Recent Articles

Weaknesses in Government Systems

William Morriss
October 20, 2008 00:28

According to this report (via), the IRS deployed two major software systems, its Customer Account Data Engine (CADE), and its Account Management Services (AMS) system, despite the existence of "known security vulnerabilities relating to the protection of sensitive data, system access, monitoring of...

Can Privacy Come Back?

William Morriss
October 13, 2008 10:30

In this interview at Computer World private investigator Steve Rambam argues that "Privacy is dead. Get over it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle." His argument seems to be based in large part on his own database, which supposedly contains pretty much every American's name, address, date...

Ohio Lemon Law: What’s Covered and What Isn’t

William Morriss
October 09, 2008 01:09

Today, Sergei Lemberg, a lemon law attorney who normally blogs at LemonJustice, discusses what you need to know about new car lemons.With all of the cars, SUVs, trucks, motorcycles, and RVs being manufactured in the U.S. and abroad, it’s reasonable to expect that some will have defects. After all, v...

Why So Apathetic?

William Morriss
September 28, 2008 23:44

Every so often, I see expressions of frustration from identity theft professionals, or people who care about data privacy in general, that people are so inexplicably apathetic. For example, in the comments to a previous post, Jason Dickens at Prosperity Protection opined that "The general public...

Self-Regulation by Advertisers

William Morriss
September 23, 2008 01:09

According to this article from Media Post the Interactive Advertising Bureau is pushing for the creation of an industry body to create non-governmental rules to protect consumer privacy online. The goal of this self-regulation, as is the case with most self-regulation, is to prevent actual...

And Now for Something Completely Different (and totally surreal)

William Morriss
September 19, 2008 01:02

Question: What happens when a criminal forum is taken down?Answer: The criminals who used said forum launch into an orgy of mewling self pity so miserable that even an attention whoring toddler whining about being sent to bed without dinner would consider it undignified.A little background: What...

Perception of Privacy Policies

William Morriss
September 07, 2008 15:08

Here's some shocking news I learned via Bruce Schneier, apparently: California consumers overvalue the mere fact that a website has a privacy policy, and assume that websites carrying the label have strong, default rules to protect personal data. In a way, consumers interpret "privacy policy" as a...

More stuff I wish I could blog about

William Morriss
August 27, 2008 02:48

In another installment of the disturbingly frequent series of posts which only advert to things I would write about at more length if I had more time, I present for your approval this extremely interesting article from Bruce Schneier via Wired.com. In the article Bruce looks at the differing...

To the Extent Vice Presidential Candidates Matter

William Morriss
August 26, 2008 02:11

To the extent vice presidential candidates matter, Obama's pick of Joe Biden doesn't seem to auger well for privacy. According to this article from C|NET, Biden has a nasty habit of strongly supporting privacy unfriendly measures, usually under the guise of specious claims of law enforcement...

Only the Guilty Have Something to Hide

William Morriss
August 25, 2008 02:48

The mayor of shuts down a stand where little girls sold excess produce from their family's garden (link).TSA employees ground plane by using critical instruments as handholds (link).A pilot is placed on the no-fly list, destroying his ability to do his job (link).On their face, these incidents...