Your data: Increasingly under attack ~ By Phil Elmore

I have explored different facets of these security issues in past Technocracy columns. The common thread among all of these articles is a single, merciless and implacable truth: You and your data are under attack from all sides and on all fronts by individuals, governmental entities and even your own fallibility.

~ Phil Elmore, in this column; emphasis my own.

When deciding which part of Phil Elmore's column to reproduce in order to provide the major essence of the column, I decided on going with the last three paragraphs. The first part of the column covers data theft, the illegal use of email accounts, and user ignorance of protecting data. But it was in the last paragraphs where Phil expounds on the threat of people - or the government - that could potentially misuse something called the Patriot App in order to help the government spy on you. I figured that it sounded Orwellian enough to get your attention!

Your data: Increasingly under attack

PHIL ELMORE

By Phil Elmore

December 30, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

And what of smartphones themselves? It isn't just your own phone and the applications installed on it that must concern you. Now you have to worry about the applications on everybody else's phones, too. Earlier this month, news broke concerning the new "Patriot App" for the iPhone. Intended to "help fight terrorism," the application "taps into federal tip lines," allowing the user to "make reports, using pre-loaded forms, in any of several categories." Users can even include photographs and video with their upload. The software is obviously an extension of the "If you see something, say something" campaign designed to encourage awareness of suspicious activity. But in making snitching on your neighbors so convenient, so quick, so technologically enabled, are we creating the culture of pervasive, pernicious surveillance about which Orwell warned us?

Video provided by FoxBusinessNetwork ~ December 15, 2010

Even the application's creators acknowledge that the Patriot App could be misused by individuals hoping to harass or otherwise take revenge on others. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bob Barr sneered that being "a snitch" used to be thought of as "cowardly and craven" (qualities with which, presumably, Barr still associates the reporting of suspicious activity). He derided the "tattletale app" as a means of "squealing on a fellow citizen" while condemning the marketing that associates the application with patriotism.

Attacks on you, your data, your reputation and your civil liberties come from all sides and at all hours. The vigilance you must maintain is, at times, wearying. Everyone from your government to common thieves to your neighbors to your own family could represent a threat. Your only choice is to persevere with your eyes open and your mind active.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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Toward a totalitarian future – camera by camera ~ By Phil Elmore

From WorldNetDaily

By Phil Elmore Posted: October 08, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 "So the combination to the air shield," intones Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in the classic Mel Brooks film "Spaceballs," "is one, two, three, four … five? … That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard ... the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!" It's a funny moment in a funny movie, the kind of thing that college students used to quote to each other when they weren't repeating lines from Monty Python sketches. For all I know, they still do ... but maybe they're Twittering those lines to each other now. The U.K.'s The Register recently reported on data from a phishing attack on Hotmail e-mail accounts. The data from the attack provided analysts with a window into the luggage-combination idiocy of quite a few e-mail users, because the most common password discovered – meaning the most common password used by e-mail account owners operating independently of each other through this particular provider's sample – was "123456." Now, obviously, this isn't a good idea. Your password should be much "stronger" than that. It should be a nonsense word or phrase that only you know, something you never speak aloud and that has no specific associations to you. It should contain upper and lower case letters, numbers, and even random punctuation. It should be changed often. Given this, which most of you know already, I'm going to ask you a seemingly random question: What do the movie "Spaceballs," the password habits of e-mail users, omnipresent electronic technology and New York City's leftist mayor, Michael Bloomberg, have in common? By this I mean apart from the immediate association one may draw between Mel Brooks' fumbling, incompetent "President Skroob" and the unctuous Bloomberg, whom I'm willing to believe would actually, physically use as toilet paper an original copy of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights if he thought no one was looking. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Vast Computer Spy Network Found

Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast computer spy ring that broke into government and corporate computers around the world, stealing documents and other important information, The New York Times reports. [Continue reading at TheRightPerspective] digg story ~ Submitted by NewsGuy2005

Obama Administration May Seek Power to Monitor Contents of Private Computer Hard Drives Connected to the Internet

By Brandon Martin EXCERPT:

While we understand that enforcing American intellectual property rights in places like China may require some kind of treaty with sharp teeth for enforcement, we don’t want the administration to have the power to take a quick peek at our private data and we certainly don’t want a multinational treaty organization a la the organizations created by GATT and NAFTA to be able to play super cyber-snoop, either.

[Continue reading]

digg story ~ Submitted by heatherwight