Tag Archives: privacy

In an effort to hammer home to Netflix how much it dislikes geoblocking and the streaming service's crackdown on people getting around it using virtual private networks (VPNs), pro-privacy campaigners at OpenMedia, have been driving a truck around Netflix's headquarters, protesting the move. The van in question features a large …

The British government's upcoming Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) is set to have a further independent review, this time focusing in on the specific powers for “bulk collection.” Along with other measures of the bill, this has caused particular concern because of its potential for mass hacking of consumer devices. The …

Image analysis has come on a long way in recent years, offering us everything from interesting analytics reports to face swapping, but an amalgamation of those two developments has some privacy campaigners concerned. A new app becoming very popular in Russia, known as FindFace, can figure out who someone is …

Kim Dotcom's second file locker project (now disowned), Mega, has been hit with a court order in the U.S. demanding that the site hand over the user information for certain accounts. This comes after sensitive, foreign government documents were found on the site after a hack. This court action could be …

Most companies strictly control the data that they put out there into the world and that includes what goes to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, especially if they don't have a warrant. Twitter has just entrenched that ideal, by blocking a loophole that the FBI and CIA had been using …

Bill Gates drew some condemnation when he voiced support for the FBI's desire to break into the iPhone of the San Bernardino attacker. However he has now clarified his position, saying nobody is in just one camp when it comes to privacy vs. security and that if the government ever …

When Oculus was first bought by Facebook, the reaction was fairly negative and while things have settled down a lot since then, recently the Oculus Rift began shipping and unfortunately, not everyone is happy with the Oculus privacy policy. The policy says that Oculus can collect user data ranging from …

The Obama administration will not be backing legislation that would allow judges to force companies like Apple to weaken the security of their hardware and software in order to facilitate snooping. While President Obama's personal opinion seems to still be in favour of this sort of bill, clearly there is …

The Whatsapp messaging service has confirmed that as of Tuesday 6th April, all communications on its platform are encrypted from end to end, meaning that even if it was given a court order, it wouldn't be able to read its users' messages or images. Only the sender and receiver will be …

Often it seems that politicians are either wilfully ignorant, or unconsciously so, about encryption, with the legislative changes they propose almost always railing against the obfuscating technology. Not so with all of them though, as U.S. senator Ron Wyden has promised to protect it by fighting against a push to …

It didn't take long for politicians to jump on the recent attacks in Brussels, as further evidence that the Theresa May driven Investigatory Powers Bill, more colloquially known as the Snooper's Charter, is needed. This despite many of the world's major tech firms claiming otherwise and now Apple has joined the likes …

In the latest instance of Apple looking to distance itself from government interference, it has announced that it is now designing its own servers in-house, because it's concerned that someone is modifying its servers after they've been shipped from the manufacturer. In some cases, it believes hardware was added to …

Yesterday saw the British government publish the latest draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill and though it promised to take into consideration the three committees that have attacked it, addressing their 100+ concerns, it hasn't. In many cases it has ignored major problems raised by various parliamentary bodies and has …

More tech firms are picking sides in the ongoing battle between Tim Cook's Apple and the FBI over cracking iPhone security for the handset of one of the San Bernardino attackers. This time around though they're siding with the FBI, with both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill …

Both Ancestry.com and 23andMe.com are services designed to help you trace your relatives or ancestors.  Customer data is sometimes requested by police to test it against crime scene evidence. Although this is par for the course with technology firms, these are two of only a few companies which store large collections …

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of Parliament, a previously rather quite organisation has stepped out of the shadows to lambaste the British government over its proposed Investigatory Powers Bill, often termed the Snooper's Charter. It claims that the bill “lacks clarity,” and wants to see privacy protections, “form the …

While it is common knowledge at this point that Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, the company hasn't actually done much with the messenger app until recently. Just last week it was announced that WhatsApp would no longer require a yearly subscription and now, it seems that the app is …

As much as many cheered on Arab Spring protests in Africa and the Middle East over the past few years, it was obvious even in less developed countries that the technological disparity between protesters and governments is widening. So what can modern day protesters do to keep themselves safe from …

In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, obfuscating systems like encryption, the Tor browser and virtual private networks (VPN) have been championed by privacy advocates the world over as the best ways to protect your data online. However, that latter step may not be as useful as initially thought, …

If you're privacy conscious and have jumped on the recent Threshold 2 update for Windows 10, you may want to double-check your settings as reports are floating around that users had some of their that their options were reset. Users were coming back to their PCs to find things like cross-app …

Mark Zuckberg is one of those figures in the world of tech, who has had an enormous impact on the way the world works. Facebook has changed social interactions, the way we find information and online activity; whether you believe it's for the better or not. His stance on personal …

One of the less surprising outcomes of the Paris Attacks last week, was governments and intelligence agencies around the world citing it as a prime example of why they need more resources and better access to civilian communications and browsing histories. While in the U.K. the government has discussed bringing …

Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all of these companies make their money by tracking their users, figuring out information on them based on algorithms and search choices and displaying adverts to them from partner companies. That's all well and good for most governments and courts, but Belgium isn't happy that Facebook is …

Police in the UK are lobbying the government to give them the powers to look at what they describe as the “where, when and what,” of online activities, essentially letting them view the browsing history of every single internet user in the UK, without being issued a warrant. The reasoning they …

Along with a push for legislation like TTIP and TPP, British and American governments have all but declared a brand new ‘war' against encryption. They've both made efforts to paint the technology as a tool for terrorists and a serious security threat to all nations, as well as pushing for …

One of the more obvious disagreements between politicians and security services, and technology leaders and journalists in recent years, has been the topic of encryption. Law makers and law enforcement have painted it as a dangerous weapon of terrorists and paedophiles, whilst many others consider it an important tool to avoid …

EU citizens' data cannot be so easily sent to the U.S. any more thanks to a ruling on Tuesday which saw a European court shoot down the “Safe Harbour” system, which allows companies to self-certify whether they have enough data protection measures in place when sending customer information overseas. Moving …

Media companies are constantly trying to gain access to user information in their fight against online pirates and from time to time, courts do sympathize with them. This week, a Dutch court has ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user who put pirated eBooks up on …

In the case of the U.S. Department of Justice versus Microsoft, much of our international personal privacy hangs in the balance. Yes the NSA is probably hoovering up 99 per cent of what we transmit to each other across the the internet, but if the DOJ wins this particular court …

AAISP – the unfiltered network Most internet service providers are quite typical. They offer phone and broadband products and have lacklustre callcentre support systems that are so ubiquitous, they've been the punchline of every comedian's closing bit for a decade; but that's not the case with every ISP. Recently we sat …