Citadel of the Blogs The Inbox of the Internet (really)

Okay, in keeping with the “let’s educate the Canadians about America” theme I’ve been developing since last week (thanks TV!), how many Canadians have heard of, but not known what are, Miranda Rights?

“Ernesto Miranda had confessed to rape and kidnapping after two hours of interrogation, and the appeal to the Supreme Court alleged that Miranda was not aware of his rights to remain silent (the Fifth Amendment) and to counsel (the Sixth Amendment). The Court ruled in favor of Miranda, and the decision instituted what we’ve come to know as the “Miranda Rights.” To safeguard against a suspect falling into an involuntary confession because he thinks he has no choice but to speak, the police must expressly, clearly and completely advise any suspect of his rights to silence and counsel before beginning an interrogation or any other attempt to get a statement from a suspect. The Miranda decision attempts to eliminate suspect ignorance as a contributing factor to involuntary confessions.”

I was thinking about this in terms of privacy: I call the RBC and apply for a new service. They then proceed to say “answer yes or no to the following questions” and proceed to read me, for all intents and purposes, my “rights” to privacy.

I despiste this manner of informing people. I think the Miranda Rights is better than forcefully compelling somone who wishes to secure service to say “yes” to a series of hard-to-understand questions.

Granted, you can’t tell someone in person to “refer to your rights at the bottom of the page”. But there has to be a better way to communicate rights orally. The Miranda way seems to be one way to go about it.

“You have the right to personal privacy. We will not sell or trade with your personal information. We will not share this with any outside party except as required by law. Do you understand these personal privacy rights?”

Sumpn’ like that.

According to the BBC, there has been a ’surge’ in hijacked PC networks. If you are wondering, What is a Botnet?, every time you hear the word “bot” or protect your computer from a “bot” the bottom line is that your computer could be remotely used (raped?) by the originator of the bot. In sum: you download software that contains a bot; the bot “calls home” and announces it has a computer; you’re computer becomes part of a “botnet”– a bunch of computers affected by the same controller. Then a spammer “rents the network” to send out spam or other delay/relay tactics. So you now have a host controlling a network of computers through bots that forms part of a commodity to be rented or used.

According to the above referenced BBC link:

-the number of computers hijacked by malicious hackers to send out spam and viruses has grown almost 30% in the last year.

-more than six million computers world wide are now part of a “bot network”

-more than a third of all computer attacks in the second half of 2006 originated from PCs in the United States

-while the total number of bot-net PCs rose, the number of servers controlling them dropped by about 25% to 4,700; the decrease showed that bot network owners were consolidating to expand their networks, creating a more centralised structure for launching attacks

to protect my Mac against external attack, I monitor all “outflowing” information with Little Snitch. This is a great piece of software that prompts you to allow or deny any connection between your computer and the “outside world”.

Takes a bit of getting used to, particularly if you use KDX or Bittorrent. But well worth it in terms of confidence in security.