|
|
PATH: BS | Privacy
|
OnStar's New Plan To Collect/Sell Your Personal Info
Posted by Pile
(15415 views)      [E-Mail link]
|
 |
 Jonathan Zdziarski writes, "I canceled the OnStar subscription on my new GMC vehicle today after receiving an email from the company about their new terms and conditions. While most people, I imagine, would hit the delete button when receiving something as exciting as new terms and conditions, being the nerd sort, I decided to have a personal drooling session and read it instead. I’m glad I did. OnStar’s latest T&C has some very unsettling updates to it, which include the ability to sell your personal GPS location information, speed, safety belt usage, and other information to third parties, including law enforcement. To add insult to a slap in the face, the company insists they will continue collecting and selling this personal information even after you cancel your service, unless you specifically shut down the data connection to the vehicle after canceling." |
READ MORE | No comments | Comment on this Article |
|
New Facebook "Feature" Exposes Everyones Personal Info
Posted by Pile
(14850 views) [E-Mail link]
|
 |
 This past week, Facebook announced Instant Personalization, whereby select websites would "personalize your experience using your public Facebook information." The initial sites are Pandora, Yelp and Microsoft Docs. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained, this means that when you visit "Pandora for the first time, it can immediately start playing songs from bands you've liked." Pandora, and other partners, can also link your real name and other Facebook information with everything you do on their site.
More specifically, these sites "may access any information you have made visible to Everyone ... as well as your publicly available information. This includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages." On Monday, Facebook announced a transition where a "new type of Facebook Page" will make the "current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests sections of your profile" publicly available after you go through the transition tool (or those items will be deleted). |
READ MORE | No comments | Comment on this Article |
|
Bumper Sticker Store
On Friday the 13th, there's scheduled to be a supposed mass exodus of people fed up with Facebook and Twitter, moving to a new social media platform that claims to be less censored. Is this really true? And what are those risking that sign up for this new platform?
Records posted Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation following a freedom of information lawsuit filed last year reveal that federal agents would pay Geek Squad managers who pass on information about illegal materials on devices sent in by customers for repairs.
It's widely known now, that a group of hackers calling themselves, "The Impact Team" has apparently infiltrated the computer networks of the parent company of adultery-promoting web site, AshleyMadison.com. They originally demanded the company shut down their sites or risk having their customers' personal information made public. The hackers have apparently followed-through on their promise, and all around the world, regional groups and media have grabbed the data and made various discoveries based on its contents.
There's no other way to put it. The shit has hit the fan on this one...
There's a huge mutiny in progress over at Reddit.com. This is an Internet-first as far as I know and it'll probably be big news soon. The company fired an employee that was responsible for helping a bunch of moderators of different subs, and left them in chaos. They decided to make their part of Reddit private, and then in solidarity hundreds of other moderators joined and have been turning off parts of Reddit one-by-one since yesterday.
It came as a surprise to some folks at a recent SXSW talk that Apple’s Siri “personal assistant” isn’t just working for us, it’s working full-time for Apple too by sending lots of our personal voice and user info to Apple to stockpile in its databases. Take a peek at Siri’s privacy policy (which, by the way, is pretty difficult to find) and you’ll realize what’s happening behind the scenes.
The US Attorney General for Louisiana, Jim Letten, announced today that one of his top prosecutors has been using the handle "Henry L. Mencken1951" to criticize a local landfill owner and a raft of other local and national figures, including federal judges, in the comments section on Louisiana's Times-Picayune website. Perricone "readily admitted" using the pseudonym, and the matter has been referred to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, Letten said.
Stephen Colbert explains the details of the recent scandal involving a private security firm who was working on attacking Wikileaks in order to discredit them... which backfired horribly..
In the wake of controversy over Wikileaks founder Julian Assange being called everything from a terrorist to the last true journalist, we revisit an interview he gave earlier this year where he discusses how his organization works and why it's so important.
Your GPS location coordinates, Wifi access point and GSM tower data is constantly saved by Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Snow Leopard and Safari browsers (also Windows version) and sent to Apple in batches every 12 hours...
Apparently, when you publish your Social Security number prominently on your website and billboards, people take it as an invitation to steal your identity.
Someone won't friend you on Facebook and you want to stalk them, or maybe find out more personal info? 
What if almost every copy machine made in the last year has a secret in it? That undermines everyone's privacy and personal security...
That cool USB-based battery charger you connected to your computer? Who knew it secretly installed software on your machine that allows someone to connect and control your computer remotely without your knowledge?
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000.
For six years, the Bush Administration and the nation’s communication companies have been illegally spying on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails. They did this in direct violation of the Constitution’s 4th Amendment and a federal statute – FISA. Both laws emphatically forbid such surveillance unless the government first obtains a warrant from an independent (eg, FISA) court.
A rogue activist group that adds creative touches to advertising campaigns has announced their new target: AT&T
Visiting Sears.com (and Kmart.com) a few weeks ago, a user was offered a chance to join My SHC Community, for free, but what they received was, from a privacy perspective, very costly. 
It seems that a man in Pennsylvania brought his computer in to Circuit City so that he could have a new DVD burner installed. It was when the techs went to test the new burner, searching for video files to make a test burn, that they discovered the child pornography videos on the hard drive....
Financial trading company, TD Ameritrade announced that some of its databases may have been compromised. The company discovered the security breach after their customers complained that they started to receive spam.
Web site Monster.com has suffered an online attack with the personal data of hundreds of thousands of users stolen, says a security firm.
A married man is suing 1-800-Flowers for $1 million for revealing that he was cheating on his wife. Just deserts? Sheer stupidity? Or the worst customer service ever?
Starting in 2008 all U.S. Passports will have an RFID chip hidden within them, allowing your personal information to be read secretly through the air without you even knowing. Can you do anything about that? Maybe.
Let's say you're a blond producer for NBC, and you think you're going to disguise yourself and infiltrate one of the country's largest conventions of computer hackers & security professionals and try to get people to confess to committing crimes.
A 70-year-old Utah woman has been released from jail after being arrested for failing to water her lawn and refusing to give a police officer her name. A police officer enforcing Orem, Utah's nuisance ordinance against neglected yards (it's unclear which ordinance might cover the roughing-up of little old ladies) knocked on Betty Perry's door a couple of day's ago and she opened up to see what was going on. Big mistake.
The legitimate eBay community is apparently up in arms about a recent infestation of scams and fraudulent activity online. Rumor has it every time the mainstream media tries to do a story on this issue, the story suddenly disappears and then you see a bunch of eBay commercials on the network *cough* CNN *cough*