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The folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation do such good work. Everyone who cares about freedom in the online world should send them a check (or some bitcoin.)
Which companies help protect your data from the government, 5/1/13
The average person is only aware of a fraction of the Internet. There is more content out there than any conventional browser can access. These sites are termed "Deep Web" or "Undernet." They exist outside the scope of Google, Facebook, and your RSS reader. It's the digital equivalent of a thriving city that's been domed over and cordoned off.
There's a Secret Internet for Drug Dealers, Assassins and Pedophiles, 3/6/13
Kim Dotcom, the German-born internet entrepreneur fighting extradition from New Zealand over US claims of "criminal" copyright infringement, says he plans to launch an end-to-end encrypted email service to go with his Mega encrypted file storage offering.
Kim Dotcom's Mega To Expand Into Encrypted Email, 2/26/13
Security and law enforcement experts agree the biggest threat to the individual today is identity theft. It often begins with online invasion of privacy.
How to evade privacy invasion and stay anonymous online, 2/11/13
The following is a list of Facebook accounts operated by individuals in the alternative media that have been shut down by Facebook staff over the past 24 hours. Infowars writer Aaron Dykes and political dissident Brandon J. Raub have also had their accounts deleted. Raub was snatched by police and forcibly imprisoned in a psychiatric ward earlier this year for posting political content on Facebook. Infowars editor Kurt Nimmo also had his account suspended this morning.
Facebook Purges Pro-Gun Accounts, 12/27/12
Recently, Facebook has removed the pages of about 50 political activists. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth founder Richard Gage lost his page, as did several other activists. Later, the pages were reactivated. Several people associated with the alternative news website InfoWars.com also had their pages removed. InfoWars reports..
Facebook deletes pages of 9/11 activists, 12/27/12
Since I manage an internet privacy company, people expect me to be pessimistic on the development of the surveillance state. But even I didn't expect the surveillance state to form this quickly. 2012 has been a banner year for amoral marketers and soul-dead overseers, and the situation is probably much worse than you realize. Allow me to illustrate it briefly:
It's Happening Faster Than Even I Thought, 11/28/12
For years, those of us who have tried to warn the American public that Big Brother monitors all Internet users were demonized, vilified and ridiculed. Now, the mainstream media has proven us correct.
Mainstream media now openly admits the FBI and CIA are reading all your emails, 11/18/12
How many times did you go online today? Did you update your Facebook status? Do a web search? Order a new pair of shoes?
How A Simple Gmail Search Could Lead To An Invasion Of Your Privacy, 11/11/12
Terrorists are exploiting Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread “propaganda” and open Wi-Fi networks in airports and libraries pose a threat to national security and enable “perpetrators,” according to “The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes,” a PDF released at a conference in Vienna held by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
United Nations Calls for Internet Big Brother System to Combat Terrorism, 10/23/12
I’ll leave you with this video presentation of the NSTIC (which oddly feels as though it was prepared by Aperture Laboratories)
SOPA? CISPA? Whatever - the government’s long term strategy is NSTIC, 10/23/12
As we have documented well here at Natural News that personal privacy continues to be under assault in America, a country that defined and once enshrined the concept. The most recent assault is coming from the nation's largest telecom companies, who are preparing to introduce a long-anticipated "six strikes" plan that will restrict Internet access for repeat offenders of copyright crimes, with one of the proposal's staunchest backers saying such sanctions will begin later this year.
Goodbye Internet freedom: ISPs to start LEGALLY spying on Internet traffic, 10/17/12
News has just broken about a freedom activist and former Marine named Brandon Raub, who was arrested (apparently without a warrant or being read his rights) on the evening of August 16th. Details are still coming in, but it appears that his "crime" was posting things that the overseers didn't like on Facebook.
Facebook is the Department of PreCrime, 8/20/12
As government agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia push for increased surveillance powers, one pioneering American is pushing back.
