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Category Archives: ID Theft

Data brokers are undermining country’s safety, privacy and security

roi-nj.com: “In Jersey and beyond, our law enforcement, judges and elected officials are putting both their privacy and lives on the line to serve. We must take steps in Congress and beyond to protect the well-being of those who choose to work for the people. New Jersey saw the acute need for privacy for our public officials in 2020, after witnessing the senseless killing of 20-year-old Daniel Anderl. Daniel’s killer targeted his mother, U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and located her family because their address was publicly available. Tragically, she became a target because of her public service. In response, the state of New Jersey took action and passed “Daniel’s Law,” which created protections to ensure the sensitive data of public servants and their families would not be publicly accessible. The law also targeted third-party data brokers who make billions of dollars each by selling people’s personal information, including public officials’. Now, four years later, Daniel’s Law is recklessly being undermined by data brokers yet again — this time, endangering our law enforcement. Recently, more than 18,000 New Jersey law enforcement personnel filed a class action lawsuit against LexisNexis Risk Data Management, one arm of a sprawling empire. These officers claim that LexisNexis retaliated against them after exercising their right to remove personal, identifying information under Daniel’s Law. LexisNexis allegedly froze their credit, falsely claiming the officers were identity theft victims, and seriously hurt their credit histories. This case illustrates a fundamental problem. Data brokers’ sprawling influence over the lives of American consumers undermines our safety, privacy and security. These brokers influence Americans’ credit history, which in turn impacts their ability to access credit, insurance services, mortgages and health care. Individuals who want to shield their data from brokers, including the law enforcement personnel from New Jersey, have a lot to lose if something goes wrong. And, their only recourse is the courts, which is both expensive and slow. We need stronger industry guardrails to protect consumers and ensure due process…”

See also Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on U.S. Military Personnel – “The data brokerage ecosystem is a multi-billion-dollar industry comprised of companies gathering, inferring, aggregating, and then selling, licensing, and sharing data on Americans as well as providing technological services based on that data. After previously discovering that data brokers were advertising data about current and former U.S. military personnel, this study sought to understand (a) what kinds of data that data brokers were gathering and selling about military servicemembers and (b) the risk that a foreign actor, such as a foreign adversary government, could acquire the data to undermine U.S. national security. This study involved scraping hundreds of data broker websites to look for terms like “military” and “veteran,” contacting U.S. data brokers from a U.S. domain to inquire about and purchase data on the U.S. military, and contacting U.S. data brokers from a .asia domain to inquire about and purchase the same. It concludes with a discussion of the risks to U.S. military servicemembers and U.S. national security, paired with policy recommendations for the federal government to address the risks at hand.”

How to Block Companies From Tracking You Online

Lifehacker: “…Currently, there are two major methods of data-tracking online: The first, cookies, is on the way out, but pixel trackers are a bit more complicated. You’ve probably heard the term cookies before. These are little packets of information that allow websites to store data like your password, so you don’t need to log in… Continue Reading

UK first country to outlaw easily guessable default passwords

TechSpot: “Why it matters: No matter how many hacks we see that are perpetrated via unchanged, weak default passwords on devices, manufacturers continue to use the likes of “password” and “admin” for login credentials. That’s no longer going to be the case in the UK, which has become the first country in the world to… Continue Reading

Browse safely with real-time protection on Chrome

Google Blog: “Cybersecurity attacks are constantly evolving, and sometimes the difference between successfully detecting a threat or not is a matter of minutes. To keep up with the increasing pace of hackers, we’re bringing real-time, privacy-preserving URL protection to Google Safe Browsing for anyone using Chrome on desktop or iOS. Plus we’re introducing new password… Continue Reading

A Pain-Free Way to Secure All Your Online Accounts

WSJ via MSN: “There’s a basic equation for online security: Long, unique passwords + two-factor authentication = safer money, work and personal data With a password manager, that first component is easy. The software can create a different hard-to-guess combination of numbers and letters for each online account you have. It also stores those gibberish… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 24, 2024

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 24, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 13, 2024

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 13, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading

A Bold New Plan for Preserving Online Privacy and Security

IEEE Spectrum: “…We’re all hoping that companies will keep us safe, but it’s increasingly clear that they don’t, can’t, and won’t. We should stop expecting them to.” To ensure that cloud services do not learn more than they should, and that a breach of one does not pose a fundamental threat to our data, we… Continue Reading

We Should Get Paid for Our Online Data

TIME: “Since January 2023, the United States Department of Justice along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia, have been in court pursuing a civil antitrust suit against Google. And on Sept. 26, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general filed a… Continue Reading

How to Block Emails on Gmail

MakeUseOf: “An overflowing inbox filled with unread emails, spam messages, and annoying notifications can quickly become overwhelming. Luckily, Gmail provides simple tools to help you clean up your inbox and stop unwanted emails from bombarding you. Let’s take a closer look at how to stop unwanted emails from finding their way into your inbox. We’re… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 14, 2023

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 14, 2023. Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading