NEW YORK (AP) -- It sounds like a chapter out of "Spy vs. Spy'': Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have launched a project called Camera Watch that lists Internet cameras that monitor public spaces, letting Web surfers try the role of bored security guard.
The project is part of "Surveillance of Surveillances,'' an effort by the school's Data Privacy Lab to monitor the exploding number of cameras watching the public. The group hopes to learn enough to propose policies to govern the cameras' use.
The lab is in the process of posting links to 6,000 of the estimated 10,000 public Web cams in the United States.
The site includes everything from gray stills of traffic in Rockville, Md., to video of students meandering across a campus in Washington, D.C. and even lenses peeping on jail bookings in Tennessee and Louisiana.
The site notes that a few of the "jail cams'' had been disabled due to lawsuits.
-- Jim Krane, AP Technology Writer.
SAN JOSE (AP) -- Technology giants including Microsoft Corp., eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have formed a coalition to try to thwart identity theft and boost Americans' confidence in e-commerce.
The Coalition on Online Identity Theft, led by the Arlington, Va.-based Information Technology Association of America, will urge consumers to keep more detailed records of their e-commerce transactions.
The coalition will teach businesses to improve Web site and financial database security, and lobby the government to enforce penalties against identity thieves, said ITAA's president, Harris Miller.
The U.S. Postal Service reports that at least 50,000 people each year are victims of identity theft. The Treasury Department says thieves ring up $2 billion to $3 billion per year on stolen credit cards.
On July 1, California became the first state to require companies to warn consumers of security holes in their corporate computer networks. The measure could become the model for a nationwide law.
But many in Silicon Valley say such regulations could hamper innovation. They advocate a free-market approach under which companies that provide the best security naturally win the most customers.
-- Rachel Konrad, AP Technology Writer.
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