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Friday, December 29, 2006

Measures would target Internet predators, ID theft


SAFE122906
Last update: December 28, 2006 – 9:10 PM
Measures would target Internet predators, ID theft
The incoming attorney general's proposals to fight crime will be heard sympathetically in the new DFL-controlled state House.
By Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune
With leaders of the incoming DFL state House majority voicing approval, Attorney General-elect Lori Swanson called Thursday for new laws to protect Minnesotans from Internet predators, harassers and identity thieves.
Among the measures Swanson wants is a felony penalty for an adult convicted of engaging in sexually explicit communications with a child, a proposal prompted by the scandal involving former Florida U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's e-mails to young congressional pages.
"We need to update 20th century laws to fight 21st century crimes," Swanson said at a State Capitol news conference. While the initiatives might not fill Minnesota prisons with newly defined felons, she said they "will give prosecutors more tools" and "better correlate the consequences of certain criminal behavior with the risk to society."
Swanson's proposals stand a better chance of passage by the Legislature than those of her predecessor, fellow DFLer Mike Hatch, whose two terms as the state's top legal officer coincided with eight years of Republican control of the House.
"We will be hearing bills coming out of the AG's office, not letting them slip away," said Rep. Joe Mullery, DFL-Minneapolis, incoming chairman of the House Public Safety/Civil Justice Committee.
Swanson also urged several measures unrelated to the Internet: a felony for domestic abusers who violate no-contact orders three times in 10 years, extended curbs on the business use of Social Security numbers and more state funding for local police.
The police proposal drew an immediate endorsement from Mullery, who said a recent surge in violent crime in Minneapolis followed state aid cuts to the city that led to deep cuts in its police force. "Hearings will be held on that," he said.
Here are Swanson's other initiatives, to be formally introduced after she takes office on Tuesday:
• Victimizing children. The Foley provision would expand current laws that prohibit the sale of sexually explicit materials to children and the sexual solicitation of children over the Internet to also outlaw explicit communications intended for sexual gratification that may be aimed at grooming children for future exploitation. Swanson proposed a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.
• Cyber-bullying. A 2005 law requires state school districts to adopt written policies on bullying. Swanson proposed extending the law to include e-mail and Web harassment that an advocacy group says has victimized 13 million school-age children nationwide. Some districts, including St. Paul's, already have such policies, but others do not, Swanson said.
• Identity theft. Swanson urged felony penalties of up to five years in prison and a $20,000 fine for posing as another person on the Internet with the intent to harass or defame another. She also would allow courts to direct websites to remove such postings.
• Data theft. State laws do not recognize the value of personal information stored on stolen computers in determining the seriousness of the crime, and many computer units rapidly depreciate below the $500 threshold for felony charges. Swanson proposed making personal data theft a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, regardless of the computer's value.
Conrad deFiebre • 651-222-1673 • cdefiebre@startribune.com
©2006 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Dark Reading - Host security - When Risk Managers Cry Wolf - Security

Dark Reading - Host security - When Risk Managers Cry Wolf - Security

Securing Identity From Inside the App - Security News Analysis

Wired News: My Data, Your Machine

Wired News: My Data, Your Machine

Banking on Security - Security

An SOA practices checklist for implementation roadmaps

An SOA practices checklist for implementation roadmaps

Power outage brightens Las Vegas utility's outlook on virtualization

Power outage brightens Las Vegas utility's outlook on virtualization

Multiple flaws in Adobe Reader, Acrobat

Report: Microsoft beats Oracle on security

Another ARCserve security hole

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Thursday, November 16, 2006

SANS Institute - SANS Top-20 Internet Security Attack Targets (2006 Annual Update)

SANS Institute - SANS Top-20 Internet Security Attack Targets (2006 Annual Update)

Email encryption: Five steps to success

Gap analysis procedures

Executive Guide: IT and the law

Top 10 list of data disasters - Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal:

Top 10 list of data disasters - Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal:
Top 10 list of data disasters
Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - 2:18 PM CST Wednesday
by Steve LeBeau
Staff Writer
Spill coffee on your laptop? That's nothing: Try letting a festering banana drip into your hard drive or drop your computer from a helicopter.
Those are among this year's "data disasters," an annual list of computer mishaps compiled by Kroll Ontrack Inc., which has its data-recovery operations in Eden Prairie.
Note: These aren't the worst data disasters of the year -- just the ones that Ontrack was able to rescue the data afterward. Presumably, you can mess up your computer much worse than this. Among the problems:
Employees of a global communications company dropped a laptop computer out of a helicopter in Monaco.
A passenger on a flight from London to Warsaw packed his laptop with his shampoo, which leaked all over it.
A man left an old banana on top of an external hard drive. The juices from the decaying fruit seeped into the circuitry.
A man reformatted his hard drive 10 times before remembering the hard drive contained invaluable information.
A professor tried to fix the squeak in his hard drive with a healthy application of WD-40. Well ... the squeak went away.
slebeau@bizjournals.com (612) 288-2108

