Comments on: Interesting Posts on HP, Sept 10

By: Allan Friedman

Allan Friedman — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 10:42:17 +0000

The term I remember hearing is a “privacy valdez” of some sort. I came across this headline from 2003: “EXXON VALDEZ OF DATA LEAKS MAY HAVE HAPPENED” (Toronto Star D1, 2/17/2003 http://www.e-commercealert.com/article566.html)
Valdez hasn’t had much effect on data protection, so maybe it will take the equivalent of a chernobyl. I think that would involve the widespread *abuse* of a large and sympathetic group. This would not be basic identifier fraud on a small scale, but a set of personal data that is so widely abused that the data subjects essentially lose the ability to generate new breeder documents. It would have to be a concentrated group, tracable to a specific breach.

By: David Brodbeck

David Brodbeck — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:58:19 +0000

One thing that’s been sort of nagging at me: Isn’t “pretexting” just another word for what hackers used to call “social engineering?”

By: wpn

wpn — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:35:53 +0000

Of course, McNealy did backpedal somewhat when it came time for his OWN personal data to get lost: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/25/ernst_young_mcnealy/ Which is to say, after all this, the board is confident it can leak with impunity. Oooo, that hit the nail right on the thumb. Great point.

By: Dan Kaminsky

Dan Kaminsky — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 02:18:51 +0000

McNealy’s Law, of course, being “You have no privacy. Get over it.”