Category: privacy

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Identifying Programmers by their Coding Style

Posted on By infossl
deanonymization, machinelearning, plagiarism, privacy, Security technology

Fascinating research de-anonymizing code — from either source code or compiled code: Rachel Greenstadt, an associate professor of computer science at Drexel University, and Aylin Caliskan, Greenstadt’s former PhD student and now an assistant professor at George Washington University, have found that code, like other forms of stylistic expression, are not anonymous. At the DefCon … Read More “Identifying Programmers by their Coding Style” »

California Passes New Privacy Law

Posted on By infossl
datacollection, dataprotection, laws, privacy, Security technology

The California legislature unanimously passed the strongest data privacy law in the nation. This is great news, but I have a lot of reservations. The Internet tech companies pressed to get this law passed out of self-defense. A ballot initiative was already going to be voted on in November, one with even stronger data privacy … Read More “California Passes New Privacy Law” »

Manipulative Social Media Practices

Posted on By infossl
consumerization, deception, facebook, google, norway, privacy, Security technology, socialmedia

The Norwegian Consumer Council just published an excellent report on the deceptive practices tech companies use to trick people into giving up their privacy. From the executive summary: Facebook and Google have privacy intrusive defaults, where users who want the privacy friendly option have to go through a significantly longer process. They even obscure some … Read More “Manipulative Social Media Practices” »

The Effects of Iran’s Telegram Ban

Posted on By infossl
censorship, iran, privacy, Security technology, telegram

The Center for Human Rights in Iran has released a report outlining the effect’s of that country’s ban on Telegram, a secure messaging app used by about half of the country. The ban will disrupt the most important, uncensored platform for information and communication in Iran, one that is used extensively by activists, independent and … Read More “The Effects of Iran’s Telegram Ban” »

Free Societies are at a Disadvantage in National Cybersecurity

Posted on By infossl
cyberattack, cybercrime, cyberespionage, cybersecurity, nationalsecuritypolicy, privacy, Security technology

Jack Goldsmith and Stuart Russell just published an interesting paper, making the case that free and democratic nations are at a structural disadvantage in nation-on-nation cyberattack and defense. From a blog post: It seeks to explain why the United States is struggling to deal with the “soft” cyber operations that have been so prevalent in … Read More “Free Societies are at a Disadvantage in National Cybersecurity” »

Accessing Cell Phone Location Information

Posted on By infossl
cellphones, lawenforcement, privacy, searches, Security technology, surveillance, tracking

The New York Times is reporting about a company called Securus Technologies that gives police the ability to track cell phone locations without a warrant: The service can find the whereabouts of almost any cellphone in the country within seconds. It does this by going through a system typically used by marketers and other companies … Read More “Accessing Cell Phone Location Information” »

COPPA Compliance

Posted on By infossl
academicpapers, children, identification, nationalsecuritypolicy, privacy, Security technology, tracking

Interesting research: “‘Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?’ Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale“: Abstract: We present a scalable dynamic analysis framework that allows for the automatic evaluation of the privacy behaviors of Android apps. We use our system to analyze mobile apps’ compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), one of the few … Read More “COPPA Compliance” »