Verbo.se

Kneejerk Politics

Do politicians not understand the phrase “proactive”? Policies like these should have been enacted yonks ago, plus of course the contradiction between these and the data retention crap going on in the UK and around the world is past ridiculous, into the realms of Wizard of Oz territory.

EDRI – New data protection rules asked by UK MPs: The Justice Committee of the UK House of Commons issued on 3 January 2008 a report on public data protection summarising the status and development of the topic, especially since the November 2007 Chancellor’s announcement to the Parliament related to the loss of confidential data records of 25 million people by HM Revenue and Customs.

The report that recommends a data breach notification law, criminal penalties for data controllers that are found responsible for breaching security, greater powers and financing for the Information Commissioner’s Office, follows the line of the recommendations made by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in August 2007 that were rejected at that time by the government.

German data retention act challenged

I wonder could you get 30 people to sign a complaint about data retention in Ireland? The lack of interest in privacy and security in our country is an embarrassment.

EDRI: Just five days after the German President Horst Köhler approved the German data retention law that entered into force on 1 January 2008, the German Working group on data retention (Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung) challenged the law in the Federal German Constitutional Court.

The complaint was filed with the Court on 31 December 2007 and, for the first time in the German history, it was backed by 30 000 complainants. The 150-page notice of appeal requested an immediate suspension of the law on the grounds of “apparent unconstitutionality”.

2x U.S. Banks Duped By Phony Cash Couriers

ROFL. I wonder was it the same guy, on a roll. You’ll almost wish he’d get away with it. The banks certainly deserved a kick in the pants for something so ridiculous.

Washington Post: To the annals of creative bank heists add this: Two Washington area banks turned over more than $850,000 in less than 24 hours this week to someone who impersonated a cash courier and claimed to be filling in for the regular guys.

On Wednesday, a man dressed as an armored truck employee with the company AT Systems walked into a BB&T bank in Wheaton about 11 a.m., was handed more than $500,000 in cash and walked out, a source familiar with the case said.

It wasn’t until the actual AT Systems employees arrived at the bank, at 11501 Georgia Ave., the next day that bank officials realized they’d been had. “When the real security guards showed up is when it became known,” said Richard Wolf, a spokesman with the FBI’s Baltimore division.

Not five minutes later or even an hour later, the next day!