Privacy

Worries about Iraq's biometric database
The U.S. biometric database in Iraq, now containing identification information on more than 2.5 million Iraqis, has been helpful to U.S. troops in identifying the bad guys and thwarting acts of terror; as the U.S. forces prepare to leave Iraq, worries grow that the same database may be used for monitoring critics of the regime and for political repression
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U.K. to share fingerprints with Canada, Australia
U.K., Canada, and Australia have begun to implement the fingerprint data sharing among g them, aiming to catch criminals and better evaluate the cases of asylum seekers; U.S., New Zealand will soon join
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Über-hacker Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez's plea scuttled by indictment
Gonzalez’s attorney was close to taking responsibility for his crimes and agreeing to a sentence of about twenty years when hew was indicted on new counts on Monday
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Kemesa: Solving the identity theft problem
The ideal solution to the online identity theft problem is to not transmit personal information to Web sites in the first place; with Kemesa’s Shop Shield, personal information can not be stolen because it is never revealed during the online transaction process
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Cyber-criminals targeting social networks
Cyber-criminals are drawn to the wealth of personal information supplied by users of social networks
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Widespread privacy failings in online social networks
A Cambridge University study finds serious privacy weaknesses in the way social networking sites are run; those who join such site are often unaware of these weaknesses
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This product description will self-destruct
Huskies researchers develop a tool to make online personal data vanish; after a set time period, electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts, and chat messages would automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites, and home computers
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New technology uses encrypted CCTV to protect the innocent
San Francisco-based 3VR developed a technology that uses face-recognition algorithms to home in on known faces in crowds — but an image-scrambling algorithm then blurs the faces and bodies of those who are not of interest to the authorities
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DHS's Einstein 3 plans raise questions
DHS wants to use Einstein 3 to bolster cybersecurity; the deployment of this powerful program has its critics, though
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Criminals can figure out an individual's Social Security number
Researchers show that statistical techniques can be used to determine an individual’s Social Security number, based on the person’s birth date and birth location
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Method discovered to process encrypted data without knowing its content
IBM researcher solves thorny mathematical problem that has confounded scientists since the invention of public-key encryption several decades ago; the breakthrough makes possible the analysis of encrypted information — data that has been intentionally scrambled — without sacrificing confidentiality
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U.K. government to give up on massive Internet snoop scheme
The Home Office admits that its IMP (Interception Modernization Program) — the cost of which was to be £2 billion over ten years — cannot be realized because the technology does not yet exist
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China uses stolen software in its new Internet censorship scheme
The Chinese government will impose strict Internet censorship beginning 1 July; the software the Chinese will use for filtering Web sites was stolen from California-based Solid Oak Software; the Chinese piracy was exceedingly clumsy: a file containing a 2004 Solid Oak news bulletin has been accidentally included in the Chinese filtering coding
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NYCLU sues DHS over mid-Manhattan surveillance scheme
DHS wants to build a $92 million surveillance system in Lower Manhattan; civil liberties organizations sues DHS over plans to expand plan to mid-Manhattan
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Identity fundamentals. pt. 1: Who cares who you are anyway?
Identity can be defined as a combination of the uniqueness of an individual (or device) and the attributes which are associated with that uniqueness; in the absence of a standard unique personal identification number, personal names are often used to build a single view across different unconnected applications
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