You want to know what news sends chills down the spines of the world’s governments?
"Credibly" impersonating someone else on Twitter, Facebook, or through e-mail could get dicier in California, where the legislature has passed a bill making "e-personation" a misdemeanor. The EFF warns about unintended consequences.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company PowerPhone Inc. a patent called “Integrated Call Handler and E-Mail Systems and Methods” that allows users to send SMS text messages to 911. The company will use this patent to allow users to send text and video messages to 911 if in need of help.
Can malware kill? A computer virus may have contributed to the Spanair plane crash which killed 154 people. A worm has infected life support machines. Can a trojan or malware be a murder weapon?
An Indian computer scientist was arrested this weekend when he refused to disclose an anonymous source who provided an electronic voting machine to a team of security researchers.
Reports are appearing this morning about a major security hole in iTunes accounts linked to PayPal. Scammers may have found a way to charge thousands of dollars to iTunes accounts through PayPal.
Political spying is nearly as bad now as it was during the Cold War. The ACLU reports that Americans are harassed and under surveillance for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Like all location products, the new application publishes potentially sensitive information, since a stream of information on location can provide a detailed picture of your life. Some locations might appear cool at one moment, and yet become something you'd rather forget the next.
Imagine a public eye scanner that can identify 50 people per minute, in motion. Now imagine that the government install these scanner systems all across an entire city. Or don't imagine it, because it's already happening, right now.
Really, Warner Brothers? You want to go there? After all the RIAA/MPAA ruckus Warner Bros has raised about users "stealing" from them, it's been discovered they've been re-spawning Flash cookies and "stealing" users' personal identifying info. Oh what a tangled, double standard surveillance web they weave, stomping on privacy while they deceive...
The Secure Fence Act (2006) instructed the Department of Homeland Security to protect 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Here are some of the ways the U.S. attempts to regulate its southern frontier.
....and this is what his staff had waiting for him.
The EFF warns of a weak link threatening security by an untrustworthy certificate authority. Not all HTTPS-encrypted websites are genuinely trustworthy. The EFF signed an open letter to Verizon, asking it to revoke a CA that has been used for surveillance, eavesdropping, and to launch malicious code.
Lawmakers recognize the value of protecting sources when they disclose the Pentagon Papers or details about Watergate, but they're less keen on those who reveal corporate secrets or classified documents about wars they support.
"It looks like there’s yet another little bug that compromises the privacy of Facebook users - all 500 million of them - and it doesn’t matter how a user has set the account’s privacy settings. The bug can be found in the error page that comes when a user attempts to sign in but types in the wrong password. The system automatically populates ..."
We're happy to report that this potential privacy fiasco has ended well for XY's customers. The parties reached an agreement (pdf) under which the publisher is required to destroy all personally identifiable information about XY's customers.
A meeting of Indian officials and telecoms operators on whether to restrict Research in Motion's BlackBerry services over national security fears was inconclusive, a top government official said on Thursday.