How to protect your Ring from hackers (and Amazon partners)
Amazon’s Ring says its connected-doorbell devices are building “safer neighborhoods.” Follow these steps to better protect the data (and video) they collect from hackers and partners.
surveillance
A hacker’s fall fashion line features faux license plates. Here’s why
LAS VEGAS—Are you too sexy for your license plate? Hacker and fashion designer Kate Rose thinks not. Until now, most antisurveillance fashion has surrounded... Read More...
Suspect a hidden camera in your Airbnb or hotel? Here’s how to tell
Before booking a stay, read the home description for a required camera disclosure. And after checking in, you can take these steps to find a hidden camera and protect your privacy.
How USB sticks help drive freedom in North Korea (Q&A)
Two leaders of the Human Rights Foundation-backed initiative Flash Drives for Freedom detail why—and how—they flood North Korean markets with entertainment-loaded USB sticks.
New Zealand defends its border device search policy (Q&A)
Amid global struggles to balance travelers’ privacy with strong border protections, a New Zealand Customs Service representative explains recent updates to its device search policies.
To prevent EHR breaches, stop using them (Q&A)
Cluttered EHRs are reducing doctors’ ability to make good decisions for their patients while decreasing patient privacy, argues Twila Brase, author of Big Brother in the Exam Room.
In post-massacre Vegas, security policies clash with privacy values
Following the massacre from the Mandalay Bay, hotel security personnel began routinely checking rooms. They’re now clashing with privacy advocates attending security conferences.
Why (and how) bosses set up devices to ‘supervise’
Even if your boss isn't actively surveilling you—or you think you have nothing to hide—you should know how blurring the line between personal and professional puts your privacy at risk.
Looking beyond the surveillance state
As advanced surveillance technologies become more and more accessible, companies and individuals will more readily use it to track others, developer Emily Crose argues.
Even North Korea has an antivirus program—but it’s used for spying
When researchers inspected the ingredients of SiliVaccine, North Korea-developed Windows antivirus software, they found a mix of spyware and old stolen Trend Micro code.
Nunes memo promotes intelligence distrust, not surveillance reform
Some privacy advocates say it calls for a resurrected debate over FISA practices. But Nunes himself is a steadfast surveillance supporter of the existing process.
Hidden inside Dark Caracal’s espionage apps: Old tech
Researchers say the nation-state developers behind the Android spyware campaign Dark Caracal took a page from developers of legitimate software, relying on recycled components.
How to keep tabs on the secret companies that know everything about you
Beyond the big three credit-reporting bureaus, a universe of secret companies can make or break your ability to get a job, insurance, home, or even a seat at a poker table. Take note.
As NSA spy law authorization sunsets, lawmakers remain divided
As some lawmakers push for the extension of FISA Section 702, an expiring law that allows programs like Prism and Upstream, others push for new privacy protections.
How Spain is waging Internet war on Catalan separatists
Privacy and online-rights advocates say Spain’s recent heavy-handed Internet control is unprecedented for a Western democracy—and it could return with this week’s snap election.
Surveillance bill keeps U.S. search loophole open
The USA Liberty Act, designed to revamp and reauthorize FISA Section 702, would still allow the FBI and other agencies to query the NSA database of U.S. communications sans warrant.
How antivirus software could be used for government espionage
Government agencies—and the individuals who work for them—often trust the deep-scanning skills of security software like Kaspersky’s to keep their computer files safe.
Lawmakers to spar over sunsetting spy law
Privacy advocates in Congress oppose reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702 without major reform. The implication: Existing surveillance programs won’t survive without new privacy protections.
Jennifer Granick on spying: ‘The more we collect, the less we know’ (Q&A)
Granick, the director of civil liberties at Stanford Law School and recent author of “American Spies,” sounds off on the nature, effectiveness, and justness of U.S. surveillance today.
DHS searches of travelers’ social-media accounts ‘ripe for litigation’
Trump's DHS proposal to demand travelers’ social-media account passwords before entering the U.S. worries legal and computer security experts.
Primer: Why people are flocking to messaging app Signal
What was once an obscure app offering protection for which most people couldn’t contemplate a use is being rapidly adopted by tech titans and rebels alike. Here’s why.
Tech’s power to promote good or evil depends on who controls it
Tools developed to create, acquire, and distribute data can also be used to gain influence, monitor, and persecute. These uses are two sides of the same coin.
Primer: What your metadata says about you
The ways private companies and government agencies use information created by and attached to all forms of digital communication are far-reaching and, in some cases, vital.
Why Yahoo should have fought FISA like Apple fought the FBI
Responding to a court order, Yahoo reportedly made custom software to scan billions of emails for terrorist ties. Beyond constitutionality, the legality of compulsory tool development remains an open question.
Peering into the state of facial recognition
The “notoriously inaccurate” tech has spread from government databases to popular apps. And although it’s improving (and spreading) constantly, it’s not ready for prime time, privacy advocates say.
How an FBI win against Apple could hurt my company
To any software engineer with an imagination, the resulting possibilities are horrifying. A favorable precedent would let the government turn us into unwilling surveillance assistants.
Garry Kasparov takes on the Russian surveillance state (Q&A)
Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov takes a break from opposing Vladimir Putin’s policies to talk with The Parallax about human rights, government spying, and privacy tools.
Why weakening encryption can hurt you
Law enforcement wants access to encrypted communications. Creating so-called backdoors could bring with it unintended consequences, including threats to personal privacy.
Encryption over time
Hardly a modern invention, encryption has been in use for almost 4,000 years. Take a brief journey through history as we highlight some of the seminal moments in the development of coded communications.
CISA sneaks through Congress, leaving privacy groups scrambling
Privacy advocates split on how to proceed, after the controversial cybersecurity law gets tacked on to a massive government spending bill.
Politicians try to draw online providers into fight against terror
Some lawmakers want social-media providers, ISPs, and other businesses to report suspected terrorist activity, but critics say additional requirements may be counterproductive.
NSA phone records program diminished, not dead
The USA Freedom Act may have hampered the agency’s program for bulk collection of U.S. phone records, but “there are a lot of unknowns” about how it might be interpreted or sidestepped.
‘State of Control’ explores harrowing consequences of surveillance
The documentary, of two filmmakers who traveled to Tibet before the 2008 Olympics, shows how China uses technology to control information and people far beyond its borders.
Paris attacks reignite U.S. encryption debate
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in France, U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, are reiterating their arguments for security standard backdoors into communications data.
For police drone use, ‘the floodgates are about to open’
As the technological capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles proliferate, privacy groups are pushing for laws to require police to obtain warrants to use them.
Privacy protection hole of 29-year-old law is hard to measure
While several tech titans require warrants to give police and prosecutors access to customers’ older stored communications, countless Internet companies with fewer legal resources likely are complying with agency-issued subpoenas.
Judge sets new limits on cell phone surveillance
Illinois ruling addresses several of privacy advocates’ issues with law enforcement agencies’ use of secretive “stingray” tracking technology to collect cell phone data.
Regarding CISA, D.C.’s from Mars, Silicon Valley’s still from California
The political establishment and the tech industry aren’t clashing for the first or last time over the government’s proper role in safeguarding privacy and cybersecurity.
Tech companies say no to CISA. Too late?
Opponents of the cyberthreat information-sharing bill, designed to protect companies that share cyberattack data with federal agencies from customer lawsuits, face tough odds.
CISA’s ‘a surveillance bill in cybersecurity clothing’
A proposed law to make it easier for government agencies to share information also would allow businesses to deliver personal data to the NSA or FBI, critics contend.