Larry.org

This article talks about ways to see if you're at risk of Identity theft or have had your identity stolen. This week I also found, though I don't recall how, a good PDF that lists 10 things you can do to protect your identity from theft. One of them is to register yourself so you 'opt out' of all credit report based solicitations for life, pretty handy that.

So during the thanksgiving break I found that my Aunt's neighbor has a wireless network that's still setup on defaults (it's a linksys by the way). So Naturally I checked my e-mail.



When I told my Father in law it spread around that I had been reading my Aunt's neighbors e-mail. So it's kind of weird because I wouldn't do that. It's amazing how sensitive the uninitiated are to this kind of thing. I think it's endemic of the challenge the technology security field faces. The real security threats require a bit more technical training and more buy in from non-technical folks to solve. Yet anyone that wants to can sidetrack a decision maker or three with a little end run on a technology that has never claimed to be secure.

Looks pretty interesting.

If you are at all interested in how security affects our public information systems here’s a an interesting interview.

I especially like the candor of comments like:

Have security concerns affected electronic delivery of government services since Sept. 11?

SABO: My sense is that the tilt hasn’t been so much within electronic services, it has been that the resources that would have gone into accelerating e-government are being diverted to immediate defensive needs.

This is interesting to me because I agree with the criticism that our present domestic policy has been too strongly titled toward detention.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could use the initiative we have been provided by these tragic events to bring government closer to the people in a more constructive way. I feel pretty sure that over the next few years our government will be challenged to come up with a domestice security plan that will have to protect the population that’s more sophistacated than just detaining more of it?

Good interview.