***************************************************** Edupage is a service of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. *****************************************************
TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2005 Former Student Convicted of Stealing Data Liberty Alliance Addresses ID Theft U.S. Expected to Ditch Biometric Passport Requirement Motorola Employee Data Stolen FORMER STUDENT CONVICTED OF STEALING DATA A former student of The University of Texas at Austin has been found guilty of writing a computer program that stole names and Social Security numbers from about 37,000 students, faculty, and others associated with the university. The jury found Christopher Andrews Phillips not guilty, however, of intending to profit from the data he stole. Phillips, who is now a senior at the University of Houston, said he wrote the program as part of his computer training and never had any intention of using the information. The theft took place in 2002 and 2003, when Phillips's program made more than 600,000 inquiries to a UT database, trying to match names with Social Security numbers. UT officials detected the activity and traced it to Phillips, whose computer was seized with the program he wrote and the data it had harvested. Phillips faces up to six years in prison; had he been convicted of the other charges, he would have faced close to 30 years. Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 June 2005 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/06/2005061301t.htm LIBERTY ALLIANCE ADDRESSES ID THEFT The Liberty Alliance has announced the formation of an Identity Theft Protection Group, intended to address the problem of identity theft. The alliance was created in 2001 to establish standards for online authentication and now has a membership of more than 150 companies, nonprofits, and government organizations. Michael Barrett, co-chairman of the new group and a security executive at American Express, said he believes the problem of identity theft will continue to worsen such that "it is no longer a question if your identity gets stolen, but when." The new group will initially work to clearly define the problem and its parameters and later will try to develop solutions, which, according to Barrett, might include technical specifications, best practices, or business guidelines. James Van Dyke of Javelin Strategy and Research, which covers identity fraud, noted that despite perceptions otherwise, the incidence of identity theft has been decreasing over the past few years. CNET, 13 June 2005 http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5744641.html U.S. EXPECTED TO DITCH BIOMETRIC PASSPORT REQUIREMENT Government officials in the United Kingdom are optimistic that the United States will withdraw an upcoming requirement that individuals traveling under the Visa Waiver program have biometric passports. The program allows people from 27 countries to make short visits to the United States without a visa. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security had issued a ruling that participants in the Visa Waiver program would be required to have biometric identifying information added to their passports by October 2004, which was extended to October 2005. Officials in Ireland have put on hold their efforts to comply with the regulation, believing that U.S. officials have come to see the technology as sufficiently unreliable to compel its use by this fall. Critics of biometric technology also point to the possibility that such information could be used to violate individuals' civil liberties. The Register, 13 June 2005 http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/13/us_bio_passports/ MOTOROLA EMPLOYEE DATA STOLEN Over the Memorial Day weekend, thieves broke into the offices of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), a provider of human resources services, and stole two computers with personal information on Motorola employees. The computers, which reportedly employed security measures to make accessing their files difficult, contained names and Social Security numbers of an unspecified number of employees but did not include any financial information, according to a Motorola spokesperson. Lesley Pool, chief marketing officer at ACS, described the theft as an "amateur burglary" and said no evidence has surfaced that any of the information has been used for illicit purposes. Most of those affected are U.S. employees of Motorola, which employs about 34,000 people in the United States. Motorola has notified all of the affected employees and offered them fraud insurance at no charge. Reuters, 10 June 2005 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8760748 ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. To access resources including articles, books, conference sessions, contracts, effective practices, plans, policies, position descriptions, and blog content, go to http://www.educause.edu/resources ***************************************************** CONFERENCES For information on all EDUCAUSE learning and networking opportunities, see http://www.educause.edu/31 ***************************************************** COPYRIGHT Edupage copyright (c) 2005, EDUCAUSE
