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Daily Archives: April 12, 2023

Firefox rolls out Total Cookie Protection by default to more users worldwide

Mozilla Blog: “Take back your privacy – Firefox is rolling out Total Cookie Protection by default to more Firefox users worldwide, making Firefox the most private and secure major browser available across Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Total Cookie Protection is Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date, confining cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site. Whether it’s applying for a student loan, seeking treatment or advice through a health site, or browsing an online dating app, massive amounts of your personal information is online — and this data is leaking all over the web. The hyper-specific-to-you ads you so often see online are made possible by cookies that are used to track your behavior across sites and build an extremely sophisticated profile of who you are. Recent stories (including an excellent Last Week Tonight episode) have shown how robust, yet under-the-radar, the data selling economy is and how easy it is for anyone to buy your data, combine it with more data about you and use it for a variety of purposes, even beyond advertising. It’s an alarming reality — the possibility that your every move online is being watched, tracked and shared — and one that’s antithetical to the open web we at Mozilla have strived to build. That’s why we developed Total Cookie Protection to help keep you safe online…”

Groundwater Gold Rush

Bloomberg [no paywall]: “Banks, pension funds and insurers have been turning California’s scarce water into enormous profits, leaving people with less to drink…Some of the world’s largest investment banks, pension funds and insurers, including Manulife Financial Corp.’s John Hancock unit, TIAA and UBS, have been depleting California’s groundwater to grow high-value nuts, leaving less drinking… Continue Reading

LinkedIn Will Finally Offer Ways to Verify Your Job

Wired: “In the never-ending battle against online impersonation scams, the professional social media platform LinkedIn announced today a set of new verification features that enable users to authenticate aspects of their identities and job histories. Crucially, users will now have a few different options to verify their identity and current jobs on LinkedIn. That way,… Continue Reading

2022 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® Rankings

“The Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group present the 2022 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings. The full rankings include 17 large, 27 midsize and 30 small agencies as well as 432 subcomponents. Data is also included on employee views relating to 12 workplace issues that affect employee engagement and… Continue Reading

Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community

ODNI, February 2023: Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community: “During the coming year, the United States and its allies will confront a complex and pivotal international security environment dominated by two critical strategic challenges that intersect with each other and existing trends to intensify their national security implications. First, great powers, rising regional… Continue Reading

Gerald Ford tried to impeach a Supreme Court justice and failed

Washington Post: “A member of Congress called for the impeachment of a sitting Supreme Court justice, complaining that the justice had supported the idea that violence and rebellion against the government may be justified under some circumstances. The member noted that the code of ethics for federal judicial officers, which included the concept of recusal… Continue Reading