privacy

  1. U

    Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-opposed-ad-platform-the-privacy-sandbox-launches-in-chrome/ Don't let Chrome's big redesign distract you from the fact that Chrome's invasive new ad platform, ridiculously branded the "Privacy Sandbox," is also getting a widespread rollout...
  2. cageymaru

    iRobot Says Beta Testers Do Not Have a Right to Privacy When Photos of People on the Toilet Appear on Social Media

    Roomba testers feel misled after intimate images ended up on Facebook https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/10/1066500/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuum-beta-product-testers-consent-agreement-misled/ A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook...
  3. scojer

    New iOS 14 feature warns you if someone is spying on you through your iPhone

    The latest update tells you when apps are listening to you, or, watching you. I don't have an iPhone, but on my android, I have very few apps, and, the ones I do have I have already set their permission levels to make myself feel better...
  4. Bankie

    Oculus will now require Facebook login for social features and ad targeting

    https://gizmodo.com/oculus-will-now-require-facebook-login-to-use-social-fe-1840376657 Apparently it can be opted out of but I think we all know that that won't last:
  5. N

    Privacy coins: DeepOnion is close to release DeepSend

    I´m always checking the latest news of privacy coins because that is the type of cryptos that I usually buy. In this opportunity I´m talking about DeepOnion, one of the privacy cryptos that is not usually mentioned by the media/influencers. I´m following this coin since the release (June 2017)...
  6. Retronym

    Facebook to face class action

    (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) effort to undo a class action lawsuit claiming that it illegally collected and stored biometric data for millions of users without their consent. The 3-0 decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San...
  7. Zarathustra[H]

    Monitor IoT Activity on your Network (by giving up privacy to Princeton Researchers)

    So, Many of us have been curious about what the hell our IoT is doing on our networks, how often it dials the mother ship and what it is sending. Researchers at Princeton University want to know too, and have started a project to collect data from IoT devices on your network to inform you, and...
  8. AlphaAtlas

    Health Apps Sell User Data

    A recent study from the BMJ found that many popular health apps share more data with advertisers than they probably should. The researchers analyzed 24 Android apps with scripts that simulate real world usage, and found that 19 of them shared potentially sensitive user data with 55 "unique...
  9. AlphaAtlas

    Epic Games Denies Client Spying Accusations

    This week, users on Reddit accused Epic Games of spying on their customers through the Epic Games Store software. Among other things, the thread accuses the Epic client of making a copy of Steam's localconfig.vdf, sending hardware information and a list of running processes to Epic, and...
  10. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is Under Criminal Investigation for Data Sharing Practices

    Facebook's news coverage hasn't been particularly positive over the past few months, but they had a particularly bad day yesterday. Following a widespread outage that lasted over 14 hours, and likely cost the company millions in advertising revenue, the New York Times released a report claiming...
  11. AlphaAtlas

    Flickr Photos Were Used to Train IBM Facial Recognition

    IBM, and a number of other researchers and institutions, have made extensive use of a Yahoo!-curated Flickr database for their facial recognition development efforts, and according to a recent report from NBC, this is raising concerns among privacy experts and the subjects within those photos...
  12. AlphaAtlas

    The Web's Creator Comments on Its Future

    The internet turned 30 this year, and CERN celebrated it with a long (and if I'm being honest, not particularly exciting) webcast featuring its creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. However, after the recent Cambridge Analytica data scandal and what seems like a new privacy/security related scandal...
  13. AlphaAtlas

    Google Employees Claim Work on Chinese Search Engine Continues

    Following protests from externals sources as well as their own employees, Google allegedly shelved their plans to launch the censored "Dragonfly" search engine in China last year. But, according to a recent report, Google employees have discovered that work on Dragonfly is ongoing. Inside...
  14. AlphaAtlas

    Report Claims Canadian Police are Tracking and Acting On "Negative" Behavior

    A recent report from Motherboard claims that some Canadian police departments are aggregating sensitive personal data from multiple sources and making it available to "partners cops, school staff, social workers, health care workers, and the provincial government." While the data is reportedly...
  15. AlphaAtlas