Friday, November 03, 2006

Army command laptop missing

Army command laptop missing

Is Jamming Really a Problem? - Security

ID Security: No End in Sight: Data Breach Tally Approaches 100 Million

Technology News: ID Security: No End in Sight: Data Breach Tally Approaches 100 Million

Records exposed

Janesville student expelled for hacking into computers

Hackers break into water system network

BT reviews security after exchange break in

PC reseller charged over ID theft of employee data | CNET News.com

PC reseller charged over ID theft of employee data CNET News.com

Hospital group sued over data mishap | IndyStar.com

Techworld.com - Companies facing new security threats

Techworld.com - Companies facing new security threats

Tor network privacy could be cracked

Tor network privacy could be cracked

Boarding-Pass Brouhaha - Security

Firewalled - Careful, Somebodies Watching

Dark Reading - The Business of IT Security

Kicking Some Brass - Security News Analysis

Dark Reading - Desktop Security - Kicking Some Brass - Security News Analysis

Monday, October 16, 2006

Friday, October 13, 2006

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Monday, August 21, 2006

Friday, August 11, 2006

WSU computers tampered with

PSA HealthCare Announces Data Security Update - Forbes.com

Security Breach at Toyota Plant

Probe continues in City Hall theft

Vassar patients worried about ID theft overwhelm hot line

Matrix Bancorp Announces Personal Computer Theft; Starts Aggressive Program to Protect Customers Against Identity Theft

Stolen DOT laptop PC contains personal info on 133,000 Floridians

Utah man charged with intercepting employer e-mail

Red face for Florida official as laptop stolen

Techworld.com - Hard disks still scrapped with data intact

Red face for Florida official as laptop stolen

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Public computer exposed Hampton residents' data

Identity details found on state site - The Clarion-Ledger

Hackers break in to NU admissions, financial aid computers

State Department Releases Details Of Computer System Attacks | July 13, 2006

OMB steps up data security reporting requirements (7/14/06)

No Quick Fix for Government Data Security

What keeps IT up at night?

What keeps IT up at night? InfoWorld Analysis 2006-07-17 By Dan Tynan

Report: Web applications caught in a storm of attacks

Five Tools to Bulletproof Firefox - Security

Microsoft Nixes Encryption Utility

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Hacker breaks into UT employee computer records

Navy probes data leak on 100,000 sailors, Marines

Citibank OCBC Bank Affected By Phishing

Meth Users, Attuned to Detail, Add Another Habit: ID Theft - New York Times

Banking on security checks and balances

Secure Remote Desktop Access Over SSH

2006 InformationWeek/Accenture Global Information Security Survey

FIPS-201 hits the street

Visa, MasterCard to unveil new security rules

Coke Re-evaluates Security

Enter the vishermen

Five freeware tools for mitigating network vulnerabilities

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Hacker got access to all FBI passwords

Hacker finds cracking secret code easy as FBI

U.S. gov't mandates laptop security

Authentication points: SMB Buying Decisions

Five steps for rootkit detection: Check IT List

Worst practices for backup and disaster recovery, part 2

Tips for verifying that your backups work

Shop talk: Disk imaging eases SMB security pains

Seven master data management best practices

ISPs Fear Zombies

ActiveX Poses New Problem For IE

Software Flaws Can Be Predicted

Security policies: Don't be an army of one

When access management becomes rocket science

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Healthcare Firm Secures USB - Security News Analysis

GAO Says VA Not Alone in Data Carelessness

How Do You Know Your Data Encryption is Really Secure

Top Ten Laptop Security Recommendations

Security Breach at U. of Delaware

Info. assurance a matter of survival

VA Chief Promises Accountability for ID Theft

Data Security Becoming Political Issue

Id theft: 13.3 per minute

Id theft: 13.3 per minute

Online banking is open for fraudsters

Red Cross warns blood donors of possible ID thefts in Midwest

The War Driver Returns

StopBadware.org adds to its hall of shame list

Credit Card Security Rules to Get Update!

Credit Unions Hacked More Than Banks

Nevada CSO Faces Embezzlement Charges

Monday, May 08, 2006

Oracle refuses to learn its lesson, experts say

Wacky Web misuses highlight internal risks

Guardian Unlimited: Identity Theft From Tossed Airline Boarding Pass? "A simple airline stub, pi...

Layer 7 tackles WS-Policy and enterprise SOA security

Secure Web site access with Perl

An Inside Job: Extending Enterprise Protection to Remote Laptops

Hackers Access Government Health Servers

When the 'solution' is worse than the problem

Idaho utility hard drives -- and data -- turn up on eBay

Hacker hits Toronto transit message system, jabs prime minister

Ghost Server

Ohio University reports two separate security breaches

Analysis: Data breach notification law unlikely this year

Analysis: Data breach notification law unlikely this year

Gone in 60 seconds--the high-tech version

Wednesday, April 05, 2006