Thursday, March 6, 2003

The offense is "illegallly entering" a computer, this article says. That puts a premium on knowing what is legal and illegal. That makes the clickthrough contract language just that much more important. http://news.com.com/2100-1002-990669.html I don't have any details on this, and I assume this report concerns a directive that much be implemented in the various EU countries. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/international/europe/05BRUS.html?ex=104785 3338&ei=1&en=2e17175a74bf0289 10:16:18 PM    comment []

It's a traditional rule that individuals who appear to be operating in the name of a corporation that, in fact, doesn't exist, are personally liable on the contract. In other words, individuals don't receive the benefit of limited liability simply by calling themselves officers or owners of a "corporation." These individuals must go through the formalities of actually forming the entity to get the benefits of limited liability. This is basic corporate law stuff. Why do people keep litigating it? http://www6.law.com/lawcom/displayid_cases.cfm?statename=NY&docnum=186316&table=case+digest&flag=full Here's what the Law Journal said about this case: "Defendant executed a contract under the name of a nonexistent corporate entity. Plaintiff terminated the contract following a dispute over its timely completion. It sought to hold the nonexistent entity's apparent corporate officers personally liable on the contract, claiming, among other things, that they had contracted in and used the name of the nonexistent entity in advertising and business cards in order to deceive the public at large. The court ruled that the apparent officers had failed to demonstrate that they could not be held individually liable on the contract. It also ruled that plaintiff's allegations that the officers' failure to correct the nonexistent entity's name in advertising and stationery, their alleged filing of forms in the nonexistent entity's name and their depletion and secretion of corporate monies for their own purposes, had sufficiently stated a cause of action under theories of alter ego or of piercing the corporate veil." 9:57:16 PM    comment []

The Virtual Chase web site: http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/criminal_records.html 9:49:50 PM    comment []

Thanks to Marylaine Block: TASI: Resources: A Review of Image Search Engines http://www.tasi.ac.uk/resources/searchengines.html Very useful comparison of their scope, search options, performance, presentation, and support. 9:48:02 PM    comment []

Thanks to Marylaine Block: NARA - AAD - Access to Archival Databases http://www.archives.gov/aad/index.html "Online access to a selection of nearly 50 million historic electronic records created by more than 20 federal agencies on a wide range of topics." This seems to be NARA's answer to the evanescence of electronic government information. 9:47:13 PM    comment []

Thanks to Marlaine Block: The Chronicle: The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm Useful teaching tool. Use it along with Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit, reprinted at and Michael Shermer's essay, "Baloney Detection," in the November, 2001 Scientific American [the URL is impossibly long; search for it at http://www.sciam.com/search/ ]. 9:46:11 PM    comment []

This is taken from an email circulated on the Dave Farber IP list. More than 55.000 records were compromised. It is a huge task to noftify all the affected individuals. If this were a California incident the California notice statute would apply without question. The economic consequences of an event like this may prove quite substantial. "On Sunday, March 2 at 7:20 p.m., computer systems personnel at UT Austin discovered a computer malfunction. The affected computer system was immediately shut down, and detailed analysis was begun. What happened? The malfunction was assessed to be the result of a deliberate attack from the Internet. Subsequent analysis revealed that a security weakness in an administrative data reporting system was exploited by writing a program to input millions of Social Security numbers. Those SSNs that matched selected individuals in a UT database were captured, together with e-mail address, title, department name, department address, department phone number, and names/dates of employee training programs attended. It is important to note that no student grade or academic records, or personal health or insurance information was disclosed. Is there evidence that the stolen data have been misused or disseminated? UT, in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney[base ']s Office, the U.S. Secret Service, and other law enforcement agencies, has focused its efforts since Sunday evening on identifying the perpetrator(s) of the break-in and recapturing the stolen data. To date there is no evidence that the stolen data have been distributed beyond the computer(s) of the perpetrator(s). What is UT doing about this? UT[base ']s highest priority has been to identify the source of the attack and to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to capture the perpetrator(s), and any associated computers and data. Our second priority will be to assess the extent of further data exposure [^] if any [^] and to establish a proactive communication program with affected individuals and the UT community. How many individual records were exposed? Approximately 55,200 individuals had some of the above data exposed. This group includes current and former students, current and former faculty and staff, and job applicants. How will affected individuals be notified? The University is currently developing a communication plan and will contact affected individuals as soon as possible. At this juncture, there is no evidence that the data have been further exposed or misused. Comments or questions sent to datatheft@its.utexas.edu will reach the UT Incident Response Team. (Do not send your Social Security number in any e-mail message.) UT regrets this incident and commits to do whatever is required to ensure the integrity of the data of all our past and present colleagues. Daniel A. Updegrove Vice President for Information Technology The University of Texas at Austin" http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ 9:18:57 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Noel D. Humphreys.