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Personal Data Exposed! Can Legislation Fix It?
rabblerouzer writes "Millions have had their personal information stolen because of lax security and may not even know it because of the patchwork of state laws that fail to mandate timely notification of victims. Boston-based law firm Mintz Levin is seeking feedback on what you would like to see included in draft legislation."
I know we're just one law short. With one more law, nothing will ever go wrong and everyone will live forever. Just one more law.
I'm sure this is the one. No one will accidentally release anyone's private details when it's illegal.
Why haven't they made getting in a car accident illegal?
Currently, vendors losing data typically offer 3 months of identity detection, as if that does anything. Criminals can simply wait 3 months and begin stealing identities freely, as most people cannot afford to purchase these costly (and largely useless) services. Unless vendors are presented with liability, as are most other businesses, data will continue to be lost all the time. There is virtually no cost to losing data.
Televised ritualistic testicular hangings as punishment. Two strikes and you're sterile.
I suggest that having the same agency, especially a Red Bushie one, be the watchdog, is akin to outsourcing the farmers security to the wolves, asking them to guard the henhouse.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'd like legislation protecting my right as an American to slap the shit out of my elected representatives whenever I choose. I think this could greatly improve their sense of accountability to the electorate. Also, sales of ice packs in Washington would skyrocket.
Or were you looking for legislation more specific to the whole identity theft issue?
If a company exposes customer information, then the personal information of all Management and
Board of Directors is to be posted in major newspapers across the US for 1 week.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I've been writing a bit about my personal experiences with Criminal Identity Theft. It's something quite a bit different than your typical identity theft. I'm wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the states to do much about theft of personal data on their own. They didn't even bother to notify me when they found out some jerk had been using my names to commit crimes. I've come to the conclusion that the government just doesn't give a rats ass about these things.
s afe.html
I'll be writing something to these guys. If you're interested in what I've been dealing with, my story starts here:
http://g27radio.blogspot.com/2007/04/think-youre-
There is only one thing that companies are accountable to, and that's the shareholders. If you can save $200 with crappy security and screw over 100,000 people with a breach, a company is under pressure to save the $200. If you place huge fines on exposed data, companies will be able to compare the cost of the security measures to the cost of a breach and make a financial decision that will (hopefully) work out best for both the company and the customers/clients/etc. Fine them up to $1000 per person exposed. Oh, lose the data of 100,000 people on an encrypted laptop left in an airport lounge? That'll be $100,000,000. Also, make concealing a breach (as opposed to reporting it) a jail-able offense. Yes, that may make losing a laptop and hiding that fact get someone more time in jail than a murderer, but we need to drop the "what would a rapist get" dogma. Yes, raping someone is bad. But what about a little loss multiplied by 100,000? Wouldn't screwing up thousands of people's lives (even if the inconvenience isn't really that large) really be in the same league as messing up one person's life really badly?
Recap:
Required disclosure
Jail for those that purposefully avoid disclosure
Large fines for breaches
Learn to love Alaska
Why you shouldn't force notifications to customers
-Zero day exploits: crooks will rush to do zero day exploits as an official confirmation will prove they've got good data (so more sophisticated gangs will buy it from them, most fraud happens in the first 24 hours)
-Honeytrap: When identity theft occurs law enforcement agencies may wish to honeytrap the thieves by letting them use the say credit card details & thus tracking them.
-White Noise Defense: smart companies ought have "white noise" dud systems, easily hacked containing white noise data with honeytrap triggers (eg a valid credit card number but one that belongs to say FBI) in it !
- and so on.
But they should be forced to notifiy law enforcement agencies.
Tune in to the FOX 5 News at 10 as we discuss this developing story!~
Here's what I'd like to see in a law:
If you store personal data, you're responsible for everything that happens if this data gets stolen. Everything. No matter if you're in any way responsible or whether it has been deemed "correctly" stored. You lose my data, you stand up for all the damage done.
Yes, that includes governmental organisations.
