surveillance – Page 9 – SSL and internet security news

Emergency Surveillance During COVID-19 Crisis

March 20, 2020 infossl

china, covid19, datacollection, eff, epidemiology, iran, israel, nationalsecuritypolicy, privacy, Security technology, surveillance

Israel is using emergency surveillance powers to track people who may have COVID-19, joining China and Iran in using mass surveillance in this way. I believe pressure will increase to leverage existing corporate surveillance infrastructure for these purposes in the US and other countries. With that in mind, the EFF has some good thinking on … Read More “Emergency Surveillance During COVID-19 Crisis” »

More on Crypto AG

March 6, 2020 infossl

assassinations, backdoors, cia, cryptography, intelligence, privacy, Security technology, surveillance

One follow-on to the story of Crypto AG being owned by the CIA: this interview with a Washington Post reporter. The whole thing is worth reading or listening to, but I was struck by these two quotes at the end: …in South America, for instance, many of the governments that were using Crypto machines were … Read More “More on Crypto AG” »

Companies that Scrape Your Email

February 12, 2020 infossl

apple, datamining, email, espionage, marketing, Security technology, surveillance

Motherboard has a long article on apps — Edison, Slice, and Cleanfox — that spy on your email by scraping your screen, and then sell that information to others: Some of the companies listed in the J.P. Morgan document sell data sourced from “personal inboxes,” the document adds. A spokesperson for J.P. Morgan Research, the … Read More “Companies that Scrape Your Email” »

Apple’s Tracking-Prevention Feature in Safari has a Privacy Bug

February 10, 2020 infossl

apple, leaks, privacy, Security technology, surveillance, tracking, vulnerabilities

Last month, engineers at Google published a very curious privacy bug in Apple’s Safari web browser. Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention, a feature designed to reduce user tracking, has vulnerabilities that themselves allow user tracking. Some details: ITP detects and blocks tracking on the web. When you visit a few websites that happen to load the … Read More “Apple’s Tracking-Prevention Feature in Safari has a Privacy Bug” »

New Research on the Adtech Industry

February 4, 2020 infossl

adware, dataprotection, privacy, Security technology, surveillance

The Norwegian Consumer Council has published an extensive report about how the adtech industry violates consumer privacy. At the same time, it is filing three legal complaints against six companies in this space. From a Twitter summary: 1. [thread] We are filing legal complaints against six companies based on our research, revealing systematic breaches to … Read More “New Research on the Adtech Industry” »

Customer Tracking at Ralphs Grocery Store

January 29, 2020 infossl

consumerization, datacollection, dataprotection, privacy, Security technology, surveillance, tracking

To comply with California’s new data privacy law, companies that collect information on consumers and users are forced to be more transparent about it. Sometimes the results are creepy. Here’s an article about Ralphs, a California supermarket chain owned by Kroger: …the form proceeds to state that, as part of signing up for a rewards … Read More “Customer Tracking at Ralphs Grocery Store” »

Google Receives Geofence Warrants

January 28, 2020 infossl

geolocation, google, lawenforcement, nsa, privacy, Security technology, surveillance, tracking

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the corporate surveillance operations from the government ones: Google reportedly has a database called Sensorvault in which it stores location data for millions of devices going back almost a decade. The article is about geofence warrants, where the police go to companies like Google and ask for information about every … Read More “Google Receives Geofence Warrants” »

Modern Mass Surveillance: Identify, Correlate, Discriminate

January 27, 2020 infossl

cameras, essays, facerecognition, identification, lawenforcement, laws, privacy, Security technology, smartphones, surveillance

Communities across the United States are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. In May of last year, San Francisco banned facial recognition; the neighboring city of Oakland soon followed, as did Somerville and Brookline in Massachusetts (a statewide ban may follow). In December, San Diego suspended a facial recognition program in advance of a new … Read More “Modern Mass Surveillance: Identify, Correlate, Discriminate” »

Clearview AI and Facial Recognition

January 20, 2020 infossl

artificialintelligence, facerecognition, lawenforcement, police, privacy, Security technology, surveillance

The New York Times has a long story about Clearview AI, a small company that scrapes identified photos of people from pretty much everywhere, and then uses unstated magical AI technology to identify people in other photos. His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, … Read More “Clearview AI and Facial Recognition” »

Police Surveillance Tools from Special Services Group

January 10, 2020 infossl

cameras, eavesdropping, espionage, foia, lawenforcement, police, privacy, Security technology, surveillance

Special Services Group, a company that sells surveillance tools to the FBI, DEA, ICE, and other US government agencies, has had its secret sales brochure published. Motherboard received the brochure as part of a FOIA request to the Irvine Police Department in California. “The Tombstone Cam is our newest video concealment offering the ability to … Read More “Police Surveillance Tools from Special Services Group” »