MisTek - Technological Misbehaviour

Identity theft is becoming a huge concern for internet users with incidents of online scamers swindling unsuspecting net-surfers making the press on an almost daily basis. As such, protecting your ID has become a huge issue and a huge industry, but there are several ways that internet users can protect themselves that are quite easy and don’t require any technological know-how.

1) Keep a seperate Credit Card for online purchases. If you are an online shopper, then the fact is that you are at risk of people stealing your ID for nefarious purposes like credit card fraud. If you are using your usual credit card for online shopping, then you are at risk of losing the entire amount that you have access to on that card. It is a much better idea to have an entirely seperate card with a small credit limit that you use for online shopping. That way if the details get stolen, then the damage is limited to that smaller amount.

2) Don’t Give out Your Info to People Who Ask - If somebody contacts you on the internet via email or on the phone, then NEVER give them any personal information. Identity thieves often pose as legitimate companies like ebay and PayPal in the hopes of getting you to reveal sensitive information about yourself. Only give information if you have initiated the contact and are very confident of who you are dealing with.

3) Always manually type in the URL of your online banking and financial transaction services into your internet browser. Clicking on links to get to the address of your bank is asking for trouble (especially in emails) as scammers can use links to direct you to a scam website.

4) Keep your anti virus and firewall software up to date - Some  computer programs can track your online activities which is obviously not good if you are concerned about your online privacy. Usually such malicious programs are spread through email and can be caught and destroyed by most commercially available virus protection software.

5) Never give out personal or financial details via email - this one might seem pretty obvious, but plenty of people still get caught out. Email is not a secure way to transmit personal information.

6) Make sure a site is secure before transmitting personal information - look for indicators that the site is secure such as a URL that begins with “https” (which indicates a secure server) or a lock icon in the status bar of the browser.  Even these aren’t 100% effective as it is still possible for sophisticated fraudsters to  forge them.

Staying ahead of identity thieves is not necessarily about making yourself 100% impervious to attack (which would be almost impossible anyway), but rather making yourself a more difficult target than the next guy on the internet. If you can remain ahead of the pack in terms of internet security then you are far less likely to face the inconvenience of having your details stolen.

Technorati Tags: ID, Identity Theft, Fraud, Phishing, anti-virus, security

The US government’s attempt to subpoena the search records of Google and other search engines has drawn a lot of attention from the press and internet users over the last week. While the story has major implications for the search engine industry, the implications for other industries has been almost universally ignored. The biometrics industry should be watching proceedings very carefully as the outcome of the government’s moves against Google could lead to some very serious questions regarding the ways in which biometric information can be handled.

Biometric device manufacturers and advocates have for years had to fight against a solid base of people and organisations opposed to the use of biometrics on the grounds of privacy. Private manufacturers have had to deal with the issue of secure data storage as one of the central tenets of the anti-biometric movement.

Opponents of biometrics are concerned over the security of data both from a technological point of view as well as from an more conventional point of view, long fearing that companies might share the data with other companies and governments without the permission of biometrics users - including in unforseen circumstances such as the recent new’s of the government’s subpoena of information from the search engines.

Alarming to privacy advocates should be the relative ease with which several search engine companies appear to have acceded to the government subpoena for search data - albeit data that didn’t necessarily contain peronally indentifying details. Yahoo! has confirmed that they complied with the government’s request while MSN has declined to say if they even received a similar subpoena. This raises concerns regarding the level of opposition that some biometrics using companies would raise to a similar subpoena if presented with a similar situation in which the government was requesting sensitive private data, not to mention further concerns that the government, having seen success with attaining such information this time, will attempt to attain even more sensitive data in the future.

Given that Yahoo!, Google and MSN have massive resources with which to challenge a government subpoena and now knowing the fact that at least one succumbed at the first hurdle, it isn’t that much of a stretch to suggest that many biometrics companies (none of which have the financial clout of the major search engines to finance a potentially expensive legal battle with the government) would also simply acquiesce to government demands.

With this being said, the onus naturally falls to biometrics companies to demonstrate their intention and ability to secure data from being shared with any other parties. We doubt this will be done to the satisfaction of privacy groups.

Technorati Tags: biometrics, privacy, Google, MSN, Yahoo!, search engines

Canadian researchers are developing a tool to detect the amount of spin politicians use in their political campaigning.

According to their site, the tool is being developed to analyse the volume of words in a speech that would indicate that the speaker was insincere in the speech regarding their true feelings on the topic.

Words such as “however” and “unless” as well as pronouns in the first person are measured in order to gain an insight into the amount of spin in each passage of a speech or text.

Judging from the increasing press that this project is getting, it is easy to see that there could be a real demand for this service.

Technorati Tags: politics, speeches, Canadian Election

A Malaysian Senator has been fined by a Sharia court for divorcing his wife by SMS text message.

In 2001, Kamaruddin Ambok sent his wife a text telling her that it was all over - an action that has cost him a grand total of 195 big ones in fines.

Accoring to Sharia law, he was required to declare his intention of divorce in court and not on a wonder of modern technology.

The maximum possible punishment for the crime was $350 or six months in prison.

In response to the sentence, Ambok was quoted as saying, “omfg!! i got soo pwned!!”

Luckily Mrs Ambot was allowed access to http://www.noslang.com/ to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

An American online gaming fan committed suicide live on webcam ealier this month.

21 year old “Mitchell S.”  supposedly turned on his webcam and swallowed a concoction of pills and anti-freeze after logging onto his favourite site at http://www.metalgearsolid.org

Fellow gamers thought the man was joking, but after several days of failing to show up at their regular gaming sessions, they went to his house to discover that he had died in hospital on January 7.

“Our company has not in any way provoked this suicide. We are
not responsible for material published on the site,” said the owner of http://www.metalgearsolid.org which has been closed down pending an investigation.

While certainly terribly sad and regrettable that the young man died under these circumstances, the fact that a website is forced to bear the responsibility for his actions is perhaps a little unfair.