Wednesday, March 15, 2006

PGP Creator's Zfone Encrypts VoIP. PGP Creator's Zfone Encrypts VoIP. Philip Zimmermann, creator of PGP wrote in to tell me about Zfone, his new system for encrypting any SIP VoIP voice stream. His first release is Mac & Linux only. I tested it with him using Gizmo as our client and it was pretty trivial to use. While it should work on most any SIP compatible VoIP client, he hopes that clients like OpenWengo and Gizmo will incorporate Zfone directly into the UI. Zfone has no centralization, and has been submitted to the IETF. He hasn't yet determined a license, but he believes strongly in releasing source code for all encryption products. A windows client is forthcoming. [Slashdot] 1:20:36 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

California Bill Would Ban "Pretexting". California Bill Would Ban "Pretexting". "Californians have a right to privacy and pretexting not only violates that right, it makes every single one of these victims a prime candidate for identity theft" [GT: Privacy] 1:15:49 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

New York Plugs Largest Known Internet Privacy Leak What prosecutors say may have been the largest breach of privacy in Internet history has been resolved. The settlement with Datran Media, a leading e-mail marketer, follows an investigation that identified the improper disclosure of the personal information of more than six million American consumers. "With this case, we hope to set a new standard for Internet marketers and consumer research companies," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said. "Personal information secured through a promise of confidentiality must always remain confidential." Datran was alleged to have used improperly information it had obtained from several companies that compile and sell information on consumers. 1:14:00 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Oak Ridger - Judge considers releasing IDs of jurors GREENEVILLE, Tenn. -- A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday on a petition to release the names, addresses and telephone numbers of jurors who failed to reach a final verdict against two Newport lawmen accused of shaking down Hispanic motorists for cash. What began as an attempt by defense attorneys and The Knoxville News Sentinel to quiz the jurors from the first trial before the officers are retried in April offered a precedent-setting battle over the public's right to information versus the jurors' right to privacy. "I think I'm prepared to rule First Amendment rights outweigh privacy rights of jurors," U.S. District Judge Ronnie Greer said Tuesday. But the judge said he was worried that reporting of any juror interviews could prejudice future jurors when Newport Police Sgts. James W. Roach Jr. and Patrick Sheldon are retried. 1:11:41 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Report: 80 percent of emails out to manipulate - IT Security News - SC Magazine US Four out of five inbound emails are designed to deceive the recipient, according to a new report studying the scope of abusive online messages. The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group's (MAAWG) Email Metric Report, which analyzed data from more than 127 million mailboxes during last year's fourth quarter, found that more than 142 billion emails either were tagged or blocked before they reached the end user. Another 61.3 billion emails were the victims of dropped connections, the study showed. Nearly 37 billion emails were unaltered before reaching their destination. 1:08:35 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

CDT, Others Again Challenge FCC Wiretapping Ruling. CDT, Others Again Challenge FCC Wiretapping Ruling. CDT and a broad coalition of public interest, academic and business groups today again urged a federal appeals court to overturn a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling requiring that broadband Internet and interconnected voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services be designed to make government wiretapping easier. The brief stressed that the government has never shown that there is a problem to be solved by extending the "Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act" to the Internet, and that Congress explicitly excluded the Internet from the wiretapping design mandate. [Center for Democracy and Technology] 1:06:10 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Update: New FBI management system could cost $500M. Update: New FBI management system could cost $500M. A redesigned case management system being created by the FBI could cost as much as $500 million, far more than the agency sunk into a similar initiative abandoned last year, according to a government watchdog agency. [Computerworld Data Mining News] 1:02:19 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []

DOJ Lowers Number of Subpoenaed Google Search Records. DOJ Lowers Number of Subpoenaed Google Search Records. Federal judge indicates he's looking favorably on government's new request. [PCWorld.com - Latest News Stories] 12:59:23 AM  PermaLink   / trackback []