New York-based entrepreneur Nicholas Merrill is making progress on a project he revealed in April: an encryption-based telecommunications provider designed to be “untappable.” After crowd-funding almost $70,000 in donations, Merrill says that he has held talks with a host of interested venture capitalists and a few “really big companies” apparently interested in partnering up or helping with financial support. Now the “surveillance-proof” software is in development, and he is on track to begin operating a limited service by the end of the year.
First Surveillance Proof ISP Taking Shape, 7/13/12
The FBI was rather public with its recent demands for backdoor access to websites and Internet services across the board, but as the agency awaits those secret surveillance powers, they're working on their own end to have those e-spy capabilities.
FBI Secretly Creates Internet Police, 5/28/12
While the international ACTA treaty and United States’ CISPA legislation are setting the stage to clamp down on the world wide web, technocrats are working overtime to try to pin down your identity and make sure all your activities are thoroughly monitored and under control.
Bilderberg Pushes Mandatory Internet ID for Europe, 5/23/12
A technique used by marketers to trick people into signing up for "free" merchandise could easily be re-deployed as an engine for harvesting untold numbers of Google account passwords. Fixing the issue won't be trivial for Google, because the exploit is fundamental to how Google allows users to recover access to their accounts when they lose or forget their passwords.
Gmail's Security Hole Could Lead to Mass Harvesting of Accounts, 5/20/12
If you want to participate in today’s Internet, and all the apps and services that go with it, you have two choices: Accept that your information is out there and try not to worry about it, or arm yourself with some privacy protection tools. Should you choose the latter path, check out these apps and services to help you stay anonymous online and keep your information out of the wrong hands:
8 Tools To Protect Online Privacy, 5/7/12
Despite being labeled as conspiracy nuts, the prediction from a few voices in the wilderness that Google was planning to use the ambient background noise of a person's environment to direct targeted advertising to them through technology has come to pass.
Google patent application admits existence of spy technology that listens to your ambient noise to target ads, 3/31/12
The Washington Post has done an excellent job discovering the scope and size of the intelligence community that poses a greater threat to Americans than Hitler, Russia, or Osama ever did. If defeating the threat of Hitler, Russia, or Osama was made easier by using Freenet, would you use it? Surveillance of citizens by government, surveillance of customers by corporations, private transactional databases, government transactional databases and other forms of search without a warrant are dangerous to a free society.
Bill Rounds: How Dangerous Citizen Dataveillance Is, 3/17/12
Free speech and the ability to dissent is threatened by censorship that results from threats of imprisonment, violence and assassination. Those threats are less effective to prevent people from publishing on the internet when people can easily publish information completely anonymously.
How to Create an Anonymous Website, 3/14/12
Why is there such a sudden obsession with monitoring what average Americans are saying on Facebook and Twitter? To be honest, the vast majority of what is being said on Facebook and Twitter is simply not worth reading even if you could understand it. But for the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Reserve, Facebook and Twitter represent a treasure trove of intelligence information. Tens of millions of us have compiled incredibly detailed dossiers on ourselves and have put them out there for the entire world to see. Since the information is public, the various alphabet agencies of the federal government see no problem with scooping up all of that information and using it for their own purposes. Many potential employers have also discovered that Facebook and Twitter can tell them an awful lot about potential employees. Social media creates a permanent record that reflects who you are and what you believe, and many Americans are finding out that all of this information can come back and haunt them in a big way. In the world in which we now live, privacy is becoming a thing of the past, and we all need to be mindful of the things that we are exposing to the public.
FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the Federal Reserve and Potential Employers Are All Monitoring You on Facebook and Twitter, 3/12/12
If you are a student athlete attending the University of North Carolina (UNC) or an employee at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (MDPS), you may have already experienced a privacy invasion into your social networking life. According to a recent msnbc.com report, employers and educational institutions are increasingly demanding that employees, potential employees, and students surrender their login and password information for sites like Facebook and Twitter to authorities, a practice that many civil rights experts are decrying as unconstitutional.
State agencies, colleges now demanding applicants' Facebook passwords, 3/9/12
Taking some measures to pre-vanish can be very helpful to vanish at a later date. This means having in place the tools that you need to vanish long before you actually need to use them. This can be particularly helpful if you will be spending some time in the near future in a repressive regime that does not recognize the basic human rights of freedom of speech, freedom of association, and privacy related rights.
