Privacy Digest

Judge Suppresses Report on Voting Machine Security - Via Freedom to Tinker:

A judge of the New Jersey Superior Court has prohibited the scheduled release of a report on the security and accuracy of the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting machine. Last June, Judge Linda Feinberg ordered Sequoia Voting Systems to turn over its source code to me (serving as an expert witness, assisted by a team of computer scientists) for a thorough examination. At that time she also ordered that we could publish our report 30 days after delivering it to the Court--which should have been today.

Three weeks after we delivered the report, on September 24th Judge Feinberg ordered us not to release it. This is part of a lawsuit filed by the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic, seeking to decommission of all of New Jersey's voting computers. New Jersey mostly uses Sequoia AVC Advantage direct-recording electronic (DRE) models. None of those DREs can be audited: they do not produce a voter verified paper ballot that permit each voter to create a durable paper record of her electoral choices before casting her ballot electronically on a DRE. The legal basis for the lawsuit is quite simple: because there is no way to know whether the DRE voting computer is actually counting votes as cast, there is no proof that the voting computers comply with the constitution or with statutory law that require that all votes be counted as cast.  read more »

Commissioner Cavoukian outlines what will need to be done to protect privacy in the 21st century - Via CNW Group | OFFICE OF THE INFORMATION AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER/ONTARIO:

TORONTO, Sept. 26 /CNW/ - Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian is unveiling a key white paper outlining what will need to be done to protect privacy in the future, at a special presentation at the University of Waterloo, on Monday, September 29, 2008.

"As a regulator, I have been called many things during my tenure," said the Commissioner, "but rarely have I been called a dreamer. But that is precisely the practice one must engage in if privacy is to not only survive, but thrive, well into the future. But dreaming is not enough. As a pragmatist, I must embed that dream into reality. One way of doing so is seeking to embed privacy into the design and architecture of all technologies, so that it may live well into the future. So you might call me a radical pragmatist, because I dream BIG - in technicolour; there is no black and white anymore."  read more »

EFF Urges Court to Protect Innovation in Arista v. Lime Wire - Via EFF.org Updates:

New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of groups representing both consumers and industry filed an amicus brief today in the first major lawsuit since MGM v. Grokster against a creator of peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing software, warning that the case has profound implications for the development of new software and hardware.

In Arista v. Lime Wire, the recording industry plaintiffs seek to hold Lime Wire liable for acts of copyright infringement by users of its software. In its amicus brief, EFF urges the court to apply the law in a manner that will not chill technological innovation and to reaffirm that developers should not be held liable for copyright infringement based on misuses of their technology that they did not actively promote.  read more »

Ed Felten & David Robinson - Center for Information Technology Policy - Via IT Conversations:

Information technologies weave their way into every aspect of our personal, professional, and civic lives. There's a growing need for informed public discussion of their public policy implications. Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) is one emerging forum for that conversation. Ed Felten and David Robinson speak with host Jon Udell to explore the goals and activities of the CITP.

(Read Original Article - Via IT Conversations.)

Photo Ticket Cameras to Track Drivers Nationwide - Via theNewspaper.com: A journal of the politics of driving :

Vendors plan to add spy technology to existing red light camera and speed camera installations.

Monitoring centerPrivate companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients. Redflex explained the company's latest developments in an August 7 meeting with Homestead, Florida officials.

"We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level," Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek said. "Optical character recognition is our next roll out which will be coming out in a few months -- probably about five months or so."

The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard drive space and the types of cameras installed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars.  read more »

Digital Wallpaper - Via CDT - PolicyBeta:

Television screens increasingly blaze in spaces outside of homes. In many settings, particularly at retail establishments, the TVs are perpetually tuned to a channel with nothing but commercials. In other instances, such as schools and government offices, the screens flash announcements and public safety information. This up-and-coming medium goes by different names, including captive audience networks, but the most common is digital signage.

Now, in a development with significant privacy implications, digital signage is slowly integrating identification technologies. The purpose is to boost audience measurement and exposure. The industry’s eventual wish is to target advertising to individual consumers based on demographics and shopping history.  read more »

India's use of brain scans in courts dismays critics - International Herald Tribune - Via International Herald Tribune :

MUMBAI, India: The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.

Now, well before any consensus on the technology's readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.

For years, scientists have peered into the brain and sought to identify deception. They have shot infrared beams through liars' heads, placed them in giant magnetic resonance imaging machines and used scanners to track their eyeballs. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has plowed money into brain-based lie detection in the hope of producing more fruitful counterterrorism investigations.

The technologies, generally regarded as promising but unproved, have yet to be widely accepted as evidence — except in India, where in recent years judges have begun to admit brain scans.  read more »

U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity - Via Politics and Law - CNET News :

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network.

