Minimise the risk of infection with these essential tips
Tag: computer security
Alan Travis for The Guardian writes that a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has found that a quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws.
Claiming to be the most comprehensive map so far of Britain’s “database state”, the report says that 11 of the 46 biggest schemes, including the national DNA database and the Contactpoint index of all children in England, should be given a “red light” and immediately scrapped or redesigned.
The report Database State was produced by Ross Anderson and his team at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. The report says that more than half of Whitehall’s 46 databases and systems have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness, and could fall foul of a legal challenge.
Professor Ross Anderson from Cambridge, who wrote the report, and Michael Wills, the minister in the Justice Department, discuss the need to have an open debate.
Almost half of the used hard drives purchased on eBay by computer forensics company Kessler International were found to contain easily recoverable personal data.
“The average person who knows anything about computers could plug in these disks and just go surfing,” Kessler said. “I know they found a guy’s foot fetish on one disk. He’d been downloading loads and loads of stuff on feet. With what we got on that disk — his name, address and all of his contacts — it would have been extremely embarrassing if we were somebody who wanted to blackmail him.”
But of course it’s not just embarrassing information that can be found but also crucial data such as passwords and banking information.
Fortunately Lifehacker has a comprehensive guide to erasing all that data.
Plus if you want to be doubly sure that nobody can recover the data from your old hard drive then hwy not dispose of it with extreme prejudice.
The Times reports that the UK has no machines to read its own ID cards
The first ID cards are here – but no one in the UK can read them
Thousands of ID cards have already been issued to foreign residents in the UK as part of the government’s £4.7 billion scheme, but no one can read the details stored on them
If the government cannot roll out a workable identity card system to cover foreign residents then this gives me great confidence that they will bungle the introduction of the ID card system that will cover all residents of the UK.
If nobody has the equipment to read the biometric data on the cards then it renders the entire system redundant and poses the question of what was the purpose of all the expense.
The world’s most super-designed data center is described as being fit for a James Bond villain. [via]
Located in an old nuclear bunker deep below the bedrock of Stockholm city, sealed off from the world by entrance doors 40 cm thick, it can withstand a hydrogen bomb and has German submarine engines for backup power.
It reminds me however of the data haven that Epiphyte gets involved in building on the island of Kinakuta in Neal Stephenson’s novel Cryptonomicon.
It appears that many users of Facebook will confirm friendships with a person unknown to them.
This coupled with the standard things that people post to their Facebook profile creates the perfect environment for Identity Thieves to ply their trade.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) managers admonished for ridiculous linking of sippy cup usage to terrorism.
Added Director Tom Radulovich, “If somebody wants to break the law and bring flammable liquids on, they can. It’s not like al Qaeda is waiting in their caves for us to have a sippy-cup rule.”
Directing his comments to BART administrators, he said, “You know, it’s just fearmongering and you should be ashamed.”
[via]
Perhaps they should have read these security maxims. [via]
Really excellent list and a must read for anyone interested in issues of security, most are applicable to IT security too.
Current Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says that in order to keep up with technology that the police and security services need new powers and that an expansion of surveillance is necessary.
The proposed database will hold for two years details of all communications, not however the content just data about the communications i.e. who, when and how long.
BBC News: Giant database plan ‘Orwellian’
The Telegraph: Social networking sites to be snooped on by security services
Chris Huhne, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, added: “The Government’s Orwellian plans for a vast database of our private communications are deeply worrying. I hope that this consultation is not just a sham exercise to soft-soap an unsuspecting public.”
Guy Herbert, from campaign group NO2ID, said: “The Home Secretary talks about ‘principles’ but the only principle she appears to be acquainted with is convenience for the stalker state.
I too have concerns about this proposal. Presumably the idea is that criminals and terrorists even if they are smart enough not to discuss their illegal activities over telephones or via email will communicate with their associates. The database will allow investigators to map these networks of associates and open up new areas of investigation and discover new suspects.
But the vast majority of Britons are not terrorists or criminals so the database will mostly consist of data that is of no use to the police or the security services but would be to criminals who could use the data to aid in identity theft. Frankly I have no faith in the government’s ability to safeguard this data.