Post Office to block "Dear Santa" letters

The Federal Sentencing and Policy Blog had an interesting article (from USA Today, actually) on the U.S. Post Office's recent decision to stop forwarding "Dear Santa," letters by children to North Pole, Alaska. The concern is that children frequently include their personal information (names, addresses, pictures) in such letters that, theoretically, could fall into the wrong hands.

Here is the article:

The U.S. Postal Service, citing security and privacy concerns of children, will no longer forward "Dear Santa" letters to the Alaska town of North Pole, putting in jeopardy the town's 55-year-old volunteer letter-answering effort by the town. The concern is that names, addresses and other private information about small children could get into the wrong hands.

Postal Service officials note that a postal worker last year in Maryland recognized a volunteer in the agency's Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender, the Associated Press reports. The Postal Service now prohibits volunteers in such programs to have access to children's last names and addresses.

Mayor Doug Isaacson says the Postal Service is "running roughshod" over the city of North Pole, whose identity is tied to Christmas, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports. "What grinch would conceive of something so sinister?" Isaacson tells the paper. He says businesses and civic organizations in the town of 2,200 gear up for the program every year "when we're able to really demonstrate the spirit of Christmas."

JHW: Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Patriot Act Changes

Proposed Patriot Act changes from the House and Senate (pdf).

Men indicted for 2008 WorldPay Hack

Back in February 2009, I blogged about a group of hackers that orchestrated one of the most sophisticated bank card hacks of all time. It was a $9 million hack where, for only several minutes, the withdrawal limit for hundreds of ATM cards was temporarily removed. During those couple minutes, a small army of "foot soldiers" took to the streets and withdrew cash, cash, and more cash. Then, just as suddenly as the hack began, it stopped. A flash-mob hack, if you will, and the blogosphere was stunned.

Here is the old post.

It seems, however, that the international law enforcement community worked together to find out the mastermind(s) of the hack. Earlier this week, four men of eastern European decent were indicted in Northern District of Georiga.

Here is a description of the brain-trust as posted by Cybercrime and Doing Time:

SERGEI TŠURIKOV, 25, of Tallinn, Estonia performed reconnaissance and found a path of entry into the RBS WOrldPay computer network. Using unnamed hackers, they found a successful path of vulnerability into the network. TŠURIKOV then introduced these hackers to VIKTOR PLESHCHUK, 28, of St. Petersburg, Russia who was the one to actually mastermind the hack, supported by OLEG COVELIN, 28, of Chişinău, Moldova, and an unknown hacker referred to in the indictment as "HACKER 3". TŠURIKOV also managed an existing ring of "cashiers" - criminals who brazenly take the risk of withdrawing money using counterfeit ATM cards, and then dutifully wire part of their proceeds back to the smarter criminals who don't take such risks themselves.

Pic: Wired's Threat Level

Outrage! In Maricopa County

Talk about privacy, secrecy, and surveillance! This video shows government intrusion into the private life of a citizen in its most raw form.

The set-up: Criminal defense lawyer is arguing before a judge. The courtroom deputies sneak up behind her back and swipe - steal! - a document from her personal file concerning this defendant.

At 1:00 -- you can see the blond deputy reading the private file.
At 1:34 -- you can clearly see the blond deputy reach into the file and take out a document.
At 1:49 -- larger deputy walks away w/ the file
At 2:02 to 2:10 -- the theft is revealed in open court and you can see the blond deputy clearly shift his hands in anxiety over being caught -- what's called "pacifying behavior" in the field of body language interpretation.



Hat tip: SDFLA Blog.

Metadata = public record, says Arizona Supreme Court

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that metadata is considered part of the public record. The case stems from a police officer who alleges that his supervisors backdated a document concerning his performance. The officer had sued the city for employment discrimination, and sought the metadata to prove his allegation that his employment record had indeed been doctored.

The city argued that metadatea was not part of the public record.

Metadata is data about a record. For example, a document containing various employee complaints is data. Information about when the document was created, however, is metadata. In the Arizona case, the metadata would have revealed whether, in fact, the employee review document had been accessed after the performance review, and when.

The Arizona Supreme Court held that if a record is help to be public, including in an electronic format, the embedded metadata is likewise a public record.

The Washington State Supreme Court is set to hear a similar case.

pic: Yourwallpaper.com

Tweet this!

Enough is enough: Twitter must die.

I've tried it. I've learned about it. I've tried to get used to it ... and all I can say is that it's the most worthless piece of software ever written. Period. And now this?!

The TwitterPeek? An Amazon Kindle-looking device that is exclusively for Twitter? Users can update, follow other "tweets," and "tweet" themselves.

Happy Halloween