Privacy.security

It's enlightening to go back and read the statements made by Atty Gen Ashcroft in 1997 regarding the Clinton Administration's desire to increase electronic surveillance. My, how one's view changes when one is no longer the watched, but rather the watcher.

If you've never read the Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002, you should. How do you know when a politician is lying? When his lips are moving...

Watching Big Brother
Drudge links to articles and documents showing Ashcroft's changing view of Internet privacy. (He also links to this article about the RIAA vs. the US Navy.) Meanwhile, Newsweek follows up on Safire's great column exposing the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office. [EdCone.com]

Humans Are the Weakest Link

3:28:25 PM

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Once again, the human factor proves to be the weakest link in protecting our privacy. All the computer security in the world doesn't help when the people who are supposed to be protecting us are selling out to their own avarice and greed.

Cops Bust Massive ID Theft Ring. Federal prosecutors have arrested and charged a credit bureau helpdesk worker and two accomplices who allegedly stole more than 15,000 credit reports and sold them to other crooks for $60 a pop. Michelle Delio reports from New York.
[...] Posing as employees of those companies, the criminals would then obtain and download customer credit records, which contained sensitive information such as bank account, credit card and social security numbers.
These records were then sold to a network of criminals who would use them to drain bank accounts, open new lines of credit, order new checks and other activities.
"With a few keystrokes, these people were able to pick the pockets of millions of Americans," Comey said.[...]
[Wired News]