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CNN Saturday Morning News

Elizabeth Edwards' Funeral Today; NYC Police Arrests Murder Suspect; The End of Privacy: An Examination of How Information Can Be Bought and Sold on the Internet

Aired December 11, 2010 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, top of the hour here now. Hello on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING. Taking a look at some of the stories that are making headlines.

Friends and family saying goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards today. The estranged wife of former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, died Tuesday after battling breast cancer. CNN will carry the public ceremony live at 1:00 Eastern time.

Also, police in New York have arrested a man whose father is pretty well-known in Hollywood in connection with the death of swimsuit designer, Sylvie Cachay. They charged Nick Brooks, Cachay's boyfriend with attempted murder. Police found Cachay's body in a bathtub in a New York hotel Thursday bruised and with bite marks on her neck. Brooks is the son of Joseph Brooks, an Oscar-winning composer and director.

Also, on a pretty extraordinary political move, President Obama called on former President Bill Clinton for help in getting approval of his tax cut compromise deal with Republicans. But he literally turned the podium over to the former president in the briefing room for about half an hour. President Obama has faced the backlash from his own party for agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000.

Taking a look at weather now, which is going to be a problem today for some travelers, but also it's going to be dangerous out there, as well. Bonnie Schneider keeping an eye on a developing weather situation right now.

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, T.J., this morning, temperatures in Minneapolis are cold, but bearable. Chicago, the same for you, as well. But everything is about to change. This huge winter storm is taking shape across the Midwest. It will produce not only heavy bands of snow, but blustery winds that will limit visibility down to zero by tonight in some places.

Freezing rain ahead for Chicago tonight, then blustery, cold, and snowy weather for Sunday. Right now, it is snowing lightly in Minneapolis. That will get heavier. And we could see up to a foot before this storm system moves out. It really is going to be a problem. And with that said, watches and warnings are posted all the way eastward towards parts of Pennsylvania. You can see Pittsburgh under winter weather advisory as well as Cleveland. That will start tomorrow. But later this afternoon, look what goes into effect for cities like Sioux Falls and Des Moines. A blizzard warning takes effect at 3:00 p.m. today. That means we will see very strong winds, heavy snow, for at least several hours throughout the afternoon today, tonight, and into Sunday. And then a winter weather storm warning in effect for Minneapolis and Green Bay for heavy snow and also blustery conditions.

So this is a huge storm. Right now it's raining in St. Louis, but that will change over to snow, and a winter weather advisory has been posted for that, as well. I want to take you to New York City where we're looking at a wet weekend. It'll eventually turn much colder. But right now, we have about 34 degrees in Central Park. You're looking at the rink where a lot of people are enjoying some ice skating today. It's always fun to do that when it's snowing out there. And when it's cold, that'll come later this week.

But right now, the temperatures are too mild for that. We are watching this strong storm system to work its way to the east. And it's going to pull down a lot of Arctic air. Get ready for a big blast of wintery weather and more cold temperatures. I'll talk about that throughout the hour.

HOLMES: Well, every Saturday around this half hour, 9:00 Eastern half hour, we like to really dig in on one topic, one issue that directly affects you. And today we are talking about your privacy and how it's pretty much gone bye-bye. You've got cameras and body scanners watching you in public, computer programs watching you, your family, and your friends in private.

And if you're one of the 500 million people on Facebook, if you use Twitter, use a debit card, a cell phone, maybe you take advantage of free wireless Internet, you're putting your personal info at risk. You're putting it out there for other people to see, use, and maybe abuse.

All this technology, of course, has made our lives so much better in so many ways, but we are paying for it with our privacy. We're taking a look at how tough it is nowadays to keep your secrets secret.

Coming up, we've got a digital detective in-house. He has been working here for the past half hour now. We put him to a little bit of a test. He's going to give you an example here of how easy it is. We gave him the name and the user name, the log-in for one of our employees who volunteered for this experiment. He has been working for the past 30 minutes or so - we're going to give him a little more time to work and then he's going to come back and report exactly what he was able to find out about this individual with just that little information.

Meanwhile, a newlywed couple and the mother of a young girl, they can tell you firsthand just how the Internet can make your personal life public. Here now is CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dick Hart (ph) put photos of his Hawaiian wedding on Facebook to share with close friends, but when he made mention of it on Twitter, he didn't know a link would be attached, giving more than 3,000 followers access to some rather intimate images.

DICK HART, HUSBAND: We didn't think they were offensive in any way, but my wife didn't prefer for everybody to see those photos.

MESERVE: While his case was embarrassing, others are downright dangerous.

Sarah Downey was horrified when a picture of her young daughter was hijacked from her Flicker account and used in a sexually suggestive Portuguese language profile on orchid.com (ph), a social networking site.

