Archives

Archive for December, 2005

Former Official Pleads Guilty to Computer Theft

( Laptops and Theft )

A former Labor Department official is guilty of stealing 12 government laptop computers. The former official was the Supervisory Program Manager for the Employment and Training Administration (ETA).
Basit Chaudhary pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information this morning at U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. The information, filed on Nov. […]

Microsoft OneCare zaps Computer Tracking Software

The new spyware remover and ‘pc health’ product from Microsoft, Microsoft Onecare has ended up disabling a popular computer tracking software, Absolute Software’s Computrace LoJack. Onecare has since been patched to prevent this from occuring. From the CNET article:
The OneCare product detects one of our modules as belonging to another application that it […]

Kevin Costner’s Laptop Stolen

( Laptops and Theft )

It looks like Keven Costner’s Apple laptop was stolen a little over a year ago. From the Scotsman’s article:
An upmarket hairstylist [Pascal Bensimon, age 44], has been charged with stealing actor Kevin Costner’s laptop computer, which had private photos of his wedding. [Bensimon] surrendered to Pitkin police officials in Colorado this week after a […]

EU to require ISPs retain your data

( Laptops )

The register reports about a new proposal passed in the EU Parlimant.
The European Parliament has approved proposals on data retention that would compel telecom firms to keep customer email logs, details of internet usage and phone call records for between six months to two years.
The plan - designed to assist law enforcement in […]

How many laptops are stolen each year?

( Laptops )

The estimate is that from 2002-2004, U.S. PC owners filed over 600,000 claims each year for computer theft— with the majority of the claims being resulting from stolen laptops.
For the UK, police forces figures from 2005 show that over 34,000 laptops, almost 100 per day, are reported stolen each year, and almost 72000 […]

The Myth of E-mail Privacy

E-mail systems were a crucial tool in creating the Internet, and actually predate the Internet in existence. Many people believe that e-mail privacy is inherent and guaranteed, psychologically equating it with the postal system. While the ability to access your personal e-mail messages is secured with a password, this is insufficient to guarantee […]