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Pretexting in Context
September 11, 2006
I had a chance to get the opinions of Joe Sanscrainte on pretexting -- this is the topic that seems to be captivating consumers and regulators alike. Joe happens to be an attorney who is also a privacy expert. Here are Joe's comments which are worth a read:Remember that what's happening right now with telephone records is really just one skirmish in the overall war over privacy. The fact remains that data brokers only get telephone records from telephone companies because they are able to provide other people's identifying information, including name, address, date of birth, mother's maiden name and most importantly, social security number (or even just the last four digits.) From a privacy perspective, it therefore isn't enough to go after just the telephone records, there has to be more focus on protecting all elements that identify us.
Right now, under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Section 222 of Title 47, US Code), it is the duty of telephone carriers to maintain the privacy of telephone records. However, this law, in and of itself, has not prevented data brokers from basically creating a business model to obtain this information under false pretenses. Eleven states have passed laws over the past year to specifically make pretexting in order to obtain telephone records a crime (interestingly, in CA where the HP case takes place, no such law is currently in place; however, such a bill is currently awaiting signature.) The telephone companies most certainly welcome these new laws criminalizing the procurement, sale and purchase of fraudulently obtained telephone records, because this enables them to better meet the requirements of Section 222.
The FTC has not been oblivious to these developments - in May of this year, it filed a suit against five web-based operations that obtained and sold consumers' confidential telephone records to third parties.
Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, opined that "trafficking in consumers' confidential telephone records is outrageous; it robs consumers of their privacy and exposes them to everything from snoops to stalkers." For more information, visit http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/phonerecords.htm.
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Bandwidth Glut
September 11, 2006
We have received some nice comments about the following article regarding the Cisco 4-Slot CSR-1 Router from Zippy. I have to share this excerpt and a specific quote which I bolded below.
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"As we start to see the abilities of the consumer rise, we start to see the huge impact that video will have and currently has, particularly in the U.S. but also in other markets worldwide," says Milinkovich. "Let's look at a typical home with one high definition TV, which, using MPEG-2 compression, uses around 19 megabits per second per stream. The home is also expected to have one standard definition TV, so that uses somewhere between 1.5 and 3 megabits per stream. Naturally, there will be two personal video recorders (PVRs): one streaming to the parents and one being watched by the children at any one time, or vice versa. Then there's the bandwidth occupied by an IP call, plus a high speed data interconnect for Internet access. The total bandwidth capacity requirements for each such typical home is thus in the range of 25 to 50 megabits per second. More importantly, in terms of the calculations of the actual content of what's going over those connections, they're in excess of a terabit per month. That is, if they view a 90 minute movie in combination with the other things going on, then you're looking at a terabit worth of content being delivered per home each month."
Milinkovich muses: "Let's put this bandwidth into perspective: 20 such homes would consume as much bandwidth traffic as what the entire Internet backbone carried in 1995!"
"When you combine the bandwidth capacity needed in such a network," says Milinkovich, "plus the intelligence in the network necessary to deliver a level of personalization to the empowered consumer, you start to see unique trends in the industry that are pushing video into becoming a new opportunity in the marketplace."
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Is this not amazing? In my opinion the needs of the digital home will grow in ways we can't anticipate today. Imagine MySpace pages with 24x7 live video feeds. I see this as a real possibility and if MySpace doesn't do it I am sure VCs will be happy to fund about 20 startups that will.
Bottom line, there is no bandwidth glut. We will use all of it and then some. More and more capacity will be needed as time goes on because the MySpace video example will eventually have to be 3D and then holographic (4D?). It will never end -- eventually video will transmit smell and then emotions (no I don't know how I am just being visionary here). As long as there are innovative thinkers out there, more applications will be built to leverage the available bandwidth -- which will of course never be enough. Bandwidth glut --- Hah!
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Pretexting – The Good, Bad and Ugly
September 11, 2006
In recent days pretexting has become a mainstream term in newspapers and blogs around the world. Admittedly pretexting is a term that most people are not familiar with and most are shocked when they learn what it is. Pretexting is pretending to be someone else and obtaining personal information about that person under the pretext of being them. What most people don’t realize is how easy it is to get a hold of information like phone records with a person’s phone number and last four digits of their social security number.The reason pretexting has been in the news so often lately is that Hewlett Packard used this technique to obtain phone records of journalists and board members in an effort to determine the source of leaks of confidential information to the press.
You may recall that Carly Fiorina had dealt with the problems of leaks to the press years ago and obviously things haven’t changed at HP and leaks continue to plague management.
In order to get to the bottom of the leaks HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn ordered an investigation into the leaks and in doing so hired at least one outside firm to find out who was responsible letting confidential information out. In doing so the investigators obtained telephone records from reporters as well as board members who were suspected of being the source of the leaks.
On the one hand Dunn needed to do something about the problem and protecting the confidential information being leaked is exactly what shareholders expect her to do. On the other hand she may have broken the law when getting this information. Truth be told, Dunn has publicly stated that she is surprised that pretexting was used to obtain information and she has further said that the tactics were appalling.
So it is unclear if she knew what techniques the investigators were using to determine the source of the leaks. What is clear is that for the past few days there has been a firestorm over this issue including calls for Dunn’s resignation.
This puts Dunn in an interesting position as she may have done what was absolutely necessary to protect HP investors but in doing so many have broken a law or two or three…
Of course all of this publicity brought out lots of public officials who smelled blood.
In fact HP said Monday it has been "informally contacted" by the U.S. Attorney's Office concerning a company investigation into press leaks of confidential information.
The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it is cooperating fully with the inquiry by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, along with an investigation by the California State Attorney General's office, which requested similar information.
The question is who is going to be punished if anyone. Will it be HP, Dunn, the hired investigators or will everyone get in trouble in some way.
This leads us to the phone companies and credit card companies and other organizations who make “confidential information” so accessible to the general public. Technology exists today that will minimize the ability for people to use pretexting as a way to obtain personal information.
This incident may be exactly what is needed to get everyone around the world to wake up and tighten up their security. After all no matter how diligent customers are with protecting and shredding their data, a slew of organizations can give your most confidential information out to virtually anyone with a few tidbits of information about you.
Perhaps this is exactly the call to action the world needs. Will this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? I suspect it just may be and we can expect politicians to jump all over this issue and not let it go until there are much harsher penalties in store for people who engage is such deceitful activities.
After 100 years of communications the PSTN seems to be dying as the world migrates to IP communications. In the process concepts like Pretexting need to be guarded against even more vigilantly in the new interconnected IP telephony world. The world’s premiere destination for learning about IP Communications remains Internet Telephony Conference & Expo next month in San Diego, California where you will learn about everything from IMS to IPTV and every other facet of the world of IP communications.
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Speaking at ITEXPO Ft. Lauderdale 2007
September 11, 2006
I have been getting lots of questions about how people can speak at this show – which promises – as usual to be the best-attended IP communications show in the world. As usual we have a call for papers process and welcome your ideas. The deadline for the January ITEXPO in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – January 23-27, 2007 is today so please make sure you submit your ideas immediately. Thanks in advance.
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