SARAH DOWNEY, MOTHER: It broke my heart. It broke my heart.

MESERVE: Downey posted a translation to warn other Flicker users, but then she said total strangers exploited the Internet to find her phone number and worse, her home address.

DOWNEY: We'd go to the grocery store, and I'd wonder, has this person seen my daughter. Are they here trying to find us, trying to get close with my daughter?

MESERVE: Since then, Downey has tried to protect her private information. Has it worked? With her permission, we gave her name to Steven Rambam, a private investigator who harvests information from the Internet. In less than 90 seconds, he turns up 100 pages of possible links.

STEVEN RAMBAM, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Frankly, anything you'd want to know about this young lady seems to be available on the web.

MESERVE: On sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, more and more Americans are making their private information public. Put it together with public documents like newspaper accounts and property records, and a portrait emerges.

Take Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia. Using free publicly available information on the Internet, a Fordham University law school class came up with 15 pages of information, including Scalia's home address and phone number, even the movies and foods he likes.

JOEL REIDENBERG, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: If we were willing to spend $100 for the project, we would have been able to acquire far more intrusive, far scarier information.

MESERVE: Private investigator Rambam says anytime you hit the send button, your information is no longer your own. He says your frequent flier program, movie account, book purchases even some searches can be tracked, stored, and sometimes sold.

RAMBAM: I have a window into your soul. I know what you believe. I know what you think. I know who your family is, I know who your friends, I know your politics.

MESERVE (on camera): Orchid.com (ph) says it has updated its policies and tools to find and remove fake profiles like the one of Sarah Downey's daughter. And Google says it gives customers the tools they need to protect their personal information. Many of us could be more careful.

In addition, some privacy experts would like to see standardized and simplified web site privacy policies or even government restrictions on secondhand use of private information.

(voice-over): Steven Rambam sees a lot of positives to having so much information on the Internet and says the genie is already out of the bottle.

RAMBAM: Ten years from now, you're going to have a choice of getting used to minimal privacy or subleasing the Unabomber's cabin. That's going to be your two choices. The fact of the matter is, there's nowhere to hide.

MESERVE: As Rambam puts it, "Privacy is dead. Get over it."

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: "Get over it," she says. It's all we can do to combat it sometimes. Well, cameras, of course, are everywhere. A lot of them in plain sight, but how can you detect the tools of big brother? Josh Levs with that for us this morning.

Hello again, josh.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, again, to you. We're talking about finding hidden cameras. It's no easy task. So we bring you this morning to a spy shop and we're going to show you the tech tools to let you find hidden cameras, T.J..

HOLMES: All right. Josh, thank you.

And this morning, before we let you go to a quick break and before you come back, we want to have you think about this news quiz. We're talking about Internet privacy this morning. How many states out there have a law requiring your boss to tell you if your e-mails are being monitored? Just two states, 10 states, or 38 states.

You'll want to see the answer after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, 11 minutes past the hour. Feel like somebody's always watching you, there's that good chance they are. Before the break we asked you how many states require your boss to inform you if your e-mails are being monitored. Two states, 10 states, or 38 states? Well, the answer is only two. So for the rest of us in the other 48 states, our bosses could be watching us. Connecticut, Delaware, are the only two states. Delaware's law says your boss has to notify you by e-mail at least one time. Also, Connecticut's law says if your boss thinks you're doing something illegal, he's not required to tell you your e-mail is being monitored.

Another way you're being monitored out there, cameras these days. They can be disguised to look like just about anything, and sometimes they are anything. Josh Levs is here to show us how to spot a hidden camera in the room. Josh.

LEVS: Yes, we all hear these stories. Sometimes awful stories, right? - of hidden cameras ending up all over the place. But you might not know that there are tools to let you spot hidden cameras when you walk into a room. I visited a spy shop to check them out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEVS (voice-over): They look like everyday objects, a lamp, a radio, an iPod docking station. But when you look closer, they have hidden cameras inside. Tiny, unnoticeable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That camera lens is right here and usually pointing up.

LEVS (on camera): And I have no idea there's a camera in there. Nothing about this that suggests anything is videoing me.

(voice-over): They can provide an extra layer of security.

BRIAN CURRY, PEACH STATE INVESTIGATION: The ones that tell me what they're doing with the cameras are going to be the people who are either wanting to keep an eye on their sitter, their nanny.

LEVS: And we've all seen how hidden cameras can help the good guys in movies like "Mission Impossible."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a camera built into the bridge and it transmits it back here.

LEVS: But some end up where they shouldn't be.

CURRY: I recently heard one that the guy had a pin camera that he got that's - I guess it was motion activated and he set it up in a gym bag and took it in the YMCA or something.

