Print this articleOn October 14, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Pearson v. Callahan. This case raises several questions, but the one on which this column will focus is this: Does the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures allow police to enter a private home without a warrant, after an informant gains entry into the home and obtains probable cause by deceptively posing as the resident's friend or associate?
Under a broad "consent once removed" doctrine, the answer is yes. But in Pearson, the Court will examine that doctrine. I here explain the doctrine and analyze its legitimacy as a matter of constitutional law.
Source - FindLaw
A missing Ministry of Defence computer hard drive may contain personal details of as many as 1.7 million people who have inquired about joining the armed forces, it was revealed today.
... "The hard drive had been used with the TAFMIS recruitment system and may, in the worst case, contain details relating to 1.7 million individuals who have enquired about joining the Armed Forces."Where people simply made casual inquiries, only their name and contact numbers are likely to have been recorded, said Mr Ainsworth.
But for those who went on to apply to join up, the drive could include more extensive data, including next of kin details, passport and National Insurance numbers, drivers' licence and bank details and NHS numbers.
Source - The Independent
Amid concern on privacy and security on the Internet, Indonesian Ministry of Education put up a database of students online in details and down-loadable files. There are at least 36 million students database listed on the website in the excel files containing names, date and place of birth and addresses!
Source - Toekang IT blog, cnet Asia
New Delhi: Telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (TRAI) has disconnected 10,051 telephones of telemarketers for repeatedly violating the 'National Do Not Call Registry' (NDNC) a database of telephone numbers of subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls, that was operationalised on 12 October 2007.
Source - domain-b.com
The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) union has warned it may seek a judicial review of the government's ID cards scheme to prevent pilots being forced to carry identity cards.
... "[The review] would be on the basis that we are told repeatedly by ministers that the ID card scheme is voluntary but how can it be voluntary if we stand the prospect of losing our jobs?" he said.Source - Silicon.com
A Somerset County school has recalled hundreds of student identification cards after realizing a breach of highly sensitive information.
Crisfield High School pulled more than 400 IDs citing a situation in which the Social Security numbers of some of students were printed on the cards. The cards were originally distributed Oct. 7.Karen-Lee Brofee, Somerset County schools superintendent, said the incident was a result of an incorrect information file electronically sent to Lifetouch Photography, which manufactures the cards. Brofee said Lifetouch has since destroyed the file containing the compromised information.
Source - DelmarvaNow.com
A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.
Source - Chronicles of Dissent
Thanks to everyone who came along to Parliament Square this morning and made the ORG/No2ID Big Picture event such a success. The sun was shining as we constructed a massive 4m x 5m collage of all the photos youve been uploading of UK surveillance state ephemera over the past couple of weeks.
See the picture and read more on The Open Rights Group
A former Bath and Body Works employee in Dubuque faces charges of identity theft after police say she opened a credit card using a fellow employee's name and charged nearly $24,000 on it, according to court documents.
Shacara Hudson, 21, of 1199 Central Ave., Apt. 4, was charged with identity theft and released on a $25,000 bond. In a police interview, Hudson said she obtained confidential information on a fellow employee from Bath and Body Works personnel files.
Source - THonline.com
Is e-Bay's trouble with Auction, its Korean subsidiary, limited to an upcoming class action suit by lawyers representing over some 10 million people whose private information was allegedly leaked in February?
The Korea Consumer Agency, the state-affiliated watchdog, said it has received 185 complaints from users of Auction, the American giant's Korean subsidiary, in the first half of this year, with 98 cases related to alleged leaks of personal information.
Source - The Korea Times
European law-enforcement officials uncovered a highly sophisticated credit-card fraud ring that funnels account data to Pakistan from hundreds of grocery-store card machines across Europe, according to U.S. intelligence officials and other people familiar with the case.
Specialists say the theft technology is the most advanced they have seen, and a person close to British law enforcement said it has affected big retailers including a British unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tesco Ltd.
Source - Wall Street Journal
hat-tip, SlashdotOne day after assuring customers it was implementing new privacy protection measures, Deutsche Telekom was struck by another security lapse. The company said it patched the holes allowing outside access to customer data.
The German telecommunications giant admitted on Saturday, Oct. 11, that it was aware of holes in its security system that provided access to bank account numbers and other personal information of some 30 million Telekom mobile phone users.
The company had no indication of a possible theft of the information.