    The Verge Investigates the Life of a Facebook Moderator

    Here at HardOCP, I think the sheer volume of garbage that makes its way into Facebook posts before moderators take it down is common knowledge. Facebook itself has the daunting task of trying moderate all that content, and according to a recent writeup from The Verge, they subcontract some of...
  16. cageymaru

    Google Forgets to Tell Consumers That Its Nest Security System Has a Built-in Mic

    Google recently announced that Google Assistant features are coming to its Nest Secure home security system. Giving consumers free features seems like a great idea, but Google forgot to list the microphone in the technical specifications for Nest Secure devices. Google says it was an "error" to...
  17. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Bug Would've Allowed for One Click Account Takeovers

    A security researcher spotted a bug in Facebook that would've allowed attackers to take over accounts from users that clicked on a single link. According to Youssef Sammouda, a vulnerable endpoint easily allowed him to makes posts on a user's timeline, delete profile picture, or delete accounts...
  18. AlphaAtlas

    Millions of Sensitive Swedish Medical Calls Leak Out

    According to a recent BBC report, about 2.7 million calls made to a Swedish national health service telephone line have been "exposed." The calls date back to 2013, and supposedly contain sensitive medical information and social security numbers, while Martin Svensson says that there was no...
  19. AlphaAtlas

    NATO Experiment Manipulated Soldiers Through Facebook

    The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence published a report on the challenges governments face with online security, and Wired managed to spot a particular interesting experiment within the multi-section report. As part of an experiment, the independent NATO organization used...
  20. cageymaru

    Facebook Faces a Multi-Billion Dollar Fine for Its Privacy Practices

    According to a report from the Washington Post, Facebook is negotiating with the FCC over a multi-billion dollar fine for its privacy issues and practices. The fine is expected to be the largest ever levied against a tech company. In 2011, the FTC and Facebook reached a deal to improve the...
  21. AlphaAtlas

    Location Bounty Hunters Had Access to GPS Data

    In January, Motherboard found that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint were unwittingly compromising their user's privacy and security. The telecommunication giants were reportedly selling data to third parties in bulk, a practice they've been criticized for before, who in turn were selling data about...
  22. AlphaAtlas

    Your Privacy and Data are Different Things

    Scandals from social media companies and tech giants seem to make the headlines every day, and stories of data breaches or serious vulnerabilities follow right behind them. The publicity is prompting lots of talk about the value of privacy, but a recent article from NBC highlights a critical...
  23. AlphaAtlas

    Apple Reactivates Facebook's and Revokes Google's Enterprise Certification

    Following Facebook's latest privacy scandal, where they, among other things, blatantly violated Apple's guidelines for the iOS Enterprise Certificate program, Apple revoked Facebooks certifications, effectively disabling many of their corporate apps. Now, TechCrunch reports that Apple has...
  24. AlphaAtlas

    Google Disables ""Screenwise Meter" Tracking App on iOS

    Facebook recently faced another wave of negative publicity following a TechCrunch report, which claimed that Facebook sideloaded apps onto users' devices that tracked almost everything, and did so with a relatively lax parental consent process. On iOS devices, installing 3rd party apps from...
  25. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Paid Teens to Test Even More Invasive Apps

    TechCrunch just posted a report claiming that Facebook paid teens to install a "VPN that spies on them" on Android and iOS devices. More specifically, the social media company has allegedly been paying users between the ages of 12 and 35 "up to $20 per month plus referral fees" to download the...
  26. AlphaAtlas

    Facetime Bug Let Others Hear Audio Before Picking Up

    9to5Mac reports that a major bug in FaceTime allowed anyone with an iDevice running iOS 12.1 or latter to call someone else with FaceTime, and hear audio from their end without the other person ever picking up. Apparently, all you have to do is type your own phone number to the "add person"...
  27. cageymaru

    The Illinois Supreme Court Upholds Consumer Protections in Biometrics Case

    The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled in favor of consumer protections and privacy in a case that has broad implications related to the collection of biometric data. Stacy Rosenbach sued Six Flags Great America over the electronic collection of her son's fingerprints to use a season pass. She...
  28. AlphaAtlas

