Proposal to have companies rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police "A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police. The FBI's request to the Federal Communications Commission aims to give police ready access to any form of Internet-based communications. If approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development." Read more about the FBI's proposal at Cnet.com.
or
MSNBC. But where is the actual proposal?
posted by fluffycreature
on Mar 15, 2004 -
8 comments
Docusearch settles claim for 75K with family whose daughter was
killed by
a stalker who
purchased her personal information from them -- a killer whose intentions were described on a Googleable website. The
NH Supreme Court determined
last year that
Docusearch, the company who sold
Amy Boyer's work address and SSN to her killer could be held
liable for her death, even though some of that information was publicly available. An "Amy Boyer's Law" intended to increase privacy by restricting the display, sale or use of SSNs received
negative reviews by privacy organizations and ultimately was
removed from an appropriations bill. In a statement, Amy's parents encourage others to use the Internet to keep track of who may be keeping track of their kids. "
If only we had typed our daughter's name into any search engine, the Amy Boyer Web site that was posted by her killer would have come up, and we could have called the police...This may never have happened."
posted by jessamyn
on Mar 11, 2004 -
6 comments
Do no evil... it looks like Orkut would like to 0wn your data. And although the piece is heated, everyone did get incensed over Microsoft's near-identical passport policy. And I know you
invited types like Orkut...
posted by bonaldi
on Feb 5, 2004 -
28 comments
Seven years in jail and a $150,000 fine. That's what domain owners will get if HR 3574 makes its way into law. HR 3574 will require all domain owners to make their current home address, telephone number and email address publicly known. Mr. Haughey's stalkers need no longer fear how to find him.
posted by ed
on Feb 5, 2004 -
27 comments
Howard Dean seems to be on record as stating that citizens should be required to use a government-issued ID before they can log on to the Internet. He also seems to say that PC manufacturers should be required to add card-readers to all of their PC products to facilitate this. Read for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
posted by DWRoelands
on Jan 27, 2004 -
38 comments
Hello Gattaca : "The federal government is planning to overhaul its employee drug testing program to include scrutiny of workers' hair, saliva and sweat, a shift that could spur more businesses to revise screening for millions of their own workers."
posted by troutfishing
on Jan 16, 2004 -
31 comments
newspeak from disney: we at the Walt Disney Internet Group are dedicated to protecting your privacy and handling any personal information we obtain from you with care and respect. How is your personally identifiable information used and shared?
The Walt Disney Family of Companies may use your personally identifiable information in many ways, including sending you promotional materials, and sharing your information with third parties so that these third parties can send you promotional materials. [...]As another example of Operational Uses, we may share your personal information with the Walt Disney World © Resort telephone reservations center [...] The Walt Disney Family of Companies may share your personal information with companies that offer products and/or services under brand names of The Walt Disney Family of Companies. [...] use of personal information shared with them under this Privacy Policy is subject to the same
opt-out rights (and limitations upon those rights)
posted by Tryptophan-5ht
on Nov 16, 2003 -
9 comments
We've
discussed it before, but
RFID, that fun-loving little radio transmitter that can be attached to everything from that stereo system to a carton of milk, is plowing ahead faster than you can say "unregulated." Earlier this year, Wal-Mart
issued a mandate that required its top 100 suppliers to include RFIDs on their merchandise by 2005, bringing new meaning to the phrase
"panties in a bunch." (Incidentally, Wal-Mart was also the benign corporation
that ushered in bar codes for mass consumption in the late 70s and early 80s.) With no regulations on the table, the
New York Times reports that
the Defense Department plans to issue a statement requiring all suppliers to use RFID.
Hitachi has even offered to put it in your currency. Imagine a store a few years from now that can track all of the objects in your cart, and that, thanks to a microscopic RFID stuck to your shoe when you slide through the doors, can determine how many seconds you or your children react to a display. Imagine a world that tracks exactly where each one of your dollar bills go. (So much for the anonymity of johns and porn enthusiasts.) Is this the kind of world we want to abdicate to large retail corporations? Is this the kind of information that governments or private institutions are entitled to know? Discuss.
posted by ed
on Sep 29, 2003 -
96 comments
Postal ID Plan A government report urges the U.S. Postal Service to create "smart stamps" to track the identity of people who send mail.
[more inside]
posted by Irontom
on Aug 13, 2003 -
20 comments
Here's an interesting story for people who like to write and post stuff on the internet Judge Diana Lewis of Circuit Court in West Palm Beach issued an order that
forbids Mr. Max to write about Ms. Johnson. That prohibition is not limited to his website. She ruled on May 6, before Mr. Max was notified of the suit and without holding a hearing. She told Mr. Max that he could not use "Katy" on his site. Nor could he use Ms. Johnson's last name, full name or the words "Miss Vermont." The judge also prohibited Mr. Max from "disclosing any stories, facts or information, notwithstanding its truth, about any intimate or sexual acts engaged in by" Ms. Johnson. Finally, Judge Lewis ordered Mr. Max to sever the virtual remains of his relationship with Ms. Johnson. He is no longer allowed to link to her Web site.
...
