“The U.S. Postal Service was sharing the postal addresses of its online customers with advertising and tech giants Meta, LinkedIn and Snap, TechCrunch has found. On Wednesday, the USPS said it addressed the issue and stopped the practice, claiming that it was “unaware” of it. TechCrunch found USPS was sharing customers’ information by way of hidden data-collecting code (also known as tracking pixels) used across its website. Tech and advertising companies create this kind of code to collect information about the user — such as which pages they visit — every time a webpage containing the code loads in the customer’s browser. In the case of USPS, some of that collected data included the postal addresses of logged-in USPS Informed Delivery customers, who use the service to see photos of their incoming mail before it arrives. It’s not clear how many individuals had their information collected or for how long. Informed Delivery had more than 62 million users as of March 2024. In a statement to TechCrunch, USPS spokesperson Jim McKean said: “The Postal Service leverages an analytics platform for our own internal purposes, so that we understand the usage of our products and services and which we use on an aggregated basis to market our products.” “The Postal Service does not sell or provide any personal information that is collected from this analytics platform to any third party, and we were unaware of any configuration of the platform that collected personal information from the URL and that shared it without our knowledge with social media.” “We have taken immediate action to remediate this issue,” the spokesperson said, without saying what action was taken. The spokesperson declined to comment further…”
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Category Archives: E-Mail
Proton Mail is adding an AI writing assistant
“Introducing Proton Scribe, a private writing assistant that writes and proofreads emails for you: Most of us send emails every day. Finding the right words and tone, however, can take up a lot of time. Today we’re introducing Proton Scribe, a smart, privacy-first writing assistant built right into Proton Mail that helps you compose and… Continue Reading
GoogleDark Web Monitoring
Gizmodo: “The Mountain View company will integrate Dark Web monitoring with Google’s Results About You page sometime toward the end of the month. That feature notifies users if their personal information, their name, address, or phone number, appears in search results. Google has previously stated its goal to scrub personal information from results, though it… Continue Reading
10 billion passwords leaked in the largest compilation of all time
“The Cybernews research team believes the leak poses severe dangers to users prone to reusing passwords. The king is dead. Long live the king. Cybernews researchers discovered what appears to be the largest password compilation with a staggering 9,948,575,739 unique plaintext passwords. The file with the data, titled rockyou2024.txt, was posted on July 4th by… Continue Reading
FTC – Who’s who in scams: a spring roundup
FTC: “Scammers are all about spinning lies, but they still operate in the real world. Many scammers pretend to be well-known businesses to gain trust and make their stories seem more believable. And scammers use real-world methods to contact people and to get paid. Reports to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network point to some of… Continue Reading
Microsoft tells yet more customers their emails have been stolen
The Register: “It took a while, but Microsoft has told customers that the Russian criminals who compromised its systems earlier this year made off with even more emails than it first admitted. We’ve been aware for some time that the digital Russian break-in at the Windows maker saw Kremlin spies make off with source code,… Continue Reading
How to manage deleted files on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS
The Verge: “If you want to get rid of files permanently, make sure you’re deleting them across your iCloud sync….By default, all of the Apple devices you’re signed in to with your Apple ID should be syncing files through iCloud, but it’s worth double-checking — otherwise, you can be leaving files you thought you’d deleted…” Continue Reading
Stop Giving Companies Your Real Email—Do This Instead
HowToGeek: ” Websites may sell your email address to spammers or leak your address in a data breach. An email alias service hides your real email address and makes it easier to curb spam. Choose an email alias service like Proton Mail for top-notch encryption, or AnonAddy for easy, on-the-fly alias generation. You can’t increase… Continue Reading
Nine Takeaways From Our Investigation Into Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Failures
ProPublica: “After Russian hackers exploited a flaw in a widely used Microsoft product duringone of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history, the software giant downplayed its culpability. However, a recent ProPublica investigation revealed that a whistleblower within Microsoft’s ranks had repeatedly attempted to convince the company to address the weakness years before the hack —… Continue Reading
Your employer might be spying on your tech. Here’s how to check.
Washington Post: “Your employer may be able to see everything you’re doing on your phone or computer. They might know you’re reading this article right now. (Hi!) But how can you be sure? Companies have a growing number of ways to keep tabs on workers. They can gather details from common workplace apps and use… Continue Reading
There’s a Trump Presidential Library at the National Archives and It’s Hiring
No words for this via Washingtonian – “Now here’s a fun job listing: This position is part of the National Archives and Records Administration. Incumbent serves as the Deputy Director of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library within the National Archives and Records Administration. Serves as a principal advisor to the Library Director. At the… Continue Reading
How to find and remove spyware from your phone
ZDNET: “iPhone and Android users alike are facing more sophisticated surveillance threats than ever before, and some may be close to home. Suspect you’re being tracked? Here’s what to do. Spyware doesn’t just impact today’s PCs, it can end up on your mobile devices, too. Spyware designed for smartphones can disguise itself as a fake… Continue Reading
