“They’re detached from reality and susceptible to influence” - Israel Defense Forces spokesperson talking about Dungeons & Dragons Hope they don’t include reading fiction in that list as well. :) Link courtesy of Schneier on Security
Well, guess what. Another large company that collects personal information about people without their knowledge has been hacked. This time it’s Seisint, owned by Lexis Nexis. This is a database used to supply the MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) system with data. In other words, a system designed to help law enforcement fight terrorism left itself open to a group with stolen passwords. But don’t worry, everyone, the data that was stolen about 32,000 people “included names, addresses, Social Security and driver license numbers, but not credit history, medical records or financial information,” according to a spokesperson. We know no one can do much damage with that, right? :| ...
It’s interesting that the ChoicePoint CISO feels the need to point out that they haven’t been hacked, but were defrauded in a way that happens every day. So, ChoicePoint is not responsible for protecting against the most common threats, or is it just that the CISO’s position isn’t responsible for it at ChoicePoint? Here’s a previous entry on this matter.
Well, guess I’m never working for the state.
Technology has the unfortunate quality of tempting people to use it, no matter how deleterious the effects. The growing ability to keep everyone under some sort of surveillance is a good example. Just today, I ran across a couple of stories that really creep me out in terms of what kind of society we are building. The first story is a classic case of how good motives don’t necessarily excuse ill effects. A school in California tags its children with RFID badges and scans them wherever they are in the school. Apparently this gives them a good way of keeping out trespassers, keeping an eye on the kids, and taking accurate attendance. (Hmm, that doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult. I’m thinking it’s a matter of convenience in collecting data, kind of like the idea of checking out an entire cartload of groceries at once by running it under a scanner.) ...
I find this essay interesting because it states one of my most fundamental political beliefs: Not every right is a Constitutional right. I doubt the author and I would agree on what issues and rights we thought important, but the ability to debate about that is an essential part of the democratic process. Link via Obsidian Wings
Over the last several years, the question of the relevancy of past behavior — indeed, even current “private” behavior — for a person’s ability to fulfill the duties of public office has come up many times. Aside from Vietnam service and/or its lack in the current Presidential election, current reporting by The Oregonian about a U.S Representative’s past is probably the the most recent example of a big story concerning the relevancy of an act years in the past. ...
If dissent is unpatriotic, then apparently Senator Kennedy dissented his way all the way on to the no-fly list. (Of course, my first thought was that past legal troubles…ahem…might have something to do with it, but that should only affect his voting status in Florida. Oh, wait, he’s white. Florida doesn’t care about revoking his right to vote.) Seriously, though, if the terrorist watch list includes possible terrorist aliases like “Edward Kennedy,” how do folks named John Smith ever manage to get on board a plane? ...
A debate at Harvard about the efficacy and results of minority-recruitment programs is fascinating, if largely because it starts to illumine the conflict between trying to divide the world into groups and dealing with actual individuals. In this case, there doesn’t seem to be a question that Harvard has succeeded in increasing the number of black students in the University. However, once you start subdividing the ethnicity they have used as a touchstone, some odd differences start to come to light: Students of recently-immigrated black families — Africans and West Indians, for example — make up the bulk of the increase. Descendents of African-American slaves — familes that have been in the US for more than three generations — have not been as successful. ...