Congress concerned P2P promotes identity theft, calls for federal investigation
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Same group of Democrats and Republicans who said filesharing can pose "national security" risks now want probe into other possible consequences of "inadvertent" file exposure.
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Users of Internet "peer to peer" networks, already dodging lawsuits from the recording industry, could face up to three years in prison under a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
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House of Representatives panel chairman says peer-to-peer networks pose a "national security threat," new laws needed.
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Personal information about Americans is stolen or lost from some government or private computer almost daily, but congressional auditors can link only a few identity thefts to the breaches.
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Federal agency now turns to Internet service providers for information on people under investigation.
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Use of a peer-to-peer program called BitTorrent is way up--and that could be bad news for opponents of file sharing.
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Truly decentralised peer-to-peer (P2P) software can&#39;t be held accountable for its misuse, according to a US federal appeals court.
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Controversial plan could force file swappers to face criminal charges.
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The US House of Representatives passed a bill this week that could allow criminal charges to be brought against individuals who use file-swapping Web sites or networks.
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Time to call the credit bureaus? Almost 1.4 million records containing the personal information of Californians likely stolen.
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SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that could allow criminal charges to be brought against individuals who participate in file-swapping Web sites or networks.
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Federal regulators warn that the  Internet is the thriving frontier for identity theft, but 72  percent of the thefts of personal information for scams last  year was done offline, a new report says.
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WASHINGTON Aug. 25, 2004 - Federal agents seized computers and software Wednesday as part of an investigation targeting an Internet network used to illegally share copyrighted music, movies, software and games, Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will wade into an emerging debate on the nature of identity crime when it releases its latest ID theft statistics at the RSA Conference in San Francisco next week. The data, set to be released on Wednesday, will be based on information compiled by the FTC's Consumer Sentinel complaint database, said Claudia Bourne Farrell, an FTC spokeswoman. The Consumer Sentinel data is based on "anecdotal ... data that has been self-reported to the FTC by consumers," Farrell said. The FTC is preparing a more comprehensive ID fraud survey, similar to one it published in 2003, which is expected to be released in the coming months. Still, the FTC's Consumer Sentinel report is based on a large amount of data. In 2005, for example, consumers logged more than 650,000 complaints, accounting for about $680 million in losses. The FTC's numbers will come at a time when there is some debate about whether ID theft is actually on the rise. Using a methodology developed for the 2003 FTC survey, Javelin Strategy & Research reported Thursday that this type of fraud actually dropped in 2006. The total cost of identity fraud was down 12 percent last year, totalling $49.3 billion in losses, according to Javelin. Nationwide, there were about 500,000 fewer victims, year-over-year, the research company said. Javelin's results run "contrary to all the trends we are seeing in the market," said Gartner analyst Avivah Litan. "In fact, the U.K. banks just released a study showing their identity theft-related fraud is up nearly 20 percent," she said.
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After weeks of negotiations, the  U.S. Senate could take action this week on a bill that would  make it easier to sue "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and  LimeWire that allow users to copy music and movies over the  Internet.
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Network attacks using stolen IDs result in substantial damages, according to an analysis of federally prosecuted cases.
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(InfoWorld) - Members of the U.S. Congress introduced a flurry of new technology-related bills this week, including two bills that would require companies with data breaches to notify affected customers. Senators Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act. In addition to requiring data breach notification, the bill would also require data brokers to disclose what information they hold on individuals. The bill would allow individuals to correct information held by data brokers, and it would require companies that have databases with personal information on more than 10,000 U.S. residents to implement data privacy and security programs. Representatives Bobby Rush, a Illinois Democrat, and Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican, introduced the Data Accountability and Trust Act this week. Their bill, with 24 co-sponsors, authorizes the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up data privacy requirements for businesses, including requirements that they have vulnerability assessments and policies for disposing of obsolete data. After a company reports a data breach, the FTC would conduct an audit of its security practices, and, like the Leahy-Sanders bill, the bill would require data brokers to disclose the information they hold on individuals and allow individuals to correct wrong information. Organizations have lost 100 million personal records belonging to U.S. residents in data breaches since 2005, Leahy said in a speech on the Senate floor. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, singled outÂ data breaches at the U.S. Department of Veterans AffairsÂ last May andÂ retailer The TJX Companies,Â announced in January, in his speech. "These data security breaches are compelling examples of why we need strong federal data privacy and security laws to protect Americansâ personal data and to address the ills of lax data security," he said. "In the information age, any company that wants to be trusted by the public must earn that trust by vigilantly protecting the databases they use and maintain." Members of Congress introduced about a dozen bills requiring data breach notification after a series of breaches in early 2005, but legislation stalled largely over committee jurisdictional wrangling. About 30 states have passed breach notification laws, most of them since 2005. The Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a trade group of IT security vendors, in January called on Congress to pass a comprehensive data protection bill, including breach notification. But some groups, including conservative think tank the Progress and Freedom Foundation, have questioned the need for a breach notification law, saying the cost to businesses may far outweigh the benefits to consumers. Other tech-related bills introduced this week: -- Two bills allowing the FTC toÂ investigate the practice of pretexting, when an investigator assumes a false identity to gain access to a person's telephone records. President George Bush signed a bill creating penalties for pretexting in January, but the two new bills would give the FTC the authority to investigate and prosecute pretexters. Many lawmakers became interested in the issue afterÂ Hewlett-Packard disclosedÂ in September that investigators it had hired used pretexting in an attempt to gain access to board members' and reporters' phone records. -- A bill targeted at spyware by establishing criminal penalties for a number of actions. The bill would prohibit keystroke logging, taking control of a computer without the user's consent, diverting Web browsers, using computers to create botnets and modifying a computer users' browser and security settings without permission. Two spyware bills passed the House of Representatives by overwhelming majorities in March 2005, but the Senate didn't act on them. Â