From Network World:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has chosen a new head of its U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).

Mischel Kwon, will start as director of US-CERT on June 24, a DHS spokeswoman said Thursday. She is presently acting deputy director of IT security and the chief IT security technologist at the U.S. Department of Justice. She is also an adjunct professor at The George Washington University, where she runs the school’s Cyber Defense Lab.

She replaces Cheri McGuire, who left in March, and will report to Cornelius Tate, director of the DHS’s National Cyber Security Division.

Deducting 10 points for excessive use of the word “cyber”.

Article Link

Date Reported:
4/25/08

Organization:
People's Republic of China

Contractor/Consultant/Branch:
The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China
Department of Health
Child Assessment Service (Tuen Mun Centre)

Victims:
Adolescent patients

Number Affected:
700

Types of Data:
"detailed records of interviews with troubled youngsters including assessments and, in some cases, their photos, identity card numbers and addresses"

Breach Description:
"The Department of Health ( DH ) is working closely with the police in the investigation of a suspected theft case involving a removable electronic storage device ( USB flash drive ) containing patients’ information."

Reference URL:
Media Newswire
Monsters & Critics
Health & Community News

Report Credit:
Hong Kong Department of Health

Response:
From the online sources cited above:

Hong Kong - Medical data on almost 700 Hong Kong children and teenagers with social and developmental problems have been lost, the territory's government admitted Friday.
[Evan] This is the first breach that we have reported on The Breach Blog concerning information lost in Hong Kong.  Want to know Hong Kong's laws and practices concerning personal information?  Check out the Office of the Privacy Commissioner web site.  I was impressed with what I saw.

The records were held on a memory card which was stolen from an unlocked room at a Child Assessment Centre in the city's Tuen Mun district
[Evan] I DO know that storing confidential information on a memory card (USB drive, flash drive, etc.) without encryption is a bad. bad idea.

The USB flash drive, which contained medical reports and referral letters of about 700 named patients, was found to be missing at the Child Assessment Centre ( CAC ) in Tuen Mun on April 18. Attempts to locate the device failed and the incident was reported to the Police on April 22.

The lost data included detailed records of interviews with troubled youngsters including assessments and, in some cases, their photos, identity card numbers and addresses.
[Evan] Is a Hong Kong identity card at all comparable to a Social Security card?

Hong Kong's Deputy Director of Health Gloria Tam apologized to the families affected and said they should contact police if anyone suspicious approached them with their personal details.

The Department of Health ( DH ) is working closely with the police in the investigation

The department has sent letters to parents of the involved patients to inform them of the situation and the Privacy Commissioner of Personal Data has also been notified.
[Evan] Here is the Commisioner's office "Response to the loss of medical data by Department of Health".

As the case involved personal privacy, the affected families should remain alert and report to the police if they were approached by suspicious people with their personal data, she said.

'We have reminded our staff about the absolute importance of office security and to strictly adhere to the government's security regulations,' she said in a statement.

With immediate effect, staff have been asked to keep storage of identifiable patient information in removable electronic devices to a minimum essential for the efficient conduct of business. The information should be encrypted.
[Evan] Not "should be encrypted", MUST be encrypted.

These should not be removed from the specific office/clinic unless with prior approval from the respective service heads.

A government hotline has been set up to deal with calls from youngsters and family members concerned over the loss of the data, she added.

There is a Department of Health hotline ( 2125 1133 ) for enquiries.  The hotline will operate until 9pm today, from 9am to 1pm tomorrow and Sunday and from 9am to 5pm during weekdays from next Monday.

Dr Tam said the concerned doctor's case may be dealt with under civil-service regulations after the investigation is completed.
[Evan] I fear what this could mean.

Commentary:
The response from the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data sums it up pretty well.  Section 4 made good sense:

"The Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data Mr. Roderick B Woo takes the opportunity to remind both the public and private sectors to exercise particular caution when handling personal data.  Stringent handling procedure and sufficient security safeguards should be implemented.  In particular, when sensitive personal data are stored or transmitted by electronic means, the data shall be encrypted."

Past Breaches:
Unknown

In a Jan. 21 New Yorker article, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell discusses a proposed plan to monitor all -- that's right, all -- internet communications for security purposes, an idea so extreme that the word "Orwellian" feels too mild.