LEVS: They're relatively affordable. These costs a few hundred bucks and technology is making smaller and more sophisticated ones all the time. Some even broadcast their video wirelessly over the Internet. So how can you tell if there's a hidden camera where you are. Technology can help with that too.

CURRY: This is actually a low-cost camera finder.

LEVS: Private investigator Brian Curry runs a spy shop near Atlanta. He sells the cameras, but he also helps people watch out for them. (on camera): I'm seeing a big bright red blinking dot right there. And it's the tell me there's a camera on me.

(voice-over): More sophisticated detectors can even seek out wireless camera signals.

CURRY: You see it's actually scanning the frequencies.

LEVS (on camera): So what we're seeing here is picking up all these, lots of different cameras in here?

CURRY: Well, yes, that's going to be the flower pot camera we had on earlier.

LEVS (voice-over): If technology versus technology, potentially giving people the tools to invade your privacy but also giving you a chance to catch them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEVS: Now, there's no full proof why it's totally possible for some cameras to get passed those camera hunters, camera detectors. But it sure can do a lot and if you're concerned about cameras being placed where they shouldn't be, you might want to check those out. I got more information for you than on posting online.

Here's my pages, I'm at the blog, cnn.com/josh, find me on Facebook and Twitter at Josh Levs CNN. Ask me some questions and I can get you more information about all this. And T.J., throughout the coming week, we'll be talking a lot more about this, the end of privacy in America and what you can do about it.

HOLMES: All right. Josh, thank you show much.

And speaking of how much we're going to be talking about this. We're talking about your information out there and how much you are leaving behind. And don't even know it. Even after you log off that computer. We have had a digital detective on the case this morning.

Again, we checked in with him. You were with us early this morning, about 45 minutes to an hour ago, we handed him a piece of information, our detective with just a name and a user log-in for one of our employees who volunteered for this assignment. And he has been digging and digging on this individual for the past hour.

We will get the result of that experiment when we come back.

But first, we have another news quiz for you. Which one of these activities will reveal your personal information? Signing up for Internet service, browsing the Internet, online bill payments, or all of the above? The answer after a quick break, stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING) HOLMES: Before the break, we asked you, which one of these activities will reveal your personal information? Is it just signing up for Internet service? Browsing the Internet, online bill payments? What do you think? The answer, you guessed it is all of the above.

According to the privacy rights clearinghouse, when you're online, you provide information to others at almost every step of the way. The company can track your Internet use and take a little information from each one of the uses you see on the screen. And use it to build a profile of who you are and what you are likely to spend.

Scary stuff there. I want to bring back now Don Jackson. He is the director of Secure Works Threat Intelligence Service. He's the director there. Also, digital detective we've been calling you. Handed you a piece of paper about an hour ago. It was from one of our employees. Just had his name on it and had one of his log-ins on it, as well.

That's all we gave you, wanted to see what you were able to come up with in an hour. Now were you surprised what you were - you do this for a living. So pretty standard, you get a lot of stuff?

DON JACKSON, SECUREWORKS THREAT INTELLIGENCE SERVICE: This is pretty standard. So when you're dealing with people on the Internet, you want to find out who they are, especially if they're doing something against your clients or criminally.

HOLMES: All right. So let's just go with - give me an idea, just reel off some of the things you were able to find.

JACKSON: Just about everything about him personally. So full name, address, home address, where he works, things that advertisers would want to know. Things like probably his income, home values -

HOLMES: You were able to find his income?

JACKSON: Yes.

HOLMES: Wow. OK. That's a little scary. What else? Keep going.

JACKSON: Found some information related to his American Express card, some online shopping information. He's a member of some African-American professional networking sites.

HOLMES: Wow.

JACKSON: Found a couple of pictures. He's very, you know, pretty handsome.

HOLMES: You got the wrong guy, OK. That's where you lost us right there. You clearly got the wrong guy. Your information can't be right.

I'm kidding to our guy. He's actually in the studio over there. But keep going. Actually, if you have more, I'm fascinated to hear. I think people would be shocked to hear a salary, where he shops, family photos. We see this here, but the full name, that kind of stuff is standard. But the salary range even? A salary?

JACKSON: And his personal profile information. If you take his digital fingerprint as a key into his database, everything that everyone online has collected about this individual, it goes all the way back to where he attended high school in Kansas City.

HOLMES: OK. What kind of stuff, you mentioned the American Express card. What kind of activity were you able to find out about that American Express card?

JACKSON: Well, I wasn't able to find out individual transactions, but just where he's used it. Kind of an idea of a range of a credit limit, for example. What type of services American Express is willing to market to him based on his previous history. So they want you to have a Plum card, by the way.

HOLMES: Now, can you tell us would this be - you said kind of standard here. Because you do this, but the information you got from him, is that pretty much more or less or about average that you would get from the average random person you would go check out?

