Privacy & Security

Get Ready to Be Groped Much Harder by Airport Security

The full body scans at airports—the ones that reveal your naughty bits in great detail—are fortunately optional, given prior abuse. But after Oct. 31, if you opt out, it looks like you’ll be more thoroughly “screened” than ever. https://gizmodo.com/airport-naked-body-scanners-get-privacy-upgrade-to-an-5633306 While turning down the full body scan has always resulted in a patdown, there’s a newer…

Privacy & Security Matt Buchanan

Canon Printers and Scanners Will Block Jobs With Flagged Keywords

Canon’s showing off Uniflow 5, the latest version of their enterprise document management system, and it includes one eyebrow-raising feature: a keyword-based security system that blocks jobs if sensitive subjects like client names or project codenames or [REDACTED] are included. Whistleblowers, leakers, and corporate spies, prick up your ears. In the near future, Canon printers,…

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

Why You Should Never Pick a Risqué File Name

At any moment, your computer could crash, and you will need to hand it over, unedited, to a repair person. If weird filenames freak out that person and the police, they can open your files, a court has ruled. Ugh. An Alabama man got 10 years in jail after taking his computer in for repair…

Privacy & Security Ryan Tate

Clean Your Ears, Because Airport Security Might Soon Be Scanning Them

New research says your ears are like snowflakes—completely unique in the world. Which is neat! But also means you have two giant finger prints on the side of your face, and airport security wants a look. A team at the University of Southampton hopes that ear scanning, unlike facial biometrics, will allow security teams to…

Privacy & Security Sam Biddle

Lockheed Martin’s Kenneth Van Meter Profits If You Fear the Smart Grid

The benefits of a smart electrical grid are substantial—efficiency, conservation, and safety. Well, except that last part, according to Lockheed Martin’s Kenneth Van Meter, calling the smart grid a security nightmare. And guess who’s in the security business? In a recent interview, Van Meter forecasts that “by the end of 2015 we will have 440…

Privacy & Security Sam Biddle

ADT Ad Campaign Scares Homeowners Into Buying ADT Security

ADT’s latest marketing effort sought to educate Santiago, Chile apartment owners about the dangers of home invasion by scaring the piss out of them when they got home. The ploy, while no doubt startling to those who discovered it, was actually pretty ingenious. Using a spring loaded box, ADT marketing professionals (Née burglars working for…

Privacy & Security Jack Loftus

Simple Lack of Hygiene Fools Most Biometric Scanners

A new report out of the US National Research Council asks that you leave the severed fingers and popped out eyeballs at home when trying to fool biometric scanners. Turns out the body’s natural aging process is enough to fool these fallible systems, as are the grime, grease, moisture and dirt that naturally accumulate on…

Privacy & Security Jack Loftus

Find Out Who’s Pulling Private Data From Your Phone With TaintDroid

Many apps beam usage information—some of it enough to personally identify your phone—to marketers, behind your back. Programmers at Penn State cooked up TaintDroid (ew) to reveal the offenders and help you protect yourself from prying data miners. Of thirty popular apps tested, a whopping half of them were phoning home to advertisers. Of course,…

Privacy & Security Sam Biddle

Some Airport Employees Use Body Scanners As Personal Nudie-Vision Goggles

We’ve heard of airport employees abusing body scanners to get naughty looks at their coworkers, but now we’re hearing that some security officials at a Nigerian airport might be using them like personal nudie-vision goggles. https://gizmodo.com/airport-employee-abused-body-scanner-to-get-a-naughty-l-5501485 According to a report by THISDAY, some airport employees at Lagos airport sneak off to the cubicle where the…

Privacy & Security Rosa Golijan

Why the Feds Want To Wiretap the Internet, and Why They Can’t

Here’s today’s jarring news from the NY Times: federal law enforcement and national security officials want to force companies like Facebook, Skype, and BlackBerry to let them wiretap your accounts. The feds are seeking sweeping authority over “all services that enable communications.” That means email, IM, any social network. Your pokes, tweets, and pings would…

Privacy & Security Brian Barrett

Is Foursquare Ruining Eating Out?

What is your iPhone doing to dinner? When we obsessively track down a niche eatery on Yelp, are we excited because of the perfectly limed fish tacos, or because broadcasting our discovery on Fourquare will just make us look cool? The Awl’s Brent Cox is worried about his dumplings. On the one hand, they are…

Privacy & Security Sam Biddle

Your Privacy Is a Joke for Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt was interviewed by Stephen Colbert yesterday. Colbert asked him about his “Want privacy? Change your name!” quote. Schmidt’s answer: “It was a joke, it just wasn’t very good.” Au contraire, Monsieur Schmidt. You are hilarious. My gut feeling is that Schmidt was serious about his original suggestion: Changing our name if…

