Elamb Cybersecurity

Category: Privacy

  • State of the North American Union: Mexican Trucks Begin Crossing Border Saturday

    The decision to open up the borders for the sake of business was made in the 90s by the first Bush, finalized by President Clinton and nurtured by David Rockafeller (CFR). The entire package was called the North American Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]. Many of the same concerns were brought up back then.

    Truckers from Mexico will be delivering goods as early as 2007 Labor day weekend.

    The expected employment effects of NAFTA were by far the most common point of debate and were at the center of a series of Senate Finance Committee hearings held during Sep., 1992 and again in Sep., 1993. It was well understood that NAFTA would lead to job decreases in some sectors and job creation in others. The main point of contention was the expected net effects of NAFTA on employment. The position of the committee members, the administration and public witnesses on this point were often polarized. Senator Donald Riegle Jr. (D-Mich.), for example, noted in his opening statement at Sep. 8, 1992 Senate Finance Committee hearings, “The main export we are going to ship to Mexico under the agreement, apparently, as it has been negotiated here, is going to be jobs.”(5) This sentiment was echoed by Thomas R. Donahue, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO as he noted in his prepared 1993 statement, “In brief, the AFL-CIO believes that the adoption of [NAFTA] would seriously harm the US economy, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs and a decline in the nation’s standard of living.”(6) Whereas administration witness, US Trade Representative, Carla Hills, held the opposite view as she noted in 1992, “This agreement will generate new, higher-paying jobs for Americans. More than 600,000 Americans now owe their jobs to our exports to Mexico. This number is expected to swell to over 1 million by 1995 with NAFTA.”(7) — Find Articles

    “What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to dangerous trucks on Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest driving weekends of the year,” said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa.
    Joining the Teamsters in seeking the emergency stay were the Sierra Club and Public Citizen.
    “Before providing unconditional access throughout the country to tens of thousands of big rigs we know little to nothing about, we must insure they meet safety and environmental standards,” Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said.

    The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in a statement, said it was working closely with the department’s inspector general “as his office completes an additional assessment of the program and we prepare a detailed response to that report.”The Bush administration said last week it would start the cross-border program once the Transportation Department’s inspector general certifies safety and inspection plans.

    The elected officials voting on NAFTA were influenced greatly by the cold hard cash of lobbyists who wanted it to happen. David Rockafeller & Dick Cheney of the Council on Foreign Relations had a LOT to do with NAFTA.

    Dick Cheney keeping CFR Secrets

    Add to My Profile | More Videos

    But why would the CFR support this:


    Is this really going to happen:

    If there is a North American Union, why isn’t on the news:

    bonus conspiracy theory:

  • REAL threats for federal ID mandates

    The US federal government is threatening states who don’t participate in the REAL ID Act.    

    A showdown is looming. If the Real ID law stands, residents of states that refuse to comply wouldn’t be able to use their driver’s licenses as identification to engage in federally regulated activities, such as boarding airplanes or entering a federal court house. The law sets a deadline of May 11, 2008, though states could apply for a five-year extension. — Boston

    Other posts:

    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/us_government_t_2.html

    http://digg.com/political_opinion/Stop_the_National_REAL_ID_card_before_it_s_too_late

     

  • U.S. to Expand Domestic Use of Spy Satellites {response}

    Robert Block at bobby.block@wsj.com, wrote an article at the Wall Street Journal about US Defense spy satellites being turned toward the people of the United States. Perhaps this is not really a new phenomenon. I suspect that in the past it was done without asking and without anyone knowledge. Now unchecked spying by the government is legalized. There is a trend of legalizing misconduct that is justified by what a small elite believe is the greater good. If you think I am just a paranoid conspiracy theorist do your own reading, find out for your self don’t take my word for it. Start here: http://www.themoneymasters.com/order.htm#books

    If I am not mistaken abuse of government power is one of the reasons that the original 13 colonies in America rebeled against the British Empire. They were paying taxes but had NO say in what was going on in England or even on their own land: “Taxation without Representation.” The founding fathers were so serious about guarding against the unchecked power of government that they created the 2nd amendment, right to bear arms:

    “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”

    Now we face abuse of power on an entirely different level, but abuse of power all the same.

    Liberties are given away wholesale with NO regard for the Constitution. As a security person, I appreciate national security, but NOT at the expense of liberty. At the very least programs that spy on the people should have checks and balances. But there are no organizations dedicated to protecting privacy and liberties with the same level of influence as the executive branch, CIA, and NSA.

    The neo-conservative view of going to war to “protect our freedoms” is only valid if there is freedoms left to protect. Make no mistake, I am no liberal who wants to create bigger government to help the poor and less fortunate. I just don’t trust the government enough to give them more power than they already have. Government should be small and managed by the people, not the other way around.