All this as a result of a lawsuit in which Ms. Johnson maintained that Mr. Max had invaded her privacy by publishing
accurate information about her.
posted by magullo
on Jun 2, 2003 -
39 comments
Is this your fetus? Are you the one I slept with? Remember when we discussed
this before? Florida has now been forced by 4 plaintiffs and the
ACLU to repeal the so-called Scarlet Letter law that forces women who are pregnant and giving children up for adoption to take out an ad local papers once a week for 4 weeks, stating her name and her sexual history in the last year, to let men know if they *might* be the father.
Here is the ACLU legal brief. The details about the decision are in the first link.
Thank god for the ACLU.
posted by aacheson
on Apr 25, 2003 -
46 comments
Nationalise Google? "Perhaps the time has come to recognise this dominant search engine for what it is - a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest." Bill Thompson from the BBC tells me that Google puts a cookie on my computer that can't be deleted till 2038: "This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years. Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is. It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes." Are they "a secretive, hyper-competitive company with no respect for the personal privacy of its users"? Are other search engines better behaved? And is this the beginning of
search ethics?
posted by theplayethic
on Apr 14, 2003 -
60 comments
Nominate the world's stupidest security procedure. UK-based watchdog group, Privacy International, is accepting nominations until March 15th from the general public about the most annoying and invasive security measures with the lowest effectiveness in protecting individual safety. What would you nominate?
posted by jonp72
on Mar 6, 2003 -
19 comments
Thought you were rid of the telemarketers? Perhaps not. It looks like they're fighting back to items like the
TeleZapper that fake telemarketers into thinking your phone is disconnected by playing the three tones you get if your phone doesn't work.
Castel, Inc claims their DirectQuest software defeats devices like Telezapper by reading the connect messages delivered by your public switched telephone network. Fave quote - “It’s a privacy arms race.." Will this ever end?
posted by djspicerack
on Feb 27, 2003 -
17 comments
So, we all know the
Patriot Act allows for the monitoring of library and computer usage. Big deal, right? I mean how many people can they watch and what are the odds?
Maybe not as good (or bad, depending on your view) as
you might think,
"A St. John’s College Library visit by a former public defender was abruptly interrupted February 13 when city police officers arrested him about 9 p.m. at the computer terminal he was using, handcuffed him, and brought him to the Santa Fe, New Mexico, police station for questioning by Secret Service agents from Albuquerque."
posted by cedar
on Feb 26, 2003 -
45 comments
At InfoSecuity 2002, an annual corporate security conference, new "computer forensics" software is on display, including software
"that allows corporate IT folks to research employees' criminal histories, credit information, financial asset details, friends and associates. "
The software is called
Red Alert 2.0, and more specifically the research software is an optional subscription based add-on called Intelligent Information Dossier plus. Isn't this tantamount to your employer spying on your private life, in real time?
As I work for a very large
military contractor myself, I could easily see something like this being used where I work. Would you feel comfortable working for a company that uses this sort of intrusive software?
posted by SweetJesus
on Dec 13, 2002 -
21 comments
A Mac user scorned is a dangerous thing... Gotta hand it to this guy: persistence pays off. After being scammed with $3000 in forged cashier checques in an eBay transaction, this seller took matters into his own hands. How secure do you feel making transaction over eBay and related services? What kinds of internet fraud have you faced or fear? And most interesting of all, to what extent have you gone to correct evils done to you?
posted by tgrundke
on Dec 12, 2002 -
51 comments
You Are a Suspect A growing awareness by those on the right and on the left that our rights are now seriously in threat of total erosion in light of new Petnagon proposal to track all moves of citizens in giagantic data base. may require reg for NY Times.
posted by Postroad
on Nov 14, 2002 -
66 comments
Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans And this is justified because of National Security. We will lose much that is personal, private, but in turn we will be protefted against the bad guys. Or will we? When NASA and CIA claim they need to spy domestically, and computers gather all data on Americans, what is left that is not what Orwell had suggested might our future be like?Or, as Morth Sahl once labelled a comic record: TheFuture Lies Ahead."
posted by Postroad
on Nov 9, 2002 -
97 comments
Are you using AOL IM at work? Chatting with your buds or SO while you should probably be working? Well, in a desperate attempt to turn some kind of profit, AOL is willing to sell your boss the ability to be in on the conversation, too.
posted by crunchland
on Nov 5, 2002 -
21 comments
Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column...
"Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick
on Sep 12, 2002 -
22 comments
Pregnancy test results are not considered part of confidential medical records. Why, you say? Because the cops wanted to find out who dumped an abandoned baby, and subpoenaed Planned Parenthood's records to see who had gotten positive pregnancy test results recently. The rationale for the judge's ruling? "...the records aren't medical records because the staff who provide pregnancy tests aren't required to be doctors or nurses."
posted by beth
on Jul 18, 2002 -
14 comments
Microsoft unleashes Palladium,
an intrusive doozy of a feature involving specially secure AMD/Intel computer chips and cryptology provided by Microsoft. Newsweek's head-bobbing Steven Levy, the first to get the story,
remains taciturn, failing to call into question Microsoft's
security sins of the past.
Geeks run scared while
digital rights and GPL concerns are wholly ignored by the mainstream media. Is this yet another example of a malcontent media that will never possess the balls to actually question a new feature put out by Microsoft? Even
Wired can't seem to read between the lines of a technology that "stemmed from early work by engineers to deliver digital movies that couldn't be pirated."
posted by ed
on Jun 25, 2002 -
16 comments
