Robb Tripp reports: More than 360 people who worked at a federal prison in Kingston will get at least $1,000 each after a precedent-setting, six-year legal fight over a breach of their privacy. “This has been a long odyssey,” Christopher Edwards, the Kings -ton lawyer who represented staff in a lawsuit said Wednesday. Correctional Service…
Author: Dissent
Blagojevich auction boxes contain client files
Serena Dai of the Associated Press reports: Amidst photos and handwritten letters in auction boxes connected to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich are confidential client-attorney papers from his lawyer days and opposition research on his 2006 gubernatorial race rival Judy Baar Topinka, a Northwestern University librarian said Wednesday. Librarian Jeffrey Garrett bought 18 boxes of files,…
UK: Yorkshire Building Society takes action after customers’ details are stolen
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) in breach of the Data Protection Act after an unencrypted laptop belonging to the former Chelsea Building Society (CBS), which had recently merged with YBS, was stolen from its Cheltenham premises. The laptop contained a substantial part of the CBS customer database. The laptop…
Data breach fines will not stop the rot
Over in the U.K., John E. Dunn discusses some hefty fines that have been levied following data breaches, but comments: The public gets to hear about the punishment but a lot is left behind a curtain of secrecy. This is wrong and possibly dangerous. What the UK lacks is not punishments but a basic data…
Confessions of an ATM Hacker
Tracy Kitten writes: I caught up this week with Barnaby Jack, the so-called ethical hacker who cracked the operating systems of two retail ATMs during last month’s Black Hat Technical Security Conference in Vegas. Jack, who heads research for IOActive Labs, a privately held computer and network security firm in San Francisco, hacked two commonly…
Banks Complicit in Fraud — Is it Systemic?
Naomi Wolf has followed up on her recent column about her experiences with WaMu and fraud by describing her shock at discovering how widespread such problems are and the e-mails she received from readers. Well, I certainly now felt less alone — but far more outraged and alarmed, on behalf of all of us, especially…