Don't want to be held responsible for losing my data? Don't store it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've got a few questions:
1. How is it that this law firm gets paid for the privilege of drafting our laws? Before anyone hits the reply button, what makes you think this is some kind of pro-bono cause for the law firm? The likelihood this is some kind of charitable effort is miniscule. What makes you think citizens preferences will win over the corporate interests?
This story encapsulates what's wrong with our democracy.
-The Law has been abstracted and complicated to such a degree that the above-average (slashdotters are certainly capable) is not qualified or considered capable of writing one.
-Citizens are not diving into this problem, organizing themselves and working the system we have by voting in blocks or even altering the system to make it "better."
Okay, so I'm proxying my preferences to this law firm who, for reasons unknown is drafting this bill.
Data compromise is the CEO's responsibility. Fail in your duties? Fine, it's a _minimal_ felony prosecution with manditory federal prison sentence. This is not after a determination of liability. This is after the data set has been compromised. The other piece of the puzzle is a kind of GAAP for data at rest. Is there such a thing now?
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
My fantasy strategy is to punish the owners of inaccurate personal information.
Legislation that provided a penalty for holding inaccurate personal data about someone would strongly discourage people from grabbing personal info just because they can. If bit-rot in personal-info databases had legal consequences, people would be more careful about what they collected, and would take the trouble to verify its integrity. It'd be harder to sell a database like that, too, since the buyer would want the means to keep it up to date. Also, you can bet that every personal-info-storing website would switch to an "opt-in" model about as fast as their lawyers could say "liability risk".
The major downside would be that it would disproportionately hurt small organizations. Sadly, I don't have a solution for that.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
That's my line!
Ok, I guess I need to be serious if everyone's joking about it. Of course, there's the Anarchist who thinks he's a libertarian saying all laws are bad, and another (please mod the guy up, he's actually funny) suggesting that Bush should appoint someone for a new Fedaral agency who is either a) totally incompetent (Brown, Gonzales) or is an industry shill, like the oil company and timber guys he appoints to Land Management (sigh). Bush makes the anarchists jobs SO easy...
But the fact is, there really should be a law. It should say that when your private data is breached, you should be able to collect three times any actual damages you incur from any company or agency that breaches said data. Furthermore, any government agency or company should be made to hold this money in escrow for every possible victim, just in case.
Breaches should subject the board of directors and CEO of the company or agency entrusted with the breached data, as well as the idiot who actually loses said data, to hard time in prison. Not a "white collar" prison. Put 'em in tith the murderers, thieves, muggers, rapists, and child molesters. I almost said "drug criminals" but most of our jails and prisons are filled with those, anyway.
A credit reporting agency who gets a report that your credit is stolen should be subject to a slander suit if they report bad credit after finding that it's the thieves, not you.
But the US is a one party system, even if that one party does have two arms. Neither the Democrat nor Republican arm of the Corporate Party gives a damn about you, or about anything EXCEPT the corporations. Any credit fraud law passed will benefit the corporations at the expense of the citizenry, like every other God damned law passed in that last quarter century.
So, uh, I guess I have to agree with the anarchy dude. Don't pass any more damned laws, we have too many already. Unless you've got some plan to wrest control of the US government back from the Japanese (Sony), the French (Universal), the Germans (Crysler), the Mexicans (Zenith), the British (BP), the Dutch (Shell)...
-mcgrew
... without extremely severe punitive damages imposed upon those who expose the data. Until it costs them less to secure it than it does to expose it we'll never stop companies from acting irresponsibly.
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It is as bad as you think and they really are out to get you.
When you consider how lobbyists twist them around their little finger, I'd wager politicians don't have any balls anyway.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
An amendment to the Civil Service Act that makes willfull negligence an automatic firing offense. Stop, don't pass go. If you take thousands of tax records or veterans' data home with you without strong encryption, you're fired, lose your pension, everything. It'll never happen because the government doesn't want to admit that if we took the government out of the equation, that the system would look a whole lot less broken than it really is.