Privacy & Security Jesus Diaz

A 17-Year Old Caused Yesterday’s Twitter Mess

An 17-year old Australian is taking responsibility for unwittingly causing yesterday’s Twitter bug. While the teen didn’t directly bring the flood of spam and porn retweets, he burst open the dam. I guess that passes for precociousness these days? https://gizmodo.com/there-was-a-new-twitter-exploit-and-it-was-spreading-li-5643732 The trouble began when the Melbourne-based high school student decide to test the security flaw…

Privacy & Security Brian Barrett

Stolen Credit Card Sites Have Hidden Fees—Just Like the Credit Cards Themselves

Did you know that credit card details are sold for around $1.50 each? What might cost you hundreds or even thousands (not to mention the stress), costs black market-buyers less than a coffee, as Krebs On Security discovered. Just like in McDonalds, where you walk in with a desire for a Coke and come out…

Privacy & Security Kat Hannaford

That Twitter Exploit Patch Brought Some Neat New Features Along With It

Twitter was going nuts this morning with a fresh exploit that had people inadvertently retweeting spam links left and right, but thankfully Twitter was quick to patch things up. And as it happens their fix didn’t just fix things, it improved them: the patch brought Reply to All and Auto-Complete features to the recently revamped…

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

There Was a New Twitter Exploit and It Was Spreading Like Wildfire

Twitter is seriously screwed up at the moment, thanks to a new Javascript exploit that’s currently slamming the service. Visitors of Twitter’s website are inadvertently retweeting spam and porn to their followers, just by hovering over tweets. UPDATE: Patched Update: As of 9:50, Twitter says “The exploit is fully patched.” The exploit takes advantage of…

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

HDCP Master Key Is Real, But It Won’t Do You Much Good

Intel confirmed that the HDCP “master key” posted anonymously last week is indeed real. But while it’s always fun to see restrictive security measures get picked apart, this particular crack probably won’t do you a whole lot of good. https://gizmodo.com/hdcp-copy-protection-unlocked-by-master-key-5638085 CNET talked to all types of security folk to get the scoop on the implications…

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

Smartphones Are Only the Tip of the Security Iceberg

While smartphone security is an issue that’s close to our hearts (being only a few feet away, in our pockets), security group Mocana shows that soon, smartphones will only make up a small fraction of all the connected devices. The data, taken from analyst projections for 2009-2013, might not be exact, but it does serve…

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

Amtrak Security Scares You Silly Just Because They Can

Amtrak spokesperson Cliff Cole would like to inform you that the company doesn’t conduct searches because there’s an actual threat. That would be silly! Instead they do it randomly, you know, just to make sure you’re paying attention. It’s a delicate line that Amtrak has to walk between vigilance and privacy invasion. So delicate, in…

Privacy & Security Brian Barrett

Antivirus Software: It’s What Keeps Dolph Lundgren From Lighting Your Unicorn On Fire

If you don’t quite understand the threat that cyber criminals pose to your online banking, let Norton explain: your bank account is like an adorable little unicorn and the hackers are like Dolph Lundgren with a flamethrower. See? Simple. [DailyWh.at]

Privacy & Security Kyle VanHemert

Get Ready to Be Groped Much Harder by Airport Security

Canon Printers and Scanners Will Block Jobs With Flagged Keywords

Why You Should Never Pick a Risqué File Name

Clean Your Ears, Because Airport Security Might Soon Be Scanning Them

Lockheed Martin’s Kenneth Van Meter Profits If You Fear the Smart Grid

ADT Ad Campaign Scares Homeowners Into Buying ADT Security

Simple Lack of Hygiene Fools Most Biometric Scanners

Find Out Who’s Pulling Private Data From Your Phone With TaintDroid

Some Airport Employees Use Body Scanners As Personal Nudie-Vision Goggles

Why the Feds Want To Wiretap the Internet, and Why They Can’t

Is Foursquare Ruining Eating Out?

Your Privacy Is a Joke for Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt

A 17-Year Old Caused Yesterday’s Twitter Mess

Stolen Credit Card Sites Have Hidden Fees—Just Like the Credit Cards Themselves

That Twitter Exploit Patch Brought Some Neat New Features Along With It

There Was a New Twitter Exploit and It Was Spreading Like Wildfire

HDCP Master Key Is Real, But It Won’t Do You Much Good

Smartphones Are Only the Tip of the Security Iceberg

Amtrak Security Scares You Silly Just Because They Can

Antivirus Software: It’s What Keeps Dolph Lundgren From Lighting Your Unicorn On Fire

Artemis 2 Live Updates: Countdown to the Moon 🔴

Anthropic Can’t Cover Up Its Claude Code Leak Fast Enough

Zach Cregger Recruits Second Zach for His Aunt Gladys Spinoff

Can You Run a Computer Without RAM? Surprisingly, Yes—But You’ll Be Miserable

How Adult Swim Skipped the April Fools’ Nonsense and Dropped a ‘Smiling Friends’ Claymation Horror Short Instead

Oracle Lays Off Thousands to Offset AI Spending

The Films and Shows You Should Be Streaming in April 2026

Chinese Startup Debuts Super-Bendy Robotic Arm for Orbital Repairs

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

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