Privacy

The Easiest Way To Tell Your Seatmate You’re Not Interested In Small Talk

Airplane seats are notoriously uncomfortable for sleeping. Whether it’s because of the stiff-as-a-board headrest, or a chatty seatmate who didn’t take a hint when you put on your headphones. So here’s the simple solution to both problems: an inflatable pillow that doubles as an obnoxious wall. For $25, the EZ Sleep Travel Pillow guarantees you…

Google Has To Teach America How to Use Passwords as Part of Its Settlement

Remember a few years ago when Google got itself in that whole little Street-View-cars-collecting-personal-Wi-Fi-network-data debacle? Well, it looks like the case is finally being settled, and it’s not just the people who had their privacy stripped before their very eyes that are benefitting—everyone gets a piece of the pie! Because in addition to being fined…

Study: Your Facebook Likes Alone Reveal Gender, Ethnicity, Religion and More

Every little piece of information you give away online can reveal something about you—but it seems your Facebook likes could reveal rather more than you bargained for. New research by the University of Cambridge and Microsoft Research has been analyzing Facebook Likes to see how much information they really contain. After quietly—and, apparently, innocuously!—collecting data…

How to Opt Out of Facebook’s Creepy New Targeted Ads

Facebook has announced that it’s teaming up with four of the world’s largest corporate data brokers to “enhance” the ad experience for users. Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai obtain information gathered about users through online means (such as through cookies when users surf the web) as well as through offline means (such as through loyalty…

Google’s Letting Us Know That the FBI Is Watching Us in New Ways

Google’s Transparency Report is published to show the public what governments and companies want to know about us. It can get pretty personal. And the government wants more. The FBI is now using National Security Letters to obtain information from Google. These NSLs have now been included in the Transparency Report give a general gist…

Spyware Implanted in PDFs Has Been Sneaking Into Government Computers Worldwide

A new spyware epidemic has broken out at government entities and NGOs in 23 countries including several organizations in the United States. And it’s not bogus Twitter links or porn that’s getting people this time—it’s PDFs that look like work. The exploit, called miniDuke, was discovered in a joint effort by security researchers at Kaspersky…

The Government Can Use Your iPhone to Figure Out Where You’ve Been

Court documents obtained by the ACLU reveal just how vulnerable information about your private life is to prying government eyes that get a hold of your phone. It’s more than just your text messages, folks. It’s every connection point your phone has used. The “extraction report” (PDF) details the huge amounts of data the Department…

Meet the Symbiote: The Ironclad, Adaptable Future of Antivirus Protection

Ang Cui has a lot of power. With enough time he can take control of pretty much any networked device. He could watch you through your iSight or track the Netflix on your smart TV. But he has bigger fish to fry, so your Catfish marathons are safe for now. From him, at least. A…

A Facebook Privacy Flaw Gave a Hacker Access to Every Single Account

You probably don’t know Nir Goldshlager, but up until recently, he sure could have known you. That’s because Nir discovered a major privacy flaw in Facebook’s OAuth, the system developers use to access all sorts of information every time you hit that innocent, little “allow” button. Nir gained access to virtually anyone’s entire Facebook account.…

Facebook Wins Legal Battle Which Means Europeans Have to Use Real Names Online

Facebook’s crusade against pseudonyms and nicknames has just won out. After a German court ruled Facebook couldn’t force people to use their real, full names, a successful appeal from Facebook in another German court rules it can. The result? You’re stuck using your real name on Facebook. The court ruled that, as Facebook’s EU headquarters…

Jawbone User Accounts Compromised in Hack

If you use a Jambox, now might be a real good time to change your MyTalk password: Jawbone’s servers have been hacked, and a swathe of users have had their details swiped. Jawbone’s MyTalk service lets users update and personalize speakers and headsets. Apparently hackers stole names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords from the company’s…

President Obama Just Signed a Cybersecurity Executive Order

Before President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union and shouted out 3D printing, he signed a new cybersecurity executive order with the goal of preventing cyber attacks by allowing companies and the government to share information they have on cyber threats. If that sounds a lot like CISPA, it kind of is, but…

Defense Specialist Shows Off Terrifying Automated Web Stalker

Defence specialist Raytheon has an automated data harvesting process which can track you with pin-point accuracy and even predict where you’re going. Until two days ago it was top secret—but now a leaked video shows exactly what it can do. The technology created by Raytheon, and revealed in a video found by the Guardian, is…

That Awful Privacy-Killing CISPA Bill Is Coming Back to Haunt Us

We thought we killed all those awful, horrible destroy the Internet-type bills in SOPA, PIPA and CISPA. We might’ve been wrong. Like a zombie looking for human blood or a sore loser demanding a rematch, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger and Rep. Mike Rogers plan to re-introduce CISPA to the House later this year. The problem with…

Reporter Who Doesn’t Want Her Public Tweets Published Allegedly Posted a Teen’s Private Sex Diary Online

“Investigative reporter” Teri Buhl is running around the Internet threatening to sue people for publishing her public tweets. That’s ridiculous in and of itself. But then your head just about explodes when you realize that a few years ago she published a teenager’s private sex diary online without permission. What a hypocrite. Today, the Internet…

Track the Sneaky TOS Changes on Your Favorite Online Services

When Instagram announced its updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy back in December, the Internet went into a tizzy in large measure because people didn’t really understand what was going on. Now, there’s a watchdog service that tracks the changes of many of the most popular online services so that we’re armed with real…

Report: Facebook Creating App to Track You and Your Friends

Here’s something that sounds incredibly scary but in reality is probably just slightly scary and overblown: Bloomberg says Facebook is working on a new app that will follow you around via smartphone, reporting your moves to friends. Creepy? Convenient? Both? Neither? From the “two people with knowledge of the matter” who spoke to Bloomberg, the…

Did Path Screw Up and Steal Your Data Again?

Yikes. Path, which got in trouble around this time last year for stealing your entire address book without your permission, might have another privacy snafu on its hands. The app will automatically geotag your photos even when you’ve completely disabled Location Services for the Path app. It’s basically doing something you explicitly told it not…

WhatsApp Violates International Phone Number Privacy Laws

WhatsApp, the Instant Message client beloved of people too cheap to text, appears to contravene international privacy laws because of the way it forces users to grant it access to their entire address book. Reuters reports that both the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Dutch Data Protection Authority have released reports…

Still worried about your privacy in the era of Facebook search? Check out some extra tips from FB itself. https://gizmodo.com/what-is-facebook-graph-search-5976186