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White House questions CISPA cybersecurity bill ahead of floor vote
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The White House has expressed concern regarding the latest controversial cybersecurity legislation doing the rounds, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) which would authorize internet companies to divulge confidential customer records...
Collusion for Chrome lets users visualize website trackers, third-parties
- Disconnect has released Collusion for Chrome, an open source extension which aims to graphically illustrate where your data is going while you cruise the web. Collusion was actually made available to Firefox about a month ago, but Disconnect has managed to…
SOPA is dead, but CISPA may give Internet citizens a new cause
- Although the demise of SOPA is behind us, citizens of the Internet may have new cause for concern. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has been gaining momentum and while it is distinctly different than SOPA, some argue…
Violating a terms of service agreement is not criminal, federal court says
- On Tuesday, the federal Ninth Court of Appeals ruled that violating a "terms of service" agreement is not a criminal offense. At the heart of the debate were concerns that violating a terms of service agreement, despite being a set…
Non-profit ISP start up promises fully encrypted, private Internet
- In an editorial piece by Cnet, Nicholas Merrill describes his upcoming Internet service, Calyx, as a "non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption". According to Merrill, his goal is to fully encrypt Internet traffic at the ISP level…
Google Maps gets real-time traffic, crowdsources Android GPS data
- Although traffic data has been available on Google Maps for quite some time, the traffic information delivered by the popular mapping service was frequently stale or incorrect. In fact, estimated arrival times with traffic were so frequently incorrect, Google actually…
FTC fines RockYou $250,000 for exposing identities of 32 million gamers
- Online social gaming outfit, RockYou, has settled with the FTC after an embarrassing security snafu in 2009 allowed hackers to reveal the accounts and passwords of more than 32 million users. The company has been fined $250,000 and is required…
Google's Autocomplete may violate individual rights, says Japan court
- A Tokyo court has issued a provisional order requesting Google to remove specific search terms from its "Autocomplete" feature. This request follows a petition launched by an unnamed Japanese man. Although his name is currently unknown, the individual's attorney claims…
FTC praises 'Do Not Track' initiatives, refreshes privacy framework
- In a new report published by the FTC (pdf), the commission attempts to lay a new framework to protect the privacy of citizens and refreshes its own views on how to accomplish those goals. Some of the ideas outlined include Do…
Verizon shows increases in malware, hacktivism, security breaches
- Making note of the social unrest which unfolded in 2011, Verizon's 2012 data breach investigation report (very large pdf) highlights a tumultuous year for computer and network security. Although a couple of numbers were down from previous years, attacks related…
Employers ask job seekers for Facebook login information
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Those hunting for jobs are increasingly finding themselves being judged by their social media profiles on sites such as Facebook and Twitter as employers delve deeper into the publicly accessible information...
Symantec "lost" phone study shows most people are dishonest
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Symantec's Honey Stick Project (pdf) confirms what many of us already knew: almost no one can resist the temptation of poking around on someone else's smartphone. The study placed 50 smartphones in various public areas throughout several major American and Canadian cities...
Lax photo permissions on iOS, Android may lead to FTC investigation
- Just last week, the New York Times discovered that iOS apps can silently access and copy photos from a user's photo library to a remote server with little to stand in the way. As it turns out though, it's not…
Android apps can access your smartphone's photos too
- Apple came under scrutiny this week after reports about a loophole in iOS that could enable rogue apps to access a user's entire photo library and copying the data to a remote server without any notice. Making matters worst the…
UK government plans to force ISPs, carriers to store web and phone usage
- A new report has surfaced that reveals the UK government plans to force British ISPs and mobile operators to keep online communications by internet users, as well as phone call details, text messages and website visits. The proposed anti-terror plans…
Microsoft claims Google foils IE's privacy policies as well
- Microsoft accused Google of bypassing privacy protections used in Internet Explorer yesterday, following on from a revelation last week that the Internet search giant was bypassing privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser to track users.
Google accused of bypassing Safari privacy settings to track users
- Google has been actively circumventing the privacy settings of desktop and iOS Safari users, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal. The paper claims that even though Safari’s default setting blocks cookies from third parties, which are often…
iOS allows contacts to be uploaded without consent, Apple promises fix
- Apple has finally responded to privacy concerns following a recent discovery which shows some iOS apps have been silently uploading contact lists to remote servers. Apple intends to change this behavior though by prohibiting unfettered access to contacts from any app…
Google's privacy policy cornered by European Commission and Congress
- Continuing the story we posted earlier this week, the European Commission has asked Google to hold off on rolling out their new privacy policy. The EC is assigning French data protection authority, CNIL, to work with Google and explore the…
Neowin: How to regain your online privacy
- These days it is very hard to keep your profile low when you are online. Services that are used every day by many, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, aren’t exactly known for keeping your data especially private by default.…
Google revises privacy policy, responds to critics with the 'real story'
- Eliciting such overly-sensational headlines as "Google’s Broken Promise: The End of Don’t Be Evil", a preview of Google's new privacy policy has generated quite a stir across the web. Facing criticism from both the public and Congress (PDF), Google is now responding to…
Carrier IQ explains its software as FBI denies FOIA request
- Carrier IQ is once again making headlines as the company continues to fight back at the negative publicity its carrier-diagnostic "utility" is receiving. For those that do not recall, at the end of November a security researcher by the name…
Kindle Fire update to address performance and privacy issues
- Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet launched to much fanfare this past November, poised to steal some thunder from Apple's popular iPad 2 with a tempting $199 price tag. The device went on to become a best-seller among Black Friday and Cyber…
Full update and round-up of Carrier IQ tracking software scandal
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On Wednesday, news broke about a hidden application installed on most popular smartphone handsets that logs nearly everything the user does. Accompanying the news article was a 17-minute long video of developer Trevor Eckhart demonstrating how his HTC Evo 3D was tracking his key presses and even the content of his text messages.
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