“Internet use can be far safer for most home computer users through the use of free tools and services that help protect computers from malicious code that can lead to identity theft and fraud.”

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Researchers at David Matousec’s matousec.com carried out tests on 21 leading products using 26 assessment programs known as “leak” testers. These simulated a total of 77 test attacks on firewalls, configured using both out-of-the-box and optimal security settings. Each firewall was then awarded points based on its ability to pass each leak test in both modes. “

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“In a new paper examining the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco, a pair of lawyers argue that the music company didn’t just damage itself—it unwittingly struck a blow against DRM in general.

Deirdre Mulligan and Aaron Perzanowski are the authors of “The Magnificence of the Disaster,” which looks at the entire chronology of Sony BMG’s problems with CD copy protection technology in an attempt to understand just how the label could have made a blunder of this magnitude. The paper, published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, argues that the rootkit was the result of more than “utter disregard, or even contempt, for user security and privacy.” It was a product of market, technology, and legal factors that all encouraged Sony BMG to go forward with its ill-advised plan. “

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“The United States Government, Playboy, Western Union, Creditcards.com and CD Universe are just a few of thousands of businesses and government departments that have been hacked into resulting in over a billion dollars of damages per year and climbing. The number of hackings will continue to climb because finance to hackers and organization by hackers will keep hackers ahead of the law.

Playboy’s nightmare began when a hacker broke into the company’s database and stole the company’s customer credit card and personal information. Playboy was then extorted over a period of months with the thief brazenly taunting law enforcement officials and company executives. The thief unfortunately could not be traced. “

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“People of the Internet, I have a story to tell. A story with a few morals to it and a dire warning to all of you.

I, having the ability to read extremely fast, digested the page in around fifteen seconds. It was an e-mail, printed off with today’s date on it. I will transcribe it below, using asterisks to hide the parts I don’t wish to reveal.”

Read the whole article here

“Last year, Netflix published 10 million movie rankings by 500,000 customers, as part of a challenge for people to come up with better recommendation systems than the one the company was using. The data was anonymized by removing personal details and replacing names with random numbers, to protect the privacy of the recommenders.

Their research (.pdf) illustrates some inherent security problems with anonymous data, but first it’s important to explain what they did and did not do. “

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“Hackers successfully infiltrated Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of the nation’s leading government-run research facilities. The attackers gained access by sending e-mails infected with trojan horses to ORNL employees. The lab claims that no classified information was retrieved, but admits that the perpetrators managed to acquire a database containing personal information about ORNL visitors and employees, including Social Security numbers.

“A hacker illegally gained access to ORNL computers by sending staff e-mails that appeared to be official legitimate communications. When the employees opened the attachment or accessed an embedded link, the hacker planted a program on the employees’ computers that enabled the hacker to copy and retrieve information,” ORNL revealed in a statement. “No classified information was lost; However, visitor personal information may have been stolen. If you visited ORNL between the years 1990 and 2004, your name and other personal information, such as your Social Security number or date of birth, may have been part of the stolen information.” “

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“In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law.

It’s no joke. Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown. “

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“There’s been no shortage of stories lately alleging that Wikipedia moderators have fascist tendencies, but a new case goes one step further. A German politician has filed charges against Wikipedia alleging that the worlds most famous UGC site promotes Nazism.”

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“The new bill requires everyone (that includes you and Starbucks) offering an open WiFi connection to the public to be on the lookout for report known “illegal images” and “obscene” cartoons and drawings. The reporting requirement extends to cover social networking sites, ISPs, and email providers. Failing to dutifully report what you’ve seen (or haven’t seen but are unwittingly complicit in) could leave your data seized and in debt from fines of up to $300,000.”

View the SAFE act here.
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“The US government has weighed in on the constitutionality of the $222,000 damage award in Capitol v. Thomas with a brief filed yesterday. The government suggests that the court avoid ruling on the constitutionality of the statutory damages clause of the Copyright Act. Should the court feel the need to rule on the constitutionality, it should find that the damages award does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.
Related Stories

After a three-day trial, single mother Jammie Thomas was found to have willfully infringed on the record label’s copyrights. The jury awarded the RIAA statutory damages of $9,250 per song, for a total of $222,000, out of a maximum of $150,000 per track.”

Read the rest of the article here.

For those of you with short attention spans, here are the services they recommend:

• ZabaSearch - for finding names, phone numbers, and addresses.
• Pipl - for bringing up information that Google might miss. Pipl indexes pages that the Googlebots have decided are not worth visiting.
• Wink - for searching several social networking websites at once. It’s amazing what you can find on these sites.
• Zoominfo - will give you the employment results on the person you’re stalk-er-searching.

“When you’re trying to find someone online, Google’s not the only game in town. In the last two years, a handful of new people search engines have come onto the scene that offer better ways to pinpoint people info by name, handle, location, or place of employment. While there’s still no killer, one-stop people search, there are more ways than ever to track down a long-lost friend, stalk an ex, or screen a potential date or employee. The next time you wonder, “What ever happened to so-and-so?” you’ve got a few power people search tools to turn to.

Note: Stalking is serious business. When we say ’stalk,’ we’re exaggerating, not recommending.

Reach the rest of the article here.

