Grant Gross reports: A third U.S. State Department employee has pleaded guilty to illegally accessing dozens of confidential passport application files, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Gerald Lueders, 65, of Woodbridge, Virginia, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a one-count criminal information charging him with unauthorized computer…
Author: Dissent
Google responds: Consumer Watchdog wrong on medical records claim
Google’s response: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 3:12 PM Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel Earlier today a group called Consumer Watchdog put out a press release alleging a “rumored lobbying effort” by Google “aimed at allowing the sale of electronic medical records.” This claim — based on no evidence whatsoever — is 100…
Happy Data Privacy Day!
Looking for an event in your area? Check out the events listed on the Data Privacy Day 2009 site. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 31 by a vote of 402-0, declaring today National Data Privacy Day. If you would like to see if your representative was among the 51 co-sponsors, click here. The Senate…
JP: Man breaks into apartment, installs computer virus to steal banking details
This seems to be a “first” for the area: Police have arrested a man for breaking into the home of another man and installing a virus on his computer, which he later used to obtain his online banking details and steal 9 million yen from his account. Takamasa Kondo, 37, of no fixed address, was…
Send in the lawyers (Heartland Payment Systems update)
Over on Computerworld, Jaikumar Vijayan reports that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the Heartland Payment Systems breach: […] A Pennsylvania law firm today filed the first class action lawsuit related to the breach. The lawsuit was filed by Chimicles & Tikellis LLP of Haverford, PA on behalf of Alicia Cooper, a resident…
TX: Personal data of about 500 Beaumont workers online
The AP is reporting that the personal information of about 500 current and former Beaumont city workers was accidentally posted online on the city’s web site on January 14. The information, which included dates of birth and social security numbers, was removed the following morning. The notification letter reportedly says that the incident happened as…