The whole system is backwards which causes a good percentage of grief and problems with personal data in the world.
:)
... I like notification. If I worked for an orgization responsible for huge amounts of personal data as a matter of basic ethical conduct I would seek to provide notification if our systems were breached by bad actors.
We need systems that are more like paypal or your online banking account where you *send* payments to the people you want to send money to rather than having those people *take* the money from you.
Implementing it in a way that that is as easy to use and prevelent as credit cards is unfortunately a major undertaking and I'm not sure exactly how it would even be done but its the only way to stop the continuous drum beat of many of these sorts of issues. With the penetration of cell phones and instant network access everywhere its an idea that is getting easier and easier to implement every day.
There are separate issues with SSN..etc that are not addressable in this way but perhaps a central government system which uses a kind of kerberos Ticket-Granting-Ticket scheme could allow third party verification of credentials and storage of tickets without their actual knowledge of what those credentials are. It seems a little spooky though
The next best approach I see is a deterministic hash like algorithms that still allow SSNs to be used between systems and as keys for storage in applications but prevent their outright knowledge.
As far as legislation
I don't think legislation which prescribes solutions or requrements in terms of security is useful. Market pressures which come from notification requirements can do a lot in this regard and IMHO should be the focus for government involvement.
The problem is even seemingly obvious requirements such as "use firewalls" may not have any real actual effect on the security properties of a system or do anything to stop insider threats. Technology is too complex and changes too fast for our elected officials and their self appointed experts to reasonably understand and more importantly *predict*.
and that means lifetime. if BigCo has enough data in their files to mess up somebody's credit, they pay for all damages, correcting the files, and for the life of the person, for every instance where impaired credit causes harm, pay for it.
some weasel steals your ID and you lose the house you're trying to buy? BigCo buys you a house, free and clear.
can't get that zero-percent car loan? BigCo pays for the car in cash and hands you the keys.
then and only then will companies get serious about how much stuff they keep on customers, and how they tie it down safely.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The summary and the FA were short on information, but here is my stab at this.
How about we just keep our private information private? The increase in the amount of personal data that is attempted to be acquired by private companies is increasing, and remind me how my giving of my personal data to Pets-R-Us is going to benefit me?
I paid cash for a car, and the people wanted my social security number. Why?
A health club near me wants my social security number to lift weights and stuff. Why?
Oh, and don't get me started with those so-called "Privacy Agreements" that some of these comanies give out to you. All of those end with the clause "we can change our mind at any time w/o notifying you", so how is this any kind of agreement? By signing one of those I am agreeing to nothing.
So, I think that the laws should say that there are 2 kinds of personal information. One kind is something that can clearly identify me. My address, phone number, ssn, name, etc. And none of that should be shared with anyone. Abstract data for marketing reasons is OK. My age, sex, or whatever they can get from me that does not directly tie the information to me is OK.
I favor more laws, especially if backed up with the threat of corporal punishment.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
One of the biggest problems with identity theft is that SSN were not intened to be used for identification purposes. My Social Security card clearly states that it is for Tax and social security purposes only - not for identification. Yet every organization out there wants to use your SSN for an ID. It use to be my student number, my health care number, and I can't recall the last time I needed to access banking information that I wasn't asked for the last 4 digit to "VERIFY MY ID" The people that set up Social security numbers knew that using it for ID would be bad. Try refusing to give your SSN. Unless you are independently wealthy, that means no job, no bank account, no phone, no Drviers license, no house, no car, and no insurance. What I want is for them to enforce the laws that we have. If we must have a new law, make it a criminal offense to ask someone for their social security number unless they must file a tax in that person's name, and also make it a criminal offense to use the social security number for any purpose other than filing that tax form. The main problem is that since the Social security office doesn't recognize that a social security number is an ID, having your ID stolen is not a valid reason to get a new number. The social security office recomends that you move to a new country and start over, and other countries actually have fleeing the US for identity theft as one of the reasons to seek relocation into their country
If they absolutly need a national means of identifying people, then it needs to be in a secure manor. My suggestion is to issue everyone an electronic ID card. With all the extra "security" that goes into an id they can afford a small dedicated computer the size of a credit card calculator that only gives a secure ID number. When someone needs to verify your ID, they must request a key from the goverment, similar to a tax ID, but it is the public key for an encryption. They give you their public key, you enter it into your computer wich has your private key, it generates a number, the company sends that number to a goverment computer, it returns the critical information for the person involved. Name and Birthday. If they require more information, they must fill out the goverment forms explaining what information they need, and why; which becomes public record. Set it up so that your computer tells you what the company is, and what information they will be given. Now they have a secure means of identifing you, and you can verify who is requesting the information, and the ID number you give them is only good for that company. They can't use the data to request a new credit card, because the credit card company would be given a different number based on their public key. Set a password on the computer so that it can't be used if stolen, and set provisions where someone can request a new card and private key if it is compromised.