Pre-Vanish Before You Have To - anonymous web surfing, 3/1/12
Painless Spanish, 3/1/12
"For the first time ever, it will become technologic-ally and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders - every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner."
This was from the opening paragraph of a Brookings Institution report.
Does that send chills up your spine? If so, don't read the rest of this article: you might not touch your computer for a week.
How To Use the Internet in 'Stealth Mode', 2/21/12
When you use the Internet in a public place, do you prefer to have as much privacy as possible? Well, that makes you a potential terrorist. According to the FBI, Internet privacy is now considered to be suspicious activity. If you are out in public and you attempt to keep snoopers from peeking at your computer screen, then according to the FBI they should gather as much information about you as they can and they should report you to the authorities immediately. If this seems completely and totally ridiculous to you, then you are not alone. Millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about the constantly expanding definition of "suspicious activity" in the United States. Sadly, the federal government is now engaging in an all-out attempt to have us all spy on one another. All over America, the Department of Homeland Security is running ads promoting the "See Something, Say Something" campaign. They even had 8,000 stadium workers at the Super Bowl this year go through special training on how to spot potential terrorists. So the next time you see a hot dog vendor, keep in mind that he might also be part of a special anti-terrorism task force.
According to the FBI, Internet Privacy Is Now Considered To Be Suspicious Activity, 2/7/12
Google will soon know far more about who you are and what you do on the Web.
The Web giant announced Tuesday that it plans to follow the activities of users across nearly all of its ubiquitous sites, including YouTube, Gmail and its leading search engine.
Google announces privacy changes across products; users can’t opt out, 1/23/12
Google is experiment-ing with a new signup form that eliminates the ability to create anonymous accounts. The new form is part of an effort to expand the Google+ social network by automatically adding every new Google account to Google+. Because Google+ requires a name and gender the new signup form effectively eliminates the anonymous Google account.
Google Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form, 1/20/12
What would you say if I told you that someone in the U.S. Congress was trying to pass a law allowing authorities to access your e-mails or documents stored online for longer than 6 months WITHOUT A WARRANT?
Now what if I told you that you were too late, that it was already signed into law 25 years ago?
Is Uncle Sam Reading Your Email?, 12/9/11
They say there are billions of them, with more than 50 million added per day. But whatever the actual number, every single tweet ever sent since the beginning of Twitter-time is set to be turned over to Uncle Sam.
Every single tweet being turned over to U.S. government, 12/8/11
Recently a Canadian woman was cut off from her insurance benefits because her Facebook profile was used by her insurance company to gather evidence on her claim. Facebook can be a good networking tool and a good way to keep in touch with old friends, not to mention a great Halloween costume, but the proper precautions should always be taken to prevent unnecessary privacy disclosures.
Facebook and Privacy: How Private Is Your Profile?, 11/28/11
Currently, the worst thing that can happen to an internet user who violates a private website's terms of service and gets caught is that he or she may be suspended or banned from the site. But the US Department of Justice (DOJ) wants to take this a step further by making any violation of a website's terms of service a criminal offense worthy of fines and potential jail time.
DOJ wants to criminalize putting fake information on dating sites, uploading videos to YouTube, 11/18/11
In recent weeks, Facebook has been wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social media website is violating users' privacy by making public too much of their personal information.
Far more quietly, another debate is brewing over a different side of online privacy: what Facebook is learning about those who visit its website.
Facebook officials are now acknowledging that the social media giant has been able to create a running log of the web pages that each of its 800 million or so members has visited during the previous 90 days. Facebook also keeps close track of where millions more non-members of the social network go on the Web, after they visit a Facebook web page for any reason.
How Facebook tracks you across the Web, 11/16/11
The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile.
In a statement obtained by CNET that's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies.
DOJ: Fibbing on web sites should be a crime, 11/15/11
If we think about it, Facebook is nothing but a big Orwellian spy grid. All Facebook's offerings ultimately lead to being tracked. A few months ago I decided to ''delete'' my Facebook account for good.
