Surveillance State

A team of respected security researchers known for their work hacking RFID radio chips have turned their attention to pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators.

The researchers will present their paper, "Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses," during the "Attacks" session of the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, one of the most prestigious conferences for the computer security field.

The authors of the paper are listed as: Shane S. Clark, Benessa Defend, Daniel Halperin, Thomas S. Heydt-Benjamin, Will Morgan, Benjamin Ransford, Kevin Fu, Tadayoshi Kohno, William H. Maisel.

Kevin Fu, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, … Read more

For the last few years, frequent travelers have had the option to sacrifice their privacy (as well as some money) for speed at the airport. Now, thanks to some keen deal-spotting by bloggers, passengers can skip to the front of the airport security line for free. The question to be asked is: even when such services are free, are they worth the price?

Verified Identity Pass is one of three companies that participate in TSA's Registered Traveler program. The company offers separate lines leading to TSA checkpoints for its subscribers. Passengers passing through one of these lines get to … Read more

Customers of HSBC, Bank of America, and Washington Mutual suffer the highest rates of identity theft in the banking industry, according to an investigative study released Wednesday by a UC Berkeley Law School researcher.

The Federal Trade Commission received over 245,000 reports of identity theft in 2006, but does not typically publish the names of the financial firms and companies listed in the reports. Through an extensive Freedom of Information Act request, Chris Hoofnagle, a staff attorney at UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law, was able to get detailed records on the individual consumer complaints.

Hoofnagle received detailed … Read more

Cable giant Comcast seems to have moved on from its anti-BitTorrent filtering, and now appears to be engaged in a fairly low-tech astroturf campaign--which one commentator has called a "Denial of Citizen attack."

The Federal Communications Commission held a public hearing at Harvard University yesterday, primarily to discuss the cable giant's widely criticized filtering of BitTorrent traffic.

According to a number of first person reports posted online, as well as eyewitnesses that this blogger has spoken to directly, Comcast packed the room with hired warm bodies, some of which were sleeping. In addition to ensuring that there'… Read more

Google could soon be forced to delete identifying user information from its search logs, statements by the European Union data regulators suggest. The search engine's lawyers have long argued that network addresses don't really count as personal information, and even if they did, the company's policy of masking the last few digits of an IP address after 18 months is more than sufficient. European regulators don't appear to be buying Google's claims.

According to an Associated Press report, European data privacy regulators confirmed this past Thursday that Internet search engines based outside Europe must also … Read more

Minor update: Boost uses the Nextel/Sprint network, not Alltel.

Apple's iPhones seem to have a monopoly when it comes to usable mobile Web browsing. Until now, freedom-loving users not wishing to get into bed with Steve Jobs were, for the most part, out of luck. This article explains how to get an even better mobile Internet experience, without having to do business with either AT&T or Apple--with no contracts and no $60 per month bill just to surf the Net.

The iPhone is clearly the must-have device of the digerati. All of my colleagues seem to … Read more

After months of lying and evading our questions, Comcast seems to have developed a love affair with the blogosphere. Is this an early Valentine's Day present for bloggers, or is the company up to its usual tricks?

Comcast has gotten into a bit of hot water with the Federal Communications Comission over its widely criticized anti-BitTorrent filtering. The FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced the agency's plans to investigate Comcast last month, stating that "the question is going to arise: Are they reasonable network practices?" He added that "when they have reasonable network practices, they should … Read more

Update: This blog post has been modified since it was first published. Click here for more details, or scroll to the bottom to see the original text.

A pro-consumer, bipartisan data-breach bill was stripped of most its provisions before its feeble remains were finally passed by an Indiana Senate committee on Tuesday.

This came after two weeks of intensive lobbying by AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft, and LexisNexis, all of which wanted to kill the bill. For the most part, they were successful.

In a blog post last week, I explained how I had worked with my state Rep. Matt Pierce (D-Bloomington) … Read more

With all of the attention that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) update (and the administration's vigorous attempts to immunize the criminals telcos), it seems like a good time to explore the issues surrounding surveillance and privacy in America today.

While there are so many scary things being done by intelligence and law enforcement, hope is not far away. Easy to use privacy technologies are upon us, and with them, comes a radical shift in the balance of power. As this article will explain, the scalable techniques with which the NSA, FBI and other agencies can spy on innocent … Read more