Month: February 2013

How not to tweet yourself into legal trouble

Mark Smith / / Advice

There’s an article today on the bbc website about the legal pitfalls of posting ill-advised messages on Twitter.

To summarise:

1. Don’t post libellous messages – particularly if about someone who can afford expensive legal bills.

2. Don’t post the names of victims of sexual assault

3. Don’t break the terms of a court order or injunction

4. Don’t post things about the court case when you are a member of its jury (better have a break from posting on social media then!)

5. Don’t post threatening or offensive comments

If you abide by the University AUP you won’t go far wrong!

Link

The zombies are out there…

Mark Smith / / Security News

There’s a story today about the US Emergency Alert System, a system that automatically alerts authorities about emergencies, being hacked in the States.

Apparently viewers of four local TV stations in Montana and Michigan had their programs interrupted to warn about dead bodies being re-animated and attacking the living. (Where’s my shotgun???)

The serious side to this is that important infrastructure needs to be securely maintained – otherwise is could be subject to pranks or much more serious abuse.

More zombies: http://www.scmagazine.com/known-bugs-could-be-to-blame-for-zombie-alert-prank/article/280295/

 

Do you get unwanted sales/marketing calls?

Mark Smith / / Advice, Phishing

It seems to be a fact of life these days that many people get calls and texts selling stuff – the common ones are accident and payment protection (PPI) claims.

These are often organisations who have somehow got your number and want to sell your details on for a profit.

There doesn’t seem to be much you can do about stopping this, but there are a couple of things to try:

1. Register your phone number with the Telephone Preference Service TPS: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk

This doesn’t seem to make much difference as the organisations making the calls don’t care.

2. Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/marketing/calls.aspx

It’s hard to see if anything comes from the ICO, although they are now imposing huge fines, it looks like they have only scratched the surface of the problem

Until this kind of thing become a criminal offence it’s hard to see anything changing.