Facebook is a CIA Databank, 11/12/11
The days of internet anonymity are waning as the veil of privacy that used to accompany making comments on articles and blogs is a thing of the past. TIME - Techland reports that Google has updated its "Googlebots" technology to track and index AJAX / Javascript comments made through Facebook, as well as through several other major comment engines including Livefyre and Disqus.
For many years, Googlebot "web spiders" have been tracking and archiving websites. This is how the Google search engine is able to pull up webpage results when users input various search queries. But the technology has been expanded to include the capture of content made through third-party comment systems as well, which today include comments made directly under a real name.
Google spider technology now capable of cataloging, archiving comments made through Facebook, 11/5/11
Governments everywhere are getting desperate, and with it more and more overtly abusive, violent and arbitrary. They will take what they can most easily see and will not let their own legalities get in the way. If it is low hanging fruit, they will pick it, eat it up and argue about the pips afterwards and at the victim’s cost.
Yet, for myself and for others who are prepared, I am hopeful. Partly this is from having lived through dictatorship and hyperinflation before – in another part of the world. In a hyperinflationary environment at least governments are weakened, scorned and ineffective. While still dangerous and while "formal" freedom will be lacking and some certainly will suffer, informal freedom can also be maximized and new opportunities abound. Especially for those who still have something to invest when the dust finally settles.
One final thought: So what have you got to hide if you haven’t done anything wrong? I would say, more to the point – Why would anyone want to know, if they didn’t intend to take it from you?
Whatever asset protection strategy you choose, to reduce vulnerability: have a policy of privacy.
Asset Protection and Internet Privacy, 10/31/11
Free speech is threatened when corrupt forces can pressure the means of distributing speech. Corrupt governments all over the world, or corrupt elements within governments, use the methods at their disposal to silence uncomfortable speech. One of the main methods they use is to threaten the source of speech.
Anonymous speech is important, even for more mundane reasons than scathing political criticism. Advocates of medical marijuana, proponents of evolution, gay rights activists, critics of local police, and many others may need the protection of anonymous speech to protect themselves while they voice their opinion. Efforts to censor online speech are doomed to fail because people will find ways to publish unflattering material online without leaving any trace of identity behind.
To publish a website, there are several points of weakness where identifying information could be gleaned. Political activists and whistleblowers will be able to easily circumvent identity requirements at each one of these points, allowing them to anonymously publish material online with an anonymous website.
Create an Anonymous Website, 10/13/11
The shift from infrastructure defense to surveillance and offensive capability comes in the wake of the Chinese-orchestrated Aurora attacks against US state and corporate targets – an operation that continues to reveal itself as even more damaging than initially thought as additional targets admit theft of crucial data. The problem with the changing priorities of the US's cyber-contractor complex are two-fold: by neglecting government systems' vulnerabilities – and the drone virus provides a perfect instance – the state loses face with adversaries, real or potential, who respect only force; and by treating its own citizenry as the leading threat to its security, it loses the loyalty of those who respect truth and the rule of law.
A virtual secret state: the military-industrial complex 2.0, 10/9/11
Who can you trust to protect your systems from governmental snooping? Any antivirus tool worth its salt should offer you comprehensive protection against malware created by bad guys who are out to do you harm. But what about protecting you against governmental backdoors or “lawful interception” police Trojans?
Can you trust your antivirus solution to protect you against governmental backdoors and "lawful interception" police Trojans?, 10/8/11
The social media empire Facebook has unveiled some new "features" on its platform in recent days that many allege are a total and compete privacy-breaching nightmare. But one hidden feature, discovered by Nik Cubrilovic, an Australian entrepreneur and writer, that few people are aware of is the fact that Facebook now monitors your online activity, even when you are not logged in to the service.
Facebook tracks your every move, even after logging out, 9/28/11
After 12 weeks of socializing in select circles, Google has announced that anyone can sign up for its fledgling social network, Google Plus.
The uptake of the service now it is widely available will be crucial to the success of Google Plus, and to Google's ability to compete with Facebook as a force in social networking, and in selling more targeted ads. Google's social network was launched in June to positive reviews and considerable interest, but activity has slowed in recent weeks.
