Pete Recommends – weekly highlights on cyber security issues – March 25 2018

Subject: Facebook employee on what it’s like to be investigated by Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘secret police’
Source: Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-employee-what-its-like-investigated-by-mark-zuckerberg-secret-police-2018-3

An anonymous Facebook employee has explained in a new interview with The Guardian what it’s like to be under investigation by Facebook’s internal investigations team. The anonymous employee said that they received a message from their manager saying they would receive a promotion. They said their manager walked them down a corridor, praising their work, and then directed them into a meeting room. Inside the meeting room were several members of Facebook’s internal investigations team, The Guardian reported. The investigators accused the employee of leaking information to a journalist, and the employee said they had records of screenshots, links clicked, and potentially the conversation with a journalist.


Subject: GPS Isn’t Very Secure. Here’s Why We Need A Backup
Source: Wired via The Risks Digest – Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/58/#subj2

Earth got a warning shot on Ja nuary 25, 2016. On that day, Air Force engineers were scheduled to kill off a GPS satellite named SVN-23 “the oldest in the navigation constellation.” SVN-23 should have just gone to rest in peace.  But when engineers took it offline, its disappearance triggered,according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a software bug that left the timing of some of the remaining GPS satellites—15 of them—off by 13.7 microseconds. That’s not a lot to you. If your watch is off by 13.7 microseconds, you’ll
make it to your important meeting just fi ne. But it wasn’t so nice for the first responders in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Louisiana, whose GPS devices wouldn’t lock with satellites.


Subject: Seniors face slew of online, phone scams. Here’s how to avoid the top ones.
Source: USA Today Personal Finance
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2018/03/17/elderly-americans-face-slew-online-phone-scams-heres-how-avoid-top-ones/428629002/

Here are the top scams that Americans face and how to avoid them: This is a new one, ironically based off a government measure to make identity theft harder. Everyone on Medicare whose ID card bears their Social Security number is getting a new card, so that scammers can’t as easily get hold of that number. But now scammers are calling people and telling them that they need to pay for a new card or for expedited service (you don’t). Experts say the government is automatically sending the new cards to all 58 million Medicare beneficiaries — for free — so there’s no need to pay anyone for anything.

NB see also AARP Fraud Watch Network https://blog.aarp.org/tag/aarp-fraud-watch-network/


Subject: Explainer: What is differential privacy and how can it protect your data?
Source: The Conversation via GCN
https://gcn.com/articles/2018/03/19/differential-privacy.asp

It’s no secret that big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon are increasingly infiltrating our personal and social interactions to collect vast amounts of data on us every day. At the same time, privacy violations in cyberspace regularly make front page news. So how should privacy be protected in a world where data is gathered and shared with increasing speed and ingenuity. Differential privacy is a new model of cybersecurity that proponents claim can protect personal data far better than traditional methods. The math it is based on was developed 10 years ago, and the method has been adopted by Apple and Google in recent years. What is differential privacy?


Subject: Tools to understand and monitor the collection of your data by Facebook and Twitter
Source: beSpacific
https://www.bespacific.com/tools-to-understand-and-monitor-the-collection-of-your-data-by-facebook-and-twitter/

Data Selfie–which doesn’t actually record any data from you–offers a glimpse into the kind of behavioral profiling that’s come to light through new revelations about Cambridge Analytica and the leak of data of 50 million Facebook users. Check it out here


Subject: In reported breakthrough, Israeli tech can now unlock any phone — wow!
Source: The Times of Israel via The Risks Digest – Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/30/58/#subj19

Apple responds to claims that Cellebrite can now break into latest iPhone by telling customers to upgrade to latest iOS. http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-reported-breakthrough-israeli-tech-can-now-unlock-any-phone/

Posted in: Cybersecurity, Privacy, Social Media, Technology Trends