|
| |
|
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 |
DHS Passenger Scoring Illegal? A government program that's automatically flagged nearly 5,000 U.S. travelers as "suspected terrorists" appears to defy a Congressional prohibition against computerized risk ranking of ordinary Americans. Ryan Singel reports from Washington. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
PermaLink
Bush 'Privacy Board' Just a Gag. A White House board empaneled to protect Americans' civil liberties has its first public meeting. Reporters are barred from asking questions, and the panel won't tell the public what it's learned about warrantless domestic spying. With friends like these.... Ryan Singel reports from Washington. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
U.S. Skimps on Americans' Privacy. Europeans enjoy greater privacy rights than U.S. citizens under Homeland Security's Automated Targeting System. In 27B Stroke 6. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
Sony Fesses Up to Marketing Scam. The company officially takes credit for a supposedly user-created PlayStation website, a day after the Federal Trade Commission announces its intentions to investigate under-the-radar marketing. In Game|Life. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
MySpace Passwords Aren't So Dumb. An analysis of 34,000 MySpace accounts stolen in a phishing attack reveals that the site's young users generally choose smarter passwords than corporate wage slaves. Commentary by Bruce Schneier. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
Data Spills: 100 Million Served. Boeing's announcement that a laptop theft exposed information on 382,000 current and former employees nudges the total number of exposed records in the United States past the 100 million mark. Since last year. In 27B Stroke 6. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
The Dangers of Improper Cookie Use.
shifted89 writes "Over the last year, the security community have exposed web application security for what it is -- extremely lacking.
However, for all the focus on XSS, CSRF, history stealing, etc., not
much attention has been given to the cookie. Unfortunately, cookie misuse
can be just as dangerous, if not more so than XSS attacks and InformIT
illustrates why. In short, the author clearly demonstrates what can
happen when a website improperly uses cookies for customer tracking --
including a working illustration." [Slashdot] |
ORDB.org Going Offline. Allan Joergensen writes "ORDB.org has announced that they will shut down their services after fighting open relays and spam for more than five and a half years. The RBL DNS service and mailing lists will be taken down today (December 18, 2006) and the website will vanish by December 31, 2006." The reasons given tend to be the usual ones - volunteers have been focused on other things in life; my salute to those folks for keeping the service up as long as they did. [Slashdot] |
Sony Rootkit Payout: $1.5 Million. The settlement between Sony BMG Music Entertainment and the states of California and Texas also includes free albums for affected consumers. In Listening Post. [Wired News: Top Stories] |
BBC's Legal BitTorrent Downloads. The British broadcaster's deal with file-sharing company Azureus will deliver high-def hit shows to U.S. computers. In Monkey Bites. |
Blogging in Iran Takes Courage.
netbuzz writes "This morning's Boston Globe has a thought-provoking profile of Iranian bloggers who are risking everything, quite literally, to bring a modicum of openness and truth to a society where the former is not tolerated and the latter strictly defined by government/religious authorities." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] |
New Zealand DMCA Moves Forward.
nzgeek writes "The DMCA-like amendments to the New Zealand Copyright Act passed their first hurdle in parliament today,
with an overwhelming 113 to 6 vote to pass the Bill to the Commerce
Select Committee for further discussion. The detail-oriented can read
the full debate (or rather lack of debate), and one enterprising New Zealand legal blogger has an excellent series
of posts on the Bill, its background, and its implications. New
Zealanders interested in fighting this legislation have until the 16th
of February 2007 to make submissions to the Select Committee, before the committee makes its recommendations and sends the Bill back for a second reading." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] |
|
Australia Rules Linking to Copyright Material Also Illegal. An anonymous reader writes "A recent ruling in Federal court upheld the ruling that the operator and ISP that hosted the site 'mp3s4free.net' were guilty of copyright infringement violations because they provided access to the copyright material. From the article: 'Dale Clapperton, vice-chairman of the non-profit organization Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), explained the ruling as follows: "If you give someone permission to do something that infringes copyright, that in itself is infringement as if you'd done it yourself. Even if you don't do the infringing act yourself, if you more or less condone someone else doing it, that's an infringing act."'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] |
As VHS tapes and VCRs head the way of Betamax and phonographs, commentator Bill Hammack warns that the right to fair use is in danger of disappearing right along with them. |
DRM Critique Airs On National Public Radio. An anonymous reader writes to point out that a critique of Digital Rights Management made it onto the mainstream media this morning. NPR's Marketplace Morning Report ran a piece noting that with the demise of the VHS format we risk losing fair-use rights since we now have only digital media. From the article: "As our country moves forward to regulate digital copying, I urge us all to bear in mind T. S. Eliot's famous saying. 'Good poets borrow; great poets steal.'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] |
© Copyright 1997-
2007
Paul Hardwick, with Web Hosting provided by MacRonin.com
.
Last update: 1/1/07; 10:29:35 PM .
Last update: 1/1/07; 10:29:35 PM .