Google Invites Everyone to Be Friends on Its Social Network, 9/20/11
The new, but floundering, social media service Google+ has been exposed as being nothing more than a user-driven data mining and advertising scheme, similar to its popular predecessor, Facebook. In a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR), Google's CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that Google+ has basically been designed to gather as much information as possible about individuals, which is then used by companies to market products and services specifically to users.
When asked by NPR journalist Andy Carvin why Google+ requires its users to use their real names or face penalties, Schmidt responded by saying that Google+ is an "identity service" that, according to Carvin's account, "depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information."
In other words, Google forces Google+ users to use their real names in order to track their lifestyles, buying habits, and other personal information, so they can then sell this information to corporations. In the future, Google+ may use personal information for other unknown projects as well, of which its users may or may not be aware.
CEO Schmidt admits Google+ is massive data-mining, advertising scheme, 9/9/11
A secret campaign to take out groups and organizations that oppose the policies and agendas of the US Chamber of Commerce (USCC) and the US government has been outed, thanks to an archive of private emails obtained by Think Progress. According to reports, USCC hired HBGary, Federal and several other defense contractors to create fake accounts on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in order to sabotage progressive groups critical of the organization's platform.
Exposed: Military contractors hired to create fake Facebook accounts, infiltrate opposing groups, 9/2/11
Apologists may say, “as long as the law reduces child porn, I’ll sacrifice my Internet privacy.” But, the law won’t even do that. It’s easy to use virtual private networks, encryption, and other technologies to render the record-keeping mandated by H.B.-1981 ineffective. Perhaps the next step is for the FBI to create an association of anyone who uses these technologies with child porn. And subsequently, to restrict those technologies to individuals and companies who agree to “unlock” their data stream for warrantless inspection.
Governments Agree: You Will Have No Electronic Privacy, 8/19/11
The group claims that Facebook has been providing information to governments, and describes it as 'the opposite of the Antisec cause'.
"Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world," says the group in an associated YouTube video.
Anonymous vows to take down Facebook, 8/10/11
On June 22nd Xander and I decided to hold a last minute End The Fed rally on Wall St. When we got there about 40 police were waiting for us.
US Government Monitoring Facebook for Federal Reserve Protests, 8/9/11
U.S. law-enforcement agencies are increasingly obtaining warrants to search Facebook, often gaining detailed access to users' accounts without their knowledge.
A Reuters review of the Westlaw legal database shows that since 2008, federal judges have authorized at least two dozen warrants to search individuals' Facebook accounts. Many of the warrants requested a laundry list of personal data such as messages, status updates, links to videos and photographs, calendars of future and past events, "Wall postings" and "rejected Friend requests."
Federal agencies seeking the warrants include the FBI, DEA and ICE, and the investigations range from arson to rape to terrorism.
The Facebook search warrants typically demand a user's "Neoprint" and "Photoprint" -- terms that Facebook has used to describe a detailed package of profile and photo information that is not even available to users themselves.
A new U.S. law-enforcement tool: Facebook searches, 7/12/11
Indeed, "none of the companies involved," Brown writes, have been investigated; a proposed Congressional inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are entirely correct."
Brown warns that "a far greater danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and better 'situational awareness' on entire populations" while simultaneously manipulating "the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same populations."
Beginning, it should be noted, right here at home...
Sinister Cyber-Surveillance Project, 7/11/11
Recently, there has been a surge of media attention on the Silk Road market, which connects sellers and buyers of illegal drugs and uses Bitcoin as a means of payment. Naturally, part of this attention is attention from government, and the government has every incentive to try as hard as possible to bring Silk Road down. "Never before has a website so brazenly peddled illegal drugs online," a senator intent on cracking down on Silk Road said, and it is true. Silk Road's website looks like a legitimate, professionally done E-bay like service, and represents a move away from black markets in the shadows to blatant agorism - acting as if the government itself is illegitimate. Why is Silk Road so much more brazen than before? The simple reason is - because it can. Before, the weakest link in a drug transaction was payment - either a physical meeting (risky), a credit card or Paypal transfer (easily traced to physical identity) or a mail cash transfer (requires too much trust) was necessary, so participants in the drug economy had to rely on security through obscurity, keeping their websites and forums known to few, to avoid detection. Now, however, physical delivery is the only weak link, so although the security is not perfect the internet side of the transaction is, in theory, almost completely anonymous.
