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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 |
Powergen sets legal attack dogs on security whistle-blower, by John
Leyden, The Register.
John Chamberlain earned the enmity of the British utility
company for
leaking to Silicon.com a list of credit cards left unprotected on the
utility's Web site. He is fighting a breach of confidence suit from
Powergen. This civil lawsuit, which arises out of an accusation that
Chamberlain failed to keep a promise to destroy customer data obtained
from Powergen's site, is to be tried in the Chancery Court at
Birmingham on March 12.
Without any legal aid, Chamberlain has been forced to conduct his
legal defence in the case. He is searching for a lawyer who is
prepared to work on the case pro-bono (without a fee).
And, just coincidentally, I'm sure, Chamberlain has also run a series of
Web sites critical of Powergen, with domain names in cluding the
alphanumeric string, "powergen" (sometimes with other strings such as
"sucks").
The bad feeling between Powergen and Chamberlain began after he
found
a serious security hole on its site back in July 2000. Rather than
thanking him for pointing out that customers' financial details were
easily obtainable through simple URL manipulation, Powergen at first
denied anything was wrong. After Silicon.com was able to prove the
security breach via information turned over to it by Chamberlain
Powergen upped the ante by threatening to obtain an injunction against
Silicon.com and by branding Chamberlain as a 'hacker'.
But no prosecution was ever brought against Chamberlain. Chamberlain
is highly critical of Powergen's initial denials as well as its
subsequent aggressive stance.
Powergen had no procedures in place. They came gunning for me and my
career, Chamberlain told El Reg.
Chamberlain concedes that he may have acted "irrationally" when he
found his debit cards details left on Powergen's insecure servers. But
the subsequent actions of a company he formerly trusted have left him
bruised and bewildered.
It's had a negative effect on me - I haven't worked in two years. I'm
sorry I ever went online that day to pay my bill, Chamberlain told
The Register.
Neither Powergen nor its lawyers in the domain name dispute, Wragge &
Co of Birmingham, responded to our repeated (phone and email) requests
for comment in the case.
10:57:10 PM 
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>From Benton Headlines, comes shocking, shocking news of
SPAMMERS TURNING BLIND EYE TO THE LAW.
The most frequent visitors to our mailboxes, spammers, are not complying
with a new federal law, a new study finds. Just 3% of unsolicited
commercial bulk email includes a valid US postal address and a link that
provides a valid opt-out option. What's more, the percentage of email that
is spam grew in January to 60%, up 2% since December. While enforcement of
the new legislation is being worked out, some spammers have started to
comply with the law. It's a little bit early to see huge amounts of
compliance, but we are seeing people start to comply, said Ken Schneider,
chief technology officer at Brightmail, one of the largest spam-filtering
companies.
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Stefanie Olsen]
10:57:06 PM
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Catch Me If You Can: The hunt for an eBay scammer. Jay Nelson
ripped off buyers on eBay and Yahoo until the Feds put him behind bars.
We catch up with him in prison, where he'll be until 2007.
By Scott Kirsner, Fast Company.
10:56:59 PM
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Kevin, in Benton's Headlines, notes today's NYT story,
OFFICIALS SAY MOB STOLE $200 MILLION USING PHONE BILLS
A nationwide scheme had telephone subscribers paying up to $40/month for
services they never requested or used. "Cramming" is nothing new, but
federal authorities say that New York organized crime has been involved and
collected over $200 million over five years piggybacking bogus charges on
phone bills. "These defendants conspired to defraud consumers by using a
sophisticated web of shell companies to generate one of the largest
consumer frauds schemes in United States history, : said Roslynn R.
Mauskopf, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, in a prepared statement.
Investigators believe that cramming may be the most profitable enterprise
in organized crime today. Tony Soprano was unavailable for comment.
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: William Rashbaum]
8:43:50 AM
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Hoder points out the new blog of Iranian pop singer Sharzad Sepanlou. (Also loads of interesting summaries of Hoder's own recent posts on the Persian edition of his weblog.)
6:04:02 AM
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New Bush Guard records raise new questions. The president got credit for time served during his missing year -- but on different dates from those his campaign cited in 2000. And he still won't release medical records to explain the mystery of the missing physical. [Salon.com]
5:55:25 AM
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Privacy Is in the House. The House is considering a bill that would require government agencies to explain how citizens' privacy might be affected by new regulations. After years of erosion, privacy may again be in fashion in D.C. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News]
5:37:18 AM
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How not to get rich quick. From the oldie-but-goodie file comes this 1999 piece by investigative humorist Harmon Leon, in which he tries out several get-rich-quick opportunites. Perhaps you've had similar thoughts. Perhaps you've even gone so far as to cut out one of those ads or jot down a phone number. Most likely your dignity stopped you from actually going the distance. That's why I'm here. I have very little dignity. [Purportal.com Headlines]
5:33:29 AM
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