Source - DW-World.de
The World Bank's computer network has been repeatedly raided by hackers for over a year, according to a Fox News report.
But a World Bank spokesperson insists the Fox report is inaccurate. "The story is fundamentally wrong," the spokesperson said in an e-mail. "It is riddled with falsehoods and errors and cites misinformation from unattributed sources and e-mails that are taken out of context."
Source - InformationWeek
THE RINGLEADER of a gang who stole credit card details and used them to buy £7,000 of goods and then sell them on internet auction site eBay has been jailed.
Lee Goodchild stole the card details of eight customers who ordered takeaways from Dominos Pizza in the Old Town where he worked.
Source - Swindon Advertiser
Hidden in foliage next to a path in the southeast England seaside town of Hastings are digital cameras. Their target: litterbugs and dog walkers.
The electronic eyes feed images to a monitoring unit, where they're scanned and stored as evidence to prosecute people who discard garbage or fail to clean up after pets, a spokeswoman for the town council said.
``It's becoming a bit Big Brother-like,'' said Sandra Roberts, 50, a Hastings kiosk manager, invoking George Orwell's 1949 book ``Nineteen Eighty-Four,'' about a Britain where authorities pry into all aspects of citizens' lives.
Source - Bloomberg
In the lawsuit filed Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court, the Center for Reproductive Rights says that the requirement intrudes on privacy, endangers health and assaults dignity.
Source - Centre Daily News
Forget privacy, open access to information is power, and the government doesn't want you to have it, says Steve Rambam, president of the Pallorium investigative agency and PallTech, an investigative database service that has some a 25 billion records individuals and businesses.
"Two hundred years ago the second amendment was passed because you needed a gun to protect yourself. Now you need information to keep things balanced," Rambam says. He believes that the government is now trying to tip that balance of power in its favor. And privacy is the perfect pretext for regaining control over public information byclosing down access to it.
Source - Computerworld
Related - The Grill: Privacy is a thing of the past, says private investigatorLindsay Lohan's attorneys filed a motion on her behalf this week, seeking a judge's order barring any filming or taping whatsoever of the bisexual actress' upcoming deposition in a lawsuit filed by lover Samantha Ronson.
Lohan's attorneys have asked the court that transcripts or any other accounts of the deposition be sealed from being introduced into public records. The motion states that Lohan feats (sic) videotaping the deposition will "unduly embarrass, oppress and burden her because of the private subject matter of the expected testimony and the virtual certainty that, unless access is significantly limited, the transcript and videotape of the deposition will be illegally exploited by the media."
Source - The Post Chronicle
Back in March 2007, Google promised to begin anonymizing log data to better protect user privacy. That kicked off a wave of privacy pledges from competing search engines. In addition, by agreeing to limit itself, it inadvertently got the European Union to demand even faster data destruction. Below, a look at Googles progress toward its initial 18 month anonymization plan, the 9 months it recently agreed to and that question about cookies are they really deleted or not?
Source - Search Engine Land
More than 1,000 former Southwest Mississippi Community College students personal identities have been compromised because of a security breach at the Summit-based school, according to the state Attorney Generals office.
... College officials told the AGs Consumer Protection Division that personal information was made available on the Internet.Source - Clarion Ledger
A LAPTOP containing data on around 100,000 pensioners was stolen last month, it was revealed today.
Source - The Sun
The World Bank Group's computer network one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned.
It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution's highly-restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank's network for nearly a month in June and July.
In total, at least six major intrusions two of them using the same group of IP addresses originating from China have been detected at the World Bank since the summer of 2007, with the most recent breach occurring just last month.
Source - FOXNews
The Ministry of Defence has begun an investigation into its worst information security breach after a portable hard drive with details of about 100,000 servicemen and women and 800,000 applicants to join the Armed Services was found to be missing on Wednesday.
Sensitive details of the family members of personnel were also among the data stored, including bank details and passport numbers.
The portable hard drive which is believed not to have been encrypted was used by EDS, the MoDs main IT contractor, to test computer equipment. It could have en missing for several days.
Source - TimesOnline
Related - The Register: MoD loses most of the armed forcesA computer that was used to issue photo IDs was stolen from MHCCs Maywood Park Campus Sept. 8.
The data stored on the computer contained information from 1995 through 2005 including the names, birthdates and MHCC identification numbers of former students.
