A new cat-shaped scanner being given away to millions of consumers this fall may be letting more out of the bag than the people using it know about.

Privacy advocates are investigating the device, known as the CueCat, and its ability to snoop on consumers while swiping bar codes printed in catalogs and magazines or on products. Researchers say the scanner, produced by DigitalConvergence, makes use of an identifying serial number that could trace the actions of an individual user and create a detailed database on a specific device's usage.

"Whenever you scan something, your browser will make a connection with (DigitalConvergence's) site. It reports the (bar) code, your device serial number and a token that identifies you as an individual," said Matt Curtin, founder of Interhack, a security consultant group that has been looking into the technology.

iRights has had a very prolific writing day. The first entry 'What iRights Isn't' gives a good background on their perspective. I also agree with their comment that ' Privacy Digest and iRights are excellent companions; I don't see us as competing sites, but as complementing sites.' iRights gives some very insightful essays on topics that we both monitor. I don't log every article I find, just most of them, since at times they get derivative. After all, how many times can you point to the same AP article at different sites. I do try and provide as many perspectives as I can so that the reader can make up their own mind and have a central source to search for past news. Of course at times, I can't resist adding my own editorial comments to make sure that the reader understands some of the less obvious implications.

The site was originally started as a place for me to keep notes of where I found information that I wanted to have other people be able to reference. To many times I would be having a discussion on a privacy related topic, and would mention some outragous action that some company or government had taken and could not provide my source for the information. Unfortunately without the source info many folks assumed that 'it could not be that bad' and that either my memory was faulty or I was reading those fringe publications that talk about black helicopters coming during the night. In reality my source was almost always a nice respectable organization like the Congressional record, CNN, or the New York Times. My archive goes back to mid 1997, with the early part having other non privacy material also included. The privacy news started out as just one of the topics covered by my original site. While most of the news sources are also searchable the Privacy Digest search function allows you to find artciles from many sites in a single shot.

Back to iRights. His second entry of note today was about an article I mentioned earlier entitled Expert: Go Easy on Privacy Regulations. As usual he makes some good points. Why not give them both a read. Actually why not give both of our sites a read on a regular basis. In case you read the Privacy Digest material on other sites that carry our XML/RSS news feed.

Privacy Digest and

iRights.

Techweb > News > Internet privacy > Online Privacy Tools Are Within Reach. Customers are concerned about the personal data that's being collected, and e-businesses want to form better privacy policies. Now the tools that could address the needs of both parties are on the way.

San Jose Mercury News - China keeps firm hand on Net use (9/19/2000).

To avoid trouble, Web sites in China sometimes report on sensitive topics in an indirect way, quoting reports in Hong Kong media. In some cases, posting stories about corruption is allowed ``to give people a place to let off steam,'' Lin said. Publicizing crackdowns on corruption helps the government's image by demonstrating its attempts to clean house, he said.

The government routinely blocks most Western news sites, and even Sina's Hong Kong and Taiwan sites can't be opened from mainland China. Stanford University's Web site is also often blocked because it includes links to works of an exiled Chinese poet. Put in a search request on a controversial topic, such as Taiwan independence, and you're likely to receive a message from the Web master saying, "Sorry, we think you just typed in an inappropriate word.'' Nearly all chat room hosts employ monitors, known not as Big Brother but "big mamas'' to cut out sensitive material.

Slashdot | Open Source Mozilla Crypto Released.

Slashdot | Carnivore-like tool released as Open Source.

Business News from Wired News - An Ordeal: Copin' With COPPA.

Therrien has come to believe that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act is a flawed piece of legislation, and has decided it's easier to help his kids forge their ages to set up email accounts than it is to submit his credit card number, as at least one free email service (Hotmail) is demanding.

"Maybe I'm admitting to a crime there, but I had a philosophical problem with giving them that kind of information," he said. "I don't want to give up credit card numbers where all I'm trying to do is set up an email account for my kids."

Accounting Web - Privacy Seals are a Web Requirement. Internet companies are starting to feel the heat from Congress to beef up their privacy standards. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires financial service companies to comply with new, more stringent privacy regulations by July 2001. PricewaterhouseCoopers released a report in August stating that two-thirds of Web sites operated by the nation's 50 largest banks do not comply with this act.