    I fear that humanity has created a very efficient system whose function (regardless of what it says) is to exact total control over its heard of consumner citizens.

    “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.”
    –Benjamin Franklin, letter to Benjamin Vaughn, March 14, 1783

  • Certified Information Privacy Professional

    As the folks at TechCruch stated, “Privacy is the New Black” just ask the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).  Information is becoming more and more valuable, particularly YOUR personal information.  I would submit that in the Information Age personal data is the most important commodity.

    With globalization upon us, products and serivces are the life blood of the worlds economy.  The economy is the framework on which we employed or become employers.  It is an endless cycle.  Those on top are the ones who can target their respective market the best.   

    The Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) is a certification for privacy professionals.  It is a certification for those that realize the impact of unsecured personal information.  There is a CIPP/g for government and a CIPP/C especially for Canadians.

     

  • TechCruch: Privacy the New Black

    TechCruch posted an article that caught my eye.  Because Privacy is so important, I give you: Privacy is the New Black

    After a week where Ask launched AskEraser, a product that allows users to erase their search history, and Google announced a reduction in retained data time from 2038 to 18 months, more privacy initiatives are on their way.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will officially announce Monday “new policies and technologies to protect the privacy of users of its Live Search services” and Yahoo will announce plans for “a policy to make all of a user’s search data anonymous within 13 months of receiving it.”

    Read more of http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/22/privacy-is-the-new-black/

  • Hacker Taps Cell Phone to Stalk Family

    A stalker is on the loose — and may be watching and listening in your bedroom, bathroom or office meeting.

    Just ask Tim Kuykendall, whose cell phone provided a portal through which a hacker gained access to the most intimate details of his life, recording family members’ conversations and snapping pictures of what they were wearing.

    “We’ve had [times] where I’m having a conversation in my home and I get a voice mail and the conversation’s replayed; received a phone call or even checked my voice mail from a message and while I push ‘OK’ to listen to [it] I’m hearing a conversation going on in the living room between my daughter and my wife,” he told FOX News.

    More on foxnews (with video)

     

  • Go Google Yourself

    Look Who’s Googling

      On a recent flight to Italy, a friend of mine met a guy, hooked up, and assumed that was the end of it. She was, after all, on her way to visit her boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, she failed to take the wondrous powers of Google into account.

      “I only told him my first name and a very general account of what I did for a living,” said *Alison Charles, 26, who, until recently, has been dealing with her “cyberstalker” ever since that fateful flight last summer.

    Google your full name and variations of it and make sure you are not showing up anywhere. Check the online phonebooks, type in your address and phone numbers. Sometimes you’ll be surprised on what you’ll find.

    All a person needs is your first name and last name and they have you. Because if someone wants more information all they have to do is pay about $10 bucks and on a sight like this: Intellius or People Finders and they can get even more info such as your home address. Many times paying a third party company is not even necessary, they can just google you.

    These days even more data can be extracted using the local county. I won’t go in how to do this because most people don’t know about it and I’d like to keep it that way. For some reason Federal and Local governments have a complete disregard for the privacy of citizens.

    The point is that you should never put your personal information online. Use identification proxies such as: a psuedo name, a P.O. Box, an 800 number to keep intouch with your audience if your a blogger. You may trust some of the people you interact with online, but for every 10 people that are decent there is at least one who will want more information than you are willing to give.

    I’ve heard stories of stalkers showing at homes of unsuspecting Internet users, targeted “spear phishing” attacks, and worse. Protect your data.

    Military PII (personally identifiable data):
    The military has resently gotten very serious about protecting PII. PII includes the following data:

      Full name (if not common)
      National identification number
      Telephone number
      Street address
      E-mail address
      IP address (in some cases)
      Vehicle registration plate number
      Driver’s license number
      Face, fingerprints, or handwriting
      Credit card numbers
      Digital identity

    When these bits of data are combined they can be used to gather more and more.

    More on PII at CDT.org

  • Open Grid Service Architecture for DMV Driver’s License Data Bases

    Disclaimer: The following is pure speculation on my part. I am simply a private citizen doing my own independent research. I do NOT have access to any confidential information regarding any kind of national ID system. According to the Department of Homeland Security their is no national ID system anyway.

    Total Information Awareness - Scientia est Potenia

    The U.S. Government has put the REAL ID act of 2005 in to motion (it road in on the back of a troop support bill). It specifies the need to consolidate all state ID and driver’s license systems and a standardization of basic features of each card (features such as types of data to data).

    This sounds like the first step in making U.S. driver’s licences/ID cards into a national ID card. Something most Americans oppose. Merging all the driver’s license databases together could allow for an Open Grid Service Achitecture (OGSA).