The article (now online here) contains this passage:

In order for cyberspace to be policed, internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

I'm sure they have that saying in their business. And it's precisely why, when people in their business are in charge of government, it becomes a police state. If privacy and security really were a zero-sum game, we would have seen mass immigration into the former East Germany and modern-day China. While it's true that police states like those have less street crime, no one argues that their citizens are fundamentally more secure.

We've been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often -- in debates on security versus privacy, writing contests, polls, reasoned essays and political rhetoric -- that most of us don't even question the fundamental dichotomy.

But it's a false one.

Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence. Think of guns, anti-counterfeiting measures on currency and that dumb liquid ban at airports. Security affects privacy only when it's based on identity, and there are limitations to that sort of approach.

Since 9/11, approximately three things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy "security" measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control.

You can see it in comments by government officials: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity," says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. "Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information." Did you catch that? You're expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who -- presumably -- get to decide how much of it you deserve. That's what loss of liberty looks like.

It should be no surprise that people choose security over privacy: 51 to 29 percent in a recent poll. Even if you don't subscribe to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's obvious that security is more important. Security is vital to survival, not just of people but of every living thing. Privacy is unique to humans, but it's a social need. It's vital to personal dignity, to family life, to society -- to what makes us uniquely human -- but not to survival.

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy -- especially if you scare them first. But it's still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

This essay originally appeared on Wired.com.

Q: Prior to 1870, street corner fire alarm pull boxes were kept locked. Why were they kept locked and how did a person gain access to 'pull the box?'

A: They were kept locked due to false alarms. Nearby shopkeepers or beat cops carried the keys.

Here's Robert Cromie, writing in The Great Chicago Fire (Thomas Nelson: 1994), page 33:

William Lee, the O'Leary's neighbor, rushed into Goll's drugstore, and gasped out a request for the key to the alarm box. The new boxes were attached to the walls of stores or other convenient locations. To prevent false alarms and crank calls, the boxes were locked, and the keys given to trustworthy citizens nearby.

What happened when Lee made his request is not clear. Only one fact emerges from the confusion: No alarm was registered from any box in the vicinity of the fire until it was too late to do any good.

Apparently, Lee said that Goll refused to give him the key because he'd already seen a fire engine go past; Goll said he actually did pull the alarm, twice, but if so it must not have worked.

(There's more about what sounds like a really bad communications failure, but it's a little too hard for me to read on the Amazon website.)

Here's more:

But did you know that the fire burned for over half an hour before an alarm was ever sounded? Alarm boxes were actually kept locked in those days, to prevent false alarms!

When the first alarm box was finally opened and the lever pulled, the alarm somehow did not get through. The fire dispatcher was playing a guitar for a couple of girls at the time and he kept on serenely strumming, completely unawares. After the fire had been growing and blazing for nearly an hour a watchman screamed at the dispatcher to sound an alarm, which he did, and the first three engines, two hose wagons, and two hook and ladders were sent out -- but in the wrong direction!

At first the dispatcher refused to sound another alarm, hoping to avoid further confusion.

Compare this with a proposed law in New York City that will require people to get a license before they can buy chemical, biological, or radiological attack detectors:

The legislation — which was proposed by the Bloomberg administration and would be the first of its kind in the nation — would empower the police commissioner to decide whether to grant a free five-year permit to individuals and companies seeking to "possess or deploy such detectors." Common smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors would not be covered by the law, the Police Department said. Violations of the law would be considered a misdemeanor.

Why does the administration think such a law is necessary? Richard A. Falkenrath, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, told the Council’s Public Safety Committee at a hearing today, "Our mutual goal is to prevent false alarms and unnecessary public concern by making sure that we know where these detectors are located and that they conform to standards of quality and reliability."

The law would also require anyone using such a detector -- regardless of whether they have obtained the required permit -- to notify the Police Department if the detector alerted them to a biological, chemical or radiological agent. “In this way, emergency response personnel will be able to assess threats and take appropriate action based on the maximum information available,” Dr. Falkenrath said.

False positives are a problem with any detection system, and certainly putting Geiger counters in the hands of everyone will mean a lot of amateurs calling false alarms into the police. But the way to handle that isn't to ban Geiger counters. (Just as the way to deal with false fire alarms 100 yeras ago wasn't to lock the alarm boxes.) The way to deal with it is by 1) putting a system in place to quickly separate the real alarms from the false alarms, and 2) prosecuting those who maliciously sound false alarms.