A Hard Lesson in Privacy

A Hard Lesson in Privacy
Scott Granneman, 2006-11-27

Scott Granneman looks at a hard lesson in personal privacy and security through the lens of a very public and well-known female television show host in Europe.

Colapse all | Post comment

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Erik N (2 replies)

While certainly there is a lesson to learn on privacy, let's not blame the blond because it's easy: Is it likely that she shared the computer with her boyfriend/lover? Is it likely that they even shared the same account?

I think so - many couples do not go trough the trouble to set up separate a...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-04
Anonymous (1 replies)

While I agree with your post in spirit - other users of the computer may be to blame, I am disheartened by the comment "Her boyfriend could likely be the one doing the tech stuff" - why is that? My husband is proud that I do the techy stuff in the family... and while I am heading into gray, original...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-07
Erik N

The word "likely" should be understood as an expression of probability not of ability:

I think it is reasonable to claim that more often than not, men do the tech stuff. This observation cannot be used to conclude that men are more able than their female counterpart. They may be highly incompeten...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Don't sell it if your not sure. 2006-12-06
Anonymous

I don't feel sorry for people such as this that are so foolish with their computer that they wouldn't even think to wipe the hard drive before selling it. It should be obvious that the hard drive is full of lots of private information ranging from passwords and credit card numbers to embarassing pho...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Michael Krymson (1 replies)

Unfortunately, I'm not sure the point of this article. While it is one thing to gape about the idiocies of your average human being in the company of fellow geeks (I mean, who else is reading this on SecurityFocus?), but to chastise someone to wipe their disks, but provide absolutely no options? Unf...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-30
Anonymous

If the person in question even has the wherewithal to find this article, let alone read it, do you really think a couple keywords in Google are outside the realm of possibility? ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Anonymous (2 replies)

In this day and age, why don't operating systems have this feature built in?...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-02
Anonymous

It does exist. In Linux we use the "shred -u" command....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-03
Anonymous

You mean...

Why doesn't Windows have this feature built-in?

Most other OSes do, to some extent -- courtesy of tools like GNU shred. Mac OS X incorporates it into the GUI as "Secure Empty Trash". The big problem though is that many people don't know what "insecure" means in the context of fil...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy - Grow up and behave responsibly 2006-11-28
Anonymous (2 replies)

If you really consider yourself a responsible security professional, inform the victim so that she can decide how best to protect her privacy.

Try to think about the human cost of this problem and then see if you still feel her name should be exposed....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Principle #1 of informed criticism -- read, then comment 2006-12-03
Matthew Murphy

Scott DIDN'T apparently feel her name should be exposed, otherwise he may well HAVE exposed her name. Attacks on journalists' record for contemplated, potential ethics concerns are pretty ridiculous. Who appointed you the chief of the thought police?...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy - Grow up and behave responsibly 2006-12-04
Anonymous

As has been repeatedly shown here on SF and elsewhere: "well minded" full-disclosure can get you in trouble, too.
OK, the blonde in question is from Europe (should be less of the "I'll sue you till you're blue"-attitude), but you never know how she is going to react - she may think it is some kind ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Anonymous

Scott, I'm sure you appreciate the merits of Full Disclosure of software vulnerabilities? Naming and shaming this person (torrent plzkthx) will possibly make some people realise that they need to learn what they are doing with a computer, or what they do on the computer can come back to bite them in...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
P King

For all we know, the blonde tv presenter may have intended to get publicity - it did no harm to the "fortunes" of Aby Titmus, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, etc.etc. .... ! !...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Anonymous

Well, the article makes good points and reminds us once again about security and privacy issues. But it misses some very critical points.

1) Computers are getting "easier" to use, while the OS is simultaneously getting more complex and opaque. Computers are now a commodity item, like microwave ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-28
Anonymous (1 replies)

Thanks for pointing out the uncleaned heard drive problem. You omitted the most important part, the how-to-do-it at home solution, i.e. cleaning the hard drive in whole or in part. It is simplistic just to say, "clean the hard drive." Perhaps your high-tech readers will not need the "how-to" info...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-03
Matthew Murphy

The term "wipe" is a term pretty widely used in the market for commercial software. Mac OS X users, in particular, can use the "Secure Empty Trash" function or the 'rm' utility with the '-P' switch. Most Unix-like OSes these days include "shred" which does essentially the same thing.

Windows do...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
Anonymous (2 replies)

I agree with the person who posted "A Hard Lesson in Privacy - Grow up and behave responsibly". Scott, your columns often border on irrelevance, but this one crosses the line into professional negligence and misconduct. Please take your trolls and w00t-w00t oogling to #slashdot....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
Anonymous

Don't be so shy, please tell us what you really think. :)

Actually it's a far cry from professional negligence and misconduct, he sure didn't reveal her name nor post bittorrent links to her videos like about 98% of the world would have done....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-03
Matthew Murphy

You're the one who needs to grow up. Scott commented on someone else's mistake. He didn't identify the individual, not even the country of residence for the individual, and was very quiet on the nature of the materials involved -- so much so that others are accusing him of concocting the story in ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
Anonymous

Nice article, right up until you actually consider, and attempt to rationalize, the act of publicly shaming someone for not being knowledgeable about computer security. If those videos got out, there's no telling what could happen to this woman's career and personal life. Your brother-in-law really ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
Anonymous (1 replies)

There was no blond, no imac. There were no pictures, no video. You made that story up to get more publicity. I'm all about privacy and even give you a few points for cleaverly concocting a story and then hiding behind "protecting the innocent" to escape having to provide any evidence for your claims...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-03
Matthew Murphy

I've had friends tell me (after the fact) about machines they sold with weakly-protected bank statements, images, videos, passwords, etc., that they say either:

a) "I deleted that stuff."

or

b) "Nobody can get to that without my password."

A) is useless for anyone with an undelete tool a...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
Anonymous (1 replies)

He forgot to tell us the part of the story where his buddy has a stealing problem, and this poor lady may be one of this guy's victims. Also, he forgot to tell the part where his buddy has some free and easy to use software which restores the files Windows supposedly deletes when you empty the tras...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-03
Matthew Murphy

...then I take it you haven't heard the stories of government agencies selling laptops full of undeleted personal information at auction, I'm guessing?

Sad, yes. Unbelievable, no....

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-29
StanR

This why I usually put a bullet through a used hard drive. .308 work pretty well at rendering the drive useless....

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-11-30
Anonymous

Story sounds very suspicious. I mean, come on , "I heard from a friend"? Does this friend also know someone who got his kidneys stolen while sleeping?

No details, no way to verify... no real reason to even bring up the alleged story except that it will garuntee more readers, which I guess is the ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-01
BuPa

I recently read an article about the effectiveness of some security softwares which claim to be able to erase personal data in the hard disk and nobody could recover it. While I don't think many fraudsters have the resources, as the authors in the university, to acquire those expensive forensic tool...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Hard Lesson in Morality 2006-12-06
Anonymous

What would be more interesting is a Hard Lesson in Morality. You may be a giant prude, but try to stop condescending for a second to respect that there are different strokes for different folks.

The real issue here is how, someone made a mistake, and you want to blame the victim here, instead of...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A Harder Lesson in Privacy 2006-12-07
Erik N

Well, the blonde female should be happy that she lives in western Europe and not in Iran. According to this article:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,451449,00
.html

A famous Iranian actress is claimed to appear on a porno flick, although she denies it.

A tv production assi...

[ more ] [ reply ]