    What is Open Grid Service Architecture?
    According to Open Grid Service Architecture ver 1.0:
    Key to the realization of this Grid vision is standardization, so that the diverse components that make up a modern computing environment can be discovered, accessed, allocated, monitored, accounted for, billed for, etc., and in general managed as a single virtual system—even when provided by different vendors and/or operated by different organizations. Standardization is critical if we are to create interoperable, portable, and reusable components and systems; it can also contribute to the development of secure, robust, and scalable Grid systems by facilitating the use of good practices.

    The REAL ID system could be a part of the Total Information Awareness system that DARPA’s Information Awareness system originally released to the public.

  • US National ID Card: Security or Citizen Tracker

    Most American citizens violently oppose a National ID card.  The federal government can get around this in two ways: 

      1. Don’t call it a national ID card 
      2. Don’t put the federally controlled database in a federal building

    The U.S. government is doing both of these things (as up 2007, should be complete by 2009).

    According the the Department of Homeland Security’s FAQ on REAL ID it is NOT a national ID card & the feds will not create a national database:

    “Is this a National ID card?

    No. The proposed regulations establish common standards for States to issue licenses. The Federal Government is not issuing the licenses, is not collecting information about license holders, and is not requiring States to transmit license holder information to the Federal Government that the Government does not already have (such as a Social Security Number). Most States already routinely collect the information required by the Act and the proposed regulations.”

    “Will a national database be created that stores information about every applicant?

    No. The REAL ID Act and these regulations do not establish a national database of driver information. States will continue to collect and store information about applicants as they do today. The NPRM does not propose to change this practice and would not give the Federal government any greater access to this information”  

    Well piss on my back and tell me its raining! The government is NOT creating a national ID card.  The only problem with the above statements issued by the DHS is that they are bullshit. 

    Imagine.  ME, a security guy of all people, opposed to a National ID Card?  But I’m not the only one.

    First off, what is this National ID Card REAL ID Card?

    On March 1, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released draft regulations [PDF] for implementing REAL ID, which makes states standardize drivers licenses and create a vast national database linking all of the ID records together. Once in place, uses of the IDs and database will inevitably expand to facilitate a wide range of tracking and surveillance activities. — EFF

    As stated above, the National ID Card for the U.S. would be based on existing State I.D. Cards and driver’s license programs.  The main issue is linking all state databases together so that the federal government can track citizens.  

    Now you may be wondering: Does this sound like something an illegal immigrant and/or criminal would not be able to falsify?  (and even if they are caught current laws for illegal immigrants are not enforced)  If illegal immigrants are not going to abide by the law, does this law really enhance the nation’s security?  

    Oppose the Real ID Act of 2005 

    My main reason for opposing a US national ID card is that I don’t trust the federal government with a consolidated view and control of all of our information.  I think all the information they gather will eventually fall into the wrong hands (on purpose or by negligence).  I was in the military, so the feds already have my data and the feds have lost MY {privacy act protected} information more than once.  A branch of the U.S. government lost 25.6 million account including the Social Security Numbers for Veterans more than once. They kept this information secret from the victims for 19 days.  19 days is ample time for someone to steal an identity once they have the information they need.  In one case the data was supposedly recovered and deemed by the FBI forensics as un-tampered with.  Supposedly they are not creating a seperate national database… but the linked state system WILL be the national database from which the feds will feed.  Its a play on words and I wish people would wake up screaming about this.

    There seems to be a disregard for protecting the privacy and security of citizens.  The resources that would normally be used to protect us are being wasted and sent to serve other purposes.  In my oppinion security is still NOT being done because illegal immigrant laws are not being enforced despite the fact there is a “war on terrorism”.  Now if you don’t think something is seriously wrong about the protection of our borders at a time when their is a “war on terrorism” read the story of Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos being jailed for shoot a drug dealer trying to enter the country. The DHS officials lied to congress about these agents (and got caught).  Drug smuggler Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila is a free man.  Meanwhile, other border patrol agents are being deployed to Iraq.  I believe there is a reason that the law is not enforced but I leave that speculation up to you.

    Privacy Clearing House has a chronological list of data breaches starting from 2005.  The more databases of large organizations (schools, federal/state, credit cards) our personal information is in, the greater the risk of ID theft and financial fraud we face.  ID theft is currently the fastest growing crime in the US and UK.  And its been the fastest growing for a long time.  I attribute this to organizations putting security last when it should be implemented from the very begining and maintained aggressively. 

    So, a national card REAL ID registry databases at the federal level may only add to on-going issues of personal security of US citizens which the US government does not seem to worried about too much. 

    To the credit of the U.S. federal government, the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Privacy Officer, Hugo Teufel III, issued a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA).  According to the document the National ID card would be difficult to falsify. 

