Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

Wireless Newsfactor has an article about the Hidden Risks of Wi-Fi. The article points out that most people are focusing on the prevention of unauthorized access through wireless access points and on the encryption of the data being sent wirelessly. However, insufficient attention is being paid to the risks that wireless equipped laptops may present.

Read more…

Three more states (Illinois, Louisiana and New Jersey) have passed laws that require businesses to notify customers when data breaches occur. They join existing statutes that are in effect in 20 other states.

From Computerworld..

On the last episode of Security Now, Steve Gibson gave high marks to a product called Hamachi, a product that can be used to set up a very secure, easy to implement and “open” virtual private network (VPN) between two or more computers.

Read more…

Better keep those cell phones close at hand, and LOCKED. According to the Globe and Mail law professor Susan Drummond received a phone bill for $12,237.60 - 160 times larger than her normal bill - and which primarily consisted of calls to foreign countries that included Pakistan, Libya, Syria, India and Russia. As a result of researching the fraud, Drummond and her partner discovered that phones of senior Rogers executives, including Mr. Rogers himself, were repeatedly “cloned” by terrorist groups that used them to make thousands of overseas calls. Ms. Drummond is apparently pursuing legal action against the cellphone giant, charging that the company can easily spot a fraud-in-progress, yet “lets the meter run.”

Another form of Splog is a blog that intentionally links to websites for the sole purpose of coming up on a list of “who links here” so that the blog author may, out of curiosity, visit the linking blog. The business model is to display paid placement advertising on that site and hope that a certain percentage of visitors will click on the ads.

If that wasn’t bad enough, there are now such linking blog sites that attempt to inject a virus/trojan when visited. I came across one this morning, Onlinemeetingsolutions.com - don’t go there. I can’t confirm whether the operators of the site are in on it or whether the site has simply been hacked. However, upon visiting the site, it will (according to my antivirus program) try to inject a JS/Wonka Trojan into your system through the browser.

I thought Splogs were bad but now I’ve discovered there are even worst things out there.

In recent Security Now podcast segments on VPNs, Steve Gibson reviewed the importance of using VPNs when accessing the Internet through public Wi-Fi hotspots or even Ethernet connections (as for example, those available at hotels). The problem with Wi-Fi is that it can be intercepted, while the problem with even an Ethernet connection is that other hotel guests can run software to capture information and even passwords which are sent in the clear by many programs, particularly POP3 email programs.

Read more…

A UK company has launched a new service, StealthText, that provides for self-destructing SMS messages. Perfect for “mission impossible” type spies or cheating spouses.

Read more…

Business Week’s The Best of 2005 is now online.

One of the products that made the list was SlingMedia’s Slingbox - a box you connect to your cable or satellite hookup at home and which then lets you “location shift” your viewing:

Read more…