Top Stories
Google to Congress: deleting profiling data ‘not always practicable’
February 2, 2012
Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., says there wasn’t enough time to set up a full public hearing on the controversial user agreement changes Google announced last week. Those changes take effect March 1 and will enable the search giant to step up the cross-referencing of profiling data collected from users of its popular online services. Google says it is not collecting any data from users of Google …More
Google, Facebook say privacy rules bad for economy
January 27, 2012
They may be battling each other tooth-and-nail to win over online advertisers. But Google and Facebook are on the same side when it comes to opposing new data-handling privacy laws fast-gelling in Europe and the U.S.
On Wednesday, the European Union formally proposed strict rules that could restrict much of the systematic tracking and profiling Google and Facebook routinely do of Internet users, as part …More
Risks rise as Google, Facebook intensify profiling
January 26, 2012
Google and Facebook might have finally gotten the average consumer riled up about privacy.
For the past two years, each company has experimented with different ways to divine more and more about how people live their lives on the Internet, without sparking a revolt.
But the plans the rivals announced on Tuesday, which critics say could dramatically rev up their respective abilities to gather intelligence on individual Internet …More
Chilling effect of MegaUpload raid takes hold
January 24, 2012
By Byron Acohido and Scott Martin, USA TODAY
Caution is spreading among popular file-sharing services known for letting users circulate pirated Hollywood content.
FileSonic, FileServe and Uploaded.to have abruptly cut off the sharing of movies, games and other software just days after the Justice Department closed down Megaupload, the largest such site.
“It looks like the chilling effect has already started,” says Dennis Fisher, editor in chief of security blog …More
Zappos hack shows risk of using e-mail as your account username
January 16, 2012
If you’ve ever shopped at Zappos now would be a good time to take stock of the e-mail address and password you use most often to shop and bank online.
The popular online shoe retailer, a division of Amazon, disclosed on Sunday that hackers cracked its customer database to steal records for some 24 million customers.
The data thieves did not get any payment card numbers, because that data was …More
Stratfor hack demonstrates new strain of censorship
January 11, 2012
Hacking technology has become so accessible, and social network-based rabble rousing so prevalent, that hacktivists espousing confused motives can lash out indiscriminately — and cause crushing damage.
That’s the upshot of the Christmas Eve Stratfor.com escapade widely attributed to members of the Anonymous hacking collective. The online global affairs publication relaunched its website today, three weeks after hacktivists posted sensitive data for 50,000 Stratfor subscribers, then shut …More
2011: Year of the hacktivists
January 10, 2012
Stratfor.com remains inoperative nearly three weeks after a Christmas Eve hacktivist break-in. To add insult to injury, a prankster has begun sending bogus e-mail messages to the online publication’s subscribers asking them to rate the company’s response to the breach, according to Sophos’ analyst Chet Wiesniewski.
The attack on Strategic Forecasting — which supplies its subscribers with independent analysis on global affairs — capped an unprecedented year for …More
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