Results tagged “privacy” from 60 Second Science

Actually, the chances for wiretapping immunity are probably a good deal higher. We mentioned the AT&T wiretapping scandal back in November with a handy-dandy introduction to the ongoing vote over granting telecom companies immunity from lawsuits for their complicity. Now it appears to be less of a scandal, and it seems like that whole voting thing may be winding down as well.

On Tuesday the Senate voted 68-29 to keep a provision in the current spy bill that would grant retroactive immunity to any of the network providers who happily looked the other way or encouraged the NSA to use their services to eavesdrop on American citizens.

For those of you interested in what your candidate thinks about science, you might want to take a gander at how they feel about tech: Obama voted to strike immunity, McCain to preserve it, and Clinton couldn't be bothered to show. Bush is pressing the House to follow suit.

Continue reading 'In this week's tech fright forecast: 50% chance of wiretapping immunity with potential breaks for net neutrality' >

San Francisco is getting to be a pain to fly in and out of, which, sadly, I'll be doing within the week. At the end of January, the local TSA authorities started asking fliers to remove each individual gadget or piece of electronics they happened to be carrying. After some of the major blogs picked the story up, the TSA investigated and then issued an apology (sort of, while still managing to be both head-patting and self-congralatory) on its own blog yesterday.

Today the Washington Post reports that things are even worse: "A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself."

Other passengers have had their laptops seized and unreturned.

Continue reading 'New airport fun-time game: stand around and watch while the TSA steals your laptop' >

Earlier this month, President Bush signed the classified National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 ordering the NSA to monitor the computers and networks of all federal agencies. While the directive makes it sound like the NSA is simply out to check up on its federal neighbors, the goal is significantly less creepy than the directive sounds--that's the way it usually works, though. Government computers have experienced a rise in attacks over the last year and a half with officials laying blame on Chinese websites for large attacks that targeted nuclear labs and defense contractors.

Of course, if your city's government employees are looking at porn 95-100 times per day, there's bound to be some security issues somewhere inside the Beltway.

Continue reading 'NSA to monitor the rest of the government; creepiness factor rises by 10' >

Why, Britain? Why can't you be like your peaceful, privacy-protecting pseudo-neighbor Sweden? No, instead you have to and freak me right the hell out with news like this: Ministers are looking at the option of injecting prisoners in the back of the arm via hypodermic needle with "machine-readable" microchips that would be traceable by satellite or radio and carry information about the individuals' identities, addresses and offending records.

"All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," a senior Ministry of Justice source told The Independent.

Continue reading 'UK proposes to implant prisoners with microchips' >

Shhhhhh. They're watching us right now. That's right. Them.

Privacy International released its 2007 International Privacy Ranking at the end of December, and things aren't looking bright for Americans. Actually, we've fallen from the pink "extensive surveillance societies" into the black pit reserved for "endemic surveillance societies." We're that spot off to the left, to be lumped in , but not confused with the rest of the black mass of the former Soviet Union and China.

Continue reading '2008 brings more and more surveillance' >

According to a new Pew Research Center study, the Internet is watching you.

47% of all Internet users have searched for information about themselves online, but 53% of adult users have used the Internet to suss out information on family and friends, romantic interests, or business colleagues. Even so, 60% of Internet users aren't worried about how much information is available.

We all know how that turns out. You blow off work for a "sick day," dress up like Tinkerbell, and then have your face plastered all over the Internet.

Continue reading 'You're so vain you probably think this post is about you (Or: 53% of everyone you know is stalking you online)' >

In a world where America has fallen deeply, physically in love with the Internet and the rest of the world has fallen even more deeply and sexily in love with robots, there are two ways to go about identity theft. You can set up a chat bot to trick lonely people into giving you your information, or, in a more straightforward move, you can hack Facebook.

The social networking giant is now alleging that a group of 17 people and one Canadian porn company made over 200,000 requests for personal information stored on Facebook in June.

Continue reading 'Canadian pornographer wants to be your Facebook friend/identity thief' >