There isn't a whole lot more needed other than enforcing copyrights one might think. If it really is "your" data, then these various companies and agencies can make you an offer to license to use it. Right now they just assume and act like it automagically becomes THEIR "IP" to use, sell, trade, store, datamine, and etc.. Nuts.
IMHO, if a company or agency treats our personal information like they do cash, they would be much more careful with it. I would suggest a dollar amount on each piece of information.
Name: $5
Birthdate: $5
Address: $5
SSN: $50
etc.
If they disclose that information accidentally or without permission it's just like they lost $5 of your money and they have to send you a check.
I think this would also help cut down on the information that organizations would keep on people to a minimum since each field would be treated as a liability (as it should be).
No SIG for you! Come back, one year!
There are millions of laws and all of them are ignored by the criminals.
Honest people obey them but criminals do not.
What it will take is to enact a DEATH PENALTY for computer crimes / identity theft.
That's right, strap the bastards down in Ol' Sparky and televise it to the world.
Two or three public executions and the problem will pretty much go away over night.
Do it from another country you say? No problem. Send a Special Forces hit team to kill them in the dark of night.
Seriously though, one day someone is going to get really, really pissed off and they'll go get a pound of flesh from the companies that allowed the data breach to happen. It's only a matter of time.
There are a lot of unhinged people on the edge as it is now.
This has gone on way too long. Enough with the useless laws, let's start up public executions.
I doubt the solution is to make sure that all of the dozens of companies that hold your SSN must have perfect security inside and out for all eternity.
I'd rather outlaw the use of your SSN as both username and password. Why are the credit bureaus allowed to let anyone who knows those nine irrevocable digits mess with your credit report?
The internet is well suited for the exchange of public information. It really should suprise no one that anything private connected to the internet has a strong chance of not remaining private. Though many of you make your living and/or do business on the internet its still a bad idea. The more complicated you make the system will just make it easier to break, review your reliability formulae if you doubt this statement. Frankly, I think the worst is yet to come. Even though huge amounts of money has been lost by banks, corporations and individuals to date, it apparently hasn't hurt profits or savings enough yet.
Corporations and small business have shown repeatedly that they can't be trusted with our private info even off of the internet, being on it just makes it infinately worse for potential harm. When the transaction is complete, all data with any personally identfying information should be dropped.
Banking online? Sure, it is convenient, but the word is that only a small portion of money stolen online from banks is even reported. The government even fears an organized attack on banks that could drain them enormously, but don't worry, that money is issured by someone who can print money, the overly in debt US government. At least the banks in the US are, haven't a clue how the rest of the world's banks would handle such losses.
IMO the internet should just go back to being a public information exchange medium and keep the private business off of it so it has a better chance of staying private. Cash and carry is still the best way of doing business, outside of barter.
This is not to say that businesses shouldn't use the internet to list prices, location, phone numbers etc, but it would be far better if they kept it to that. I may well get modded flamebait on this but history will in the end be the judge and in this case I wouldn't mind being wrong.
