Earlier this week the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) warned that an Indian firm called SilverPush has technology that allows adverts to ping inaudible commands to smartphones and tablets. Now someone has reverse-engineered the code and published it for everyone to check. SilverPush’s software kit can be baked into apps, and is designed to Read more about How TV ads silently ping commands to phones: Sneaky SilverPush code reverse-engineered[…]

The materials — leaked via SecureDrop by an anonymous hacker who believes that Securus is violating the constitutional rights of inmates — comprise over 70 million records of phone calls, placed by prisoners to at least 37 states, in addition to links to downloadable recordings of the calls. The calls span a nearly two-and-a-half year Read more about Massive Hack of 70 Million Prisoner Phone Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege – calls recorded and searchable[…]

It’s a privacy tool Source: About me

Under the radar, Verizon, Sprint, and other carriers have partnered with firms including SAP to manage and sell data. Source: The $24 Billion Data Business That Telcos Don’t Want to Talk About

Secret, anonymous messages aren’t just for the dastardly. Luckily, a little privacy isn’t difficult to get. With some effort and a spare phone, you’ll be whistleblowing, protecting your privacy from harassers, and staying anonymous when selling on Craigslist or looking for dates on Match. Here’s how. Source: How to Create an Untraceable Messaging Device With Read more about How to Create an Untraceable Messaging Device With an Old Phone[…]

The EU is offering a 3 month grace period before it starts to enforce the death of safe harbour. No data of EU citizens to repressive regimes! Source: Europe’s top privacy watchdog calls on firms to curb U.S. data transfers

When companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe first invited people to send in their DNA for genealogy tracing and medical diagnostic tests, privacy advocates warned about the creation of giant genetic databases that might one day be used against participants by law enforcement. Source: Cops are asking Ancestry.com and 23andMe for their customers’ DNA So, people Read more about Cops are asking Ancestry.com and 23andMe for their customers’ DNA[…]

We’ve all become used to the idea of ads online — it’s something that has become part and parcel of using the internet — but in Windows? If you’ve updated to build 10565 of Windows 10, you’re in for something of a surprise: the Start menu is now being used to display ads. Source: Microsoft Read more about Microsoft now uses Windows 10’s Start menu to display ads[…]

Source: MPs to hold emergency debate over politicians’ communications being spied upon hahahaha it turns out that they are not exempt from GHCQ spying after all – and now they care!

Source: Positionspapier des ULD zum Safe-Harbor-Urteil des Gerichtshofs der Europäischen Union vom 6. Oktober 2015, C-362/14 – ULD

I know the French were collaborators during WWII, but shouldn’t they have learned their lesson then?! France wants proposed rules applied to EU citizens as well Source: Fingerprints, facial scans, EU border data slurp too tasty for French to resist

Such as your name, frequent flyer number and record locator, which allows you to log into the company website and view the rest of your flights… Source: What’s in a Boarding Pass Barcode? A Lot — Krebs on Security

The EU courts have found that Safe Harbour means that the 4th Reich may not have EU citizens’ data beamed to it, unless the company doing the beaming (eg Facebook) is prepared to safeguard the data from spying by the KGB. I mean Stazi. I mean NSA. Source: The Court of Justice declares that the Read more about EU Court of Justice declares that the Commission’s US Safe Harbour Decision is invalid[…]

We collect non-personal data to make money from our free offerings so we can keep them free, including: Advertising ID associated with your device. Browsing and search history, including meta data. Internet service provider or mobile network you use to connect to our products. Information regarding other applications you may have on your device and Read more about AVG to flog your web browsing, search history from mid-October[…]

By 2010, GCHQ stated it was logging “30bn metadata records per day. By 2012, collection had increased to 50 billion per day, and work was underway to double capacity to 100 billion.”GCHQ has since “developed new population scale analytics for multi-petabyte cluster,” which allows “population scale target discovery.”In a vision document for 2013, its aim Read more about UK GCHQ stashes away 50+ billion records a day on people.[…]

The judges identified two key problems with the law: that it does not provide for independent court or judicial scrutiny to ensure that only data deemed “strictly necessary” is examined; and that there is no definition of what constitutes “serious offences” in relation to which material can be investigated. For legal authority, the judges relied Read more about UK DRIPA privacy invasion blocked by EU courts[…]