    Other issues addressed in the PIA:

    The PIA addresses the key privacy issues posed by the Act: (1) Does the REAL ID Act create a national identity card or database; (2) How will personal information required by the REAL ID Act be protected in the state databases; (3) How will the personal information stored on the machine readable technology on the driver’s licenses and identification cards be protected from unauthorized collection and use; and (4) Do the requirements for a photograph and address on the credential and the DMV employee background check erode privacy.

    The REAL ID method will extend the life and legitamacy of the Social Security Number as a national ID number.

    The DHS PIA document is exactly right when it states:

    Some of the public concern about the REAL ID stems from the history surrounding the expansive use of the SSN beyond its original purpose of recording the information necessary to provide a public pension benefit.

    The original purpose of the Social Security Number was to track taxation and payments for social programs under Roosevelt’s New Deal created in the 1930s following the Great Drepression.  These days the Social Security number is a de facto national ID number issued to all citizens and you really can’t do anything signifigant without it (i.e. get a job… unless your are an illegal immigrant.. i guess people in the US have privacy after all).  BTW – Collecting Social Security after age 65 is a joke… it is program that will not support the “baby boomer” (but that is a different issue all together). 

    The DHS Privacy Impact Assessment goes through most general concerns the the REAL ID act posses to the privacy of U.S. citizens thoroughly…. except for one. Put on your tin-foil hats for this one.  The government works so closely with private companies (namely lobbyists pushing and paying for certain policies, bid and no-bid contracts, laws and regulations) that I believe that they would give out our con$olidated information for the right price. Realistically, a national database in some form or another already exists (social security).  But the REAL ID database would make it possible to have a REAL-time view of all transactions.

    DHS PIA pg. 6: “financial institutions, retailers, hotels, health-care providers, and others may consider the REAL ID credential”. 

    It sounds like the ultimate consolidation of all personal data.  It will merge your social, driver’s license, and possibly finacial and medical info. 

    You see, the REAL ID system would not just be used in the police but with PRIVATE agencies.  On military installations you can’t do much of anything without a certain government ID card.  The data on this REAL ID will be the cream of the crop.  Particularly if is collects data on where you’ve been.  But conspiracy theories on new American corporate facism aside, people need to know that this is happening.  A wake up is long over due for Americans.  I just hope this cancerous apathy doesn’t kill the priciples of the country I love.

    Check out the last line of the DHS Privacy Impact Assessment:

    The public is encouraged to comment on the NPRM and on the privacy issues associated with implementation of the Act in order to ensure that the final rule reflects robust public input on these important issues.

    Links:

    Facial Recognition to deter ID Theft

    DHS Privacy Impact Assessment REAL ID Act – Chief Privacy Officer, DHS

    Four State Oppose RealID (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)

    (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)Ron Paul oppinion on Amnesty for illegal immigrants and the National ID

    (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)

    (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)New World Ord… I mean other things that didn’t make it into the REAL ID ACT:

    (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)

    (New Hampshire, Oklahoma, joined Montana, Washington – as of 10 Jun 2007)

    Original legislation contained one of the most controversial elements which did not make it into the final legislation that was signed into law. It would have required states to sign a new compact known as the Driver License Agreement (DLA) as written by the Joint Driver’s License Compact/ Non-Resident Violators Compact Executive Board with the support of AAMVA which would have required states to give reciprocity to those provinces and territories in Canada and those states in Mexico that joined the DLA and complied with its provisions. As a part of the DLA, states would be required to network their databases with these provinces, territories and Mexican states. The databases that are accessible would include sensitive information such as Social Security numbers, home addresses and other information. The foreign states and provinces are not required to abide with the Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) and are free to access and use the sensitive information as they see fit.  – REAL ID wiki

    The UK is fighting the same battle of liberties. 

    If I trusted the government, I suppose this would not be that big a deal.

    Bonus: Total “Terrorism” Information Awareness – TIA 

     Multiple standardized computing environments can be monitored and controlled using Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA).  If the federal government is not using this technology togather data from the DMV systems I would be very surprised.

     

     

     

     

  • Simple Privacy tactics

    Hi Elamb,

    I have a computer that I share with my roomate. She may have been reading my emails. I could just be paranoid but what can I do to have a little more privacy.

    signed paranoid-privacy

    Hello paranoid,

    Privacy is very important. There are a few simple things you can do to have privacy:

    Thats totally cool with me. But here are some things you might also want to consider for privacy:

    – NEVER check the box “Remember me on this computer” “Remember me” because then all they have to do is type in your name and it will automatically put in your password.

    – Watch out for shoulder surfer (looking over your shoulder).

    – Always clear previous searches and even login passwords.

    Another thing you can do for privacy is to make you own account on that computer. Make it so that it comes up with a login screen every time. Create an account for her (that doesn’t require a password) and make one for you that does. Then log out every time you finish. That will force her to login to her own account.