As far as legislation fixing anything, it can only do so by removing other legislation cause legislation never stopped anything from happening in much the same way that a locked door only keeps the honest people out, same for a "secured server".
...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and don't even know why.
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
I don't know! Can it!? Is it like outlawing death makes less people die!? I don't know! Maybe if we add more exclamation marks, it'll work!
"Let's face it, it's a good story. Accuracy would kill it."
We need to make bad creditors pay for identity theft. It is their lax identification/authentication procedures that cause much of the problem.
1) Make creditors pay you triple damages when your identity is stolen.
2) Put an upper limit on interest rates so that creditors can't gouge the honest debtors to pay for the dishonest ones.
It is how banks and other institutions carry out identification. Typically, your name, address, and SSN are all that is needed for a criminal to commit fraud.
And typically, the worst you'll have to put up with should your identity be "stolen" is signing an affidavit to that effect. I'm not aware of any case in which someone whose identity was stolen ended up with out of pocket expenses. Typically, the merchant eats the fraud.
The banks, merchants, etc... are the real losers. However, if it was a serious problem, banks and merchants would be doing something about it. When you think about it, someone unwilling to do something as small as changing their identification process can't be too concerned about the problem. Yes, they'll pay lip service to it, but in the end, it just isn't large enough a problem to do something about.
Now, I haven't had personal experience with this, but I am not aware of anyone who has been defrauded (i.e. cleaned out their bank account) and have not received their money back from the bank.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
There is one very reasonable change I'd like to see enacted. I want to have the option of putting my credit file on permanent Fraud Alert with the major credit reporting agencies. Currently consumers have the right to make a phone call to an automated line which places a Fraud Alert on their credit files (I call Equifax at 800-525-6285, who then shares the alert with the other agencies). This alert prevents identity thieves from opening a new line of credit in your name without the agency contacting you first.
The only problem is that the alert must be renewed every 90 days. To get a permanent Fraud Alert, you must prove you've already been a victim of identity theft - essentially closing the barn door after the horse has gotten out.
Consumers need to have the right to request a permanent alert without question, and for any reason. I am long past the point in my life where I need instant credit. I can afford to wait long enough for the credit agency to call me if I need to open a new account. Of course, the credit agencies will fight any such measure tooth and nail (the 90 day alert had to be forced upon them by law), but unlike some proposals I've read so far, this one is actually doable with a realistic amount of effort on everyone's part.
The problem isn't a lack of privacy- the problem is too much privacy. I say, the new law should be an utter *lack* of privacy in financial matters- an open records law. Then we can simply hire government auditors to watch for fraud patterns and punish only the criminals.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"patchwork of state laws"??? You morons, that's exactly HOW the United States is *supposed* to work. Look at the name: United States. We're not a single country, we're a union of independent states, each of which has its own government, and its own set of laws. The "patchwork of state laws" is our guarantee against a tyrranical central government. The different state laws allows people to pick and choose between the laws that protect them most and oppress them least. It's a feature, not a bug!.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If any number of client's data is exposed, lost, stolen then the following action will be taken. #1 All assets of the company that lost the data will be frozen. #2 Corporate officers will be held liable, and serve a prison term no less than 5 years. #3 The victims will be provided with identity theft insurance for the rest of their lives, paid for by #4. #4 All assets of the company will be sold, and said money will be distributed evenly to the victims, after subtracting the cost of lifetime identity theft coverage. Yes, there are all kinds of bad things that could happen (like mass unenployment, etc..), however, if the officers of the companies are held responsible by law, they will more than likely want to cover their asses, and force the companies to do what they should have done already.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
We assume that there is no security and no privacy therefore the only sane thing to do is force anyone to prove it is you who is you in order to collect moneys, rights or some other thing from you.
DO NOT preempt state laws.
Allow people to freeze their credit reports. You can do this now AFTER you find out that you are a victim, but that's way too late. Why not give people the abilty to decide whether they want to get a little more security by giving up quick credit?
