…worry about the MPAA.
From Techdirt:
A few months back, of course, you’ll recall the big scandal over HP’s use of “pretexting” to spy on various people to figure out who leaked some information from the board of directors. Pretexting is a nice way of describing a basic form of social engineering identity theft. Basically, you call up a company pretending to be someone in order to get their information. It seems pretty clear it should be illegal, and while Patricia Dunn was eventually charged with crimes over the practice, there were plenty of questions as to whether or not California laws actually made pretexting illegal. This surprised many people, who then started trying to push through such laws, which haven’t really gone very far. In fact, there were similar laws that politicians had tried to put in place earlier that had failed as well.
A bunch of folks have submitted this morning that a Wired News investigation found out that the California law to make pretexting illegal had strong (nearly unanimous) support… until the MPAA killed it. Apparently, MPAA lobbyists explained to California politicians that they need to use this identity theft method to spy on file sharers.
Heh.. why is it either/or? 😉
There is a bit of poetic justice irony in all this….
As a result of all of this massive publicity, people will intuitively become much more careful and discerning when dealing with those attempting to social engineer.
When laws do not protect or reform and voids are widely publicize, individuals begin protecting themselves internally.
Good points by SearchEnginesWeb. We can hardly count on Govtz or Googlez to care enough to adequately protect privacy, yet our info is already swirling everywhere. So, it’s up to us.
Yes it is really becoming very difficult to protect an individual’s privacy when online. You just can’t rely on anyone else for this. You are the one who is responsible for whatever information you provide online should be always checked for security first. Online security should be the important than anything else. Search engines and major brands are really the ones with whom you should take good precautions.
hungbw – thanks for clarifying, even Battelle himself couldn’t have said it better!
In about 5 years we won’t have to worry about the MPAA anymore. It will have folded.
hungbw – thanks for clarifying, even Battelle himself couldn’t have said it better!
thanks for clarifying, even Battelle himself couldn’t have said