San Jose Mercury News - Security cameras are getting smart -- and scary.
Nick Imearato, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, said he expects the federal government to require cameras be placed every 400 feet or so in airports to monitor all aspects of airport security, from cargo areas to boarding areas. Over time, as the technology gets cheaper, he said, ``This will migrate to millions of businesses and even homes.''
Such constant surveillance, even in the name of homeland security, scares civil libertarians, who feel it amounts to an illegal search of everyone who passes within view of a camera.
``Our position is this kind of continuous recording can be very dangerous, especially if coupled with technology to recognize faces,'' said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology watchdog group in San Francisco. ``You have to always ask what is the compelling justification for such surveillance.''
CNN.com - Police: GPS device used to stalk woman.
KENOSHA, Wisconsin (AP) -- A man was charged Monday with stalking his former live-in girlfriend with help from a high-tech homing device placed under the hood of her car.
Privacy News from Wired News By Lauren Weinstein (a commentary)- Wired News: Tiny Cell Phone or Big Brother?
The increasing accuracy of the location-tracking systems implemented in wireless phones and their supporting networks should also raise a red flag.
Nobody would argue the value of using location data to find a person buried in a snowdrift, or having a map pop up on a phone's screen to help someone locate an unfamiliar destination.
But while we're typically assured that location data would only be used commercially with our permission, the mere ability to gather that information suggests the possibility of vast databases tracking the movements of virtually every wireless phone user, even retrospectively over long periods.
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies will view this as a treasure trove. Given the new surveillance powers recently ceded to the government, it's unclear if court orders or even subpoenas would be necessary for government to use wireless location data for a range of purposes, with obvious risks for abuse.
The potential for individuals to abuse this tracking technology is very real. In one recent case, a man was arrested for stalking after using a GPS/cellular system planted under the hood of his ex-girlfriend's car. The location-tracking capabilities of the brand-new phones could make this sort of antisocial behavior even easier.
The impact of new technologies is about to blindside society yet again. We must update our thinking -- and in some cases our laws -- to take into account the ways in which wireless is very literally changing our world.
InfoStructure News from Wired News - Help Wanted: Steal This Database.
A public relations firm accidentally posts server login information in an online job ad, exposing scads of clients' customer data and underscoring the need for companies to take Web security seriously.
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Experts said the incident is the latest example of how shoddy security can undermine companies' privacy promises.
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An Internet user who asked not to be identified said he discovered the problem last June and notified Carmichael Lynch. The user said he decided to go public with the information after the PR company failed to plug the hole.
Mulder confirmed that Carmichael Lynch learned last June that its job-posting process contained a security flaw, but she said the company thought at the time that it had resolved the problem.
Among the files accessible on the server last week was a 13.5-MB database containing names, addresses, vehicle information and other data on nearly 75,000 luxury car and SUV owners.
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Carmichael Lynch's security flub also exposed a 7-MB spreadsheet that contained contact information, including e-mail addresses and registration passwords, for nearly 12,000 people who had registered with the American Standard website between April 30 and Sept. 10, 2002.
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Mark Litchfield, co-founder of NGSConsulting, said privacy policies are often not backed up by strong security practices. Instead, such statements are merely "jargon" aimed at giving customers "a warm feeling in parting with their credit card and other associated sensitive material."
Privacy expert Richard Smith agreed, and said Carmichael Lynch's security practices "don't live up to the promises being made in their clients' privacy policies."
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