Slashdot | Terahertz Imagery Progresses.

ke4roh writes "Since Slashdot last discussed terahertz imaging, the European Space Agency's Star Tiger project has taken terahertz images of a human hand. Some of the pictures show just how useful the imagery might be for peering through walls and such - one of the images is through a 15mm pad of paper." --- The EE Times has another story.

Little Snitch.

Little Snitch runs in the background and hooks into the operating system kernel while you are logged in. When an application tries to establish a network connection, Little Snitch intercepts the attempt and brings up an alert panel, telling you all the connection details including the name of the application which initiated the connection. You can either allow the connection, deny it or add a permanent rule for similar future-connections.

Requires OS/X and my old Mac hardware can't run that so I have not given it a try.

CNET NEWS.COM - New technology sees through objects.

Researchers in Europe have made advances with a new technology that could one day be used to detect explosives or biological weapons in parcels, locate cancers beneath the skin, reveal the state of wounds beneath dressings and see through fog.

As part of an effort sponsored by the European Space Agency, which works to bring the continent up to speed in outer-space research by coordinating multinational projects, scientists were able to take the first "photographs" using terahertz radiation. Researchers with the StarTiger project released on Tuesday images of a human hand taken through a 15mm stack of paper, as well as pictures of the human body imaged through clothing.

BW Online | February 11, 2003 | "A Strong National Standard" vs. ID Theft. California Senator Dianne Feinstein talks about the "common-sense bills" she's trying to get passed this year

The identity-theft capital of the country is Los Angeles. The City of Angels boasts the dubious distinction of the highest per capita instance of this insidious crime. No wonder U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has taken a keen interest. She has already introduced three bills this year and has a fourth in the works. Some of the provisions include banning the use of Social Security numbers as a personal record locator by business and the government, and stiffening criminal penalties for ID thieves.

Bills bearing similar provisions have bogged down in the Senate in years past, but Feinstein thinks the stars could to be aligned for passage in 2003 (see BW Online, 2/11/03, "To Thwart the Identity Thieves"). Senator Feinstein chatted on Feb. 7 with BusinessWeek Online Technology Editor Alex Salkever about her identity-theft efforts. Here are edited excerpts of that conversation:

BW Online | February 11, 2003 | To Thwart the Identity Thieves.

With the problem getting worse each year, only a bold reform approach will do the job. How about a market-based solution?

In Phoenix, a burglar allegedly lifted a computer from TriWest Healthcare Associates that holds key personal information, including Social Security numbers and health records of 500,000 U.S. Defense Dept. employees from 16 Western states. In Long Island, N.Y., a low-level clerk at tech company TCI is charged with downloading 30,000 credit reports without authorization and selling them to two accomplices for $60 a piece to assist a wide-ranging identity-theft caper. At Boston College, authorities say a computer-science student installed software to grab keystrokes on hundreds of campus computers to harvest personal information. They allege that he nabbed key data input by thousands of professors, staff, and fellow students, including hundreds of Social Security numbers.

Each of these frightening incidents occurred within the last six months. Connect the dots, and you find a uncontrolled epidemic of identity theft. It's not that no laws are on the books: All but five states have enacted their own identity-theft laws. The federal government passed the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1996, which gives individuals better access to their credit reports. And Uncle Sam made identity theft a federal crime in 1998.

None of these measures, however, has made even a dent in the levels of ID theft. According to numbers collected by the Federal Trade Commission, reports of identity theft rose by 88% last year to 380,000 from 220,000 in 2001. The real total could be closer to 1 million victims, considering that many don't bother to report their situation to the FTC.

[ ... ]

For sure, change is afoot. California Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced three bills (and a fourth is being worked out) aimed at stopping identity theft (see BW Online, 2/11/03, "'A Strong National Standard' vs. ID Theft"). The bills, among other things, require that retail establishments truncate credit-card numbers on printed receipts, penalize credit-card companies that ignore customer-fraud reports and continue to issue credit to an ID thief, prohibit the sale of Social Security numbers to the general public, and let individuals prohibit a company's sale or marketing of less-sensitive personal information like name, phone number, and e-mail address.

In past years many of these provisions would have faced tough sledding against powerful lobbyists from credit-card companies, credit agencies, and big banks. Feinstein has proposed similar bills before, and they've never gotten to a full floor vote. This year, according to Feinstein, chances for passage look much better. Constitutient outrage and shocking stories told before congressional committees have helped galvanize lawmakers. One reform advocate startled Feinstein by securing a credit card in her name after purchasing her personal information on the Internet.

internetnews.com - DoJ: We Want to Read Your E-Mail.

Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to expand the government's domestic surveillance powers under the controversial USA Patriot Act to include reading individual e-mails and monitoring a person's Web surfing activities. The Patriot Act, which is already under legal attack by privacy groups, was passed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and gives the Justice Department broad new electronic eavesdropping powers.

The new Ashcroft draft proposal (ed. Link is a PDF file) , dated Jan. 9 and leaked by the Center for Public Integrity, increases the FBI's ability to monitor domestic Web surfing activities from 30 days to 90 days and authorizes domestic electronic surveillance after Congress approves the use of military attacks or in the wake of a national emergency. Currently, the electronic surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act only kick in after a declaration of war.

Slashdot | Israeli Firm Claims Unbreakable Encryption.

Several readers have pointed to an Israeli company's claim of achieving unbreakable encryption. The linked article reports this claim uncritically. Do you think there's such a thing as unbreakable encryption? This isn't the first time someone's made this claim, or second, or third ...