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Navigating international travel or studying abroad often means facing connectivity issues, data security concerns, and the challenge of keeping devices charged while on the go.
Continue reading Tech Byte: Tips When Traveling Internationally or for Study Abroad
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ,in a controversial move, Chaz Littljohn has received a lenient plea deal from the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) despite being accused of a significant data breach involving taxpayer information. Littljohn was charged with a single count of stealing tax returns, even though the DOJ initially stated that he had stolen up to 15 years’ worth of returns from thousands of taxpayers. Recent revelations now confirm that he stole returns from at least 50,000, and potentially up to 70,000, taxpayers.
Continue reading Controversy Over DOJ’s Plea Deal with Tax Return Thief Chaz Littljohn
Report: 191M voter records exposed online
By Katie Bo Williams – 12/28/15 09:50 AM EST
Security bloggers and researchers claim to have uncovered a publicly available database exposing the personal information of 191 million voters on the Internet.
The information contains voters’ names, home addresses, voter IDs, phone numbers and date of birth, as well as political affiliations and a detailed voting history since 2000.
While in most states, voter registration lists are a matter of public record, many have regulations restricting access and use.
For example, South Dakota requires those requesting access to voter data to confirm that the information “may not be used or sold for any commercial purpose and may not be placed for unrestricted access on the internet.”
Security researcher Chris Vickery discovered the breach and reported it to DataBreaches.net, which has since reached out to law enforcement, as well as the California attorney general’s office.
“When one of their attorneys asked, ‘Well how much data are we talking about?’ and I read her the list of data fields and told her that we had access to voter records of over 17 million California voters, her response was ‘Wow,’ and she promptly forwarded the matter to the head of their e-crime division,” writes DataBreaches.net’s anonymous admin.
Steve Ragan, a security blogger for the security and risk management website CSO, has alsoinvestigated the breach, noting that none of the political database firms he identified and reached out to in connection with the database claimed ownership of the IP address where the files are posted.
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/264297-report-191m-voter-records-exposed-publicly-online
