Archive for the 'Privacy' Category
dan tynan on May 02 2013 | Filed under: (anti) social media, Cringley, Infoworld, Privacy
You may not be aware of this, but: We are officially in the middle of Privacy Awareness Week, according to the FTC. To mark it, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published its annual “Who Has Your Back?” report, which details how major Internet companies share data with the government. Seeking a company that will stand up [...]
dan tynan on Apr 24 2013 | Filed under: (anti) social media, 15 minutes, Da Web, ITworld, Privacy, Shameless self promotion, Things that don't suck
So this week I’m on the BBC blabbing about how Web tracking companies are out to get us. What did the Beeb want with me? Read on for the details. It started with this blog post I wrote a few weeks ago about how certain ads – one in particular for Jitterbug smartphones – were [...]
dan tynan on Apr 17 2013 | Filed under: ITworld, Privacy
About a week ago I wrote a piece asking why RapLeaf, a data mining company with a controversial history, had failed to remove my personal profile from its database, despite my strong recollection of having opted out some two years ago. With some help from RapLeaf, I finally figured out what happened: I did in [...]
dan tynan on Feb 05 2013 | Filed under: (anti) social media, ITworld, National insecurity, Privacy
A couple of days ago I received a scary sounding email from Twitter. It started like this: Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We’ve reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account. My first thought was that this email was bogus [...]
dan tynan on Dec 18 2012 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Privacy
In a couple of years the Internet might just kill you. At least, that’s one of the 2014 predictions from one security company. This is the time of year when everyone and their dog posts their predictions for what will happen in the wacky world of tech in 2013. The reason? Nobody wants to work [...]
dan tynan on Dec 11 2012 | Filed under: Identity Theft, Infoworld, National insecurity, politics, Privacy
Don’t look now, but there’s a crime wave surging across the Webbernets. Everywhere you look people are recklessly sharing dangerous and illegal hyperlinks. Lock up your children, barricade the doors and windows, throttle your broadband connection, and pray that the FBI gets to these scofflaws in time. Am I being a bit too sarcastic? Maybe. [...]
dan tynan on Nov 01 2012 | Filed under: ITworld, politics, Privacy
At this point in this especially insane political season there’s still no telling who will end up winning it all next Tuesday. But it’s very clear to me who has already lost: You and me. More specifically, what little personal privacy we may once have had. The amount and scope of data collection employed by [...]
dan tynan on Oct 05 2012 | Filed under: Google, ITworld, Privacy
By now it’s kind of a truism that Big Data is going to be Big Business. Marketing companies want to comb big data sets to determine what you’re likely to buy, so they can show you the right offers at the right time. Health care providers want to analyze big data so they can determine [...]
dan tynan on Sep 19 2012 | Filed under: Da Web, Future Tech, Identity Theft, PC World, Privacy
Last June, 6.5 million Linked-In passwords were stolen by hackers and posted online. eHarmony lost 1.5 million passwords; Yahoo Voice another 450,000. Among the most common passwords used: 123456, welcome, and the ever popular “password.” The problem isn’t that these sites should have done a better job protecting user data (though they should have). It’s [...]
dan tynan on Sep 08 2012 | Filed under: (anti) social media, Future Tech, ITworld, Privacy, TY4NS
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the IFA 2012 consumer electronics show in Berlin as a guest of the IFA organizers. When not drinking Pilsner and eating bratwurst I managed to squeeze in a panel on the future of the car, featuring representatives from Ford, Microsoft, Inrix (the leading provider of aggregated traffic [...]
dan tynan on Jul 09 2012 | Filed under: (anti) social media, ITworld, Privacy
A few months ago I got an email from a woman about a story I’d written nearly three years ago. To protect her privacy I’ll call her Samantha Sugarlips. In that story, which I’d written for my somewhat more sarcastic blog, I mocked this woman for posting photos and other personal information to Facebook, then [...]
dan tynan on May 16 2012 | Filed under: (anti) social media, Cringley, Facebook, Privacy
I love Facebook. I also hate it. And sometimes I’m indifferent, but not often. As the big IPO day looms closer, lots of folks are taking a second look at this thing that started out as kind of a goofy diversion for college kids and has grown into the beast with 900 million heads. For [...]
dan tynan on Sep 09 2011 | Filed under: (anti) social media, censorship, ITworld, National insecurity, politics, Privacy, Uncategorized
Last week I was in Germany, as a guest of the IFA Berlin consumer electronics show. That means, of course, that I had to perform the airport security samba. I took off my shoes and my belt; stuffed my watch, keys, cell phone, and loose change into the pockets of my jacket; took my laptop [...]
dan tynan on Sep 27 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Da Web, Infoworld, politics, Privacy
Tap, tap, tap. I’m sorry, could you please speak up? the Federal employees playing monkey in the middle on our Skype call couldn’t quite make out what you were saying. In case you missed the headlines in the New York Times this morning, or all the me-too stories in the blogosphere cranked to varying degrees [...]
dan tynan on Sep 03 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Google, Infoworld, Privacy
Imagine wandering through Times Square and seeing a 60-foot-tall animation depicting you (yes, you) as a creepy child-baiting ice cream truck driver. How would you feel? That’s probably how Google’s Eric Schmidt feels today. A group calling itself Consumer Watchdog, which has decided that Google is Evil Incorporated, has taken the unusual step of buying [...]
dan tynan on Aug 26 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Deadpool, Infoworld, Privacy
Don’t look now, but the Flash Zombies are after you. This week privacy attorney Joseph Malley filed his third lawsuit against major media sites and their ad firms, accusing them of using Flash cookies to illegally collect information about visitors to their Web sites. Malley’s defendants aren’t exactly Joe Blow — they’re deep-pocketed media companies [...]
dan tynan on Aug 02 2010 | Filed under: Apple, Cringley, Gadgets, Infoworld, iPhone, Privacy, Spy v spy
And you thought those iPhone 4 signal problems were bad. At last week’s Blackhat conference, a San Francisco firm called Lookout Mobile Security revealed that third-party smart phone apps are stealing user information and (literally) phoning home with it. And by ‘home,’ I mean China. But unlike those bogus Droid X signal problems, this problem [...]
dan tynan on Jul 22 2010 | Filed under: (anti) social media, Facebook, ITworld, Privacy, TY4NS
As I noted earlier this week, Facebook just crested 500 million members, and it’s been pulling out all the stops to draw attention to that fact. Mark Zuckerberg is making the TV rounds, talking to Diane Sawyer on ABC last night. Rumors swirl that a cartoon version of Zuckerberg may even appear on "The Simpsons" [...]
dan tynan on Jun 11 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Infoworld, Privacy, Spy v spy
Getting a chance to bash AT&T twice in two weeks is like getting to hit a pinata filled with $100 bills. Hand me the stick and stand back, boys. Last week I wrote about AT&T’s parsimonious data plan (all-you-can-eat is dead, Jim) and its chowder-headed attempt to silence an angry customer who sent CEO Randall [...]
dan tynan on Mar 31 2010 | Filed under: Cringley, Google, Infoworld, National insecurity, politics, Privacy
It’s been just two days since I last wrote about the Google China soap (not soup) opera, and yet it feels like weeks, so much has happened in the interim. To wit: Earlier this week, Google’s US executive bio page suddenly displayed in Chinese. (A "bug, Google called it. Yeah, right.) On Wednesday, YouTube, Twitter, [...]
