What’s a Roman earn? Find out on the Internet: Italians were surprised, and in some cases outraged, on Wednesday to discover that their income levels were available for public viewing on an Internet site. As part of a crack-down on tax evasion, the outgoing center-left government made public every citizen’s declared taxable income on the state’s tax Web site, a decision attacked by consumer groups and some politicians. [msnbc]
WAS YOUR LENDINGTREE FILE HACKED?: LendingTree has told its customers that former employees helped unauthorized mortgage lenders hack into its systems and steal customer information from 2006 to 2008. The incident reveals just how aggressive the mortgage loan business was during the height of the housing boom, and also raises fears for consumers who share their information with companies that help them shop around for the best deal. And it highlights what experts say is an often overlooked source of data theft — the inside job. [msnbc]
May 1st, 2008 at 9:55 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Privacy becoming more elusive for Americans: Individuals might treasure their personal data like Social Security and credit-card numbers, but identity thieves can buy them cheap and in bulk online. Credit-card numbers can now go for as little as 40 cents each. A matching name, Social Security number, address, and date of birth cost just $2.00, according to security experts. Even as the incidences of identity theft reach record highs, the government and private institutions continue to collect record amounts of personal, private data. [CSM]
U.S. Plans to Collect DNA on Any Federal Arrest: The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency, a move intended to prevent violent crime but which is also raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people. Using authority granted by Congress, the government also plans to collect DNA samples from foreigners who are detained. [NYT]
April 18th, 2008 at 9:57 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users: In 1993, the dawn of the Internet age, the liberating anonymity of the online world was captured in a well-known New Yorker cartoon. One dog, sitting at a computer, tells another: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Fifteen years later, that anonymity is gone. It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you. [NYT]
Centers Tap Into Personal Databases: Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver’s license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. [Washington Post]
April 14th, 2008 at 10:09 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Digital spying: The ways of tracking our behaviour online are becoming more sophisticated. [New Statesman]
Lidl, the Big Brother supermarket, is watching you: The Stasi secret police may have died with communism but its surveillance methods are still alive at Lidl, the German supermarket chain. George Orwell’s Big Brother, it seems, stalks the aisles between the cornflakes and the canned dogfood. Detectives hired by Lidl - which has more than 7,000 stores worldwide, including 450 in Britain - have been monitoring romance at the cash till, visits to the lavatory and the money problems of shelf-stackers. [Times]
Growing Database of Tourist Fingerprints Raising Privacy Concerns: Four years ago, the U.S. began collecting digital fingerprints from non-citizens. Its database now contains 90 million fingerprints, and counting. [AlterNet]
March 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
After that divorce, what now for privacy?: Heather Mills and Paul McCartney’s very public spat throws up some intriguing questions about privacy, public space and liberty today. [Spiked]
What’s in a Passport File?: All the information your bank tells you to keep secret, and more. [Slate]
Wiretapping’s true danger: But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps poses to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can — and repeatedly have — abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters. [LA Times]
March 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
NSA’s Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data: Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system. [WSJ]
‘The Hallmarks of a Totalitarian State’: Germany’s high court has declared laws enabling British-style total surveillance of drivers illegal. Privacy advocates and commentators applaud the ruling, but they ask if the court is trying to stop the laws from snowballing into a police state — or just water them down. [Spiegel]
The Invasion of Spitzer’s (Financial) Privacy: It’s insane. That a man’s withdrawal of hunks of cash to pay a prostitute should attract the attention of law enforcement is brave-new-world. [Mondoweiss]
March 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
Two of Britain’s most notorious murderers were jailed last week because their DNA samples were in the UK database. As calls were made for a mandatory register for all British citizens it sparked a fierce debate about civil liberties and security. [Guardian]
Silently tapping into a private cellphone conversation is no longer a high-tech trick reserved for spies and the FBI. Thanks to the work of two young cyber-security researchers, cellular snooping may soon be affordable enough for your next-door neighbor. [Forbes]
March 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
The Anonymity Experiment: During a week of attempting to cloak every aspect of daily life, our correspondent found that in an information age, leaving no trace is nearly impossible [Popsci]
A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks. The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover. [NYT]
After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants. [NYT]
A technical glitch gave the FBI access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network - perhaps hundreds of accounts or more - instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode. [SFGate]
Popular color laser printers embed almost invisible tracking dots onto documents [Telegraph].
Israelis 30 times more likely to be wiretapped than Americans [Haaretz].
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
This article is filed under Blog, Privacy.