Battle Is On - Silk Road vs Government, and Bitcoin Anonymity, 6/14/11
Obama has an Ace up his sleeve moving into the 2012 election cycle, but so do we. In this report we expose why you may be seeing strange things on Facebook lately.
Obama, Facebook, and Restoring the Republic, 5/9/11
The Obama Administration on April 15th launched an initiative to create an ‘Identity Ecosystem’ to improve the privacy, security and convenience of sensitive online transactions. The vision is to create an ecosystem whereby individuals, businesses, and other organizations enjoy greater trust and security as they conduct sensitive transaction online. The ecosystem would enable consumers who want to participate to obtain a single ‘trusted credential’ from a public agency or private secure ID provider that can then be used to obtain access and conduct transactions with online businesses without having to give confidential personal information to each business as is the case right now.
Northrop Grumman, and Microsoft to Profit From Our Enslavement, 4/26/11
In this April 21, 2011 photo, Wi-Fi logos are shown on a computer screen search engine in Buffalo, N.Y. The poll conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry group that promotes wireless technology standards, found that 32 percent of respondents acknowledged trying to access a Wi-Fi network that wasn’t theirs. An estimated 201 million households worldwide use Wi-Fi networks, according to the alliance. The same study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that 40 percent said they would be more likely to trust someone with their house key than with their Wi-Fi network password. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
NY case underscores Wi-Fi privacy dangers, 4/24/11
For years, the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg put little effort into ad sales, focusing instead on making its service irresistible to users. Today more than 600 million people have Facebook accounts, with the average user spending seven hours a month posting. Now the company is looking to cash in on this personal information by helping advertisers pinpoint exactly who they want to reach.
Facebook looks to cash in on user data, 4/22/11
Last week the FBI took down the Coreflood botnet—a major network of zombie computers that had been used to steal personal information worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the bust relied on an important weakness of conventional botnets—that they are controlled by a few central computers. Take down those central machines and you'll disable the whole network of as many as hundreds of thousands of compromised PCs. Researchers warn that this weakness does not exist in botnets that use peer-to-peer communications protocols, whereby messages are passed from machine to machine instead of coming from a central command.
Botnets That Won't Die, 4/21/11
You could come up with different variations of your same password for the various accounts that you use. But all those accounts start to add up: multiple e-mail accounts, Facebook, cell phone, Bitcoin, banking, Amazon, iTunes, Dropbox...the list goes on and on. You may have a wonderful method of keeping the passwords straight, but do you really want to remember 50 variations of IliKeC@tnip$1928? If you like to keep your brain cells available to store random trivia facts for your shot against Watson on Jeopardy, there are software solutions that do the remembering for you.
Protect Passwords With KeePass, 4/20/11
A plan to create a national online identity system was launched today to help combat cyber crime.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke claimed the move will protect Internet consumers from fraud and identity theft.
Unveiling the scheme, he insisted the cyber ID was not a Big Brother plan by the government to snoop on web users.
Obama administration unveils online ID system (but insists it's not a Big Brother plan to snoop on Internet users), 4/16/11
We've all thought it, but never dared think it could be true: what if Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL actively monitor our instant messenger chats? What if mentions of 'bomb' and 'underage' are tracked and sent to law enforcement agencies? What if chat providers don't agree with the things we say, or the links we share, and filter or censor the content of our transmitted messages?
Yahoo! Messenger now censors the links you share, 3/30/11
Education Department officials are threatening school principals with lawsuits if they fail to monitor and curb students’ lunchtime chat and evening Facebook time for expressing ideas and words that are deemed by Washington special-interest groups to be harassment of some students.
