Category: Security

Internet Security news and articles on the Privacy Online News blog from Private Internet Access VPN Service.
  • Oct 15, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • News, Privacy, Security,

Visiting websites with your smartphone on mobile data can reveal your full name, phone number, address, and even location

With just your mobile IP address, a website can find out all of your billing information, and even your precise location. This has been going on for years, largely behind the scenes – but recently the issue has been re-highlighted and the benefits of hiding your IP address are super clear. Whenever you are using … Continue reading “Visiting websites with your smartphone on mobile data can reveal your full name, phone number, address, and even location”

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The UK home secretary still doesn’t know how encryption works, and she’s not ashamed

Railing against the use of encryption by criminals has always been an exercise in futility, but it’s a great way to sound tough. What better way to assert your power as a law-enforcer than by demanding the impossible? The problem is, there’s a line between swagger and overt foolishness, and for some reason politicians are … Continue reading “The UK home secretary still doesn’t know how encryption works, and she’s not ashamed”

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  • Sep 27, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Governments, News, Privacy, Security,

Stunning: Taser wants to turn the public and their smartphones into its big data posse of police informants

Last month we wrote about the increasing application of big data analysis by police forces, often using software from the shadowy outfit Palantir. But it’s by no means the only company that sees this as a huge growth market: another is Axon. If that name is unfamiliar, that’s because it’s the new, rather anonymous branding … Continue reading “Stunning: Taser wants to turn the public and their smartphones into its big data posse of police informants”

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  • Sep 25, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Governments, Privacy, Programming, Security,

The race to save online privacy: what happens when quantum computers can break all our crypto?

Although many people are well aware of the many threats to their privacy, there is an underlying assumption that the use of strong encryption will always be available to mitigate those problems. Governments will doubtless continue to push for backdoors in encrypted Internet services like WhatsApp. But even if they do get their way by … Continue reading “The race to save online privacy: what happens when quantum computers can break all our crypto?”

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  • Sep 21, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • News, Privacy, Programming, Security,

Opening the black boxes: algorithmic bias and the need for accountability

Here on Privacy News Online we’ve written a number of stories about the privacy implications of DNA. There’s an important case going through the Californian courts at the moment that involves DNA and privacy, but whose ramifications go far beyond those issues: “In this case, a defendant was linked to a series of rapes by … Continue reading “Opening the black boxes: algorithmic bias and the need for accountability”

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With the World Wide Web Consortium captured by the copyright industry, who will step up to lead web development next?

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which used to develop standards for the Web, has been captured by the copyright industry. In a doubly controversial vote, the W3C decided that media companies and not the user should be in control, ending their longstanding commitment to openness and the Internet’s core values. The open question is … Continue reading “With the World Wide Web Consortium captured by the copyright industry, who will step up to lead web development next?”

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  • Sep 18, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Governments, Networking, News, Privacy, Security,

Reminder: the CIA has been able to hack your WiFi router for years

The CIA has had the tools to take over your router for over a decade, according to government documents leaked by Wikileaks. The software, CherryBlossom, is a custom Linux operating system (OS) that allows the attacker to use the device in a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack. The attack vector itself reminds us that our unprotected internet … Continue reading “Reminder: the CIA has been able to hack your WiFi router for years”

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  • Sep 15, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • Governments, News, Privacy, Security,

The Chinese IT giant Huawei has big plans for the cloud in Western markets, with important implications for privacy

Some Chinese high-tech companies may be bigger than you think. The e-commerce giant Alibaba has a market capitalization of over $400 billion. The social media and gaming company Tencent is not far behind, and nearly a billion people use its WeChat messaging service. Baidu is the world’s second largest search engine, and is increasingly strong … Continue reading “The Chinese IT giant Huawei has big plans for the cloud in Western markets, with important implications for privacy”

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  • Sep 3, 2017 |
  • Caleb Chen |
  • Governments, News, Security,

US leads UK in VPN use and some security awareness, according to survey

A recent security study shows VPN use on the rise in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Wombat Security surveyed roughly 1,000 adults in the United States and 1,000 adults in the United Kingdom on their internet security habits – showing a clear leader in common VPN use. The author of the study, … Continue reading “US leads UK in VPN use and some security awareness, according to survey”

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  • Aug 31, 2017 |
  • Glyn Moody |
  • News, Privacy, Programming, Security,

Even encrypted data streams from the Internet of Things are leaking sensitive information; here’s what we can do

As the Internet of Things (IoT) begins to enter the mainstream, concerns about the impact such “smart” devices will have on users’ privacy are growing. Many of the problems are obvious, but so far largely anecdotal. That makes a new paper from four researchers at Princeton University particularly valuable, because they analyze in detail how … Continue reading “Even encrypted data streams from the Internet of Things are leaking sensitive information; here’s what we can do”

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