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As reported in today’s Oakland Tribune (this article will be available free for 14 days after publication), executives of e-voting machine manufacturer Diebold admitted to, and apologized for, security flaws in products sold to the state of California that resulted in the disenfranchisement of voters in the March 2 election. See also the Open Voting …
An update to my April 13 posting, CA Senator Plans Bill on Gmail and Privacy, as follows: April 21, Senator Liz Figueroa Introduces Bill to Stop Google from Secretly “Oogling” Private E-Mails, and a link to SB 1822, which contains her amendments relevant to this issue.
Huge Surge In Phishing Scams As Fraudsters Seek Financial Gain This link on Antiphishing.org: “Earthlink ToolbarFeaturing ScamBlocker EarthLink ScamBlocker is part of a free browser toolbar that alerts you before you visit a page that’s on Earthlink’s list of known fraudulent phisher Web sites. Its free to all Internet users.” [Download]
Libraries Wired, and Reborn. See also this article from The Guardian (UK), on the latest e-book technology innovations from Sony, and this one from the New York Times.
From FCW.com, “Officials at the General Services Administration are building a system to check the identities of users doing business with agencies online, and they plan to rely on outside organizations to generate users’ digital credentials.”
From the Campaign for Verifiable Voting in Maryland: “A cross-partisan group of registered Maryland voters announced today they will be filing a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections and its Administrator, charging that the new Diebold AccuVote-TS electronic voting machines recently purchased by Maryland fail to comply with both state and federal law. …
Domestic Intelligence and Civil Liberties, by Kate Martin (Director, Center for National Security Studies), SAIS Review, Winter-Spring 2004. [Secrecy News] “The 9.11 Commission hearings have highlighted intelligence failures by the FBI and CIA before September 11. On April 13, 2004, Attorney General Ashcroft told the Commission that the “wall” between law enforcement and intelligence was …
MEPs take on EU and US over air data deal: “The European Parliament has by 16 votes, 276 in favour, 260 against, agreed to take a privacy rights battle over handovers of air passenger data to US security agencies to the EU courts.”
“The American Library Association, along with other library and education associations, has filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opposing a Department of Justice attempt to bring all broadband access to the Internet within the scope of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).” [Link]
Senator Collins Receives Answers on Terrorist Threat Integration Center, April 20, 2004 Letter to Sens. Collins, Levin on TTIC Structure New Gov’t Surveillance Database Announced by Bush, January 30, 2003
From yesterday’s FTC Spyware Workshop, the Consumer Software Working Group Examples of Unfair, Deceptive or Devious Practices Involving Software, “endorsed by a broad coalition of software companies, Internet service providers, anti-spyware technology vendors, and consumer groups convened by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).” For additional resources, see CDT’s Spyware page. See also Few …
The BBC reports that the results of recent surveys of London commuters, requesting their PC login passwords in exchange for chocolate, were that a majority of respondents provided them without hesitation. Must be really good chocolate! In addition, the survey established that pet names are all too often passwords of choice, and are also willingly …