on the user's
location, they access the address book and the calendar, they
identify the user based on the device's IMEI or UDID, and they're
capable of performing in-app purchases. The collected data can go to
ad networks, social networks, third-party analytic frameworks,
third-party crash reporting SDKs, and public cloud file storage
providers.
…
according
to F-Secure's Q1
2014 Mobile Threat Report, more than 99 percent of new mobile
threats discovered by the security firm in the first quarter of 2014
targeted Android users.
…
Last
summer, researchers from Bitdefender unveiled
research that also found iOS apps to be just as invasive and
curious about user data as Android apps are.
…
The
complete 2014 App Reputation Report from Appthority is available for
download
in PDF format.
Schools
apparently have little or no resistance to salesmen. Wouldn't it be
much simpler (and cheaper) to give the teachers an App that allowed
them to do everything related to teaching and grading? (Note to
reporters: The bracelets don't track student behavior, they record
teacher opinions.)
Abbie
Napier reports:
A North Canterbury school’s plan to fit students with microchip
bracelets to track their behaviour has prompted concern among
parents.
Swannanoa School wants to use silicon bracelets as part of a scheme
to reward good behaviour, minutes from a Parent Teacher Association
meeting show.
Teachers would use portable scanners to add points to a student’s
online good behaviour chart with a reward when a certain amount of
points was accumulated.
The school says the scheme
would cost $7000 to set up. The proposal has been opposed
by some parents.
Read
more on Stuff.
[From
the article:..
After
the school was approached by The Press, parents received a letter
about the proposed new system.
In
it, McClelland said the bracelet system was an alternative to a
previously proposed electronic card that students could lose.
(Related)
Of course it's not just schools. My tax dollars, wasted! “Hey,
they keep offering us all this money. Should we turn it down?”
Lynn
Thompson reports:
More than a year after Seattle police promised
to not turn on a network of surveillance cameras and
communication nodes installed as part
of a federal port-security grant, the department still
hasn’t released a draft policy on how it will use the equipment and
protect citizen privacy.
The installation of the 30 cameras and a wireless mesh broadband
network came shortly after the Police Department’s purchase
of two aerial drones, also with a Homeland Security grant,
and also without public notice.
Read
more on Seattle
Times.
Bold
headline.
The
Supreme Court Is Wising Up on Digital Privacy
While
much of Washington grapples with a handful
of newly-minted Supreme Court decisions focused on social
and campaign
finance reform, three largely overlooked court decisions signal a
much larger tidal wave of change ahead for the tech community. Taken
together, these cases shed light on the court’s views of how the
Fourth Amendment’s protections of searches and seizures are
complicated when much of our personal information is now digital.
The
turning point for tech began in 2012 with United
States v. Jones, in which the court ruled that attaching a
GPS device to a car and monitoring its movements constitutes a search
under the Fourth Amendment. This year, the court issued a single
opinion on two more cases, Riley
v. California and United
States v. Wurie, finding that police enforcement must obtain
a warrant in order to search digital information on a cell phone
seized from an individual at the time of the arrest.
…
As we enter an increasingly digital world, a period in which the
Internet of Things is poised for explosive
growth, it’s reassuring to see that today’s court is equipped
to handle cases related to digital privacy. [Slick
infographic Bob]
So
if I'm sending or receiving high volumes on my phone, I could
(temporarily of course) become a “Big Data user” and the medical
data I'm sending for diagnosis will wait for some kid's selfie,
because that's “fair.”.
Verizon
response to FCC's throttling concerns: everyone's doing it
Verizon Wireless has officially responded to FCC Chairman Tom
Wheeler and his data throttling concerns. The Verge has
obtained a copy of the carrier's response, dated August 1st, which
was written by Kathleen Grillo, the company's SVP of Federal
Regulatory Affairs. In it, Verizon underlines the notion that
customers will only experience slowdowns "under very limited
circumstances." It will only happen at "particular cell
sites experiencing unusually high demand," the letter reads.
We've outlined the
other factors that could result in reduced data speeds
previously.
Verizon notes that any throttling will cease immediately when demand
on a strained cell site returns to normal. "Our practice is a
measured and fair step to ensure that this small group of customers
do not disadvantage all others in the sharing of network resources
during times of high demand." The carrier insists only big data
users who "have an out-sized effect on the network" will be
slowed down.
Verizon claims those same people almost always have unlimited data
plans and have "no incentive not to" hog up network
resources. The top 5 percent of data users will be subject to LTE
throttling beginning in October. It may sound difficult to reach
that level of data usage, but keep in mind that right now Verizon
says exceeding 4.7GB of data would put you there.
Who
cares what laws them fur-n-ers got... This here's 'Merica!
Federal
Court Ruling Orders Microsoft to Violate International Law
Lawyers
for Microsoft say they will appeal a federal
judge's order that they turn over the contents
of a customer's email that's stored on a server in Ireland. But if
Microsoft
were to comply with the order, it appears that
the company would be in violation of both Irish and European laws.
My
Computer Security students could build a wiki of useful guides and
studies... Not doing it probably won't impact your grade...
Probably.
Anna
Forrester reports:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a
draft guidance for federal agencies, contractors and the intelligence
community to evaluate the privacy and security controls used on
federal information systems and information technology networks
NIST said
Friday that the “Assessing Security and Privacy Controls in
Federal Information Systems and Organizations: Building Effective
Assessment Plans” document (SP 800-53A) and the supplementary
catalog of controls (SP 800-53) are available for public comments
through Sept. 26.
Read
more on ExecutiveGov.
It
was the first MS operating system that was “good enough.”
Windows
XP Is Refusing To Die
Despite
Microsoft
pulling support for Windows XP in April, the ancient
[in Internet
years Bob] operating system is refusing to die.
According to the latest
figures from Net Applications, XP still accounts for 24.82
percent of the Windows market share, down just 1.5 percent since
Microsoft pulled the plug.
Meanwhile,
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 continue to struggle, with a 12.48 percent
market share for July actually showing a drop on the previous month.
Windows 7 now boasts a market share of 51.22 percent, making it by
far the most popular version of Windows out in the wild. We hope
Microsoft is taking note of these
statistics while developing Windows 9.
A
way for my website students to “introduce” themselves to
potential employers?
Remove
Unused CSS to Reduce the Size of your Stylesheets
The
CSS files of your website may have several redundant rules that are
no longer used by any element on the web pages. For instance, you
may have added a site
search box on your website and associated styles went into the
stylesheet. Later, if you decide to remove that search box, the
styles may continue to exist in your CSS though they aren’t being
used anywhere.
These
unused entries in your CSS files increase the page load time of your
website and also affect the site’s performance as the browser has
to do extra work parsing all the extra rules. And even if the impact
on performance is minimal, it would make your task of maintaining CSS
easier if the files are kept clean and well-structured.
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