I think the punishment should be inversely proportional to the level of effort required to steal that data. If a laptop with a million unencrypted SSNs gets stolen on a train then that's sheer negligence. If someone breaks into a secure data center and physically removes a server then it's certainly unfortunate but the company in question is a lot less responsible since they took due care.
A lot of these issues could be solved if you people handling confidential data would secure their networks and particuarly their laptops. People working with the data should only have what they need to do their job and once they are done working with it, their local copy should be securely deleted.
VPNs should be tightly controlled using certificates on both ends. Any machines that exist outside of a secure environment should be using disk encryption and decent passwords and passphrases.
There should be a clear standard on how this type of data should be handled, then the laws can be updated to have gradiented punishments based on the level of negligence.
My credit union sent me notification that their Visa card accounts may have been exposed, and my two cards would be replaced. It took me over an hour to mail, phone, and login to accounts to change my CC number. 100,000 numbers compromised? 100,000 hours lost. Make the blighters pay.
I don't really see how this will help. As it takes a big legal team to fight these big corporations, we'll mostly see results like most other big lawsuits. The laywers will settle for a huge amount, get most of it, and business will go on as normal. Even if it's not a class-action and comes down to a single plaintiff actually winning a substantial judgement, it won't be enough to curb the abuses. It never does.
What we really need is a legal foundation that puts the out-gunned individual on even ground with corporations. If being sued into the ground by a corp can ruin a person, the reverse should be true. If convicted of major wrong-doing, a company's bank roll, officers, and board should suffer losses and hardship. Enron-like convictions should be the rule, not the exception.
As if that will ever happen, though....
Method of processing duck feet
No. Legislation cannot fix this; that's like making bugs in code illegal.
Legislation can only make mistakes like this painful, but it cannot prevent them.
Along the same line of thought; traffic laws don't prevent accidents, they just assign blame for them.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
The desire to fix things with a single, federal, solution is part of problem. As many of the above posts already note, identity theft is possible in large part due to the existence of single national identifiers. Further, a federal-law solution would be constitutionally limited, and could only regulate those organizations engaged in (interstate) commercial activity. Data collections created for governmental, political, religious, or research purposes would probably be above federal authority and subject only to state law.
As a practical matter, the governance of personal information is something best handled by the individual states, based on their individual needs and values. A (large) state that values convenience and automation can adopt a "uniform information code" much like the present UCC. A (small) state that prefers privacy and control can adopt more stringent regulations. In the end, an individual has a lot more control over the laws of his state, (and thus the laws governing his personal information,) than he does over federal laws.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Man, that is a really messed-up situation!
I hope you're able to get them to finally help you, and salvage what's left of your life.
Follow the money!
The root of this whole mess is the fact that credit is soooo easy to get. Lenders ask for little more than a name and SSN to look up a credit report before they will write loans and issue credit cards. Anyone could provide that, which is what makes this information so valuable.
You want to fix the problem? Regulate the credit industry to create friction in this process and de-value the information used to identify individuals to credit reports. This certainly would mean requiring more than Name and SSN to identify an individual on a credit report, but may also mean burdening the creditor with additional requirements like direct contact with applicant to confirm confirm request, etc.
If you make it harder for creditors to issue fraudulent credit, the reason for stealing the information in the first place will evaporate.
BTW, why is the SSN even used as a credit ID? Ain't that supposed to be illegal?
The problem lies in the fact that you do not own your personal information, it's considered an asset of the corporation holding it. The Fair Credit Reporting Act still puts the burden of monitoring and repairing credit profile on the individual. The free credit report legislated in the past couple years does nothing to stop identity theft, and the FCRA continues to be decidedly anti-consumer.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act should allow me full and unfettered access to the information about me whenever I deem it necessary. NO ONE should be able to gain access to my report without my consent, and no one should be able to open credit under my profile without some form of verification that I permitted it. While they're at it, I should have free access to my FICO score without having to sign-up for trials or scam services. If you're going to use my personal information to create a benchmark of my credit worthiness, then I should have free access to both. They both affect my interest and insurance rates.
