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Premium users of LinkedIn to receive $1 each in password-leak settlement
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LinkedIn premium users will receive $1 each in the password-leak settlement. - photo by William E. Lewis Jr.
To settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged LinkedIn failed to protect the passwords and private information of its premium subscriber customers, the company has agreed to pay $1.25 or about $1 each million to approximately 800,000 people who were premium users of the social media network between March 2006 and June 2012.

The case dates back to June, 2012 when LinkedIn premium user Katie Szpyrka sued LinkedIn after the social network reported that 6.5 million hashed user passwords were published online. Alleged in the court action were a number of California state law violations, breach of implied contracts and privacy, along with negligence. Shortly thereafter, another LinkedIn user filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that LinkedIn violated its user agreement and privacy policy.

According to documents filed with the court, LinkedIn purposely failed to salt user passwords before storing them in a database. In terms of privacy, salting passwords adds a dimension to the hash that makes it more difficult to uncover protected data. The social media network was also accused of lax security procedures in that the hackers used an SQL injection attack, which permitted access to LinkedIn databases via a website.

Salting passwords is an important privacy protection that shouldn't be ignored, said Jose Daniel Carrillo, Director of the Barnett Capital Group. With database breaches occurring more often, dont be surprised to see more of these privacy-based lawsuits in the future.

According to The New York Times, the settlement covers individuals and entities in the United States who paid for premium subscriptions between March 15, 2006, and June 7, 2012.

As part of the settlement, LinkedIn has also agreed to "employ both salting and hashing, or an equivalent or greater form of protection in LinkedIns judgment, to protect LinkedIn users passwords for a period of five years after the final settlement date."

While LinkedIn premium users are eligible to make a claim against the $1.25 million settlement fund, attorneys will receive approximately one-third of the settlement for bringing the action. Individual plaintiffs must thereafter apply to share in the settlement and the actual amount paid to each claimant will depend on the actual number of claim forms received.

So let me get this right, Ive paid close to $60 a year for premium LinkedIn service and Im getting a buck back? said Brenda Di Ioia, a premium LinkedIn subscriber. Why bother with a settlement at all? I think its time to cancel my subscription and save the money.

In the event that award funds exceed attorney fees and claimant demands, any remaining funds will be donated to nonprofit organizations the Center for Democracy & Technology, the World Privacy Forum and the Carnegie Mellon CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory, as designated by the parties.

Following settlement of the action Monday, LinkedIn provided a statement to The New York Times, that curtly stated: "Following the dismissal of every other claim associated with this lawsuit, LinkedIn has agreed to this settlement to avoid the distraction and expense of ongoing litigation."

As a businessman who heavily relies upon social media and the use of tools such as LinkedIn, I applaud the settlement and increase of security measures, said Lee Feldman of Pops Corn in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. With that said, any settlement should have included a refund or rebate of a users premium subscription fee rate.
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Book review: Author digs into mining's complicated past and present in 'River of Lost Souls'
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Jonathan Thompson will speak about his book "River of Lost Souls" at the King's English Bookshop on Tuesday, April 3 at 7 p.m. - photo by Amanda Olson
"RIVER OF LOST SOULS: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Spill," by Jonathan Thompson, Torrey House Press, 275 pages (nf)

Plenty has been written about the very small world of a mining town and the very broad reach of a beleaguered industry. From Loretta Lynns iconic song "Coal Miners Daughter," to the 2010 nail-biting coverage of 33 trapped Chilean miners, to the hit Broadway musicals "Paint Your Wagon" and "Billy Elliot," mining is a global story, and its one of heartbreak, hard work and hard times.

Jonathan Thompsons "River of Lost Souls" examines the many facets of risk involved in taking resources from below the earths surface. An environmental journalist, Thompson has reported on southwest Colorado for over 20 years. This book is special, however, because the Four Corners area of Colorado is his current and ancestral home. Thompson is writing about minings ecological, social, financial and political impact on his land, his landscape, his water, his people. That makes "River of Lost Souls" more than a regular reporting job.

Thompson begins with the Gold King Mine wastewater disaster of 2015, which the EPA caused while attempting to drain water near the mines entrance. The spill sent 3 million gallons of waste and tailings into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River and part of the San Juan River watershed which drains into the Colorado, affecting the Utah, Colorado and New Mexico parts of that watershed as well as the Navajo Nation.

From there, Thompson jumps into far stretches of time to 1765, when a Spanish explorer named the Animas River; to 10,000 years earlier, when Paleo-Indians roamed the rivers valley; to the meridian of time, when the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi and Rio Grande Pueblo people inhabited the land for 500 years; to the mid-1800s and the Swedes who came to Silverton, Colorado, to mine.

Its a grand scope, but telling any story of landscape is telling a very grand story.

It also makes a complex story difficult to follow. Thompsons time warps are important, but they are jarring. His time jumps need clear dates, and Thompson doesnt always make them available. A map would also be useful. Thompsons writing is good, but his sentences can be dense and require readers to do their own mining for the riches the writing embeds. The work is worthwhile, however, as there are many moving parts in any story about mines land, culture, policy, history, money, inevitable disaster and Thompson works to examine all of them.

"River of Lost Souls" is a thoughtful read, but not a quick one. Because Thompsons writings come from 20 years of his newspaper reports, the overall feeling can be disjointed and sparse, which is distracting if one is expecting to follow a tenable thread. This is not a typical narrative with a cast of characters and a traditional story arc. Readers should approach this text as the investigation it is: puzzle pieces of a larger-than-life story that is eons old. If you are the kind of reader who wants it laid out cleanly, this is not that book. But, to Thompsons point, nothing is clean about mining that has never been the case.

Thompsons best writing is in his descriptions of people and places. His telling of how he came to Silverton is familiar and engaging. If readers approach the book with care and attention, they will be rewarded with savoring these descriptive passages when they happen.
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