The BBC is reporting that a Sheffield Hallam University journalism student made a rather juicy purchase from a homeless man: a BlackBerry containing “the personal details of cabinet ministers, top civil servants and police officers:”
Journalism student Darryl Curtis said it held hundreds of phone numbers, with data which led him to think it belonged to an ex-Sheffield council chief.
Details of cabinet ministers including Ed Balls and David Miliband were on the BlackBerry, said Mr Curtis, 44.
Police believe it was stolen from a car and that they have traced the owner.
Curtis purchased the device after the homeless man informed him that the device held “the numbers for Tony Blair and Buckingham Palace.” However, the fun doesn’t stop at just phone numbers, folks…
Mr Blair’s number was not stored on the device. However, Mr Curtis said he found the National Insurance number, home address and computer passwords of a former chief executive of Sheffield City Council.
Score! I wonder where else those passwords are used. Anyway, STOP LEAVING YOUR MOBILE DEVICE IN YOUR CAR. That is all.
(CC licensed image from Marvin Kuo)
Have you ever had to call 911 from a cell phone? Regrettably, I have. The most frustrating aspect of it was trying to explain to the operator where I was while simultaneously trying to figure if my wife and I were still in one piece.
Location detection, fail.
Now some good news. Canada’s telecom regulator has dropped the hammer on cellphone companies and now they have a year to upgrade their 911 equipment.
From Globe & Mail:
Such technology is used widely in the United States, while dispatchers in Canada have struggled without it.
On Saturday, police in Manitoba searched for nearly three hours for two children stranded in a storm on Lake Winnipeg. The children dialed 911 after their father collapsed snowmobiling. Other callers have not been as fortunate.
In January, the body of 18-year-old Matt Armstrong was found in woods near Williams Lake, B.C., 10 hours after he called 911 for help.
I hope that we won’t hear any whining from the carriers on this but, I think that we may very well. Rogers has said they will start using the location technology this summer but,
Bell Canada refused to comment on whether the deadline set by the CRTC is reasonable, but said it would work with the CRTC and emergency officials.
Indeed.
Well, to hunt down the bad kind or “uncooperative” ones anyway. This has a weird humour element as it manages to conjure an image of Bender calling to “kill all humans”.
From New Scientist:
The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” that will let packs of robots “search for and detect a non-cooperative human”.
One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I’m concerned about where this technology will end up.
So, the author is concerned where this tech could end up?
The US military wants a droid army. What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, riiight.
For the full article read on.
Interpol will be proposing the roll out a facial recognition database.
From The Register:
Interpol chiefs will propose the use of automated facial-recognition technology at borders to flag up internationally wanted suspects, according to reports.
The UK already has airport gates equipped with such technology, intended to remove the need for a human border guard to check that a passenger’s face matches the one recorded in his or her passport. According to the Guardian, Interpol database chief Mark Branchflower believes that his organisation should set up a database of facial-recognition records to operate alongside its existing photo, fingerprint and DNA files.
Interpol member nations would have the option of uploading face records of wanted suspects in the same way they already do other biometrics data, and would be able to check an individual’s headshot against the Interpol files as with the other metrics.
I’m wondering about the veracity of a program such as this. Time and again we have seen roll outs similar to this that have consistently failed. Will this be different? This will be one to watch.
Nothing like a few good ole mugshots to amuse in the interim.
Oh for the love $deity. Are you kidding me? I find this a painful story in the level of insult that is visited upon the collective us. TSA screeners are apparently, by policy no less, allowed to bypass screening themselves. Glad to see they’re keeping their eye on the important problems.
From 9NEWS.com Denver:
The new policy says screeners can arrive for work and walk behind security lines without any of their belongings examined or X-rayed.
“Lunch or a bomb, you can walk right through with it,” said Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen. “This is a major security issue.”
At DIA, 9NEWS videotaped a dozen TSA screeners walk through a side gate and enter the sterile area of the airport carrying backpacks, purses and lunch boxes. Nothing was screened.
Sources tell 9Wants to Know, the reason for the security change may be tied to the new uniforms and badges.
And what might that tie in be? Well…because the new metal badges set off the metal detectors. Ah, but wait, there’s more.
The TSA says its employees have background checks before they are hired. TSA policy says employees are supposed to report any other arrest, including an alcohol related arrest, within 24 hours or, due to circumstances beyond their control, as soon as possible after that.
And we all know that no one could be so devious as to steal another’s identity.
My brain is all melty at the moment.
