Skip to main content

The WiKID Blog

Viewing posts from January, 2009

spam-and-the-fortune-1000

There is an interesting article on the Register about bots in large company networks. I always assumed that the massive bot armies of spammers and phishers consisted of the PCs of unsophisticated home users. I think this has tremendous implications. If you're PayPal and Oracle is sending PayPal spam, can you do something about it? Yes, I think.

is-there-a-cheap-stock-issue-for-google-after-the

I'm no lawyer not a securities expert, but I have sold some companies and one issue we had to deal with when selling to a public company was "cheap stock". The concern is that a company might distribute stock cheaply to insiders before going public, then sell it at a premium. (I guess the regulation protects the existing shareholders?) It is also an issue for employees who get options before an IPO. Options that are granted with the strike price equal to the value of the underlying are not taxed because there is no gain. But if the next day the stock triples because of an IPO, was the valuation correct? Are taxes owed? This regulation makes more sense to me, because Uncle Sam likes his taxes.

drive-neutral-the-economics-of-carbon-neutrality

My wife and I have 3 kids and thus we have a big car. We bought the Suburban 5 years ago and the guilt has been building up. I'm a big believer in driving cars forever, so what do do?

is-pci-dss-secure-enough

SecurityFix has a post about the Hannaford breach that posits a trend for 2008: Successul attacks against PCI-compliant retailers.

is-a-password-protected-computer-like-a-locked-box

A recent Cirtcut Court decision found them to be so:

The 10th Circuit's recent 2-1 decision in U.S. v. Andrus, No. 06-3094 (April 25, 2007), recognized for the first time that a password-protected computer is like a locked suitcase or a padlocked footlocker in a bedroom. The digital locks raise the expectation of privacy by the owner. The majority nonetheless refused to suppress the evidence.
In the case in question, the father of the suspect gave the officers permission to search the house and his son's computer. The test for the majority was pretty high:
Judge Michael R. Murphy, joined by the court's newest member, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, said the legal test is "whether law enforcement knows or should reasonably suspect because of surrounding circumstances that the computer is password protected."
While the dissenting judge pointed out that it might be hard to determine if a computer is password protected:
In dissent, Judge Monroe G. McKay called the unconstrained ability of law enforcement to use forensic software to bypass password protection without first determining whether such passwords have been enabled amounts to "dangerously sidestepping the Fourth Amendment."

Recent Posts

Archive

2022
2021
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008

Categories

Tags

Authors

Feeds

RSS / Atom