    Nest Users Are Getting Hacked Again

    AFP reports that Nest, a smart camera manufacturer founded by former Apple engineers and owned by Alphabet, is urging customers to use two factor authentication for their home systems. The plea comes after local media near San Francisco reported on a couple's trouble with a Nest camera mounted...
  29. AlphaAtlas

    Online Casino Group Leaks User Information

    Last year, an exposed ElasticSearch server reportedly leaked data on nearly 57 Million U.S. citizens. ElasticSearch servers aren't supposed to be exposed to the web, especially if they don't have a password, and the security researcher warned that exposed servers like that are a significant...
  30. AlphaAtlas

    Google Slapped With $57 Million GDPR Fine

    According to a press release from CNIL, France's data protection authority, Google was just hit with a 50 Million Euro (or $57 Million USD) fine for "lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent regarding the ads personalization." The organization says that Google's...
  31. AlphaAtlas

    Millions of Files Leaked from Oklahoma Department of Securities Database

    The UpGuard Data Breach Research team, who previously uncovered data breaches in U.S. voting systemsand an Experian partner, recently exposed a massive leak from Oklahoma's Department of Securities. The contents of the files "ran the gamut from personal information to system credentials to...
  32. AlphaAtlas

    Multiple Carriers Pledge to Stop Selling Geolocation Data

    Following their investigation into the smartphone geolocation black market, Motherboard reports that AT&T will stop selling location data to third parties. More specifically, AT&T said they will "eliminate all location aggregation services - even those with clear consumer benefits." Meanwhile...
  33. AlphaAtlas

    Bounty Hunters Can Get Phone Locations for $300

    Motherboard just posted an article claiming that T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling customer data that ultimately allows individuals to geolocate U.S. phones with nothing but a phone number. Journalist Joseph Cox gave a phone number and $300 to a "bounty hunter," and quickly got a Google...
  34. cageymaru

    Los Angeles Alleges the Weather Channel App Deceptively Mined User Data for Profit

    The city of Los Angeles is suing the Weather Company for deceptively marketing location services in its Weather Channel app as only used to localize weather reports. In fact it is alleged that consumers had their private geolocation information data mined by the intrusive tool masquerading as a...
  35. AlphaAtlas

    Popular Android Apps Still Send Data to Facebook

    The fact that Facebook shares data from Android phones, even when users aren't logged in, is no secret. Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram are all baked into my HTC's system image, and it takes work just to keep them disabled. But Privacy International recently tested a wide range of 3rd...
  36. AlphaAtlas

    Utah Could be the First State With a Digital Privacy Law

    Fox 13 in Salt Lake City reports that Craig Hall, a member of Utah's house of representatives, introduced a "Electronic Information or Data Privacy" bill that could be the first of its kind in the nation. Among other things, the bill would extend some legal protections physical items are given...
  37. AlphaAtlas

    Study Shows Machine Learning Can Expose Health Information

    A recent study from Berkeley shows that machine learning can be used to connect anonymized health data from different sources, potentially identifying users in that data and violating federal HIPAA regulations. This specific study took physical activity data from health monitor/smartwatches and...
  38. AlphaAtlas

    Alexa Is Offending Some Users Trying to Learn How to Chat

    According to a recent report by Reuters, Amazon's experiments with Alexa are having some unintended consequences. The publication claims that Alexa blurted out "Kill your foster parents" last year. Other incidents involved chats about sex acts or dog defecation, and anonymous sources claim that...
  39. AlphaAtlas

    Apple's Interactive Transparency Report Shows a Rise in Data Demands

    As spotted by TechCrunch, Apple has changed the format of its biannual transparency report. While the tech giant still lists government information request statistics in the PDF format, for those who want it, they've also launched an interactive website that breaks down the information in an...
  40. AlphaAtlas

    "Human Error" Allowed an Alexa User to Hear a Neighbor's History

    Reuters reports that a German Alexa user got access to "thousands of recordings" from their neighbor. According to the German trade publication c’t, the customer reportedly contacted Amazon about the mixup, and was able to download the recordings before Amazon deleted the download link. An...
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