Greg's Corner

Updates from May, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Geebo 8:00 am on May 2, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: data breach ( 32 ), Microsoft ( 21 ), privacy ( 46 )   

  Data breach exposed most American families 

  

  This past week, a data breach was discovered that could have put the personal information of 80 million American families at risk. Internet security experts discovered an unprotected database that was hosted in the cloud included names, ages, and genders as well as income levels and marital status. What’s even more concerning is that it’s unknown who the database belongs to. It’s been theorized that it may belong to an insurance or mortgage company.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt-Mf8W-Zlg%5D

  Every person in the database is said to be over the age of 40 which could potentially put seniors at risk not only for identity theft but phishing scams as well. There’s no evidence to suggest that cybercriminals accessed the database. However, the information could have been publicly accessible for months. Experts believe that the information provided in the database could also be used to launch ransomware attacks against people listed in the database.

  The server that the database was stored on was a Microsoft cloud server but it’s up to the database’s owner to make sure the database is encrypted. Microsoft has contacted the owner of the database and it has since been removed from public access. With the number of data breaches becoming more frequent every day have we reached a point where we should just expect our data to become exposed?

   

  Leave a ReplyCancel reply
• 

  Geebo 8:00 am on May 1, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: armslist ( 12 ), guns ( 14 ), lawsuit ( 47 ), Radcliffe Haughton ( 3 ), wisconsin ( 3 ), Zina Daniel Haughton ( 3 )   

  The ‘craigslist of guns’ held harmless in domestic murder 

  

  Image via the New York Post

  Previously, we’ve discussed how a lawsuit in Wisconsin was moving forward against Armslist, the so-called ‘craigslist of guns.’ Armslist facilitates the sales of firearms between private owners and buyers. This is a legal loophole that allows people with criminal records to bypass background checks when purchasing a firearm. In the past few years, a number of guns sold through Armslist have been used in some high-profile crimes such as the murder of a Chicago Police Captain.

  Around this time last year, The Wisconsin Court of Appeals ruled that a lawsuit against Armslist could move forward. The suit was brought about after the 2012 murder of Zina Daniel Haughton by her estranged husband Radcliffe Haughton. Haughton had a domestic violence injunction against him which prevented him from legally owning a gun at the time. Instead, Haughton bought a gun from an Armslist dealer and murdered his wife at her workplace in Brookfield, Wisconsin.

  [youtube https://youtu.be/OwExQhaVBdw%5D

  Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Armslist was held harmless in the murder in a 5-1 decision. The ruling mostly stated that Armslist could not be held liable due to the Communications Decency Act of 1996 which holds website owners harmless if their site is used for illegal activity by its users. However, the lone dissenting opinion came from Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. She said…

  “The majority errs in its interpretation of the CDA by basing its decision, not on the actual claims pled…but on its own manufactured interpretation of those claims. As a result, it fails to recognize that here the design itself is the creation of the content.”

  It’s been argued in the past that Armslist was specifically designed to allow buyers to circumvent background checks.