Virgin Media has sent about 800 letters to customers warning them that they should not be downloading illegal music files via file-sharing sites.
It is part of a 10-week campaign it is running in conjunction with the BPI to “educate” users about downloads.
The Information Tribunal, formerly known as the Data Protection Tribunal, hears appeals from notices issued by the Information Commissioner under:
On 20th July 2008 an information tribunal ordered the Greater Manchester Police, and Humberside, Staffordshire, Northumbria and West Midlands police forces to delete details of people who complained about previous petty convictions being kept on file.
Details of crimes can be kept on record for up to 100 years, some of the instances of petty details kept include:
The case was bought, because a woman who stole £100 from a cash machine in 1983, but has never been in trouble with the police since, had trouble with a visa application 25 years later as the the Grater Manchester Police (GMP) retained her details.
Initially the woman complained to the ICO, who agreed that the force were breaking the data protection laws. The original complaints, by the woman in relation to the GMP, and complaints against the four other forces were were upheld by the ICO on 8th, 16th, 15th and 16th August and 15th November 2007.
The GMP then appealed the ruling to the information tribunal. However this month the information tribunal upheld the ruling and dismissed the complaint. The complaints brought by the other people, against the other 4 forces, were also upheld.
The tribunal was told that that offenders who kept out of trouble 20 years after a conviction were statistically only 0.8 per cent likely to re-offen. The judgment by the tribunal, totaling a 50-page written judgment, states that the forces should not have kept information on file about offences which had taken place so long ago and were ‘no longer relevant’.
A GMP spokeswoman said: “We are considering the implications of the tribunal ruling and our possible routes of appeal.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers, which represents police forces across the country, warned the decision could overturn guidelines introduced after the Soham murders in 2003, and stated “We will now take some time to discuss these implications with the service and decide on the most appropriate course of action.”
There were several complaints about Ian Huntely, and these complaints were were reported to police about the school caretaker Ian Huntley but not passed on to his employers during the vetting process.
For some reason the police believe that they should be able to record all information, about all people, and keep it forever, and then pass it on to other people, when the “suspect” applies for jobs, visas, or the like. This information that they want to keep and pass on is not just current, or evidence proved in a court, but hersay and rumor.
Articles: Wigan Today and Manchester Evening News
It is currently estimated that the cost of fraud, which access to personal data will form a key part of, currently costs the country £20 billion a year.
The £20 billion a year figure includes the loss of the assets, investigation, prosecution, and prevention of fraud.
On 20th July 2008 another MoD laptop was reported stolen. The laptop contained confidentail/secret documents, was unencrypted, and was stolen from the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. The laptop was later recovered by the police, however even if the laptop was intact this does not mean that the entire hard drive was not copied before it was recovered.
In the past year the MoD have lost around 2 laptops every day.
Examples of MoD Data loss include, a laptop stolen with a lists of personnel information and the MoD admitting losing 650 laptops in the past year
The following laws in the UK Relate to data retention
In December 2005 the European Parliament approved rules forcing telephone companies to retain call and internet records for use in anti-terror investigations. The law allows records to be kept for up to two year.
Police will have access to information about calls, text messages and internet data, but not the call content.
The UK, which pressed European member states to back the rules, said that data was the “golden thread” in terrorist investigations.
The parliament voted by 378 to 197 to approve the bill, which had already been agreed by the assembly’s two largest groups, the European People’s Party and the Socialists.
The US are to increase the number of “body scanners” at airports, which give the operator a “naked image” of person being examined from 40 to 120.
The devices can cause controversy as the allow the images of a person to be take that they probably would not normally want to be taken.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will triple the number of devices at airports that can detect bombs under airline passengers’ clothing.
The purchase of 80 so-called Passenger Imager machines will bring the total in use next year to 120 at 21 airports, agency spokesman Christopher White said today.
The imagers are produced by L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., OSI Systems Inc.’s Rapiscan unit and American Science & Engineering Inc. The TSA hasn’t yet decided which vendors it will use or how much it will spend, White said in an interview.
We are repeatedly told the CCTV is here to protect us from the worst of the worlds offenders, including terrorists and international criminals. Despite the obvious flaw in the argument that suicide bombers are not bothered if they are filmed blowing themselves up (especialyl as they normally release videos to that effect shortly afterwards anway), there is the additional issue that if a person wants to hide their face from a standard CCTV camera it is incredibly easy.
A person can hide their face with a beard, material (mask/bandanna/etc), or they can go slightly more high tech and use infrared lights.
A single point source of a IR Laser, if pointed directly at CCTV camera will flare the camera, however that involves a laser and the user to point and hold the laser directly at the camera. However, if the individual uses and array of IR LEDs then the effect is the same, as a single directed laser.
The idea is relatively simple, the user places IR LEDs in a “head torch, such as the one pictured inset. IR LEDS can be bought for just 79p
and LED head torches can be bought for just under £5 . IR – Infrared - with a range of 750nm to 1mm has a range below the human eye, but can still be detected by CCTV cameras.
Below are the effects of using this type of technology. There are flaw in this anti-CCTV devices. The LEDs need to be powerful enough, the and CCTV camera needs to not have an IR filter. It is is also possible, to enhance the blue green specturm after the incident to try and recover a better image.
As more and more CCTV goes onto the internet, the vulnerabilities of the IP CCTV become more of problem.
Below are examples of simple “hacks” to access IP CCTV, through nothing more than Google. Putting the below examples into a Google allows access to many insecure IP CCTV
inurl:”axis-cgi/mjpg”
inurl:/view.shtml
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS
inurl:view/view.shtml
inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=
inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=Refresh
inurl:axis-cgi/jpg
inurl:axis-cgi/mjpg (motion-JPEG)
inurl:view/indexFrame.shtml
inurl:view/index.shtml
inurl:view/view.shtml
intitle:”live view” intitle:axis
intitle:liveapplet
allintitle:”Network Camera NetworkCamera”
intitle:axis intitle:”video server”
intitle:liveapplet inurl:LvAppl
intitle:”EvoCam” inurl:”webcam.html”
intitle:”Live NetSnap Cam-Server feed”
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS”
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS 206M”
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS 206W”
intitle:”Live View / – AXIS 210?
inurl:indexFrame.shtml Axis
inurl:”MultiCameraFrame?Mode=Motion”
intitle:start inurl:cgistart
intitle:”WJ-NT104 Main Page”
intitle:snc-z20 inurl:home/
intitle:snc-cs3 inurl:home/
intitle:snc-rz30 inurl:home/
intitle:”sony network camera snc-p1?
intitle:”sony network camera snc-m1?
site:.viewnetcam.com -www.viewnetcam.com
intitle:”Toshiba Network Camera” user login
intitle:”netcam live image”
intitle:”i-Catcher Console – Web Monitor”