via WikiLeaks recovers from massive DDoS attack – SlashGear.

Tyson, the biggest U.S. food processor (TSN), avoided prosecution by paying $5.2 million and admitting it made improper payments to government-employed inspectors. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, began an internal probe in 2005, shut it down and didn’t disclose the matter to regulators and prosecutors until late last year, after learning the New York Times was investigating, the paper said.

The U.S. offers leniency to companies like Tyson that self- report. Yet many choose to remain quiet, calculating that they will cooperate with the government if it uncovers their bribery. Companies root out their wrongdoing and improve their compliance programs, assuming that any credit the government gives them for self-reporting is not worth the fines and penalties and negative publicity that follow disclosure.

via Wal-Mart Not Alone in Late Disclosure of Bribe Probe – Businessweek.

One of the bodies of the emails Plaintiff supplied to Defendant in paper format is an instruction from the Defendant’s practice administrator to Plaintiff “not to discuss your employment with employees here at GFP or EHS also not to contact EEOC or any outside party”. Defendants’ alleged that the email was falsified and provided analysis from an independent forensic analyst that confirmed their suspicion. Based on the expert’s affidavit, it appears that Plaintiff changed the body of the message when she forwarded it to her personal email account to make it seem as if the practice administrator sent the damaging email. While it is difficult to change the body of a sent email without a lot of computer knowledge, it is very easy to edit the body of an email that is being forwarded. In the Connery case, the forensic expert located the original email that was used as the basis of the forwarded message and determined that it did not mention EEOC at all.

A second email presented by plaintiff in paper format and sent from one of the male Defendants to the Plaintiff states “I was told that you and Bao have your “approach” with one another after hours. I am just kidding around.” The email chain continues with plaintiff responding, “On a personal note please – please STOP!!!!!! helping/creating/talking these gossip rumors about Dr. (name ommitted) and I are having an affair, staying late after work or anything that feed the gossip fire at our office.” Once again the email was a forwarded email and Defendants expert determined that the original email used as a basis for the forwarded email contained no such language.

via Manufacturing Your Own Evidence: Lessons Learned – Electronic Discovery Blog.

via BitCurator: Tools and Techniques for Digital Forensics in Collecting Institutions.

“Researchers have known for decades that people have unique typing styles but until now authentication has relied on the typing of the username and password and comparing it with current data.

“So while current computer systems can authorise the user at the start of a session they do not detect whether the current user is still the initial authorised user, a substitute user, or an intruder pretending to be a valid user.

“This makes a system that can continuously check the identity of the user throughout a session necessary. My research has developed such a system called a continuous authentication system (CAS).”

via Individual typing style gives key to user authentication.

via New Jersey Considers e-Discovery Rules for Criminal Cases : Electronic Discovery Law.

In a normal short sale, the shares are borrowed (or at least “located”) with a broker’s help before being sold. In the naked version, there is no attempt to pre-borrow the stock or even check that it exists. This can create “fails to deliver”, where the trade is not settled when it should be because there are not enough actual shares available for delivery. This messes with the laws of supply and demand, allowing shorting to take place beyond the natural limits set by the number of borrowable shares. Regulators have long frowned upon naked shorting. The rules against the practice have been tightened up a number of times over the past seven years.

via Short-selling litigation: An enlightening mistake | The Economist.

It works. Millions of users worldwide can’t be wrong. If Twitter could play a role in the revolutionary Arab Spring, why not in the complex battle zone we call patent litigation.

Twitter has a new internal policy which they call the “Innovator’s Patent Agreement,” and it has attracted quite a bit of attention. The policy is reportedly one that allows the company to sue for infringement only when it is acting in its own defense, or when the inventors themselves give the company the okay to go ahead.

via Patent Infringement In 140 Characters Or Less: The Twitter Way – Forbes.

In one instance, a hospital in Washington, D.C., asked Microsoft to examine its medical records to determine why certain patients were getting sick soon after being discharged. The company crunched the data from MedStar Washington Hospital Center and found something surprising: Patients who stayed in the same room had come down with the same infection.

“There was a bug in the room — people were getting infected,” Scott Charney, vice president of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, said recently at a security conference. Such infections are often caused by bacteria on medical instruments or furniture.

As hospitals digitize patient records and amass huge amounts of data, many are relying on companies such as Microsoft, SAS Institute Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp., whose data-mining technologies can help them detect patterns and improve medical care.

via Data-Mining in Doctor’s Office Helps Solve Medical Mysteries – Bloomberg.

iCloud allows users to store data from their devices on remote computer servers and share their files between multiple iOS devices. In addition, iCloud can be used as a data synchronization center for email, contacts, organizer events, bookmarks, pictures and other information. Various sources quote the service has as many as 125 million users as of April 2012.

iCloud backups are incremental. When set up to use the iCloud service, iPhones automatically connect to iCloud network and backup their content every time a docked device gets within reach of a Wi-Fi access point. This is to say, iCloud backups represent a fresh, near real-time copy of information stored in iPhone devices, including information about recently made and received calls, sent and received text and email messages, and so on.

Regardless of their location, iPhone backups contain essential information stored in the device. Information stored in iPhone backups includes email, accounts and passwords, call logs and text messages, calendars, appointments, contacts and organizer information. Pictures and Web browsing history including URLs of recently visited sites is also included. Information stored in iPhone backups can be essential for investigations, and is in high demand by forensic customers.

via Forensic access to iCloud backups.