By Krista on Jun 20, 2006 in Identity Theft, Legal, Privacy, Security | 0 Comments
It seems like every few weeks, there’s a new report that large amounts of personal data go missing when a laptop is stolen or there’s some other kind of security breach. It makes me wonder just how one lets their laptop be stolen - do they just walk away from it? Leave it in airports? Thieves do a bait and switch? Perhaps companies should get employees to pay for their laptops and maybe they’d take better care of them. But I digress… Read the rest
By Krista on Jun 15, 2006 in Legal, Net Neutrality | 0 Comments
For everyone keeping up with Net Neutrality, on June 8, the House defeated the Network Neutrality Act of 2006. A similar bill, Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006, isn’t having much luck in the Senate.
There are all kinds of issues at play here. Proponents for net neutrality think safeguards need to be put in place to ensure the Internet never becomes a tiered service - namely that bigwigs like Google and Amazon would have to pay more to telecoms for using more bandwidth. Read the rest
By Krista on Jun 10, 2006 in Legal, Security, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment
It’s always a good idea to monitor what you write about less it come back to haunt you one day. What you post on blogs and social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook can hurt your job prospects, be used as evidence in against you, and even get you fired. But the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior is one of interpretation, as 17 year old high school student, Miles Haggard, learned recently.
A junior at Plainfield South High School, Haggard vocalized his concerns about the school district on Xanga.com. Part of his comments included Read the rest
By Krista on May 24, 2006 in Legal, Video Games | 0 Comments
A US gamer has sued Linden Labs over a contract dispute in its online role-playing game (RPG), Second Life, in a first-of-a-kind lawsuit.
The suit was filed by Marc Bragg, a Pennsylvania attorney and apparently, avid Second Life player. The suit claims that Linden Labs deactivated Bragg’s account after he discovered a way to purchase virtual land cheaply though the game’s auction system. Specifically, Braggs was able to prevent other players from bidding on land by modifying the auction’s URL. Bragg claims he invested $32,000 in virtual land and is suing for financial restitution. Read the rest
By Krista on May 23, 2006 in Identity Theft, Legal, Privacy, Security | 0 Comments
As good as technology is, it can’t protect unsecure, confidential data from clueless computer users - as this latest security breach proves. An employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs took the data home with him - without authorization and presumably, without encryption.
The data, which included names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for veterans and some of their spouses discharged since 1975, was stolen from the unidentified employee’s home somewhere around the Baltimore field office. Read the rest
