Shopping Centre Tracking System Faces Civil Rights Campaigners’ Wrath Civil rights campaigners have spoken out against a technology used by several shopping centres in the UK to track consumers using their mobile signals. The shopping centres claim that the technology helps them provide better services to consumers and retailers without compromising privacy. The system, called the Footpath, allows them to know how are people spending time in a shopping centre, which spots they visit the most and even the route they take while walking around in a shopping centre. Footpath has been developed by Hampshire based Path Intelligence. According to The Guardian, several consumer and civil rights groups, including Big Brother Watch, have claimed that consumers must be given a choice on whether they want their movement tracked or not. The fact that the technology keeps the consumers' anonymous has been appreciated but several organisations claim that is wrong to assume that shopping centres have a right to track the movement of the consumers.
The convergence of Google, government and privacy Google recently added a new Privacy Tools page. If you follow tech policy in Washington, you couldn’t miss hearing about it, given that advertising for Google privacy tools was on relevant blogs, email newsletters and periodicals. And if you work, play, shop or communicate online, the issue of online privacy is more relevant to you than perhaps it ever has been before. Companies and governments are gathering unprecedented amounts of data about every click, link, and status update you make. This historic moment is why the Gov 2.0 Summit featured a deep dive into online privacy this year. Why the big push in awareness around the new privacy tools? As one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, Google will inevitably be affected by any new electronics privacy laws from Congress or regulations from the Federal Trade Commission. That’s doubly true because of recent missteps, like the widespread backlash over Google Buzz. Is it possible to share and protect sensitive information?
GW Law -- Faculty Directory Education B.S.E., Princeton University; M.S., Stanford University; J.D., Harvard University Biographical Sketch Professor Kerr is a nationally recognized scholar in the fields of criminal procedure and computer crime law. His articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, and many other top journals, often multiple times. Professor Kerr’s scholarship has been cited in over 90 judicial opinions, including decisions by the United States Supreme Court and all of the regional U.S. Courts of Appeals. Before joining the faculty in 2001, Professor Kerr was an honors program trial attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Professor Kerr has briefed and argued cases in the United States Supreme Court as well as federal circuit and federal district courts.
Charges Against the N.S.A.’s Thomas Drake On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, of being an enemy of the state. According to a ten-count indictment delivered against him in April, 2010, Drake violated the Espionage Act—the 1917 statute that was used to convict Aldrich Ames, the C.I.A. officer who, in the eighties and nineties, sold U.S. intelligence to the K.G.B., enabling the Kremlin to assassinate informants. In 2007, the indictment says, Drake willfully retained top-secret defense documents that he had sworn an oath to protect, sneaking them out of the intelligence agency’s headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and taking them home, for the purpose of “unauthorized disclosure.”
Scott Adams Blog: Noprivacyville 03/15/2011 I heard a report on NPR about an auto insurance company giving drivers the options of putting GPS tracking devices on their vehicles to lower insurance rates by as much as 30%. The idea is that, for example, the device could confirm to the insurance company that the car wasn't being used in high risk situations, such as commute traffic. Safe driving situations would be rewarded with lower rates. This made me wonder how much money could be saved by creating an entire city with no privacy except in the bedroom and bathroom. Although you would never live in a city without privacy, I think that if one could save 30% on basic living expenses, and live in a relatively crime-free area, plenty of volunteers would come forward. Let's assume that residents of this city agree to get "chipped" so their locations are always known. This city of no privacy wouldn't need much of a police force because no criminal would agree to live in such a monitored situation.
Paul Ohm: Homepage untitled Operator Operator YAPO is a new incarnation of an award-winning portable Opera package. You can run Operator on any computer you want (company, library, your friend's computer) and without administration privileges as long as it's a Windows PC. Plus, unless you choose otherwise, no data will be stored at the host computer. Changes in the current release This initial release includes Opera 10.52. Subscribe to updates via the Operator RSS feed. Download Operator YAPO 1.0 Operator weights 10 MB and is Windows only. Please do not link directly to the files. Troubleshooting and bugs If you seek support or want to report a bug, please use the Troubleshooting forum. Looking for the old OperaTor? Here is an archive page. The convergence of biometrics, location and surveillance Applying biometric matching to location-based surveillance technologies produces both fascinating possibilities and scary scenarios. I recently spoke with Tactical Information Systems CTO Alex Kilpatrick and Mary Haskett, co-founder and president, about the state of biometrics and what we need to be concerned about as surveillance becomes more prevalent in our society. They’ll expand on many of these ideas during a session at the upcoming Where 2.0 Conference. Our interview follows. What is biometric matching and how might it be used in future consumer applications? Alex Kilpatrick: Biometrics is the science that studies things that make an individual unique. Biometric matching comes in two forms: verification and identification. Like most technologies, biometrics can be used for good or evil. Mary Haskett: I think the entire industry is holding its breath and waiting to see what’s going to happen in the consumer space. How are biometrics being used in surveillance technologies? Related:
UAE rules set off BlackBerry storm Planning to take your faithful BlackBerry along on a trip to the United Arab Emirates? Think again. The showdown between the Middle Eastern nation and the makers of the popular electronic devices escalated Monday, with Research in Motion (RIM) assuring its customers that it would not alter its security methods, while the United Arab Emirates said its BlackBerry ban, though it won’t cover phone calls, also will apply to Americans and other foreign visitors. The State Department on Monday said the impending ban sets a “dangerous precedent,” a statement that prompted a volley back from the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington. The dispute started Sunday, when the United Arab Emirates government announced that it would block RIM’s service to the half-million local users, citing the company’s repeated failure to comply with national security rules. As a result, the BlackBerry is prized for its security.
‘MegaSearch’ Aims to Index Fraud Site Wares A new service aims to be the Google search of underground Web sites, connecting buyers to a vast sea of shops that offer an array of dodgy goods and services, from stolen credit card numbers to identity information and anonymity tools. MegaSearch results for BIN #423953 A glut of data breaches and stolen card numbers has spawned dozens of stores that sell the information. The trouble is that each shop requires users to create accounts and sign in before they can search for cards. Enter MegaSearch.cc, which lets potential buyers discover which fraud shops hold the cards they’re looking for without having to first create accounts at each store. According to its creator, the search engine does not store the compromised card numbers or any information about the card holders. I first read about this offering in a blog post by RSA Fraud Action Research Labs. “I’m standing on a big startup that is going to be [referred to as] the ‘underground Google,’” MegaSearch told KrebsOnSecurity.
Information: Strata Online Conference April 2011 - O'Reilly Conferences, April 06 Why an online conference? The O'Reilly Strata Online Conference provides an ongoing forum for exploring the latest issues, without the expense or inconvenience of travel. It's our way of bringing Strata to your desktop and keeping the conversation alive throughout the year. How does it work? In an online conference, participants log on and attend sessions, enter into discussions with other participants and presenters using the live text chat, and are able to pose questions and interact with people from all over the world. It has a similar structure to a physical conference, except that you hear the speakers discuss topics and watch their slide presentations via your computer from the convenience of your office or home. We look forward to seeing you in the online conference. The online conference will be held in Adobe Connect Pro. Please use the link below to test your connection, download the Adobe Connect Add-In, and find troubleshooting tips before the event. Go Mobile Recording