The term ‘ambient findability’ describes a world at the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the internet, in which we can find anyone or anything from anywhere at any time. It’s not necessarily a goal, and we’ll never achieve perfect findability, but we’re surely headed in the right direction.

A clear sign of progress is the emergence of ubiquitous findable objects (UFOs). GPS, RFID, UWB, and cellular triangulation enable us, for the first time in history, to tag and track products, possessions, pets, and people as they wander through space and time.

Of course, not everyone is happy about this brave new world of UFOs.

While Bruce Sterling raves about spime, Katherine Albrecht rants about spychips.

This debate focuses our attention on the UFO subclass of, ‘ubiquitous findable organisms’ that includes wild animals, pets, friends, suspects, shoppers, patients, prisoners, employees, kids, and ourselves.


Ubiquitous Findable Organisms

The UFO application space invites a richer feature set than we may think. Major tasks include identifying, tracking, observing, communicating, and interacting.

Consequently, the enabling toolset includes networked video cameras, acoustic sensors, satellite constellations, smartphones, radio-guided missiles, and other emerging technologies that afford a different kind of close encounter, and myriad new ways to reach out and touch someone.

Read the whole story:
Findability: Find Anyone Or Anything From Anywhere

[tags]gps,rfid,internet security,tracking,monitoring,internet privacy[/tags]

Also, a settlement which is structured can be used to assure an older plaintiff of a lifetime income stream, with an annuity lasting throughout the life of the plaintiff. This can be particularly beneficial where an older injured party has…

[Continue reading Structured Settlements Explained]

[tags]structured settlement,structured settlements[/tags]

Pre-settlement funding may also be offered by a third-party settlement funding agency, such as an insurance agency or an actual “settlement funding office”. In such a case, the funding office is essentially acting as a loan broker, and will be paid the loan amount plus interest out of the settlement, and the plaintiff is trading their future settlement for a lesser amount up front.

When attorneys provide pre-settlement funding to their clients, according the rules of many states and some case law, they may not charge interest…

[Continue reading Lawsuit Settlement Funding]

[tags]pre-settlement funding,post-settlement funding,settlement funding[/tags]

The American Cancer Institute explains that “The main risk factor for mesothelioma is contact with asbestos. In the past, asbestos was used for insulation because it does not conduct heat well and doesn’t easily melt or burn. It was also used in other products such as floor tiles, door gaskets, roofing, and patching compounds. Since asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral, it can also be found in dust and rocks in certain parts of the United States.

If asbestos fibers are breathed in, they travel to the ends of the small air passages and…

[Continue reading Mesothelioma Cancer Law]

[tags]mesothelioma,abestos cancer[/tags]

As a result, there have been many lawsuits against the asbestos industry, giving rise to the specialty law practice of asbestos cancer law, and states have put into place asbestos abatement and removal laws and regulations…

[Continue reading Asbestos Removal Laws and You]

[tags]asbestos,asbestos removal,asbestos removal laws[/tags]

A maritime injury lawyer must be familiar with such laws as the general maritime law, the Jones Act, the Death on High Seas Act, and the Public Vessels Act. In addition, they must be skilled and versed in international law, as injuries which occur on ships which originate from another country are often governed by the laws of that other country even if the ship was in United States waters at the time of the incident.

This means that even if the personal injury suit arises from a fairly common event, such as a slip and fall, the maritime injury lawyer must be familiar with and able to address the added layers of complexity presented by maritime law and international law in addition to the personal injury laws of the jurisdiction, and must be familiar with how the varied legal schemes conflict, overlap and interact.

For example, in many instances an employee who is injured while working at sea will not be covered…

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[tags]maritime law,admiralty law,boat accident,boat accidents[/tags]

For example, a medication may injure many people, such as Vioxx, which has recently been in the news for causing heart problems.

Or a substance may injure a lot of people, such as asbestos, which causes mesothelioma cancer. Or the injury may be financial, such as the Enron case.

Class actions almost always start out as regular law suits. One person who has been harmed goes to an attorney to talk with them about the injury they have suffered. Either prior to filing the lawsuit, or in the course of conducting the lawsuit, the attorney discovers that their client is not the only person who has been affected by the act or event which injured their client. And if it turns out that many people have been affected, the attorney will consider asking the court to allow for a class action, so that each person does not have to file their own separate lawsuit.

Sometimes, however, a group of aggrieved people will get together, talk with an attorney, and attempt to hit the ground running with a class action lawsuit right out of the gate.

In either case, there is no right to a class action lawsuit, and…

[Continue reading Class action lawsuits]

[tags]class action,class actio lawsuits[/tags]

These ads are suggestions made by me personally, using the new Chitika “eMiniMall” program.

No, I don’t get a commission if someone buys something (although the Internet Patrol does get a small stipend if someone clicks on it - we use these sorts of fees to help cover the cost of maintaining the Internet Patrol Web site so that we can keep the Internet Patrol free).

What’s really neat about the Chitika program, which makes it unlike any other program out there, is that you (the Web site owner) can specify which products are shown. That is how I am able to put up the “I have and love my…” category. Those really are items which I have, love, and use every day…

[Continue reading Chitika eMiniMalls]

[tags]chitika,chitika eminimall,reviews,ads,internet patrol[/tags]