Public hospitals cannot test pregnant women for drugs and turn the results over to police without consent, the Supreme Court said Wednesday in a ruling that buttressed the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.

Some women who tested positive for drugs at a South Carolina public hospital were arrested from their beds shortly after giving birth.

The justices ruled 6-3 that such testing without patients' consent violates the Constitution even though the goal was to prevent women from harming their fetuses by using crack cocaine.

Microsoft Security Bulletin - (MS01-017) Erroneous VeriSign-Issued Digital Certificates Pose Spoofing Hazard. Who should read this bulletin: All customers using Microsoft® products.

Impact of vulnerability: Attacker could digitally sign code using the name "Microsoft Corporation".

Recommendation: All customers should follow the administrative procedures detailed in the FAQ. A software update will be issued shortly to provide permanent remediation.

Slashdot | Don't Trust Code Signed by 'Microsoft Corporation'? 'VeriSign, Inc., recently advised Microsoft that on January 30 and 31, 2001, it issued two VeriSign Class 3 code-signing digital certificates to an individual who fraudulently claimed to be a Microsoft employee. The common name assigned to both certificates is "Microsoft Corporation".'

MS-NBC - Cell phone jammers defy law. Nearly everyone has been annoyed at a cell phone ringing at an inopportune moment or someone blabbing away in public. Many people would love to block the signals if they could -- but doing so in America is illegal. So you might be surprised to learn that not only are cell phone jamming devices being sold to frustrated folks in the United States, but that MSNBC.com has been told one purchaser is the U.S. government.

The Register (UK) - Music industry tracking individual MP3 file sharers.

The music industry's secret anti-Napster software, formally known as Internet Anti-Piracy System, less formally as Media Tracker, has been brought out of the shadows.

The software, developed by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), mimics all the commonly used and less-well-known file-sharing clients used to share music. The software can also be used to keep an eye on IRC chatrooms and newsgroups, according to New Zealand Web site 7amnews.com, which has obtained what it claims are screenshots of Media Tracker in operation.

[ ... ]

The IFPI's initiative ties in remarkably well with off-the-cuff threats made by a Sony executive last summer. At the Americas Conference on Information Systems, Sony Pictures Entertainment senior VP Steve Heckler said the industry would block copyright infringement.

"We will develop technology that transcends the individual user," he said. "We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [ISP]. We will firewall it at your PC."

The Nando Times: Experts play down flaw of encryption software.

The vulnerability in Pretty Good Privacy, disclosed by two Czech cryptologists a day earlier, could allow a hacker to use someone else's electronic signature to send messages.

That, in essence, could mean the forging of signatures increasingly used to authorize such things as financial transactions.

[ ... ]

Although fewer than 10 million people worldwide currently use PGP, the use of e-signatures could rise now that the U.S. government gives legal standing to documents "signed" online. An e-signature law took effect Oct. 1, although it did not detail permissible methods.

ZDNet: Who will protect our info in a Net world? If Bill asks me, I will!. Microsoft needs to create and fund an independent watchdog group to monitor and audit the implementation of .Net. Among the questions: Is the information really secure? Can we guarantee that information won't be used in ways beyond what was intended? Do we need new laws or regulations to add a layer of legal oversight? How will consumer complaints about information-handling be dealt with? What audit trails will be available to show where information goes?

Mobile Computing & Communications / News Desk - Microsoft Says P3P Privacy Supportt to Appear in Explorer 6.

Web-site builders support P3P by storing on their servers machine-readable files which use Extensible Markup Language (XML) to specify privacy policies. Those policies could, for example, inform users that the names and e-mail addresses of visitors are sometimes shared with third parties. In theory, a Web surfer could instruct a P3P-compliant browser not to display the pages of a Web site with such a policy.

In June 2000, during a rush of industry publicity in support of the W3C's P3P initiative, the U.S. government was among the organizations pledging support for the approach.

At the time, the White House Web site was among the destinations listed by the W3C as being P3P-compliant. However, a check by Newsbytes today found that the current White House Web site no longer links to an XML file containing a P3P policy.

Some early adopters of P3P, such as the US Commerce Department, still sport the P3P data on their Web sites, but other high-profile supporters in June, including America Online and IBM, are no longer P3P-compliant at their primary Web addresses.

Todays Wall Street Journal ( Paid subscription required ) has a few articles on Privacy and P3P. Check them out if you have a subscription.
As Congress Mulls New Web-Privacy Laws, Microsoft Pushes System Tied to Its Browser...

Microsofts P3P Plan for Online Privacy Gets Some Support From Big Companies...

Microsoft Pushes P3P For Internet Privacy...

P3P Plan for Privacy Gets Some Support...

Muris Appointment to Usher In Changes In FTCs Antitrust, Web-Privacy Policy...

Business2.0 Online - Anti-spam Bill Advances. Legislation seeking to curb unsolicited email sparks industry concern.

The influx of pesky spam could be curtailed by legislation currently working its way through Congress. However, concern from the retail and marketing industries that the bill interferes with legitimate advertising efforts may slow its path to passage.

The Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act was quickly passed by a House subcommittee Wednesday, and will likely go before the full House Commerce Committee for a vote next week.

Newsbytes - Microsoft Says P3P Privacy Support To Appear In Explorer 6 .

Microsoft Corp. [NASDAQ:MSFT] today again committed itself to releasing a version of its Internet Explorer browser that includes support for open standards that can make such software respond automatically to a Web site's privacy policies.

The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) has long been touted as offering Web surfers an opportunity to take control of their personal information online, arming browser software with the ability to scope out a site's approach to privacy before loading a single page.

However, the effort, led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), has languished while supporters waited for Web sites and browser makers to implement the P3P protocols.

GigaLaw.com: The CARU Safe Harbor Guidelines for the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) has approved the Children's Advertising Review Unit's application for a "safe harbor" under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. The application creates guidelines that web site operators can follow when collecting personal information from children online. This article explains the CARU guidelines.

Boston Globe Online / Business / New economy - New economy spin on old crime of identity theft. Old-fashioned tricks are the key to fraud against rich, famous

Credit reports are the keys to the kingdom for identity thieves. They contain the victims' Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, and other personal data, such as a mother's maiden name. A clever crook, armed with this information, can persuade banks and investment houses to grant access to somebody's accounts, often right over the phone, or through e-mail.

DMNews.com | Study: State Government Web Sites Slack on Privacy Policies. Few state government Internet sites adhere to commonly accepted privacy practices, according to a study conducted in December by the nonprofit group OMB Watch.

Most importantly, nearly all sites lack a clear privacy policy, and only two of the 25 states that tracked users' movements told them they were doing so, the study found.