In a previous post I pointed out the remarkable lack of transparency in the oversight of surveillance in Ireland. This has become all the more worrying since July when the remit of this oversight system was extended (by the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009) beyond telephone tapping and data retention to include also the planting…
Former CT state trooper fined for unauthorized access
Paul Galietti, a former Connecticut State Trooper who had admitted that he intentionally accessed a government computer in a manner that exceeded his lawful authority, was sentenced to pay a fine of $1000 by a federal court judge this week. According to documents filed with the court and statements made in court, the case started…
How to stop businesses storing SSNs indefinitely?
Over on Slashdot, The Angry Mick describes his experiences trying to get businesses to delete his SSN from their databases and to replace it with an alternative identifier. Then there was DirectTV. This company not only flatly refused to consider the suggestion, but also informed me that even if I were to discontinue service with…
118 800 mobile phone directory still suspended
Controversial 118 800 mobile phone directory service is still unavailable a full month after announcing the temporary suspension of its service. The mobile phone directory service launched in mid-June but decided to suspend its website and phone-based service on 10 July. Speculation that the service was overwhelmed by the volume of traffic to its site…