Okay, so this may not be a good time to call Comptroller DiNapoli’s office to find out whatever happened to the K-12 data security audits they had told me they would be conducting last year. Ken Lovett reports: State Controller Thomas DiNapoli is taking major heat for the office blunder that led to the Social…
Author: Dissent
Court Dismisses Data Breach Claims Against Countrywide – Holmes v. Countrywide
Venkat Balasubramani discusses the decision in Holmes v. Countrywide Financial Corp., et al.: In August 2008, a Countrywide employee engaged in a scheme to steal confidential customer information from Countrywide. An investigation found that the employee gained access to data from 2.4 million loan customers, and sold this information to unknown third parties for the…
CA: Customers at Orcutt Burger Restaurant Hit With Debit Card Fraud
Rachel Laine reports: Customers at a local restaurant are hit with debit card fraud. The Coast Hills Federal Credit Union is sending out an alert about the Orcutt Burger Restaurant. The credit union says it has stopped all signature-based debit transactions to prevent further theft from any debit card activity. Coast Hills says customers can still…
Brewster’s Address Book App Briefly Exposes Ashton Kutcher’s & Others’ Private Data; Company Says It’s Fixed
Sarah Perez reports: Brewster, the hot, new personalized address book app for iPhone, launched to much fanfare this week. But it also launched with a concerning bug. Some users reported they had the ability to see the personal contact information for people they shouldn’t have had access to, including the likes of one Mr. Ashton…
Seattle Man Sentenced To Prison For Computer Hacking, Fraud And Identity Theft
Joshuah Allen Witt, 35, of Seattle was sentenced yesterday to 95 months in prison and three years of supervised release for a crime spree that involved both physical burglary, and hacking into computer systems to steal personal and business information used in a variety of thefts and frauds. The sentencing was announced by U.S. Attorney…
Dignity for the dead at the Lincoln Regional Center
Since 2007, I have been covering the lawsuit against Nebraska over the identities of patients buried at state mental hospitals anonymously. It was a case that pitted open records against the privacy – as such – of the dead and their descendants, and in my earliest posts, I argued for privacy and non-disclosure. But here’s…