Adobe leaks of PSU data + NSA success accounting
Just random stuff today, growing the organic web.
Today in data breaches
Well, yet more companies screwing up security. Today, Penn State released news that Adobe leaked a mess of Penn Stater's information to bad people. Here are the announcement and user-directed emails, if you're interested. This is going on all the time these days. On-the-Media had a good story last month. We clearly need a federal data breach notification law and it seems like a great thing that people could work across party lines on. Seems like some sort of incentivization also deserves consideration.
How many plots did the NSA's surveillance foil?
Another On-the-Media story was about the NSA's claim to have stopped 50+ terrorism incidents using domestic surveillance, and the news media's coverage of the number. Two very good considerations were a ProPublica accounting of how this number really stands up, and an earlier related AP story about a New York City bombing plot.
UPDATE 2013-12-20: In response to the revelations about the USA's intelligence practices, as revealed by non-government-employee Edward Snowden, President Obama created a special review group to consider changes in intelligence practices. The white-house has now posted their internal Review Group's report (no idea why the dates between the memorandum and the report are inconsistent). NBC now reports that the NSA could provide no evidence to support the program. And a related point, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon just found some of the NSA's practices unconstitutional