Mark's Notebook


	One of the nice parts about heading toward middle age is that you can find all your favorite music in the bargain bin. - Ken Floyd

Personal Data for the Taking

New York Times

Wednesday 18 May 2005, 12:15 pm
Keywords: Computer Topics , News Articles

By Tom Zeller, Jr.

Senator Ted Stevens wanted to know just how much the Internet had turned private lives into open books. So the senator, a Republican from Alaska and the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, instructed his staff to steal his identity.

"I regret to say they were successful," the senator reported at a hearing he held last week on data theft.

That would not surprise 41 graduate students in a computer security course at Johns Hopkins University. With less money than that, they became mini-data-brokers themselves over the last semester.

They proved what privacy advocates have been saying for years and what Senator Stevens recently learned: all it takes to obtain reams of personal data is Internet access, a few dollars and some spare time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/technology/18data.html?th&emc=th