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Microsoft Readies Windows, Other Security Fixes. Company will release six security updates next week. [PC World: Latest Technology News]

HP Settles Civil Lawsuit Over Spying. Agrees to pay $13.5 million to a state fund to enforce privacy laws. [PC World: Latest Technology News]

UK plans ‘real-time’ no-fly lists plus fingerprint ID for air travel.

‘No finger, no fly’ to commence at Heathrow

As has been illustrated all too frequently in the past, they don’t tell immigration ministers anything - and, if what he had to say this week at the official unveiling of Heathrow’s biometric trial is anything to go by, current incumbent Liam Byrne is no exception. Quoted here in the Telegraph, Byrne observes that he does not see the Heathrow system as being a “stand-alone scheme”, and that the Government wanted to see it used as part of efforts to control immigration and to check the identity of people coming to this country.âo[oe]

[The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]

DRM Fading for Music: The Year in Review.

Almost exactly one year ago, I predicted the beginning of the end for DRM on digital music. Now EMI has announced the release of the new Norah Jones single on Yahoo! Music in DRM-free MP3 format (many will remember that Yahoo! has been urging the major labels to give up DRM).

So let’s pause to recap the year in music DRM’s slow demise, including:

• Rhapsody and Napster begin streaming to any browser;
• Major labels all give up on CD copy protection in US market in the wake of the Sony-BMG rootkit debacle;
• Major labels abandon DRM-laden SACD and DVD-A formats;
• Sony-BMG releases Jessica Simpson song in MP3;
• Disney’s Hollywood Records releases Jesse McCartney album as MP3s;
• EMI artist Lily Allen releases new track as MP3;
• EMI releases Norah Jones and Reliant K tracks as MP3s;
• eMusic becomes the #2 online music store selling nothing but MP3 files from independent labels.

Here’s to more of the same in 2007. As I said in December 2005, “once the DRM is gone, we can see what a real, robust, competitive digital music marketplace looks like.”

[EFF: Deep Links]

Oppose Broadcast and Radio Flag Legislation in Lame Duck Session.

Congress is holding a [base “]Lame Duck[per thou] session to pass a few budgetary and miscellaneous bills. Like a hobo seeing a train moving, Hollywood and the recording industry and their broadcast and radio flags are trying to jump aboard.

Here[base ‘]s what[base ‘]s going down: the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R-TN) in one of his last acts before he leaves office at the end of the year, is trying to do a favor for his former chief of staff, Mitch Bainwol, who now heads the RIAA. The idea is to slip the radio flag onto any bill that could potentially pass. In the past, where one flag would go, the other would follow, so we[base ‘]re betting that Hollywood will not be far behind in their request to add the broadcast flag to the mix.

read more

[Public Knowledge - Policy Blog]

US outlines privacy safeguards - and reveals plans to mine personal data.

‘Invasive and unprecedented’

The US Government signalled some willingness this week to address concerns over citizens’ privacy, but also launched a scheme which will analyse secret airline passenger risk profiles and keep them for 40 years.

[The Register - Internet and Law: Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs]

HP Pays $14.5M to Make Civil Charges Disappear. 
theodp writes  “The California Attorney General’s Office negotiated a $14.5 million payoff from HP
as part of a settlement that calls for the state not to pursue civil
charges related to the now infamous spy scandal against the company and
its current or former officers or directors (felony criminal charges
against five individuals still remain). HP also agreed to maintain the
watchdog positions of chief ethics officer and chief privacy officer for five years.” [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

RIAA Mischaracterizes Letter Received From AOL.  
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes  “In Elektra v. Schwartz, an RIAA case against a Queens woman with Multiple Sclerosis who indicates that she had never even heard of file sharing until the RIAA came knocking on her door, the judge held that Ms. Schwartz’s summary judgment request for dismissal was premature
because the RIAA said it had a letter from AOL ‘confirm[ing] that
defendant owned an internet access account through which copyrighted
sound recordings were downloaded and distributed.’ When her lawyers got
a copy of the actual AOL letter they saw that it had no such statement in it, and asked the judge to reconsider.“  [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

Are Background Checks Necessary For IT Workers?  4foot10 writes “UBS PaineWebber learned a hard lesson after hiring an IT systems admin without conducting a background check. Now its ex-employee is slated to be sentenced for launching a ‘logic bomb’ in UBS’ computer systems that crashed 2,000 of the company’s servers and left 17,000 brokers unable to make trades.” [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

 When UBS PaineWebber hired Roger Duronio as a full-time IT systems administrator in 1999, it failed to do a background check on him. A background investigation most likely would’ve revealed that Duronio has a criminal record that includes charges of burglary and aggravated assault.

UBS probably wishes it had looked a little deeper into Duronio’s past. Next week he’s slated to be sentenced for launching a “logic bomb” in UBS’s computer systems that crashed 2,000 of the company’s servers and left 17,000 brokers unable to make trades.

UBS’s experience highlights the need for companies to conduct background checks on their IT workers, especially those who have access to key systems and applications.

“What do you know about your own people?” asks Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a security firm. “You better consider how important IT is. Consider if you could keep on doing business if someone inside hit you with a logic bomb. If you can’t, you should think about background checks.”

Paller calls the Duronio case “a perfect illustration of the value of a background check.”