The Week in Privacy, October 9, 2009

  • Article

Thousands of Usernames and Passwords Posted Online.

Dark Reading reports that “Lists containing tens of thousands of stolen email account usernames and passwords have shown up online during the past few days in what researchers say likely came out of multiple phishing attacks.” The account were from Hotmail, Google's Gmail, Yahoo, Comcast, and Earthlink.

 

Survey on Behavioral Advertising Draws Attention
The New York Times reports, “About two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers — and that number rises once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements, according to a new survey from professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley.” The Progress & Freedom Foundation posted a response on their blog, saying that “What does this tell us about whether, and how, government should further regulate online advertising? Precious little: Not only does this poll overstate the costs of targeted advertising, understate its benefits, and ignore the tools available to users to address their privacy concerns but, like any opinion poll, this one tells us more about the psychology of decision-making under the artificial uncertainty of polls than about the choices users would actually make in the real world.”

EU Information Society Commissioner Calls for More Internet Privacy
UPI reports, “EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said during a debate in Brussels on the future of the Internet that minors are putting a lot of personal information online on social networking Web sites such as Facebook, and legislation may be needed to force the sites to keep children's profiles private, the EUobserver reported.”

 

53 Changed in Massive Global Phishing Ring

Daily News reports, “Authorities charged dozens of suspects, including a 19-year-old Palmdale man, with running an online banking scam that spanned from Los Angeles to Egypt and allegedly bilked countless victims out of millions of dollars, the FBI said Wednesday. James Michael Viorato was one of 53 suspects named in the 51-count indictment for conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud through an Internet-based "phishing" scheme uncovered in a two-year international investigation dubbed "Operation Phish Phry."