Feds, teachers to stalk your kids on Facebook now?, 3/18/11
Gen David Petraeus has previously said US online psychological operations are aimed at 'countering extremist ideology and propaganda'.
The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media, 3/17/11
The White house Copyright Czar proposed new law, that would allow corporations to dump a list of internet users into the justice department for the justice department to wiretap.
I call it the IPOD patriot act.
"iPod Patriot Act" New Law Puts Wiretaps Into Every Computer Suspected Of Downloading, 3/17/11
Missouri State University officials are notifying 6,030 College of Education students that their social security numbers may have been compromised as a result of an internal security breach.
In October and November 2010, in preparation for an accreditation, the College of Education prepared lists of students by semester. The lists, which included social security numbers, were for nine semesters between 2005 and 2009 (fall, spring, summer). A list was created for each semester, so there were nine lists. The lists were prepared in electronic format in October and November 2010 to be available on secure servers to the College of Education personnel working on the accreditation, as well as the accreditation team.
6,000 Missouri State U. Students Have Social Security Numbers Exposed on Web, 3/3/11
Tattoo ink and internet ink are very similar. A lot of people are getting tattoos and putting their personal information on the internet. But, both tattoos and information on the internet are regrettably hard to remove. Even good ol' Mark Zuckerberg is finding out the hard way that making some personal information public might be a bad idea.
Remove Personal Information From the Internet, 2/23/11
Doodle-4-Google" is so much more than an art contest. Sure, the game, which received 33,000 entries last year, celebrates "the creativity of young people" by having them send in a drawing under the theme "What I’d like to do someday …" But, there's another component, as well. It also helps Google collect some very personal data on students K through 12. Along with the submission, the contest's initial Parent Consent Form asked for the child's city of birth (not current city, mind you), date of birth, the last four digits of the child's social security number, as well as complete contact info for the parents. Bob Bowdon, who directed The Cartel, a documentary about corruption in the public-school system explained the significance:
No Big Deal, But Google May Have Promoted a Contest to Get Kids’ Social Security Numbers [Updated], 2/22/11
Bank of America's account websites are experiencing an unprecedented online security breach and the bank hasn't fully rectified the problem. That's right, your online financial data and full account access may be in the hands of someone else.
Someone very close to me called moments ago and told me that when she logged into her Bank of America account earlier this evening she saw, rather than her credit card account, the mortgage and home equity account of someone else. That's right, Bank of America was showing her, instead of her own credit card account, the accounts for a Bank of America account holder in Randolph, NJ. The only similarity between the two? The same last name.
Bank of America website exposes customer accounts, data, 2/12/11
Online USA Phone Book Posts Personal Information - Remove yourself by searching your name, find the URL of your page, then go to the bottom right corner of the page and click on the Privacy button
Online USA Phone Book Posts Personal Information
Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group largely focused in recent years on Google's privacy practices, has called on a congressional investigation into the Internet giant's "cozy" relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.
In a letter sent Monday, Consumer Watchdog asked Representative Darrell Issa, the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to investigate the relationship between Google and several government agencies.
Google Comes Under Fire for 'Secret' Relationship with NSA, 1/25/11
Criminal investigations "are being frustrated" because no law currently exists to force Internet providers to keep track of what their customers are doing, the U.S. Department of Justice will announce tomorrow.
CNET obtained a copy of the department's position on mandatory data retention--saying Congress should strike a "more appropriate balance" between privacy and police concerns--that will be announced at a House of Representatives hearing tomorrow.
Justice Department seeks mandatory data retention, 1/24/11
The House Republicans' first major technology initiative is about to be unveiled: a push to force Internet companies to keep track of what their users are doing.
A House panel chaired by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow morning to discuss forcing Internet providers, and perhaps Web companies as well, to store records of their users' activities for later review by police.
