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

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Forum of Porn Website Brazzers has been Hacked, Exposing the Data of as Many as 800,000 Users

Be careful where you go on the World Wide Web. Wherever you go, you leave tracks behind. Those tracks can be uncovered and exposed by hackers. The recently-publicized data from Brazzers contains 790,724 unique email addresses, and also includes usernames and plaintext passwords. (The set has 928,072 entries in all, but many are duplicates.) All the information has been published on a public web site by unidentified hackers. Troy Hunt, […]

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Amazon Reports an Eight-Fold Increase in Search Warrants from Government Officials

Yes, Big Brother is watching you… and me… and everyone else. One example came recently from Amazon. The total number of government requests for data on Amazon customers has doubled over the past year. The retail and cloud giant quietly announced the latest figures for the first six months of 2016 ending June in a report, published yesterday, which showed a total of 1,803 different requests from the US government. […]

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Civic.com is a FREE Service that Monitors Who is Using Your Social Security Number

Approximately 13 million U.S. residents have their identities stolen each year with financial losses totaling upwards of $15 billion. Civic.com’s new proactive approach to identity gives you the power to secure your information before any damage is done. Civic, which bills itself as an “identity protection network” and launches in beta today, hinges on a simple enough premise: If your Social Security number is used, you’ll get a push notification. […]

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FBI has 411 Million Photos in its Facial Recognition System, and a Federal Watchdog Has Criticized its Improper Implementation

The FBI has amassed more than 411 million photos as part of its vast facial recognition database, according to a government watchdog — which in a new report criticized the system for its lack of safeguards and protections. That includes millions of individuals’ driving license photos, as well as photos of foreigners applying for visas, and criminal mugshots. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the FBI in a new […]

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Let’s Encrypt Accidentally Leaks Some E-Mails

OOOPS! Let’s Encrypt, the non-profit Certificate Authority (CA) that helps website administrators switch from HTTP to HTTPS quickly and effortlessly, has accidentally leaked 7,618 email addresses of its users. “Backed by the EFF, Mozilla Foundation, and several others organizations, Let’s Encrypt made some welcome security choices when it hired outside experts to conduct a security review of its software and the protocol it uses for automatic certificate issuance and management, […]

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Keepsafe Surpasses 50 Million Users; Launches New Privacy Initiative

The following is a press release written by KeepSafe: SAN FRANCISCO, June 09, 2016 — Keepsafe, the leader in Content Privacy tools, announced today that its products are now used by over 50 million consumers. Building on this overwhelming momentum, the company is also launching a re-brand with a new logo, website, and dedicated focus to the concept of Content Privacy. “Twenty years ago, we used shoeboxes to keep up […]

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Privacy-Busting Facial Recognition App Lets Cops, Shops and Advertisers Instantly Detect Ordinary People’s Identity

Do you think this is scary? The days when most humans enjoyed relative anonymity could be numbered due to the development of a terrifyingly powerful facial recognition app called FindFace. This creepy technology is capable of correctly guessing a person’s identity with a 70% rate of accuracy. Just show it a picture and it’ll show you the name of the person and then help you find their social media accounts. […]

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FBI may soon be Allowed to Hack Computers Anywhere in the World

The US Supreme Court has approved a rule change that will allow US judges to issue search warrants for accessing computers and devices in any jurisdiction. That would greatly expand the FBI’s hacking capability, say civil liberties groups, who are opposing the planned change. Under existing rules, judges can only issue orders within their jurisdiction, often only a few miles across or a few local districts. The change will allow […]

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Privacy International Unleashes Huge Dump of Dirt on GCHQ Surveillance

Interesting article in The Inquirer: PRESSURE AND RIGHTS GROUP Privacy International has released a huge whack of documents rammed with dirt on GCHQ and its habit of grabbing personal information and communications. The documents show that successive home secretaries have allowed this to carry on since at least 2005. The Privacy International report said that the documents go back to 1998, and include details and memorandums about a range of […]

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