European Commission focuses attention on Facebook privacy practices

In a public expression of concern (or actually as reported, astonishment) over Facebook’s December changes in privacy policy, default user privacy settings, and the set of user information always made public, European Commissioner for Information Society…

FBI seeking Web browsing records for criminal investigations

At a public meeting of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Online Safety and Technology Working Group last week, representatives from the FBI argued that in order to facilitate potential criminal investigations such as child pornography,…

There’s a lot to think about from FTC privacy roundtables

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has now completed two of its three scheduled roundtable discussions as part of the “Exploring Privacy” series. The focus of these sessions is to raise and discuss issues, not to try…

Does Google want NSA’s expertise or its secrecy?

In a marked contrast from the perspective presented by Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post on Thursday — which said that in turning to the NSA for help with information security, Google was not primarily concerned…

Is Google working with the NSA a cause for concern?

In an agreement first reported in a story by the Washington Post and quickly circulated more broadly by dozens of news sources (to say nothing of bloggers and Twitters), Google will apparently seek the assistance of…

House passes new cybersecurity legislation

Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously (422-5) to pass the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009, which becomes the first and only bill actually passed among the many security-related bills under consideration in both…

Focus on forensics looks like an early trend for 2010

A recent article in Washington Technology cites findings in forensic investigations by the Verizon Business Risk team to highlight the difficulty many organizations have in identifying — much less responding to — security intrusions and data…