Recent Articles

Prescription Data Used To Assess Consumers - Records Aid Insurers but Prompt Privacy Concerns

Paul Hardwick
August 06, 2008 15:58

Prescription Data Used To Assess Consumersv - Via washingtonpost.com : Health and life insurance companies have access to a powerful new tool for evaluating whether to cover individual consumers: a health "credit report" drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200...

Cablevision Scores Copyright Victory Against Hollywood

Paul Hardwick
August 06, 2008 08:14

Cablevision Scores Copyright Victory Against Hollywood - Via Threat Level: A federal appeals court on Monday lifted an injunction against Cablevision Systems that blocked it from offering a recording service that stored programming on the cable company's own servers instead of on an viewers'...

Congress Bows to Big Content, Scapegoats Higher Ed

Paul Hardwick
August 06, 2008 07:06

Congress Bows to Big Content, Scapegoats Higher Ed - Via EFF.org Updates: Last week, after months of intensive wrangling, the House and the Senate finally agreed on a final version of the Higher Education Act (HEA). Buried in this massive bill, which touches on virtually every aspect of...

11 Charged In TJX, Other Breaches

Paul Hardwick
August 06, 2008 06:58

11 Charged In TJX, Other Breaches - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online: coondoggie writes "The Justice Department has charged 11 people in connection with the massive theft of credit card numbers from various retailers, including TJX, BJs and OfficeMax. Authorities say the group charged was involved...

Lessig Predicts Cyber 9/11 Event, Restrictive Laws

Paul Hardwick
August 06, 2008 06:40

Lessig Predicts Cyber 9/11 Event, Restrictive Laws - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online: A number of readers are sending in links to a video from the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference last month, in which Lawrence Lessig recounts a conversation over dinner with Richard Clarke, the former government...

Registered Traveler Company Frozen After Losing Flier Data

Paul Hardwick
August 05, 2008 20:55

Registered Traveler Company Frozen After Losing Flier Data - Via Threat Level: The Transportation Security Administration suspended Verified Identity Pass from enrolling any new passengers in its get-through-security-faster program on Tuesday, after the company lost (and then oddly...

Air Force cracks software, carpet bombs DMCA

Paul Hardwick
August 05, 2008 15:04

Air Force cracks software, carpet bombs DMCA - Via Ars Technica : Last week, a US Court of Appeals upheld a ruling on software piracy. The organization doing the piracy, however, happened to be a branch of the US government, and the decision highlights the significant limits to the application of...

FISA and Border Searches of Laptops

Paul Hardwick
August 05, 2008 14:56

FISA and Border Searches of Laptops - Via Slashdot: Your Rights Online: With the recent attention to the DHS's draconian policy on laptop searches at borders, a blog post by Steven Bellovin from last month is worth wider discussion. Bellovin extrapolates from the DHS border policy on physical...

Judge Hints at Mistrial in RIAA v. Jammie Thomas

Paul Hardwick
August 05, 2008 04:01

Judge Hints at Mistrial in RIAA v. Jammie Thomas - Via Threat Level: DULUTH, Minnesota -- The federal judge who presided over the nation's only peer-to-peer copyright-infringement trial announced from the bench here Monday that he is likely to declare a mistrial. "Certainly, I have sent a...

FCC Rules Against Comcast for BitTorrent Blocking

Paul Hardwick
August 05, 2008 03:53

FCC Rules Against Comcast for BitTorrent Blocking - Via EFF.org Updates: On Friday, the FCC voted, 3-2, to punish Comcast for its surreptitious interference with BitTorrent uploads (a practice that EFF helped uncover and document in October 2007). The Commission adopted an order (text of which...