As others have said, laws making something illegal or "extra illegal" are not going to stop criminals. What will slow this problem is forcing information brokers and providers to clean up their act under the threat of dire financial losses. And while the lawmakers are at it, they need to make sure that consumers have easy and ample access to their credit profiles in order to stop the damage from the inevitable theft of someone's identity. In this day and age where you can get a $30,000 car loan in 2 minutes, it is infurirating that you can't check your credit profile for free on the credit reporting agencies but once per year.
Old saying: a fish rots from the head. If the CEO isn't onboard, then the CIO etc won't give this priority.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Simply adopt the EU Data Privacy Directive, lock stock and barrel.
It isn't just that this is the most well thought out approach to data privacy there is, although having the advantage of hindsight it probably is. It shows some family resemblance to the 1972 US HEW recommendations on "Records Computers and the Rights of Citizens", but with the benefit of two more decades of legal, technical and business experience.
It has actually been implemented. European society, and more importantly European commerce did not collapse. While it protects individual rights much more robustly than US law, it has not resulted in the destruction of the informatics or financial services sector. Nor has it hamstrung Europe's law enforcement agencies, since it provides for reasonable exceptions in criminal investigations and national intelligence.
What is more it is US commerce as a whole that is at risk from US privacy policies.
Strictly speaking, no company in the EU should ever send personal data to a US company, because you can't get around EU privacy laws by shipping data overseas to some legally backward country (meaning us). We have strong armed the EU into a safe harbor agreement, but it's politically unpopular oer there, and the first really bad privacy screw up involving EU citizens and the agreement is out the window. You may have noticed that the US government is not popular over there.
However, if we adopt the EU directive, Americans will finally enjoy the same privacy rights as Europeans, and there will be no complicated legal barriers to doing business withe Europe, or any other part of the world that adopts the same standards and is politically stable.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You have not been "fixed" yet? Just stand in line with the tom cats.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Let me ask you then, do you think that societies should have rules? Should there be consequences for breaking those rules? How should those rules be decided upon?
You can't just throw away one of the most basic tenets of civilization of the past 5,000 years without some explanation of why this most universal and ancient system should be demolished, and what it should be replaced with. I mean, sure, you could do what you just did, and apparently there are even a few people with mod points willing to reward you for your stance, but I think you'll find the vast majority of people are not so willing to give up the rule of law based solely on your very sparse critique.
Even most anarchists still believe in codified rules with enforced consequences. What's your alternative?
Without more analysis and explanation on your part, you come across as one of those street punk anarchists with the mohawk and pins, all anger and no theory, shouting "Nyah nyah nyah, you're not the boss of me!"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I'd like to see fewer laws drafted by lobbyists. Can they include that?
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Just like legislation didn't fix the spam problem. What will fix it is harsh penalties that are actually carried out on companies that lose peoples' private data. Legislating the penalties would fix it. Legislating another slap-on-the-wrist law that says, "Don't do that!" won't fix anything. A handfull of large penalties, say $1,000 per name, making a big splash will get most places to clean up their act quickly. Lose data on 10,000 customers and get fined $10 million. Put the onus where it belongs: on the companies collecting the data. Personally I'd like to see an ammendment to the US Constitution that explicitly spells out the right to privacy. Technically that right is reserved to the people since it's not spelled out in the Constitution, but we've seen violations of rights by the government an awful lot over the last few decades. Even the ones that ARE spelled out in the Constitution. Pass an ammendment and then pass laws that impose consequences for violating it.
- Notice to affected people within 72 hours (48 hours?) of knowledge of the incident.
- Enforcement of all non-government groups not being allowed to collect or use information like SSN, Driver's License Number, Passport Number, except for as needed to fill out government forms, which basically means employers and places that have to either give you tax information or report it.
