Privacy

The United States justice authorities are demanding the Twitter account details of people suspected of having links to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Dutch internet activist Rop Gonggrijp is on the list but, on his blog, he says the US won’t learn much from the information.

“I don’t use Twitter much and I’ve never received or sent a Direct Message via Twitter. What Twitter’s got on me isn’t very spectacular.” His account only has 84 public tweets.

Hacked iTunes accounts are available for sale for as little as 15 cents on China's leading online shopping site, according to reports, with credit card numbers visible to anyone buying the dodgy details.

The state-run Global Times said that 50,000 illegal accounts were up for grabs on the Taobao website, with buyers promised the ability to buy music, video or apps.

In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) the Supreme Court overturned a statute requiring any person who prints a notice or flyer promoting a candidate or an issue to identify the communication’s author by name. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, grounded his opinion in an account of meaning he takes from an earlier case (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti): “The inherent worth of . . .

Money laundering and terrorist financing are serious problems, but there are several troubling aspects in the new rules proposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). FinCEN, a bureau of the Department of Treasury, proposed that the government should be told your name, address, bank account number, taxpayer ID, and other sensitive financial information if you electronically transfer any amount of money out of or into the country.

Speaking at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Berlin on Tuesday, a pair of researchers demonstrated a start-to-finish means of eavesdropping on encrypted GSM cellphone calls and text messages, using only four sub-$15 telephones as network “sniffers,” a laptop computer, and a variety of open source software.

It sounds bad, but perhaps it's not as bad as it could have been: American Honda has notified 2.2 million customers that a list including e-mail addresses, VINs and login information has been stolen by unknown hackers. Company officials say the list didn't include Social Security numbers, birthdates, bank information or other data that would leave people vulnerable to identity theft.

The Veteran Affairs Department ordered doctors to immediately stop using a Yahoo Calendar Application to store confidential data. Notifications of a possible security breach have been sent to nearly 900 affected patients, according to VA’s monthly report to Congress on Dec. 22.

The report called the breach as a "mishandling of electronic information," because doctors were storing patients’ medical information, such as full names, dates and types of surgery and the last four digits of Social Security numbers, for 878 patients.

Time Warner Cable, one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, has refused to turn over customers accused in a lawsuit by Larry Flynt Publishing of pirating one of the company's porn films, according to Flynt's attorney.

In October, Dallas-based attorney Evan Stone filed three separate lawsuits against more than 4,000 "John Does," alleging the defendants illegally shared the movie "This Ain't Avatar XXX." The copyright suit was filed on behalf of Larry Flynt Publishing (LFP), which oversees Flynt's adult-entertainment empire, including Hustler magazine.

A hospital foundation trust has written to 1,500 patients after the theft of a computer containing their personal details. Calderdale and Huddersfield foundation trust said it has informed local police about the theft and has since increased its security precautions.

"At the end of November it was found that part of an electromyography (EMG) machine, a computer which drives it, had been taken from a locked office in the neurophysiology department at Calderdale Royal Hospital," Yvette Oade, the medical director for the trust, said.

Up to thirty five thousand customers of Santander have received other people’s bank statements, in a major IT blunder.

Santander, which owns Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, said recipients had been sent their own transactions and those of others. Customers who received the statements are able to see other people’s names, account numbers and where they have spent their money.