Russian Hackers Targeting Both US Political Parties, Microsoft Warns; Beijing’s New Regulations Hinder TikTok Sale as US Deadline Nears; Twitter to Ban Misleading Election Claims; Ransomware Attacks Affect New School Semester. Click “Continue reading” below.
Continue reading “Daily Digest (9/11)”Month: September 2020
By Tammy Joyner
Last of two parts.
The seven-month-old COVID-19 pandemic has raised a thorny ethical issue: When is it necessary to override a person’s privacy? And is policing obstinate behavior during a pandemic ethical?
“There’s very much this tension between individual privacy and protecting the public,” Kelly Hills, a bioethicist and co-principal of the Rogue Bioethics consultancy in Lowell, Mass., told Digital Privacy News. “We’re still working out what it means to do public-health ethics.”
Americans total 4% of the world’s population but account for nearly one in four of the world’s coronavirus cases — and a little more than one in five of the deaths globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Continue reading “Using Subpoenas in COVID Raise Privacy, Overpolicing Questions”Study: Children’s Apps Could Be Sharing Personal Information With Third Parties; Ireland Orders Facebook to Stop Sending User Data to US; Windows Themes Can Be Exploited to Obtain User Passwords; Italy Probing Apple, Dropbox, Google for Cloud-Storage Issues. Click “Continue reading” below.
Continue reading “Daily Digest (9/10)”
By Tammy Joyner
First of two parts.
Tracking a killer is exhaustive work, especially when witnesses won’t cooperate.
Partygoers in the tony New York suburb of Rockland County recently found that out the hard way.
After being stonewalled, Rockland public-health officials in July served a group of obstinate revelers with subpoenas that carried a $2,000-a-day fine.
Rockland County contact-tracers, or disease detectives, had learned that some residents had contracted COVID-19 after attending a party of as many as 100 20-somethings in mid-June.
Continue reading “NY Suburb Turns to Subpoenas to Stop Parties During Pandemic”China Moves to Set Global Data-Security Rules With New Initiative; Federally Subsidized Phones Hacked Before They Are Turned On; Argentina’s Immigration Agency Hit in Ransomware Attack; New Amazon Program Allows Alexa to Be Installed in Rental Units. Click “Continue reading” below.
Continue reading “Daily Digest (9/9)”
By Nora Macaluso
Hacking-for-hire is becoming a bigger and more sophisticated tool in corporate espionage — and the market for such services is likely to continue, even as reports of high-profile, targeted attacks come to light, experts told Digital Privacy News.
Hacking-for-hire has become “more than just cracking a database and selling the information,” said Robert Siciliano, chief security architect at Protect Now in Boston. “Hacking today is a service, like hiring a lawyer or an accountant.”
Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based research laboratory focused on the intersection of digital technologies, human rights and global security, recently exposed a massive hacking operation targeting individuals and high-profile institutions worldwide.
Continue reading “Hacking-for-Hire Growing Bigger, Refined — and Far Too Common”Trump Tweets Support for Stars and Stripes, Voiding Pentagon’s Move; Apple Announces Commitment to Human-Rights Policy; Miami High-Schooler Arrested for School District Cyberattacks; Facebook ‘Pauses’ Oculus Headsets Amid German Privacy Concerns. Click “Continue reading” below.
Continue reading “Daily Digest (9/8)”
By David Gargaro
Saskatchewan has the highest rates of domestic violence per capita of all the 10 Canadian provinces — 1,066 incidents reported to police per 100,000 people in 2018, for instance — and officials recently took steps to curb such actions.
In June, Saskatchewan was the first province to enact the Interpersonal Violence Disclosure Protocol Act, also known as Clare’s Law.
Municipal police can now disclose information about an individual’s history of violent or abusive behavior to help protect potential future victims of domestic abuse.
Continue reading “Saskatchewan Law Against Domestic Violence Raises Privacy Concerns”US Appeals Court Rules NSA Program Exposed by Snowden Illegal; Amazon Workers Spied on By Company Via Social Media; Mich. Airport to Use Smart Helmets with Face Recognition to Measure Temperatures; Twitter Users Can Download Data Again After Bitcoin Hacking Spree. Click “Continue reading” below.
Continue reading “Daily Digest (9/7)”
Privacy Has Its Roots in Outrage
By C.J. Thompson
Nabiha Syed is a media attorney and president of The Markup, an independent news website dedicated to illuminating concerning privacy issues.
“Part of our mission is to help people understand exactly how their privacy is being affected by technology,” she told Digital Privacy News.
The need for new privacy laws and regulation are primary components of a landscape that has never been more complex, cluttered — and, in many ways — cloaked.
But Syed remains encouraged by the current wave of public activism, as it is exactly what’s needed to provoke meaningful privacy protections.
Continue reading “Q&A: The Markup’s Nabiha Syed”