The Las Vegas Sun has an interesting story on privacy and divorce.

[Nevada state] law forces judges here to seal a divorce case upon a simple request from either party. The public has absolutely no say in that decision. [...]

To be fair, NRS 125.110 doesn’t keep the public entirely in the dark about divorce cases. Divorce complaints, pleadings and judicial orders are public, but exhibits with personal and financial information about the couple and all depositions and court proceedings are kept secret. [...]

A Reno district judge this month, however, declared the state law that automatically seals divorce details unconstitutional because of the way it ties judges’ hands. [...]

[District Judge Frances Doherty said] the statute lacks a “logical basis” and the right to privacy must be balanced with the public’s right to access the courts.

The Associated Press reports: “AT&T Inc., the nation’s largest Internet service provider, will start sending warnings to its subscribers when music labels and movie studios allege that they are trafficking in pirated material.”

Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. already forward such notices, but the approaches differ, and the legal situation is muddled.

Copyright holders like movie studios can, in many cases, identify Internet users who download or provide pirated material by their numerical Internet address, but cannot match it up with a subscriber name without the cooperation of the Internet service provider.

ISPs have previously identified their customers to copyright holders who bring court orders. [...] Read more »

The New York Times highlights a Web site that is gathering and distributing individuals’ health data to drug companies without clearly explaining this data sharing.

Pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. The drug companies can even use RealAge answers to find people who show symptoms of a disease — and begin sending them messages about it even before the people have receiveda diagnosis from their doctors.

While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing. [...]

RealAge allows drug companies to send e-mail messages based on those test results. It acts as a clearinghouse for drug companies, including Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, allowing them to use almost any combination of answers from the test to find people to market to, including whether someone is taking antidepressants, how sexually active they are and even if their marriage is happy. [...] Read more »

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Missouri Information Analysis Center (”MIAC”) publishing a report (1.7 MB pdf), “The Modern Militia Movement” that cautioned police to look for certain signs that individuals are part of the militia movement and to be wary of such people. The MIAC is creating a “dangerous person” profile that includes political affiliation and policies. 

Now, the Springfield News-Leader reports that the Missouri governor is backtracking on his support of the report, which cautioned police to look out for supporters of third-party presidential candidates and people against the tax system.

Missouri Highway Patrol Superintendent James F. Keathley ordered the Missouri Information Analysis Center to “permanently cease distribution” of the Feb. 20 report, which labels fundamentalist Christians, members of third-party political movements, strict followers of the U.S. Constitution and people who oppose taxes, abortion and illegal immigration as possible members of militias. Read more »

The Wall Street Journal and numerous other news outlets are reporting on security researchers’ statements (pdf) that “they have discovered software capable of stealing information installed on computers in 103 countries from a network that targeted government agencies.” Last year, the researchers from the Information Warfare Monitor began an extensive investigation into allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community.

The researchers said (pdf):

During the second phase of our investigation, the data was analyzed, and led to the discovery of insecure, web-based interfaces to four control servers. These interfaces allow attacker(s) to send instructions to, and receive data from, compromised computers. Our research team successfully scouted these servers, revealing a wide-ranging network of compromised computers. This extensive network consists of at least 1,295 infected computers in 103 countries.

Significantly, close to 30% of the infected computers can be considered high-value and include the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan; embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan; the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretariat, SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), and the Asian Development Bank; news organizations; and an unclassified computer located at NATO headquarters. Read more »

IDG News talks with researchers who did a study on “anonymization” of Web site users.

Web sites that strip personally identifiable information about their users and then share that data may be compromising their users’ privacy, according to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.

They took a close look at the way anonymous data can be analyzed and have come to some troubling conclusions. In a paper set to be delivered at an upcoming security conference, they showed how they were able to map out the connections on public social networks such as Twitter and Flickr. They were then able to identify people who were on both networks by looking at the many connections surrounding their network of friends. The technique isn’t 100 percent effective, but it may make some users uncomfortable about whether they should allow their data to be shared in an anonymous format. [...]

The technique described by the University of Texas researchers could be used by government agencies looking to do surveillance or by online marketers or even scammers who want to target people with their messages. And it doesn’t only apply to social networks. This method could be used to identify users in databases of phone calls too, the researchers say.