JACKSON: It's actually a little less. There's a couple of services that require a log in and software installs and I didn't want to bring that into the studio today. But it's enough to build a nice profile, figure out who he is, what he's doing, and if whatever reason we might be tracking him or looking at investigating him for. It's enough to go on.

HOLMES: How useful were - he gave you the log-ins, some of the log-ins he uses, how useful are those in getting the information that you got?

JACKSON: Really, his name is key. The log-in, one of them was useful. And by log-in, I just mean the user name, not his password. And based on that I was able to find some of his public sites. But based on that user name, we're able to get a full name and that's what really opened up the record.

HOLMES: To get the full name is what you need. You know, we talked so much about the passwords and the log-ins and what not. I mean, can you do anything about your log-in? If someone only has your log-in. That doesn't seem like a lot of information to really go on without a password, but even the log-in can cause trouble?

JACKSON: Right, a lot of people want to use a unique log-in. You know, e-mail services, for example, have millions and millions of users. So every log-in has to be unique. I can't log in as Don to somewhere and then somebody else log in as don. They need a unique name. So it's a very nice piece of information to have. Once you've got that, you've got a key, a starting point to build a tree of information. HOLMES: OK. How damaging could it be if you had some nefarious intent and you did have all of the information you just got about our guy here. What could you do with that information now if you had, again, some ill intent?

JACKSON: Well, I know he's on Twitter, I know he uses some social networking sites, professional networking sites. There are tools out there that allow you to hijack his session. You might be able to find in shadier areas, the Internet underground. You might be able to find maybe some passwords that he's used in the past or some e-mail addresses. I might reset his passwords. And what this does is it assumes his visual identity. It takes his fingerprint and someone else can have operate under that and have access to all the information that he has access to.

HOLMES: You did this in less than an hour. If you had more time and more tools, what else could you find out?

JACKSON: I could find out everything.

HOLMES: Everything?

JACKSON: I would have access to probably transaction history, you would find out things that aren't necessarily legal to share. So we hear about these breaches, these records end up in archives and you can search those.

HOLMES: Last thing here, Don, this is probably will be the most important question I ask you, that everybody is wondering. If you just take one person, one random person, you can sit here for 45 minutes in out studio with one computer and figure all this out, how in the world are we supposed to protect ourselves?

JACKSON: Well, you've got to stop thinking of the Internet as a private place. So everything you do online is going to be collected, analyzed, and tracked back to your digital fingerprint.

HOLMES: Well, we have to log into lot of things, our e-mail, check our accounts online? I mean, what are we supposed to do?

JACKSON: So browsers have private browsing modes, those help. There are some technical tools you can use, use encryption if you have Wi-Fi. If you take advantage of free Wi-Fi, see if they offer encrypted option. If they don't use https, that s stands for secure and that will encrypt some of the data between you and the website you're visiting. So that other people can't sniff it and figure out what your fingerprint is and use it.

HOLMES: OK. You said some of this stuff and maybe this will help and a little security. It sounds like there's not a whole lot you can do?

JACKSON: Right. Those are just a few measures you can use to take a little bit of control back. But generally the information's out there. The traditional methods of cookies and those types of things really irrelevant in these times. HOLMES: Oh, my goodness. Well, it's fascinating to see, but it's scary as all get out to hear that you can't do much to protect yourself. Fascinating to have you sit here. Appreciate you spending time with us and giving our audience an example. It's something to think about this morning.

JACKSON: Thanks for having me.

HOLMES: Thanks so much.

All right. Getting close to the bottom of the hour here now. We're going to take a look at some of the stories that are making headlines when we come back. Also, weather is going to be a major headline today for a big chunk of the country. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Taking a look now at some of the stories making headlines.

Friends and family saying goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards today. The estranged wife of former senator and democratic presidential candidate John Edwards died Tuesday after battling breast cancer. CNN will carry the public ceremony live at 1:00 Eastern time.

American Amanda Knox was in an Italian court today appealing her murder conviction. She was convicted of murdering her college roommate while studying in Italy and was sentenced to 26 years in prison. She broke down in tears during the proceeding.

Also, the upper Midwest is bracing for a frigid week of weather. Snow continues to pile up in places like Minneapolis, blizzard watches and warnings, all that kind of stuff is in effect in Grand Haven, Michigan, a new $6 million system uses hot water and pipes buried under the pavement to melt the snow almost as fast as it piles up.

Well, another reminder to you to join us all week here on CNN as we dig a little deeper into the topic of privacy. "THE END OF THE PRIVACY," a series that will address many of the issues you're concerned about out there on the Internet. I'll be back with more live news at the top of the hour. Right now, I want to hand it over to "YOUR BOTTOM LINE."