According to the Oregon Identity Theft Protection Act of 2007, the information that was stored on the computer does not constitute personal information.
... The press release said MHCC took out ads in the Oregonian and the Gresham Outlook to inform affected individuals about the situation.Source - The Advocate
Press release from Greenville County Schools:
A student at Riverside High School reported on September 26 to Greenville County Schools (GCS) Education Technology Services Department (ETS) that while using a GCS networked computer he bypassed district security controls to gain unauthorized access to a GCS file server. That server contained confidential student information, including students names, addresses, Medicaid ID numbers, and social security numbers.
There is no evidence to indicate that any data was transmitted to any other person or used in any manner. Although we have no indication that any misuse has occurred, as a precaution we are informing our students and parents of this situation.
The student provided ETS personnel the portable storage device to which he had downloaded the information and a written statement that he had neither shared nor reproduced that information. ETS personnel immediately initiated established Incident Response Procedures including investigation of the incident by ETS Information Security Personnel and referral to the Greenville County Sheriffs Department Investigations Division.
Law enforcement and the school district are conducting separate on-going investigations. The results of the district investigation will determine any school disciplinary action.
While we have no indication that any misuse has occurred, this incident serves as a reminder that data of a confidential, personal nature is stored in computer systems throughout the world and these systems are constantly subjected to attempts at unauthorized entry. In response to this problem the Federal Trade Commission provides specific steps that all individuals should take to detect and prevent improper use of their personal information. As a service to our students and families, the school district has provided a link to these steps that may be accessed in the Parent Section of the school district website at http://www.greenville.k12.sc.us. We recommend that all families use this as an opportunity to review and implement these precautions.
Source - WSPA.com
A US couple who sent vast quantities of spam via a small ISP for around four months in 2003 have been fined a whacking $236 million.
According to the IDG newswire, Perez and Suzanne Bartok used a bulk emailing package to send millions of spammed messages to CIS Internet Services in Iowa.
The small ISP said it had to dedicate three servers to blocking the couple's spam, which amounted to an astonishing 500 million emails every day for around four months in 2003.
Source - ITProPortal.com
Police say a seasoned identity thief finally got caught because she tried to run her crime in this small community.
Stuart Police arrested Jermica Sykes and her boyfriend, Chad Knight, on charges of identity theft.
... "It was a pretty sophisticated operation," says Detective Sergeant Bill Pecci. "Jermica was able to access different accounts over the internet and working with multiple people around the state was able to obtain date of birth, social security numbers, account information for people everywhere and ultimately get credit cards sent to an address where they could receive them, and she also made new checks, checkbooks under these people's name.".... Police say there could be 4,500 victims.
Source - WPTV.com
The U.S. Senate is investigating allegations by two National Security Agency whistleblowers who have described widespread monitoring of innocuous telephone conversations by the Bush administration's clandestine program.
The reports fill in some details about how the NSA's program works in practice. The two whistleblowers, Adrienne Kinne and David Murfee Faulk, are former military linguists who worked for a secretive NSA operation they say routinely intercepted phone calls of U.S. military officers, American journalists, American aid workers, and others who were calling home from abroad.
Source - Declan McCullagh, cnet
Related - Shayan Kadidal: Finally, whistleblowers report from the inside on the NSA ProgramRelated - L.A. Times: U.S. tapped intimate calls from Americans overseas, 2 eavesdroppers say
A laptop containing Railways Pension Scheme confidential member data has been stolen from external auditors Deloitte.
Administrators Rpmi was informed of the data loss following the theft in September. Deloitte was the firms external auditor until two months ago.
Deloitte has confirmed the laptop contained some personal information regarding some of the members of the Railways Pension Scheme, the Network Rail Defined Contribution Scheme, the British Transport Police Force Superannuation Fund, British Railways Superannuation Fund and the BR (1974) Fund.
Source - Professional Pensions
A former Verizon Wireless worker who police said stole his customers' identities pleaded not guilty today during his arraignment, according to court records.
George Cardenas, 25, of Compton is accused of using credit card information from customers at a Huntington Beach Verizon Wireless store in the 16100 block of Beach Blvd., Huntington Beach police Sgt. Greg Davis said in a statement.
... Detectives first heard that there might have been fraud from Schools First bank. At least 14 clients from the bank told police their credit card and identity information had been compromised since May, Davis reported.Source - OC Register