Article Link (via ComputerWorld)
You know I find it hard to wrap my head around some decisions. One in particular was in a story that was on CNN last week. The airline Air Canada has jettisoned life jackets from its regional carrier, Jazz, in a bid to save money on fuel. Which I will lay odds will not translate into a ticket savings for the consumer.
From CNN:
Stuart says Jazz is a transcontinental carrier that doesn’t fly over the ocean.
Jazz planes do fly over the Great Lakes and along the Eastern seaboard from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Boston, Massachusetts, and to New York.
Stuart says all of Jazz’s flights operate within 50 miles from shore. She says the airline operates 880 flights daily to 85 destinations in North America and says the number of flights that operate over water are minimal.
Instead they refer to using your seat cushion as a flotation device. I don’t know about you but, personally, I would much prefer paying a little more for the damn life vest. Seriously, when was the last time you could swim over a mile on Lake Superior?
Yeah, I thought as much.
Tags: Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, Air Canada Life Vests
Alberto, how we’ve missed ya. Our favourite memory challenged Bush staffer is back in hot water for his apparent mishandling of secret government documents.
From WOKV:
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales mishandled highly classified notes about a secret counterterror program, but not on purpose, according to a memo by his legal team.
The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, acknowledges that Gonzales improperly stored notes about the program and might have taken them home at one point.
Removing secret documents from specially secured rooms violates government policy.
Gonzales’ lawyers wrote in their memo that there is no evidence the security breach resulted in secret information being viewed or otherwise exposed to anyone who was not authorized.
The classified notes focus on a March 2004 meeting with congressional leaders about a national security program that was about to expire. Efforts to renew the program sparked an intense Bush administration debate that played out at the hospital bedside of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Hmm, shoud make for some interesting headlines on Tuesday. Oh wait. There’s the storm in the Gulf. And the RNC are having their shindig.
I’ll be surprised if this gets any press time on CNN, MSNBC et cetera.
For the full article, read on.
Well, this is an odd story. Sadly, it is far from uncommon for secret, or apparently not so secret, docs to be found by passersby. Back in April ‘06 Hydro Quebec security plans and passwords were found on a subway platform. To say nothing of the foreign affairs minister who left classified docs at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment.
This time it was a document that detailed how to Environment Canada computers could be pwned.
From Canadian Press:
Environment Minister John Baird has asked officials to look into how a government document – detailing how Environment Canada computers could be hacked – wound up on a street corner in Ottawa.
However, Baird said the document contained no top secret or classified information.
“It’s certainly bizarre,” he said. “I’m told two things: that it’s neither classified nor secret and that it’s stuff that could be available under access to information.”
Still, Baird said his department takes document security seriously and he’s asked officials to find out how this 131-page document came to be found by a passer-by on a street in a rain-stained, tire-marked, brown envelope.
So, want to pwn government computers? File an access to information request.
Sigh.
The NYPD has set off the community with a proposed plan to track vehicles with the use of a mesh of cameras. The entire idea is to drop a surveillance web across Manhattan. All of this under the guise of avoiding another terrorist attack. The ultimate “go to” excuse to strip away rights and spend money on blinking lights.
From The Guardian:
As well as placing cameras at all tunnels and bridges into Manhattan, the 36-page plan, called Operation Sentinel, calls for a security ring to be erected at Ground Zero and for a 50-mile buffer zone around the city within which mobile units would search for nuclear or “dirty” bombs.
The proposals are partly based on the so-called ring of steel erected around the City of London in the wake of IRA bombings in the 1990s. Though the 3,000 cameras that could be mounted as a result of the plans of the New York police pale in comparison with the multitude of cameras in operation on the UK’s roads and in public places, the proposals have provoked outrage in the United States, where the concept of video surveillance is relatively unfamiliar .
Folks in NYC might be pissed at this possibility. I would offer that this has been shown to be relatively ineffective in London where the “ring of steel” does little more than spot the occasional pan handler.
The New York “sentinel” video system will be set up to record license plates of all vehicles at every point into Manhattan. The data would be “kept on computer for a month”. Uh huh. If you are willing to swallow that nonsense I have some land in Florida I would be willing to sell ya.
For the full article read on.
Sometimes you stumble across something that is just too damn funny when it certainly isn’t meant to be. This is a picture of an anti-terrorist drill being conducted on segways ahead of the summer Olympic games in Beijing.
This just amuses me to no end.
The bad guys can die in a hail of bullets while giggling. An interesting psychological tactic.
