Paranoia24

Thieves Steal Personal Data of 26.5M Vets:

Thieves took sensitive personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans, including Social Security numbers and birth dates, after a Veterans Affairs employee improperly brought the material home, the government said Monday.

Anscheinend war das kein gezielter Versuch, an diese Daten zu kommen, sondern die Daten wurden während eines Einbruchs zufällig gestohlen.
Dennoch ist dies ein alarmierender Fall. Bürgern wird oft vermittelt, dass sie sich keine Sorgen um ihre Daten zu machen hätten - die Daten seien in sicheren Händen. Dies ist ein Fall von vielen, wo - offenbar ohne böse Absicht - unvorsichtig mit den Daten anderer umgegangen wurde. Nur im Umfang der gestohlenen Daten unterscheidet er sich von tausenden anderen Fällen.
Gerade dadurch, dass diese Fälle oft verheimlicht werden, entsteht besonderes Potential für Missbrauch.

Interessante Spekulation über die Hintergründe zu dem umfassenden Abhörprogramm der NSA.

What Is The Real Purpose Of Bush’s NSA Surveillance?:

Given that a perfectly legal program which could actually accomplish the stated objective of capturing terrorists before attacking Americans exists, but was rejected by Bush, would could be the real underlying purpose for Bush’s NSA surveillance program that has a minor, if any, impact on anti-terror objectives?
Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that if Bush is to actually succeed in finding terrorists with the program he is using, this program requires more data about Americans. That is, phone records are not sufficient for this objective, so more data would be required. Like the camel who first sticks its head in the tent, Bush may have wanted pretextual grounds to keep expanding the nature and amount of information about Americans that he collected and deposited in databases.
[…]

[T]he equipment that AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein says was installed by NSA in AT&T’s secret switching room is apparently Narus, which has the capacity to be the “best internet spy tool:”
“Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record,” says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. “We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls.”
The combination can keep track of, analyze and record nearly every form of internet communication, whether e-mail, instant message, video streams or VOIP phone calls that cross the network.”
[…]

Given that Bush rejected the ThinThread program that is reported to be both effective at finding terrorists and provide protection to privacy rights, one just has to wonder at the real reason for the NSA program.

Um es zusammenzufassen: Das von Clinton initiierte, legale Abhörprogramm beschränkte sich auf anonymisierte Verbindungsinformationen. Das von Bush heimlich ins Leben gerufene Abhörprogramm ist illegal und bietet die Möglichkeit, nicht nur Verbindungsinformationen, sondern alle Daten, die über Telekommunikationsleitungen laufen, abzuhören.
Bei der bekannten Geschichte der Bush-Administration kann man ihr wohl kaum trauen, diese Informationen nicht zu missbrauchen.

Government to force handover of encryption keys:

The UK Government is preparing to give the police the authority to force organisations and individuals to disclose encryption keys, a move which has outraged some security and civil rights experts.
[…]
Some security experts are concerned that the plan could criminalise innocent people and drive businesses out of the UK. But the Home Office, which has just launched a consultation process, says the powers contained in Part 3 are needed to combat an increased use of encryption by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists.
"The use of encryption is… proliferating," Liam Byrne, Home Office minister of state told Parliament last week. "Encryption products are more widely available and are integrated as security features in standard operating systems, so the Government has concluded that it is now right to implement the provisions of Part 3 of RIPA… which is not presently in force."
Part 3 of RIPA gives the police powers to order the disclosure of encryption keys, or force suspects to decrypt encrypted data.
Anyone who refuses to hand over a key to the police would face up to two years’ imprisonment. Under current anti-terrorism legislation, terrorist suspects now face up to five years for withholding keys.

HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen:

Eine guter Leitfaden zum Überleben im Fall von Identitätsdiebstahl. Die Tips sind für Amerikaner gedacht, aber auch als Europäer kann man daraus viel Nutzen ziehen.

Wired News: The Eternal Value of Privacy:

The most common retort against privacy advocates — by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures — is this line: "If you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Some clever answers: "If I’m not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what’s wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these — as right as they are — is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It’s not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

Wieder ein paar gute Argumente, warum Datenschutz ein Grundrecht ist, und warum der Kampf gegen Terrorismus und Kinderpornographie kein Totschlagargument gegen unser Recht auf Privatsphäre ist.

Infothought: 10 Things You Might Not Know About Google:

6. Google self-censors in several countries. You heard about how Google self-censors in China (e.g. human rights sites top-ranked by Google in other countries are missing in Google.cn). But did you know that Google showed censored search results in other countries for years, sometimes even without showing a disclaimer that something was missing? In Germany and France, that was the case. You can see this for yourself if you first search Google.com for [site:ety.com]. This will result in 9,940 results. Now if you do the same search on Google.fr – Google France – you get zero results. However, there’s a disclaimer at the bottom: "In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 260 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org."

netzpolitik.org: » RSF: Die schwarzen Löcher des Internets Aktuelle Berichterstattung rund um die politischen Themen der Informationsgesellschaft.:

Reporter ohne Grenzen haben ihren jährlichen Internet Annual report 2006 mit dem Untertitel “Everyone’s interested in the Internet - especially dictators” veröffentlicht.
[…]
Europa kommt auch vor und es wird kritisiert, dass die Vorratsdatenspeicherung die Privatsphäre aller europäischen Bürger gefährdet. Gleichzeitig wird darauf hingewiesen, dass ISPs beim blocken von Inhalten die Aufgabe von Richtern übernehmen.

netzpolitik.org: » Chinesische Contentpolizei, süß, zahlreich und oder undercover Aktuelle Berichterstattung rund um die politischen Themen der Informationsgesellschaft.:

Mich erinnert das irgendwie daran, dass auch ein deutscher Geheimdienst mal undercover arbeitende, “informelle Mitarbeiter” hatte, deren Aktivitäten ihnen später sozial und moralisch auf die Füße gefallen sind.

netzpolitik.org: » Pressemitteilung: US-Abhörskandal erfordert Umdenken auch in Europa:

… der aktuelle BND-Skandal sollte dieses Argument noch untermauern.

Study: Consumers would trade privacy for convenience

Ich glaube manchmal, nicht die Regierungen und Geheimdienste, sondern das Volk sind der wahre Feind des Datenschutzes…