- Requirement of all entities to obtain only the minimal amount of information
- Requirement of all entities to receive written, notarized permission to share information with 3rd parties
I'm sure we could some up with others for this, but that should be a good start. And yes, I realize some of that screws marketers. So what.Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Legislation is not proactive, punishment is not proactive, internet and network security is definitely not proactive. Most Laws are created and justified out of a need for either political or practical reasons, but always reactionary. Criminal and Civil punishment result as breaking laws but no matter how severe the punishment there is someone who is smarter and takes the risk. Lastly, the root of this problem is the current offering of networking security products not really addressing the problem of the porous nature of a firewall. Nearly everything that was built as impenetrable has been breached. Fortresses were built stronger but all had their achilles heel which was the gate and all defenses were focused on that gate. A firewall basically does the same job, but instead of a gate, it protects ports. The added mortar and stone is in the form of NACs and other traffic cop packet analyzers. The other difference is when a castle was breached the invaders stood out, whereas the invader is hidden, like a rootkit or MITM attack. The network security appliances and software generate logs and alerts but the Sys Ad is more worried about his gaming clan and making sure that his PIX is not audited and the CTO discovers that server MNLB2344-WEST2344CMP is actually running CS source. So is there a way to transact data through a firewall with all ports closed?
WASHINGTON--A White House task force led by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras on Monday urged Congress to enact a variety of new laws designed to punish identity fraud, even though it is already illegal.
Many of the recommendations differ little from policies that Congress has already been exploring. The plan, for example, calls for limiting the reliance on Social Security numbers by federal agencies and for establishing a nationwide standard dictating how private companies should safeguard the personal data they hold and when they must notify the public about security breaches.
The senseless and horrific killings last week on the campus of Virginia Tech University reinforced an uneasy feeling many Americans experienced after September 11th: namely, that government cannot protect us. No matter how many laws we pass, no matter how many police or federal agents we put on the streets, a determined individual or group still can cause great harm. Perhaps the only good that can come from these terrible killings is a reinforced understanding that we as individuals are responsible for our safety and the safety of our families.
t m
Although Virginia does allow individuals to carry concealed weapons if they first obtain a permit, college campuses within the state are specifically exempted. Virginia Tech, like all Virginia colleges, is therefore a gun-free zone, at least for private individuals. And as we witnessed, it didn't matter how many guns the police had. Only private individuals on the scene could have prevented or lessened this tragedy. Prohibiting guns on campus made the Virginia Tech students less safe, not more.
The Virginia Tech tragedy may not lead directly to more gun control, but I fear it will lead to more people control. Thanks to our media and many government officials, Americans have become conditioned to view the state as our protector and the solution to every problem. Whenever something terrible happens, especially when it becomes a national news story, people reflexively demand that government do something. This impulse almost always leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty. It is completely at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and rugged individualism.
Do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, and metal detectors? Do we really believe government can provide total security? Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence? Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security?
To read more visit here:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst042307.h
"Security and Liberty" by US Congressman Ron Paul
Libertas in infinitum
Can Legislation Fix It?
Whatever "it" is, the answer is most probably a resounding "no!"
I know this is Slashdot, home of the geeky nerd, but let me pull out my big ClueBat(tm) and whack you one: LIFE IS NOT SOFTWARE! You can't fix life's problems by adjusting a few of society's variables or getting government to run a different algorithm. Human beings are not cellular automata that you can manipulate in a social experiment.
For once, try thinking of a solution that doesn't involve laws and courts and cops and guns.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
A certain percentage of humanity will always be stupid, distracted, or otherwise impaired when dealing with their own (or their employer's/clients') system's security, and that ensures that at least some systems will always be insecure ... at least if secure configurations are dependent on actions taken by those people.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
> I'm not aware of any case in which someone whose identity was stolen ended up with out of pocketm
> expenses
Then you're not looking.
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/idtheftsurveys.ht
>and consumer victims reported $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses.