Verisign, the US based registrar of the .com and .net top level domain, refuses to stop redirecting internet users to its own search engine Site Finder. Since 15 September everybody who makes a mistake in typing a web address is re-directed to their website, instead of just getting an error message. In spite of massive protests from internet users, technicians, the IAB and ICANN, Verisign doesn't seem willing to change its policy.

In a posting on the collective weblog CircleID privacy-expert Richard M.Smith states that Verisign is using the services of Omniture to set a cookie.

On 12 September the moratorium expires on the transfer of European passenger-data to the United States. Already harsh words are being exchanged between EU institutions, one of the last realms of diplomatic kindness. "The violation of EU legislation is continuing and with it the rights of European citizens are being violated." This judgement from an official Working Document of the European Parliament is aimed at the Commission, which, according to the document, "in the 6 months since the adoption of Parliament's resolution (on the transfer of Airline Passenger's PNR data to U.S. authorities) has made very little progress with regard to ensuring that EU data protection legislation is observed". Still, the EP rapporteur, Dutch Liberal Johanna Boogerd-Quaak, continues, "Your rapporteur believes that the US commitments do not offer adequate

The legal victory for privacy was short-lived for the German web anonymiser AN.ON. Only 2 days after a German Court suspended a previous verdict to build a back door in the anonymiser, German police obtained a new court order to raid the offices.

On Friday 29 August, the Lower District Court in Frankfurt /Main gave a search warrant for the rooms of the AN.ON project at the TU Dresden to find a protocol data record. This single record had been recorded by the back door, showing the IP-address of a visitor to a specific website.

On Saturday, police officers went to the apartment of the director of the Institute of System Architecture at the Faculty of Information Technology and demanded the surrender of the data record.

A new price-scheme for public transport in London puts a high price on privacy. Bus and tube tickets in central London will rise up to 25% in price from January 2004. But passengers using the Oyster smartcard will be able to travel at 2003 prices. This plastic card, fitted with a contact-less microchip (RFID), was introduced earlier this summer for annual and monthly ticket holders and requires registration of name, address and photocard number. According to the official website, one of the scheme's advantages is that it will 'provide information that will help London to manage its transport system better. For instance, we will be able to identify where people, and how many, are transferring from bus to bus or from bus to Tube.'

For almost the same plans to register all travel-movements, the Helsinki

A few days ago, the Sunday Times revealed plans from British government officials to fit all cars in Britain with personalised spy-chips. The micro-chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. Roadside sensors will be able to monitor all private cars wherever they travel.

But plans for Electronic Vehicle Identification (EVI) are not limited to the UK. The European Directorate General Energy and Transport aims to develop a standardised electronic, unique identifier for motor vehicles, interoperable all over Europe. In December 2002 the Commission gave a grant to the umbrella organisation ERTICO (made up of different stake-holders in the field of implementation of transport telematics systems and services) to do a feasibility study. Results are expected in

According to an article in Transfert.net, Air France has been spying for years on some of its staff with the help of a camera hidden behind a clock. A union-member became suspicious when he took a close look at the thick electrical wires going to a clock in a private relaxation room on Roissy airport. Flipping the clock, he discovered a hidden camera. Asked for an explanation by the union CGT, Air France said the camera was only monitoring a door leading directly to a border, and would only be activated in case the door was opened. The camera was installed back in 1999, following orders from the airport security working-group.

The union wasn't satisfied with the answers, and wanted to know why the employees had not been properly informed about this camera.

The identity of a Dutch pudding-poisoner was revealed through an anonymiser. The Dutchman tried to blackmail Campina, a large dairy producer, by poisoning a tin of pudding. He made Campina open a bank account, get a 'world card' with it and deposit 200.000 Euro. Then they had to send him the details of the magnetic stripe, together with the PIN code. With the information he created a copy of the card. To prevent being traced, he made Campina use steganography. He sent them a floppy with a stego program and instructed them to encode the information into a picture of a red Volkswagen Golf.

Finally, Campina had to place the picture in a fake add on a website where large amounts of people sell/buy second hand cars.

The US consumer group CASPIAN is calling for a boycott of Gillette products. CASPIAN is protesting against the use of Radio Frequency Identifiers (RFIDs) in Gillette products. UK supermarket chain Tesco used RFIDs in Gillette razorblades to test a controversial surveillance system that tracks and photographs customers.

In EDRI-gram number 14 the test and similar theft detection and theft prediction systems are discussed and explained (see link below).

Boycott Gillette
http://www.boycottgillette.org/

Big Brother in the supermarket
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number14/rfid