Category «Privacy»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 7, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Delete your digital history from dozens of companies with this app; Need a VPN? Here Are the Ones You Can Officially Trust; H&R Block, Meta, and Google Slapped With RICO Suit; and 3 Chatbot Privacy Risks and Concerns You Should Know About.

Subjects: AI, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Firewalls, Legal Research, Legislative, Privacy, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 30, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Hundreds of millions of individuals’ personally identifiable information” is impacted by the privacy weaknesses, according to the Government Accountability Office; Report: Insider Cybersecurity Threats Have Jumped 40% in 4 Years; iOS 17: iPhone Users Report Worrying Privacy Settings Change After Update; and China Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories.

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Government Resources, Privacy, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 23, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: New Privacy Badger Prevents Google From Mangling More of Your Links and Invading Your Privacy; Microsoft AI team accidentally leaks 38TB of private company data; California legislature passes ‘Delete Act’ to protect consumer data; and Starlink lost over 200 satellites in two months.

Subjects: AI, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cyberlaw Legislation, Cybersecurity, Government Resources, Legal Research, Privacy, Public Records, Search Engines, Social Media

Google Chrome just rolled out a new way to track you and serve ads. Here’s what you need to know

Late last week, Google announced something called the Privacy Sandbox has been rolled out to a “majority” of Chrome users, and will reach 100% of users in the coming months. But what is it, exactly? The new suite of features represents a fundamental shift in how Chrome will track user data for the benefit of advertisers. Erica Mealy explains that Instead of third-party cookies, Chrome can now tap directly into your browsing history to gather information on advertising “topics.” Understanding how it works – and whether you want to opt in or out – is important, since Chrome remains the most widely used browser in the world, with a 63% market share as of May 2023.

Subjects: Privacy, Search Engines

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 16, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Appeals Court Upholds Public.Resource.Org’s Right to Post Public Laws and Regulations Online; Hackers Are Salivating Over Electric Cars; and How Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa Target You With Ads.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Communications, Comparative/Foreign Law, Cybercrime, Cyberlaw, Cybersecurity, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy

How to Quickly Get to the Important Truth Inside Any Privacy Policy

Investigative data journalist Jon Keegan and former tech lawyer Linda Woods Hyman teach you how to spot tricks and hidden disclosures within these interminable documents—and even how to claw back some privacy.

Subjects: Big Data, Communications, E-Commerce, Health, KM, Legal Research, Legislative, Privacy, Technology Trends

We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You

If you spend any time online, you probably have some idea that the digital ad industry is constantly collecting data about you, including a lot of personal information, and sorting you into specialized categories so you’re more likely to buy the things they advertise to you. But in a rare look at just how deep—and weird—the rabbit hole of targeted advertising gets, Investigative Data Journalist Jon Keegan and Visualizations Engineer Joel Eastwood of the The Markup analyzed a database of 650,000 of these audience segments, newly unearthed on the website of Microsoft’s ad platform Xandr. The trove of data indicates that advertisers could also target people based on sensitive information like being “heavy purchasers” of pregnancy test kits, having an interest in brain tumors, being prone to depression, visiting places of worship, or feeling “easily deflated” or that they “get a raw deal out of life.”

Subjects: Big Data, Civil Liberties, Competitive Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, E-Commerce, Health, Privacy

Can you trust AI? Here’s why you shouldn’t

Security expert Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan Sanders believe that people who come to rely on AIs will have to trust them implicitly to navigate daily life. That means they will need to be sure the AIs aren’t secretly working for someone else. Across the internet, devices and services that seem to work for you already secretly work against you. Smart TVs spy on you. Phone apps collect and sell your data. Many apps and websites manipulate you through dark patterns, design elements that deliberately mislead, coerce or deceive website visitors. This is surveillance capitalism, and AI is shaping up to be part of it.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Civil Liberties, Cyberlaw, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy