Privacy Blog

"Friends don’t let friends get spied on.' – Richard Stallman, President of the Free Software Foundation and longtime advocate of privacy in technology.

Current Affairs

Leave a comment

Former Bush Official Lawrence Wilkerson Says Snowden Has Done a ‘Service’

Lawrence “Larry” Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as the chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell in President George W. Bush’s administration, finds the revelations made by Edward Snowden a service. In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former contractor with NSA, worked with journalists to reveal a number of mass surveillance programs. In a recent interview, Wilkerson said, “I think Snowden has done a service. I wouldn’t […]

Continue Reading →

1 Comment

FCC Proposes Stricter Privacy Rules for Internet Service Providers

The new rules would ensure your broadband or wireless service provider couldn’t share your personal data with marketers without permission. That’s the message the Federal Communications Commission is sending with a proposed regulation that would safeguard private customer information and require broadband and wireless companies to get consumers’ permission before sharing data with third parties such as marketers. Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated his proposal among the other four FCC commissioners […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

Free State Project

As a privacy-loving and freedom-loving former resident of New Hampshire, I have to admire the Free State Project. It is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire. As stated on the Free State Project web site at https://freestateproject.org/about: What the Free State Project Is The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire. We are looking for […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

Now There’s a Search Engine for Sleeping Kids

This story should scare everyone. Video cameras in the home are now very popular. They are used for many purposes, including watching sleeping children, kitchens, living rooms, garages, front gardens, back gardens, marijuana plantations, swimming pools, and much more. the problem is that most of these devices offer no security at all. Hackers or anyone else often can also see what is going on in your home. There’s even a […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

Major Toy Maker VTech Hacked: 4.8 Million Parents And 200,000 Children Exposed

Be careful what you purchase for Christmas presents. Electronic toy maker VTech’s Learning Lodge, the company’s app store database, has been compromised. The security breach, which occurred earlier this month, has been deemed among the biggest hacks ever documented. The incident exposed the private information of nearly 5 million parents and more than 200,000 children. According to Motherboard, the hacked personal information of the Chinese company’s customers include names, passwords, […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

Edward Snowden Explains How to Reclaim Your Privacy

Interesting reading. Here’s a few quotes from Eric Snowden: “Operational security is important even if you’re not worried about the NSA. Because when you think about who the victims of surveillance are, on a day-to-day basis, you’re thinking about people who are in abusive spousal relationships, you’re thinking about people who are concerned about stalkers, you’re thinking about children who are concerned about their parents overhearing things. It’s to reclaim […]

Continue Reading →

1 Comment

A Quote from a Recent UK Government Report on Privacy

“Privacy is an essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom, and its erosion weakens the constitutional foundations on which democracy and good governance have traditionally been based in this country.” From a 132-page report, A Democratic Licence To Operate, which Nick Clegg commissioned last year in the wake of revelations by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden. The full report is available at https://www.rusi.org/news/ref:N55A40513857F8/#.VaREe6Zzc22.

Continue Reading →

1 Comment

A Company That Creates Software to Hack Into Other People’s Email and Web Sites has Itself Been Hacked

This is an ironic story. An Italian company called Hacking Team is known for the creation of surveillance solutions for government agencies and others. It’s customers include Barclays, the Egyptian MOD, the FBI, the Lebanon Army Forces and a multitude of intelligence agencies worldwide as well as the the governments of Italy, the US, Spain, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Luxembourg, Egypt, Oman, Panama, Turkey, the UAE, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Poland, […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

$4.5 Billion National Cybersecurity and Protection System (NCPS) Program Fails to Stop Chinese Hack of U.S. Government Personnel Files

Your tax dollars (not) at work: In April, federal authorities detected an ongoing remote attack targeting the United States’ Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer systems. This situation may have gone on for months, possibly even longer, but the White House only made the discovery public last Friday. While the attack was eventually uncovered using the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Einstein — the multibillion-dollar intrusion detection and prevention system […]

Continue Reading →