Saturday, March 3, 2007

Telco customers at risk for online privacy breach. Telco customers at risk for online privacy breach. A study released by the Customer Respect Group indicates that telecommunications companies are slipping when it comes to customer privacy, especially in comparison to retail and high-tech industries. A majority of companies surveyed were dound to ask for excessive, inappropriate personal data. [Computerworld Privacy News] 11:51:07 PM

FCW.com News - OMB: Agencies make headway with IT security The state of the government's cybersecurity position has improved over the past year, but significant holes remain, especially in the areas of categorizing the risk level of systems and training, according to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB found that more than 700 systems, including 397 managed by agencies, had not been categorized as high, medium or low risk. Also, the administration said more agency employees have received information technology security training -- up 10 percent since last year -- but more needs to be done. In its fourth annual Federal Information Security Management Act report sent to Congress March 1, OMB said it will rely on the Security Line of Business effort to better train employees by using a standard program. OMB named three shared-service centers for security training in February: the Office of Personnel Management, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Defense Department. 11:38:06 PM

Justice Department takes aim at image-sharing sites | CNET News.com   The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.  That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting. A second purpose of the meeting in Washington, D.C., according to the sources, was to ask Internet service providers how much it would cost to record details on their subscribers for two years. At the very least, the companies would be required to keep logs for police of which customer is assigned a specific Internet address. Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. "There's a PR concern with including the libraries, so we're not going to include them," the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. "We know we're going to get a pushback, so we're not going to do that." Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been lobbying Congress for mandatory data retention, calling it a "national problem that requires federal legislation." Gonzales has convened earlier private meetings to pressure industry representatives. And last month, Republicans introduced a mandatory data retention bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would let the attorney general dictate what must be stored and for how long. 11:12:46 PM

Researchers Say They Peeled the Onion Router. Researchers Say They Peeled the Onion Router. Researchers in the U.S. say they've successfully shown how attackers could compromise a network designed to make it harder to trace Web sites they are viewing. [PC World: Latest Technology News] 10:31:22 PM

© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 3/4/07; 10:45:54 AM.