Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania: A new survey of 2,000 Americans finds that people don’t understand what marketers are learning about them online and don’t want their data collected, but feel powerless to stop it…In a new report, “Americans Can’t Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data,” researchers asked a nationally representative group… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
New cybersecurity data reveals persistent social engineering vulnerabilities
Tech Republic: “New research from NCC Group and Abnormal Security shows clouds and a bit of silver to line them: Ransomware attacks declined last year, but business email compromises increased — massively for smaller businesses — and a third of toxic emails got through their human gateways. According to risk management firm NCC Group, there… Continue Reading
We come to bury ChatGPT, not to praise it.
danmcquillan.org – We come to bury ChatGPT, not to praise it. “Large language models (LLMs) like the GPT family learn the statistical structure of language by optimising their ability to predict missing words in sentences (as in ‘The cat sat on the [BLANK]’). Despite the impressive technical ju-jitsu of transformer models and the billions of parameters… Continue Reading
Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways
CNN: “Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month. New details revealed to… Continue Reading
First FTC Health Breach Notification Rule case addresses GoodRx’s not-so-good privacy practices
FTC: “The company name may be GoodRx, but it’s unlikely that “good” is the adjective consumers would use to describe the way the company violated its privacy promises by disclosing their personal health information to companies like Facebook and Google without authorization. How did GoodRx accomplish that? By using automatic “plug and play” tracking pixels… Continue Reading
Meta Was Scraping Sites for Years While Fighting the Practice
Yahoo Finance: “Meta is suing a company for collecting information from its platforms – Facebook and Instagram. It turns out that the social media company had earlier partnered with the same firm — Bright Data — to gather data from other websites. This came to light during the ongoing case filed on January 6 in… Continue Reading
8 Google Alternatives: How to Search Crypto, the Dark Web, and More
Gizmodo: “Surfing the web is one of the great joys of modern life. With the click of a button you can know who starred in that TV show you like, what to name your child, or how to tell if your cat wants you dead. However, to surf the web you mostly have to rely… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 27, 2023
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 27, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the… Continue Reading
Experian Glitch Exposing Credit Files Lasted 47 Days
Krebs on Security: “On Dec. 23, 2022, KrebsOnSecurity alerted big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian that identity thieves had worked out how to bypass its security and access any consumer’s full credit report — armed with nothing more than a person’s name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number. Experian fixed the glitch, but… Continue Reading
Get your email privacy in order with these free must-use tools
PC World: “In the grand scheme of potential privacy concerns, email privacy is perhaps the most personal. Getting unwanted messages in your inbox can feel like a major breach of trust, and knowing senders can see a record of everything you’ve opened and clicked can feel downright creepy. That’s why it’s worth getting familiar with… Continue Reading
Layoffs by Email Show What Employers Really Think of Their Workers
The New York Times: “…As someone who’s managed people in newsrooms and digital start-ups and has hired and fired people in various capacities for the last 21 years, I think this approach is not just cruel but unnecessary. It’s reasonable to terminate access to company systems, but delivering the news with no personal human contact… Continue Reading
Databound: Histories of Growing Up on the World Wide Web
Doctoral Research – University of Toronto – Databound: Histories of Growing Up on the World Wide Web. Author: Mackinnon, Katherine. Advisor: Shade, Leslie R. Department: Information Studies. Issue Date: Nov-2022 – “Abstract (summary): For the past 30 years, young people have been growing up, existing, and producing data online. Their digital traces are distributed sporadically… Continue Reading