Feds Set to Take Over Airline Watch List Checking, Again - Via Threat Level:

In January 2003, the federal government proposed taking over the matching of airline passenger names against the government's list of suspected terrorists, since too many innocent people were being caught up in bad matches by the airlines.

In January 2009, the government plans to do just that, the Department of Homeland Security told Congress Tuesday -- saying that Secretary Michael Chertoff had just certified that the program works and protects people's privacy.

The current system has been dogged for years by sloppy name matches that have snared Sen. Ted Kennedy, a high-powered nun, small children and for a time, all men named David Nelson.

The latest version -- dubbed Secure Flight -- is far-removed from the version originally proposed in 2003. That program, known as CAPPS II, proposed to use fancy computer algorithms that would analyze commercial databases about potential travelers, in order to decide if a particular traveler merited a red, yellow or green terrorism score. That program was delayed many times after scandals over secret data-mining, Big Brother-like plans to use commercial data to rate passengers, and general mismanagement that forced Congress to repeatedly rein in the program.  read more »

Exclusive: Widespread cell phone location snooping by NSA? - Via Surveillance State - CNET News :

If you thought that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping was limited to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, think again.

While these household names of the telecom industry almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty-work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of.

A recent article in the London Review of Books revealed that a number of private companies now sell off-the-shelf data-mining solutions to government spies interested in analyzing mobile-phone calling records and real-time location information. These companies include ThorpeGlen, VASTech, Kommlabs, and Aqsacom--all of which sell "passive probing" data-mining services to governments around the world.  read more »

Tell the FCC to Open Up White Spaces! - Via EFF.org Updates:

Last week, we sent out a call to action over the “white spaces” issue soon to be addressed by the FCC. Let’s take a closer look at why this issue matters.

It ought to be a no-brainer to say that the airwaves belong to everyone. We use the airwaves to carry TV and radio signals, for our cellphones and cordless phones, even for garage door openers and baby monitors. And while corporations are given license to use limited slices of the spectrum for radio and TV, the airwaves remain public property, a treasure we hold in common.

The FCC’s job is to regulate this valuable resource in the public interest. Later this fall, the FCC is expected to decide what should be done with “white spaces,” the unused areas of the spectrum that lie between channels licensed by TV and radio broadcasters. These white spaces amount to vast, unused real estate in the spectrum, a territory that will only increase in February 2009 with the discontinuation of analog TV signals.  read more »

CIA, FBI push 'Facebook for spies' - Via CNN.com :

When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.
A social-networking site for the world of spying officially launches for the U.S. intelligence community this month.

But that's not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It's every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it's much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it's a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.  read more »

ISP Web Tracking Dead As Net Eavesdropping CEO Resigns - Via Threat Level:

Online privacy scored a small victory this week as the CEO for controversial net eavesdropping firm NebuAD resigned just months after Congress successfully scared the country's ISPs into abandoning dreams of windfall profits from tracking their customers around the web.

Dykes's resignation can best be understood as the death -- if only temporary one -- of a scheme to track online users' every click and search in order to serve just the right ad at the right time - a service that companies will pay a premium for.

NebuAd's business model was to pay ISPs to let it install equipment to monitor where people surfed and what they searched on, in order to deliver targeted ads based on the user's profile. ISPs hungry to be more than just a railroad company warmed to the idea of new revenue.

But after one of the nation's largest ISPs, Charter Communication, announced plans to test NebuAd technology, the House Energy and Commerce committee became very interested whether tracking people's every move on the net violated federal law. The inquiry dealt a critical blow to the company, since it quickly became apparent that no ISP was going to take on a powerful House telecom committee to defend untested and clearly creepy technology.  read more »

Keep Wireless Broadband on Track at the FCC - Via EFF.org Updates:

Since Google's announcement of the Free the Airwaves campaign, there has been renewed interest in wireless broadband, municipal wi-fi, white spaces -- all long-standing efforts to bring more Internet to more people by making the Internet access available in the airwaves, instead of through underground wires. Faster, cheaper wireless Internet access is an exciting prospect with near-universal benefits to the American public -- but for the moment, its growth rests in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).  read more »

Picasa Refresh Brings Facial Recognition - Via washingtonpost.com :

In the anticipated release of Google's new and improved Picasa, the company will offer facial recognition technology to help you identify friends and family in your pictures without requiring you to tag them by-hand each time you see them.

Launching at noon PDT today, Picasa's facial recognition technology will ask you to identify people in your pictures that you haven't tagged yet. Once you do and start uploading more pictures, Picasa starts suggesting tags for people based on the similarity between their face in the picture and the tags you already put in place for them.  read more »