Mobile phone giant Vodafone has been fined 76m euros ($100m; £51m) by a Greek privacy watchdog.
The Greek agency responsible for privacy said Vodafone had failed to protect its network from hackers who monitored 106 mobile accounts.
The accounts targeted included those of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as well as senior military officers and journalists.
[…]
Vodafone is planning an appeal after describing the punishment as “illegal, unfair and totally groundless”.
Many Greeks believe that the bugging of the prime minister, other politicians and senior military officers was carried out at the behest of the United States because it was concerned about security at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
“Failed to protect” is an interesting phrase. It hardly says they invited the hackers in, or were responsible for the wiretap. Instead it implies a lax or deficient response, which now begs the question of whether the Greek agency will tighten the privacy belt and outline new requirements?
I have seen the following presented as an anonymous Buddhist saying:
Not every poem’s good because it’s ancient,
Nor mayst thou blame it just because it’s new,
Fair critics test, and prove, and so pass judgment;
Fools praise or blame as they hear others do.
Interesting, and perhaps naive, challenge to Lincoln’s prophetic “You can please some of the people all of the time…”. The poem seems to suggest that you can actually achieve some kind of vaulted “fair critic” status and escape the tragedy of the fool. But what if the others are more qualified than you and you do not have the resources or expertise to reach conclusive judgment? Who decides fairness, or what constitutes sufficient “test and prove”?
I am not convinced of the Buddhist connection. For example, compare it to the actual teachings in the Dhammapada:
‘They blame him who sits silent
And him that has much to say;
They blame the one that’s of measured speech;
In the world there is none unblamed.’
Maybe it’s just me but that makes the first verse look more like a protestant attribution of righteousness. I mean should those blamed by the fair critic(s) feel more enlightened than those blamed by the fools? Where’s the middle path?
Although I really liked this detail found on a store window, I must confess that when I read or hear Leonard Cohen it always reminds me of his tawdry quip in The Energy of Slaves:
I did not know until you walked away
you had the perfect ass
Forgive me
for not falling in love
with your face or your conversation
Apparently he was seeking a different sort of evidence of life back in 1972. Now I think I will mix the two works and instead think of it as “you had the perfect ash…”
Looks like another vulnerability gone automated. Symantec AntiVirus and Client Security Software had a serious security issue announced on May 24, 2006 but a patch was released by June 12, 2006. Public exploits just started appearing around the end of November, perhaps as prototype attacks, and have now achieved self-propagation status. Symantec software, and especially antivirus software, is usually pretty good at staying up to date if configured properly. Unfortunately, it appears many thousands of systems are vulnerable and spreading the infection and thus we have the Big Yellow Worm. The software at risk only runs on Windows (any version):
The countermeasure to prevent infection is trivial — update to the latest version. In the meantime blocking port tcp/2967 where practical (it’s the default used by Symantec to update) might help stop the worm spread. And of course the other anti-virus vendors can identify the botnet trojan that the worm installs so if you happen to have a second set running alongside Symantec, you should be covered. Of course, that also requires the latest update/signature to be installed.
