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Technology Review – Searching for Humans – Various websites are trying to make it easier to find friends and colleagues online: “Jaideep Singh, cofounder of the new people-search engine Spock, says he wants to build a profile for every person in the world. To do this, he plans to combine the power of search algorithms …
Follow up to previous posting on the government’s domestic surveillance program, today’s Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The Bush Administrations Failure To Comply With Subpoenas For Warrantless Wiretapping Documents, August 20, 2007: “Today was the deadline for the Administration to comply with the Judiciary Committees subpoenas for documents related to …
EPIC: “The biometrics program manager in Iraq this week expressed concern that the database containing biometrics and secret files on thousand of Iraqis could “become a hit list if it gets in the wrong hands.” According to Lt. Col. Velliquette, the Iraqi system has approximately 750,000 records in its database. Earlier, EPIC, Privacy International, and …
Press release: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) is the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes within the United States. The office will begin initial operation by fall 2007 and will build on the long-standing work of …
WSJ: “The U.S.’s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation’s vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.’s …
Understanding Privacy — and the Real Threats to It, August 4, 2007 (20 pages, PDF), by Jim Harper, the editor of Privacilla.org and director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute. Executive Summary: “Properly defined, privacy is the subjective condition people experience when they have power to control information about themselves. Because privacy is …
Erickson, K., & Howard, P. (2007). A case of mistaken identity? News accounts of hacker, consumer, and organizational responsibility for compromised digital records. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 5. “The computer hacker is one of the most vilified figures in the digital era, but to what degree are organizations actually responsible for compromised personal …
UK House of Lords, Science and Technology Committee, 5th Report of Session 2006-2007: Personal Internet Security, August 10, 2007 (121 pages, PDF) “e-crime and the internet – Lords Science and Technology Committee calls for incentives, regulation and investment to tackle internet crime: The Internet is a powerful force for good: within 20 years it has …
AP: “Of the 12 states in the Northeast and Midwest that are part of the E-ZPass system, agencies in seven states provide electronic toll information in response to court orders in criminal and civil cases, including divorces, according to an Associated Press survey.”
ACLU press release: “The U.S. security establishment is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by hiring or compelling private-sector corporations to provide billions of customer records. The explosive growth in surveillance by government and business is creating a Surveillance-Industrial Complex (PDF) that threatens all of our privacy.”
“Consumers can take many measures to make their laptop secure from hackers, viruses, and other potential threats, such as installing firewalls, updating antivirus software, and using strong passwords. Now, the Federal Trade Commission is offering tips for protecting laptops from theft.” OnGuard Online Laptop Security
Press release: “In a trend that could substantially benefit Internet users, the largest Internet search companies are beginning to aggressively compete with one another to offer stronger privacy protections, according to a report published today by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Until recently, most of the major Internet search engines kept detailed — …
