Stealing credit card numbers from corporate computers is a serious crime, but it is not “identity theft.”

Why does terminology matter? Larry Downes explains:

No one’s “identity” is being stolen, but the use of the term to describe every financial fraud involving a computer amps up the terror level of consumers who largely have nothing to fear.  The vast majority of “real” identity theft has nothing to do with computers at all, but rather  begins with a stolen or lost wallet, stolen or simply discarded mail, or inside jobs pulled by clerks and others with legitimate access to the data. The real problems are on the back-end, where credit card systems are left insufficiently secured, or where laptops with sensitive data are left in the back seats of cars where they are stolen not for the data but for the hardware.  We keep hearing horror stories of government employees, university officials, and private sector employees who can’t even be bothered to put password protection on their logins, let alone encrypt their data.  And the continued use of social security numbers by private enterprises both as a customer ID and an authentication field is probably the most dangerous practice of all. [A]s long as consumers are being misdirected to think it’s their behavior that needs to be controlled, the financial services industry can avoid solving their largely self-made problems.

Defining Cloud Computing – The Lewis Carroll Way OR Humpty Dumpty Explains

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. `They've a temper, some of them -- particularly verbs: they're the proudest -- adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs -- however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

`Would you tell me please,' said Alice, `what that means?'

`Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. `I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

`That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

`When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, `I always pay it extra.'

Don’t forget to delete your adobe flashplayer cache/cookies

Recently I used a friend’s computer to login into kuler.adobe.com. I was hoping that clearing firefox cache/cookies would log me out and clear my credentials for the site. But that was not the case. This is because the the kuler flash object stores the user’s credentials as a flashplayer cookie. You have to explicitly log out of the site OR delete the flashplayer cookies.

The moral of the story is to always delete the flashplayer cache/cookies after accessing a flash enabled site on a public computer. 

To get rid flashplayer cache/cookies, you need to delete the contents of the following folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

Alternatively, you can visit Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager to delete the cookies.

Disloyal Computing Is Not Illegal under CFAA

From wired

A federal appeals court says employees are not liable for damages under anti-hacking laws for accessing their employers’ computers for disloyal purposes.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that workers authorized to access company computers do not lose or exceed that access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) even if their intent was to acquire data to open a competing business (.pdf). CFAA is the "root" law that criminalizes an attack on any computer connected to the internet.

There is no language in the 1984 anti-hacking statute, the San Francisco-based appeals court said Wednesday, supporting the “argument that authorization to use a computer ceases when an employee resolves to use the computer contrary to the employer’s interests.”

IBM’s Patent for playing recorded laughter to liven up a boring conf call

Patent Application Abstract

A method, system and computer program product for enlivening conference calls. Noise detectors are placed on the telephone lines for the participants to a conference call. These noise detectors are used to monitor for noise on the telephone lines. A pre-selected stored sound (e.g., an interjection such as a laugh) may be generated if there is a period of silence on one of the telephone lines that exceeds a threshold, if noise is detected on a telephone line associated with a pre-selected individual, or if noise is detected on a pre-selected telephone line. Further, a request may be received from one of the participants of the conference call to play a provided interjection. The received interjection is later generated during the conference call. By including interjections during the conference call at appropriate times, the conference call may be enlivened and more interesting to the participants.

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