DOJ smacks Baltimore police over constitutionally protected right to record cops
Good news today as the Justice Department defended our constitutional rights by taking a firm stance on our First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in regard to our right to record the police. The DOJ is not happy about the Baltimore Police Department's recent Read more
Microsoft Kinect ads can watch you while you watch them
Do you watch commercials or do use that timeslot to run to the restroom or to the kitchen? Do you fast-forward to skip as many commercials as possible when watching TV via a DVR or On Demand? Microsoft's new Kinect-powered interactive commercials, called NUads for Natural User Interface Adverstisements, have the potential to change all that. Read more
This is why people pirate Windows
Once upon a time during college and working IT, running a computer repair shop on the side, and then later corporate world days, Microsoft Windows pretty much guaranteed plenty of work what with the constant world of updating Windows patches, testing then pushing out updates, and installing or reinstalling Microsoft software after poor user input to name but a few reasons. I could not even begin to recall how many hundreds of PCs and laptops that I have reformatted, validated as "genuine" and activated (reactivated). Read more
SOPA supporters meet in secret to strangle Internet freedom & online speech
I was so proud of "us," the Net, for what we accomplished in stomping out SOPA/PIPA, even though a former DHS cybersecurity dude who wishes to remain anonymous warned me that the fight was nowhere close to over and to expect it to be pushed through under another name and this time much more secretly. Sure enough, a trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has an intellectual property (IP) chapter that is being worked out behind closed doors to keep us in the dark so we don't go all ninja netizens again. Read more
Fight the Patriot Act and win. Next? Promise privacy, a surveillance-free ISP
If an ISP said privacy is more important than profit, would you believe it? What if that ISP and mobile wireless carrier charged you as little as $20 a month, provided end-to end encryption on all electronic communications, and said "no" to any kind of government surveillance? Would you believe and help support it then? Read more
Counterintelligence Surveillance Swelled Another 10% in 2011
Surprise, or maybe not so much, counterintelligence surveillance increased in 2011 according to the new annual Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) report [PDF]. The Justice Department filed 1,676 applications to conduct electronic surveillance in 2011, which is up from the 1,579 filed in 2010. Read more
Microsoft blames and bans Chinese security partner for leaking Windows exploit
Microsoft issued critical patch MS12-020 to fix the Windows' Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerability last month as it was spotted on a Chinese hacker forum and was being exploited in the wild. The kicker is that the exploit code was leaked from one of Microsoft's security partners in the Microsoft Active Protection Program (MAPP). Read more
NASA, Air Force, Harvard, Military, ESA Hacked by Gray Hats 'The Unknowns'
The Unknowns, a new hacking groups that claims to be neither white hats nor black hats, have targeted, hacked and released over 200MB on the following list of victims: NASA's Glen Research Center, US Air Force, the US Military's Joint Pathology Center, Harvard University, the European Space Agency (ESA), the French Ministry Read more
Microsoft Researchers say cybercrime loss estimates are a bunch of bunk
I get a real kick out of people who are unafraid to buck the system with their unconventional wisdom such as Microsoft Researchers Cormac Herley and Dinei Florêncio. Read more
Choose Privacy Week: ACLU's Mike German on Freedom from Surveillance
Did you know this is Choose Privacy Week? The American Library Association said, "Choose Privacy Week is a new initiative that invites people into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age." On a site called Privacy Revolution, the librarians wrote, "In the spirit of civic values that allow people to freely seek information in all formats without fear of retribution or exploitation, it's time to reclaim our right to privacy." Read more
World's Largest Unclassified SPIE Conference: Spying & Surveillance Tech
The world's largest unclassified conference for spying, defense, homeland security and surveillance technology was held at the Baltimore Convention Center last week. Read more
Sick SSL ecosystem: 90% of HTTPS sites insecure, 75% vulnerable to BEAST attack
When you deal with sensitive or financial information online, be it banking or signing into email, it's always important to make sure the website shows HTTPS in your web browser so your information is kept private and secure; but that's not always good enough. In fact, a recent report found that 90% of the world's 200,000 most popular websites which use HTTPS are actually vulnerable to SSL (Secure Socket Layer) attacks. 75% of the sites are vulnerable to the BEAST SSL attack. Sadly only 10% of SSL-enabled sites are secure. Read more
Microsoft Patches Hotmail after 0-day Remote Password Reset Exploited in the Wild
$20 could buy any hacked Hotmail account "within a minute" due to a critical password reset and setup flaw in Microsoft Live (Hotmail), and with Microsoft having 350 million unique Hotmail users, you can imagine how busy cybercriminals were exploiting the Hotmail zero-day in the wild. Read more
NSA Domestic Intercept Map? NSA Lies, Spies in Orwellian World of Gov't Surveillance
Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher, hacker, human rights activist, privacy advocate, Tor developer and WikiLeaks supporter was once called the "most dangerous man in cyberspace" by Rolling Stone. Yet many people would call Appelbaum, aka @ioerror, an Internet freedom fighter. Read more
No warrant needed, no privacy: Judge rules even deleted tweets can be used in court
In the continuing saga of law enforcement or government agencies like DHS using social media for monitoring purposes, the police and prosecutors do not need a warrant to subpoena your tweets. Read more
DHS social media monitoring: Watched Facebook, emailed police, arrested photographer
Homeland Security has tried to reassure citizens about how it only uses social media for situational awareness. Yet in light of a photographer's disturbing story, it seems to indicate the reality of how DHS is watching and tracking. Read more
US-CERT: Social engineers target utilities with fake Microsoft support calls
The U.S. Cyber Emergency Response Team (US-CERT,) an operational arm of the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) at DHS, released the newest "ICS-CERT Monthly Monitor" [PDF] yesterday, warning that cybercrooks were busy attempting highly targeted social engineering attacks on Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Read more
Stop Cyber Spying: Stop CISPA the New Enemy of the Internet
We are half way through Stop Cyber Spying Week and there's no time to dawdle if you care about privacy and civil liberties, since the House is set to vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) [PDF] next week. Read more
Is Google co-founder in 'digital denial' about walled gardens and web freedom?
Web freedom, openness and universal access, are more seriously threatened now than ever, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told The Guardian. Governments, the entertainment industry, Apple and Facebook make up the "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world. I am more worried than I have been in the past," Brin stated. "It's scary." Read more
Will we trade freedom for application security?
Without applications, why would you get online? What could you do? Even in the real world, there is very little we could purchase that couldn't be traced back to software that is running it. Apps are everywhere, from the smartphone to the smart grid. The world has a "critical dependence" on applications, but only too often those apps are riddled with security vulnerabilities and shoddy or bloated code. Read more
- About Privacy and Security Fanatic
Ms. Smith (not her real name) is a freelance writer and programmer with a special and somewhat personal interest in IT privacy and security issues. Smith has a diverse background in information technology, programming, web development, IT consulting, and information security. She focuses on the unique challenges of maintaining privacy and security, both for individuals and enterprises. She has worked as a journalist and has also penned many technical papers and guides covering various technologies. Smith is herself a self-described privacy and security freak.
Smith is an independent contractor and is not affiliated with any vendor that makes or sells information technology.
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