“Thanks to LawyerCT for bringing this topic up on /r/technology. She also provided a list of the top sites online that hold data on you.”

Intelius.com* – Opt-out

Acxiom.com – Opt-out

MyLife.com – To request that a Member Profile or Public Profile be deleted, please contact Customer Care at 1-888-704-1900 or contact us by email at privacy@mylife.com. Upon receipt of these requests, and confirmation that you are requesting that your own profile be removed, please allow MyLife 10 business days to complete this removal. It may be necessary to contact you to validate that you are the profile owner requesting the removal. This is to ensure the correct identity and profile ownership before completing these requests, and is for the protection of our users and their privacy.

Zabasearch.com* – Opt-out

Spokeo.com – Opt-out

BeenVerified.com – LawyerCT’s guide

Peekyou.com – Opt-Out

USSearch.com* – Opt-Out

PeopleFinders.com – Opt-Out: Annoying form you have to mail in

PeopleLookup.com* – In order for PeopleLookup to suppress or opt out your personal information from appearing on our Website, we need to verify your identity. To do this, we require faxed proof of identity. Proof of identity can be a state issued ID card or driver’s license. If you are faxing a copy of your driver’s license, we require that you cross out the photo and the driver’s license number. We only need to see the name, address and date of birth. We will only use this information to process your opt out request. Please fax to 425-974-6194 and allow 4 to 6 weeks to process your request.

PeopleSmart.com – Opt-Out

PrivateEye.com – Opt-Out

Whitepages.com – Opt-Out

USA-People-Search.com – Opt-Out: Yet another form to mail in

Spoke.com – Scroll Down to Access and Correction Section for more info

PublicRecordsNow.com – Still determining how to remove…

DOBSearch.com* – In order for us to “opt out” your public information from being viewable on the public DOBsearch People Finder search results, we need to verify your identity and require faxed proof of identity. Proof of identity can be a state issued ID card or driver’s license, or notarized letter. If you are faxing a copy of your driver’s license, you may cross out the photo and the driver’s license number. We only need to see the name, address and date of birth. Please fax to 516-717-3017 and allow 4 to 6 weeks to completely process your request. It is your responsibility to ensure legibility of your document

Radaris.com – Opt-Out; Thanks to those who figured it out.

[HOW TO: Remove yourself from ALL background check websites. Thanks to LawyerCT on Reddit]

“Lightweight Portable Security (LPS), created by the US Department of Defense, is a small Linux live CD focusing on privacy and security, for  this reason, it boots from a CD and executes from RAM, providing a web browser, a file manager and some interesing tools. LPS-Public turns an untrusted system into a trusted network client.”

[Unixmen]     [http://www.spi.dod.mil/lipose.htm]

[Download the LPS-Public ISO image, version 1.2.2 (16 July 2011)]

“If you have been troubled by recent revelations that your cell phone can be used to reveal details of your personal life, this item will probably boost your concern level. It turns out that there is actually a commercially available device specifically designed for sucking data out of your handheld. In fact, Cellebrite Ltd. (www.cellebrite.com) has just released Version 2.0 of its Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), designed to provide “law enforcement and government intelligence agencies with new capabilities for improved extraction, retrieval, and analysis of mobile phone data.”

Three new features are included in the latest release. The UFED Physical Analyzer is a parsing tool and report generator that offers upgraded ability to analyze and parse iPhone and Blackberry devices. It includes an instant search function, plug-in support, and Python scripting. The support base has been enhanced to include nearly 6,000 devices, including Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson products, and “historically challenging” CDMA memory dump capability has been expanded by 200 devices. Finally, V. 2 includes the UFED Phone Detective which lets users instantly identify the specific model phone you are using.

The bottom line is that the product “enables military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies to easily extract deleted data, passwords, contacts, text messages, call logs, emails, GPS locations, web history, calendar entries, and much more. New parsing capabilities such as iPhone Skype support, browser cookies, Wi-Fi and cell tower locations, and more make it the most advanced end-to-end solution available to the mobile forensic community.” At $4,799 a pop, it’s not exactly cheap, but probably well within the budget of your local constabulary.”

[Hey! My friend’s account was hacked!]

“My brother’s iPod was stolen earlier today (set his bag down and left it unwatched for 2 seconds, came back and it was gone). We didn’t have the serial number, however, I was able to find where iTunes stores every serial number of every iPod that has ever been synced with that iPod. Just go to ~\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPodDevices.xml, and it lists all serial numbers. Then you can check each serial number here to ascertain which one you’re looking for based on the model: [selfsolve.apple.com]“

“Earlier today the WordPress team noticed suspicious commits to several popular plugins (AddThis, WPtouch, and W3 Total Cache) containing cleverly disguised backdoors. We determined the commits were not from the authors, rolled them back, pushed updates to the plugins, and shut down access to the plugin repository while we looked for anything else unsavory.”

[via TechCrunch]

Some of the attacks made by Anonymous members used a web-based tool called LOIC to bombard target sites with data. The websites of PayPal, MasterCard and Amazon were all targeted using this tool. It seems that LOIC did a poor job of hiding the identity of the people using it. It is believed that some police forces have already moved against the group based on this information. Arrests have been made in the US, UK and Holland of Anonymous members, prior to the raids in Spain. Anonymous grew out of the online picture sharing site 4Chan and describes itself as a group of concerned internet citizens. As well as attacking sites that it perceives as not supporting Wikileaks, the loosely organised collective has also attacked government sites in Tunisia and Egypt to aid popular protest movements.

Source: BBC

WSUS Offline Generator

WSUS Offline Update allows you to update Windows Operating System software (XP, Vista, Windows 7, etc.) along with Microsoft Office products without an internet connection.  It does this by downloading all of the available patches and putting them into an ISO image that you can burn and take with you.  This is particularly useful when trying to patch computers that have no internet connection or on systems with extremely slow internet connectivity.  It could also be used to ensure that a system is fully patched prior to connecting it to a network to help prevent virus infection and security breaches.

The software is released under the GNU GPL and is completely free – though donations are welcome.

http://www.wsusoffline.net

Allan said in a post on O’Reilly Radar:

“Today at Where 2.0 Pete Warden and I will announce the discovery that your iPhone, and your 3G iPad, is regularly recording the position of your device into a hidden file. Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps. We’re not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it’s clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations. “

“The presence of this data on your iPhone, your iPad, and your backups has security and privacy implications. We’ve contacted Apple’s Product Security team, but we haven’t heard back.”

Allan has posted a YouTube video that explains how the file was discovered and what data the file contains.

They have also released an open-source application that “maps the information that your iPhone is recording about your movements.”

What can be done to protect yourself?  According the the researchers, “An immediate step you can take is to encrypt your backups through iTunes (click on your device within iTunes and then check “Encrypt iPhone Backup” under the “Options” area).”

[O'Reilly Radar]

“[Email disclaimers] are assumed to be a wise precaution. But they are mostly, legally speaking, pointless. Lawyers and experts on internet policy say no court case has ever turned on the presence or absence of such an automatic e-mail footer in America, the most litigious of rich countries.

Many disclaimers are, in effect, seeking to impose a contractual obligation unilaterally, and thus are probably unenforceable. This is clear in Europe, where a directive from the European Commission tells the courts to strike out any unreasonable contractual obligation on a consumer if he has not freely negotiated it. And a footer stating that nothing in the e-mail should be used to break the law would be of no protection to a lawyer or financial adviser sending a message that did suggest something illegal.”

They go on to say that these disclaimers are probably so prevalent because companies see other companies using them, and then decide they should too.

[Legal Disclaimers: Spare Us the E-mail Yada-Yada via The Economist]