CBP Traveler and License Plate Photos Stolen
Images of travelers and their license plates collected by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have been compromised, thanks to a federal contractor who did not follow protocol. The agency…
General Privacy News
General Data Protection Regulation one year on: what next?
A previous post discussed what has happened in the world of the GDPR during its first year. Although only a few rulings have been handed down, there are many legal…
General Data Protection Regulation one year on: what has it done?
A year ago, arguably the most important event in the recent history of privacy occurred: the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) started to be enforced. To mark that anniversary…
How much is good online security worth to you? How about $100,000?
Readers of this blog know that a VPN is an indispensable tool for today's digital world. VPNs address a key part of the challenge of staying safe online. They protect…
Why 5G is a huge future threat to privacy
The next-generation of mobile communications, 5G, is currently a hot topic in two very different domains: technology – and politics. The latter is because of President Trump's attempts to shut…
New Intel CPU Flaws Expose VMs and Clouds to Full Takeover – Introducing RIDL, ZombieLoad and Fallout
I wrote a piece last year about the serious problems with shared hardware. It covers the additional attack surface of introducing virtualization technology to your servers, and the additional risks…
“Digital strip-searches”: police increasingly downloading everything from smartphones – including from crime victims
Full-body scanners are now a routine sight at airports. Most people are resigned to these virtual strip-searches, despite the obviously intrusive nature of appearing naked to the machines' operators. But…
“The future is private” says Zuckerberg; not with him, judging by new investigations of Facebook for data protection failures
Another week, another declaration from Mark Zuckerberg that he's really serious about putting privacy at the heart of Facebook. During his keynote speech at the Facebook Developer Conference F8, he…
Firefox Extensions are Temporarily Broken for Most Users – What Happened and How to Fix
What Happened? Today, many users were met with an error saying that their extensions were no longer valid and have been disabled by Firefox. This is because in mid-2018, Mozilla…
Mindgeek, one of the world’s largest porn companies, is behind the UK’s AgeID system
Streaming services like Hulu and Netflix are well known for leveraging data, and characterizing users. They’re household names. But you’ve probably never heard of another streaming giant who’s just as…