Companies must notify customers before changing terms

ComputerWorld's article, "Companies must notify customers before changing terms," discusses a ruling passed down by U.S. Court of Appeals that states that companies must inform customers of changes in contracts and that merely posting the contract to a website is not sufficient.

"The issue of how companies service customers online as well as how they use their personal information after mergers or acquisitions is one that privacy experts and others have been grappling with since the emergence of e-commerce in the 1990s."

Most California Voting Computers Lose to Hackers

The San Francisco Chronicle article, "Most vote machines lose test to hackers," discusses tests of electronic voting computers that indicate that virtually all of the voting computers used in California are vulnerable to attack. The reports can be found on the California Secretary of State's website. The work was supervised by UC Davis Professor Matt Bishop. Professor Bishop has also served on the Team for Research in Ubitquitous Secure Technology (TRUST) External Advisory Board.

Privacy Isn't Dead, or At Least It Shouldn't Be: A Q&A with Latanya Sweeney

Scientific American's article, "Privacy Isn't Dead, or At Least It Shouldn't Be: A Q&A with Latanya Sweeney," discusses the article, "A Little Privacy, Please," by Latanya Sweeney of CMU.
See also the Slashdot discussion.

Feds snub open source for 'smart' radios

CNet's article, "Feds snub open source for 'smart' radios," discusses the Federal Register Docket, "Cognitive Radio Technologies and Software Defined Radios," that says:

The Commission hereby states that it is its policy, consistent with the intent of Cognitive Radio Report and Order and Cisco's request, that manufacturers should not intentionally make the distinctive elements that implement that manufacturer's particular security measures in a software defined radio public, if doing so would increase the risk that these security measures could be defeated or otherwise circumvented to allow operation of the radio in a manner that violates the Commission's rules. A system that is wholly dependent on open source elements will have a high burden to demonstrate that it is sufficiently secure to warrant authorization as a software defined radio.

See also the Slashdot discussion.