Germany – No More Helping the RIAA

In Germany, the RIAA equivalent company for the EU was filing criminal proceedings against file-sharers to discover their IP addresses. Now German courts say that practice will stop because sharing a few files is a petty offense and not worth the court’s time. It’s a step in the right direction. Remember, many people who download music are ones who wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. These big companies lose a lot less on filesharing than they make it out to be.

Domestic Spying Gets Black Eye Under FISA

Wasn't it nice that Bush decided after he was caught breaking the law to put the spying program under FISA oversight (which is where it belonged by law before)? The best part of this story is that the FISA court has blocked certain parts of the program as a result. It's no wonder Bush is trying to have FISA amended. This was all so much easier for him when the program was still secret and he didn't have to follow the rules.

Bruce Schneier Interviews the Head of the TSA

Bruce has some very good pointed questions that the head of the TSA mostly doesn’t answer. What a shame. In five parts: Bruce Schneier interviews head of the TSA Tags:

Huge Bust – Mod Chippers Go Down

This story makes me a little sad. It’s true that Mod Chips generally allow you to play downloaded and burned music, but they also allow the very important ability to play import games and backup discs. There’s no reason someone shouldn’t be able to play a backup copy and keep the real game in pristine condition and there’s no reason at all that these dummy hardware manufacturers should limit what language game we should be able to play. Why on earth would they limit their market like that. It just makes no sense to me. Anyway, a bunch of mod chippers got raided, but it does say they were busted for primarily selling pirated games. The article makes it sound like the mod chips themselves were illegal, but they aren’t.

DRM Scorecard – Hackers 1000, Industry 0

I wonder how much money these companies spend to create DRM that gets broken by content fans in just a few days. Anyway, it's clear that DRM is not a good investment. (H/T to slashdot for the link)

Bush, “I Need MOR POWA!!!” Wants to Revise FISA

Bush is pressuring congress to give him more authority by amending FISA. I just can't take this anymore. Someone please tell me that even if congress won't impeach him, he'll see the inside of a jail cell sometime after his "presidency". JTAG ERROR: No privacyorg_ht index defined Tags:

Calling for Accountability of the Federal Trade Commission

If you didn't already know, I'm pretty mad at the FTC. Though ID theft has been the top consumer complaint for the last 6 years running, though they have put a large amount of resources into their consumer education campaign (on their anti-ID theft website for example), though the chairwoman of the FTC, Deborah Platt Majoras, co-chaired the Presidential ID Theft Taskforce, they have completely failed to educate customers about Credit Security Freezes. I sent a member of the FTC's media relations department an e-mail requesting to know how the FTC is doing their job if they won't promote credit freezes, but, of course, I got no reply. Therefore, I'm going to see what happens if I contact the Government Accountability Office instead. Their job is to report any agency that is wasting tax-payer money right? So this should be right up their alley. Here's the e-mail I sent them:
To whom it may concern, I am a computer security professional who has worked to bring more attention to the ID theft issue and viable solutions to the problem. I have long been frustrated that the Federal Trade Commission has failed to propose or recommend the one most valuable tool in combating ID theft that there is. Credit Security Freezes, which have been enacted in many states, allow customers to lock their credit files under a special code or password that only the consumer knows. Once frozen, anyone who would attempt ID theft (in situations that require a credit check) would fail no matter how much of the consumer's personal information that the thief has. Freezes are fast, simple, effective, low cost, and provide peace of mind. The only people who don't want to see this in action are the credit reporting companies themselves who make millions by selling the information they gather to as many people as they can, thief or otherwise. But the question wasn't "how can we keep credit reporting company's profit lines intact", it's "how can we curb or eliminate ID theft". My point in contacting you is that the FTC is well aware of how important Freezes are, but does not include much (if any) information on them on the FTC's website or in their training and public education efforts. Further, the presidential ID theft task force co-chaired by the chairwoman of the FTC included a very small negatively worded summary of Freezes as being something that would be more likely to "inconvenience the consumer". The FTC is wasting millions of dollars, wasting our time, and not doing their job by ignoring this simple solution to what has been the top consumer complaint for the last 6 years (and counting). Please let me know if your agency has authority to call them to task for their unconscionable waste of money and efforts and, if not, please let me know who does. Thank you for your time. Jeremy Duffy CISSP
2007 Oct 09 No response. Not that I'm surprised.

FTC Seeks Comments on Use of Social Security Numbers

I wonder if it will do any good this time, but the FTC is requesting comments on how SSNs tie into ID theft. I wasn't too excited by the results of their last attempt to seek comments.
Yes, I know that I'm complaining about the ID Theft Task force and not the FTC directly, but the head of the FTC was the co-chair of the task force so I'm going to lump them together. So there.
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Making Good Passwords

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Password Protection

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Bad Passwords

To understand what makes good passwords, first check out some of the worst passwords out there and what makes them so bad.

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Password Tips and Tricks

It's impossible to expect someone to make good passwords by just giving them some rules. There are tricks that make your passwords secure and easy for you all at the same time.

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Password Protection

It's really a skill to come up with secure passwords that you can remember. Once you've learned how, remember that it doesn't matter how good you are if you don't protect your password properly.

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Password Mugging

A disturbing new practice among websites and services is where they ask you for your user name and password to other sites. I call this "Password Mugging"

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