Privacy

Users of P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing services may be sharing more than they bargained for, a former White House cybersecurity advisor warned Thursday.

Security researchers have found thousands of files with sensitive information by searching through file-sharing networks, said Howard Schmidt, chief executive officer at R&H Security Consulting. Schmidt, who has also worked as chief security officer for Microsoft, made the comments during an SDForum seminar in Palo Alto, California, on Thursday.

In another move to snoop on the world, the US Gov is trying to implement VOIP Wiretaps, according to the ITAA. In a ruling last year the FCC stated that the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement [CALEA] act , which is a provision [at least in the USA] requiring telephone companies to build wiretapping facilities in their network infrastructure, also extends to VOIP offerings. To achieve their goal, it appears that the implementation would introduce severe security risks, [see section 5 pg 11].

If you are worried about a thief stealing your identity, it's not your wallet that needs guarding -- it's your state and local governments.

That's the alarm Betty "BJ" Ostergren, the self-proclaimed Virginia Watchdog, has been sounding for the past four years from her rural Virginia home.

We all know the plushy, rounded, pastel-coloured faces of Web 2.0. MySpace. Digg. Flickr. The achingly trendy Silicon Valley startups that are selling for millions to big media conglomerates and making their founders into stars. Tom Anderson. Kevin Rose. These are the pinups of the Web 2.0 generation - but little do they know the monster they've created.

My firm belief is that the net effect of the Web 2.0 movement will be a marked loss of privacy on the internet, one which leads to big business knowing more about you than it ever did before. This is why.

Big Brother is not only watching, but he is also reading your e-mail.

According to a new study, about one-third of big companies in the United States and Britain hire employees to read and analyze outbound e-mail as they seek to guard against legal, financial or regulatory risk.

More than one-third of U.S. companies surveyed also said their business was hurt by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information in the past 12 months, according to the annual study from a company specializing in protecting corporate e-mail at large businesses.

The Y-M-C-A of Greater Providence is reporting that one of its two missing laptop computers contains members information.

The non-profit organization that provides a range of educational, social and recreational services says it discovered last week that the computers were missing.

One computer contains members' information, including names, addresses, credit and debit card numbers, checking account numbers and social security numbers.

If you slap the happiest face possible on the recent theft of over 26 million veterans' Social Security Numbers, the outcome was the result of a stunning confluence of incompetence, happenstance and aggression. At the least, it required:

* bad network security;
* lax privacy administration;
* a stupid renegade employee, and;
* an enterprising burglar.

Sacred Heart University of Fairfield, Conn., is the latest school to lose student and faculty data to identity hackers.

"On May 8, Sacred Heart University discovered that the security system on one of our computers containing personal information was breached," the private school of 5,600 wrote in a message posted to its Web site. "We immediately took the computer offline and began an aggressive investigation using university resources and an independent Internet security firm to determine if data was accessed."

In the latest laptop data theft, the Veterans Administration says that 26.5 million veterans' personal information is at risk because of a burglary at an employee's home.

According to the VA, the employee, a data analyst residing in suburban Maryland, saved the information on disk "in violation of policy," and took the data home with him to use on his laptop. The employee's home was burglarized, and the laptop was stolen.

General Michael Hayden, President Bush's nominee for CIA director, has defended his secret programme of snooping on citizens' telephone calls without warrants.