GOP pushing for ISPs to record user data, 1/24/11
The Obama administration is developing a “universal Internet ID” program that would watch, track, monitor and potentially control your activity on the Internet. These“trusted identities” are being touted as a way to increase safety and security on the Internet and as a way to eliminate the need for dozens of different usernames and passwords. But is a universal Internet ID that is issued and controlled by the U.S. government really a good idea? Right now, Obama administration officials are trying to make it seem as non-threatening as possible. They are insisting that it will not be mandatory. They are insisting that it would be impossible for hackers to steal the universal Internet identities. They are insisting that none of our personal information will be gathered or used by federal agencies. But in light of how regularly the government has abused our liberties and freedoms in recent years in the name of “security”, should we really believe what they are saying about this new universal Internet ID?
Are You Ready For The Universal Internet ID That Barack Obama Wants To Impose On All Of Us?, 1/20/11
After the negative response Facebook have "temporarily" switched off the new feature, saying on their blog:
"Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so."
"We are now making a user's address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object."
When you install an app that wants access to your phone number and address a prompt asks a user to verify they want this, but Cohen says most people will click "allow" without realising what they are agreeing to.
Facebook Shares a Little More of Your Data, 1/18/11
As we reported, on Friday the United States Department of Commerce and a host of privacy and security experts met at Stanford University to discuss the mapping out of an "Identity Ecosystem" for cyberspace.
That would be a place, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke explained at the event, "where individuals and organizations can complete online transactions with greater confidence... putting greater trust in the online identities of each other... and greater trust in the infrastructure that the transactions run across."
Identity Ecosystem? Inside Uncle Sam's "trusted identity" plan, 1/11/11
The Internet is everywhere. It’s not just on your laptop anymore…nearly 1 billion consumers worldwide now carry Internet-connected smartphones. That means “malware” spread over the Internet – viruses that steal your data, pfishing scams that trick you into giving a thief access to passwords – and other threats will only get worse as 2011 proceeds.
Who’s Protecting Your Privacy Online? No One… Except You!, 1/10/11
President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said, according to CBS News TechTalk.
It's [the Commerce Department] "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.
The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months
The Coming Internet National ID Card, 1/9/11
President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.
It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.
That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.
Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans, 1/7/11
Hansel and Gretel wandered through the forest leaving tasty bread crumbs behind to find their way home. Unfortunately, the various little critters of the forest found those little bread crumbs irresistible and gobbled them up leaving Hansel and Gretel lost and hungry.
There is less anonymity on the internet than many people realize. When people surf the web they also leave behind bread crumbs, well their IP address is left behind. And, unfortunately, those crumbs are awfully tasty to many little creatures like search engines, snoopers, and cookie monsters. The wrong creatures getting a hold of those crumbs can leave you much more than lost and hungry if you are not careful. You may even incur tax liability of you do not properly guard your IP address. From building a user profile to viewing sensitive data, there are many opportunities for others to benefit from knowing your IP address. Fortunately there are ways of keeping your web surfing anonymous.
Anonymous Web Surfing, 1/4/11
Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter.
On Sunday night, a number of Goldman clients received an email from their Goldman broker, offering them the opportunity to invest in an unnamed “private company that is considering a transaction to raise additional capital.” Another person briefed on the deal said that Goldman clients would have to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest and would be prohibited from selling their shares until 2013.
Goldman Offering Clients a Chance to Invest in Facebook, 1/2/11
A former government contractor says that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation installed a number of back doors into the encryption software used by the OpenBSD operating system.
The allegations were made public Tuesday by Theo de Raadt, the lead developer in the OpenBSD project. DeRaadt posted an e-mail sent by the former contractor, Gregory Perry, so that the matter could be publicly scrutinized.
Former Contractor Says FBI Put Back Door in OpenBSD, 12/15/10
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is built into every version of the Windows operating system now in use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors). The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system, and that security functions on other software systems had been deliberately crippled
How NSA access was built into Windows
An appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government must obtain a warrant before it can access e-mails stored by Internet service providers.
The government violated Steven Warshak's Fourth Amendment rights when it obtained his e-mails without a warrant, but it did so in good faith, so the evidence will not be thrown out. Warshak is still responsible for a $44.9 million money laundering judgment, but his 25-year sentence will be re-evaluated, according to the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Feds Need Warrant to Read E-Mails, Appeals Court Says, 12/14/10
Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans
It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.
Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.
Every email and website to be stored, 10/20/10
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