An article1 in this week's Washington Post describes a situation in Wisconsin where a woman's ex-boyfriend stalked her using a GPS tracking device to watch her every move. Original link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33715-2003Feb6.html) no longer available as of 2025-11-22. No reliable archive snapshot found …

In a disturbing post on Slashdot, the poster recounts a recent exchange with his new employers who seemed to think it was appropriate to ask for a full background check (including credit check) of all existing and new employees. Seems to me that this is another fine case of privacy …

Sometimes you just never know who's going to come to your rescue. In the case of privacy on the Internet, Verizon is starting the year off as benefactor to the world by fighting the RIAA in court over the identity of an internet user. Of course, it's not all quite …

The ACLU has created a page where you can send a fax to your Senators to encourage them to co-sponsor and support S.188 (The Data- Mining Moratorium Act) . The service alternatively will send an email or postal letter if you prefer. It's a very easy way to participate in …

Due to overwhelming negative feedback about their new security technology, Microsoft has decided to relabel their much- discussed Palladium technology to the much-more-difficult-to-remember "next- generation secure computing base". It appears that due to the bad press that the Palladium technology has been getting for its privacy problems, the software giant …

In good news for privacy advocates, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has come out against the controversial Total Information Awareness initiative by our fine government. In an article on CNET, there are details of this latest opposition from the chairman of the Senate Finance committee.

In yet another travesty of justice that marks the DMCA, a report on CNET (also seen on other services) indicates that a Federal Judge has rules that Verizon's internet service will have to give up identifying information to the RIAA about a user who has been using the Kaaza …

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (my alma mater) department of library sciences has just released the results of a survey of librarians. It seems to show that libraries went in both directions on post-9/11 issues regarding privacy, the Internet, and book records. Also of interest, you can read …

Despite protestations to the contrary on January 23, 1984 by Apple Computer, the rise of the Macintosh has not kept us from moving closer to an Orwellian society, at least in terms of available technology. And now, the war footing threatens to create a situation uncannily familiar to readers of …

In a good example of why you need to pay close attention to your data, a few MIT students bought some hard drives from EBay and took a look around. Read more about it here

The Register has an article about the RIAA using a group of hackers to create a "monitoring hydra" to report to the RIAA what music you may have on your PC. Ed. Note: CNET now reports that an spokesperson from RIAA is calling this a HOAX. I'm leaving the rest …

An article that appears on the EFF website describes the "unintended consequences" of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Areas covered include: Free express and scientific research Fair use Competition and innovation An article worth reading. Then consider giving some money to the EFF (and maybe the ACLU). Don't forget …