EFF Launches TOSBack - A 'Terms of Service' Tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and More: Via EFF.org Updates.

San Francisco - "Terms of Service" policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information. But most web users don't read these policies -- or understand that the terms are constantly changing. To track these ever-evolving documents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching "TOSBack": a "terms of service" tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and other major websites.

"Terms of service form the foundation of your relationship with social networking sites, online businesses, and other Internet communities, but most people become aware of these terms only when there's a problem," said EFF Activism and Technology Manager Tim Jones. "We created TOSBack to help consumers monitor terms of service for the websites they use everyday, and show how the terms change over time." [ Read more ... ]

Court: your MySpace page isn't private: Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.

Cynthia Moreno clearly didn't expect anyone but a few friends to take note when she indulged in that time-honored pastime of college students: ranting about how much she hated her small hometown. Unfortunately, the local high school's principal, Roger Campbell, also spotted the "Ode to Coalinga" Moreno posted on her MySpace page—and forwarded it to the Coalinga Record, where it appeared as a letter to the editor under Moreno's name. The backlash was so severe—including death threats and even a gunshot at the family house—that Moreno's parents and sister had to leave town. Nevertheless, a California State appellate court ruled late last week that the publication of the letter didn't violate Moreno's privacy rights.

Read Original Article:(Via Law & Disorder Section - Ars Technica.)

When Complaining About Your Job Becomes a Privacy Violation: Via Threat Level

A woman in Pennsylvania likely thought she was just complaining about her job in the way that millions of people do every day.

But Stephanie Sicilia, who works for an OB/GYN, has placed herself and her employer in jeopardy of hefty fines and even imprisonment after she allegedly complained about patients on her MySpace page.

The MySpace posts didn't mention patients by name, but at least one patient said she recognized the identity of a patient who was described in a post as having an abortion. The posts could be considered violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)

Penalties for violating HIPAA vary, depending on the nature of the violation. A common penalty is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or a year in prison. [ Read more ... ]

User Charged With Felony For Using Fake Name On MySpace - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online:

Recently a user, Lori Drew, was charged with a felony for the heinous crime of pretending to be someone else on the Internet. Using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Lori was charged for signing up for MySpace using a fake name. "The access to MySpace was unauthorized because using a fake name violated the terms of service. The information from a "protected computer" was the profiles of other MySpace users. If this is found to be a valid interpretation of the law, it's really quite frightening. If you violate the Terms of Service of a website, you can be charged with hacking. That's an astounding concept. Does this mean that everyone who uses Bugmenot could be prosecuted? Also, this isn't a minor crime, it's a felony punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment per count. In Drew's case she was charged with three counts for accessing MySpace on three different occasions."

(Read Original Article - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online.)

Social networking applications can pose security risks - Via AP on Yahoo! News:

CHICAGO - Sarah Brown is unusually cautious when it comes to social networking. The college sophomore doesn't have a MySpace page and, while she's on Facebook, she does everything she can to keep her page as private as she can.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She'd like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. "It's just common sense."

It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it? [ Read more ... ]

MySpace's Leaked Photos More Popular Than Sweeney Todd - Via Threat Level:

The 17-gigabyte file containing half-of-million photos pillaged from MySpace accounts made the Pirate Bay's top -ten list of most popular downloads over the weekend, beating out pirated copies of No Country For Old Men,  Sweeney Todd and the sci-fi flick I Am Legend.

Sunday afternoon the file -- compiled using a still-unacknowledged hole in MySpace's architecture that exposed photos in private profiles --  was the 9th most popular download on the torrent site, with over 6,700 downloads in progress. [ Read more ... ]

MySpace Photos Leaked; Payback for Not Fixing Flaw? - Via Freedom to Tinker:

Last week an anonymous person published a file containing half a million images, many of which had been gathered from private profiles on MySpace. This may be the most serious privacy breach yet at MySpace. Kevin Poulsen’s story at Wired News implies that the leak may have been deliberate payback for MySpace failing to fix the vulnerability that allowed the leaks. [ Read more ... ]

Five Questions With the Guy Who Made the MySpace Private Photo Torrent - Via Threat Level:

A TribalWar.com denizen called "DMaul" harvested half-a-million images from MySpace accounts early this month, before MySpace closed its back door access to private profiles on Friday. Now he's posted the pictures over BitTorrent as a 17-gigabyte download. [ Read more ... ]

MySpace Quietly Fixes Bug that Gave Voyeurs Access to Teens' Private Photos - Via Threat Level:

I reported yesterday on a bug in MySpace's architecture that allowed strangers to peer inside the MySpace photo galleries of some private profiles, despite assurances from MySpace that those pictures can only be seen by people on a user's friends list.

The bug had been around since at least October (Thanks to Rose for tipping me off), during which time it had been gleefully exploited by voyeurs, hackers, entrepreneurs and lechers; you can find pages and pages of  public message board comments around the web in which posters are peeking in on 14 and 15-year-old girls and sharing what they find. [ Read more ... ]

MySpace Bug Leaks 'Private' Teen Photos to Voyeurs - Via wired.com :

A backdoor in MySpace's architecture allows anyone who's interested to see the photographs of some users with private profiles -- including those under 16 -- despite assurances from MySpace that those pictures can only be seen by people on a user's friends list. Info about the backdoor has been circulating on message boards for months.

Since the glitch emerged last fall, it has spawned a cottage industry of ad-supported websites that make it easy to access the photographs, spurring self-described pedophiles and run-of-the-mill voyeurs to post photos pilfered from private MySpace accounts. [ Read more ... ]

Background images emerging tool of MySpace hackers: "

MySpace users, look out for a new brand of website hacking technique that’s emerged over the past week. The hack inserts code that loads a background image linking back to a badware site, and has so far had several prominent victims, most notably pop star Alicia Keyes.

A user who clicks anywhere on the site that is not a legitimate, pre-existing link will be redirected by the linked background image to the badware site, apparently hosted in China. The user will also be prompted to download a codec to view videos - something one might expect on a MySpace page - which itself delivers malware. [ Read more ... ]

MySpace and Facebook Plan to Use Personal Data for “Targeted Advertising”: "

Personal data is a hot commodity. All sorts of businesses trade in data concerning what we buy, how much credit we have, where we live, what our interests are. This information is sold to advertisers, who then eagerly use it to more precisely target people that they hope will be interested in their products — leading to all those annoying catalogs that litter your doorstep, for example, or the junk emails that choke your inbox every day.

Luckily for the advertising industry, modern web users have begun voluntarily providing all their personal details on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Users of these sites happily upload all sorts of personal information about what books and music they like, where they shop, who their friends are, and where they live. While users of these sites may imagine that they control the information on their profile pages, advertisers are salivating at the thought of all that personal data just waiting to be processed, analyzed, and turned into profit. [ Read more ... ]

Spooks Get Their Own MySpace: "

The American Intelligence community has joined the social networking phenomenon with the launch of A-Space, a MySpace style social network.

The move is said to be part of the ongoing effort to transform the American Intelligence community following the failure to detect the 9/11 terrorist attacks or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In a FT.com report, Thomas Fingar, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis said that A-Space would be ‘MySpace for analysts’ that will break down firewalls across the ‘traditionally stove-piped intelligence community.’ [ Read more ... ]