Safety Security & Privacy

If you want to use the internet and you don’t want the National Security Agency to see what you’re doing, you basically only need one tool: Tor, a network that anonymizes web traffic by bouncing it between servers. The NSA has been working on ways to get around “the Tor problem” for years without much Continue Reading →

BlackBerry on Monday began the rollout of its first eBBM suite product, which tailors its BBM instant messaging service to enterprise users. Monday marked the debut of BBM Protected, FIPS 140-2 cryptographic library-enabled messaging, between users within the same enterprise, or between organizations who also use BBM Protected, for secure and confidential communications. Who cares Continue Reading →

In a security breach at AT&T last April, three employees of one of the company’s vendors accessed the telecommunications giant’s customer records — including social security numbers and call records. AT&T declined to comment on how many customers were affected or why the company waited until now — two months after the fact — to Continue Reading →

Facebook is going to give advertisers that want to target its users even more ammunition. The social network will start letting advertisers take information about what Facebook’s users do on the site, mix it with data about the stuff they do on other websites and use it to hone their pitch. Facebook calls this “interest-based Continue Reading →

A new map released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that fake cell towers, also known as stingrays, are used by state and local law enforcement in 15 states. Police departments in Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Tucson, Los Angeles, and even Anchorage, among others, have been confirmed to use the devices. Beyond those states, Continue Reading →

Microsoft constantly reminds us that Google scans email in order to sell ads. Now it’s adapting its policies to specifically state that it won’t engage in the same practices as its rival. Well, not all of them. In an effort to be more transparent and build trust, the company has updated its service agreement and Continue Reading →

The Eleventh Circuit created a circuit split on Wednesday on whether the Fourth Amendment protects historical cell-site information. Last year, the Fifth Circuit held that it doesn’t; today the Eleventh Circuit held that it does. The Eleventh Circuit’s opinion is premised on the idea that some facts are inherently private. If the government learns those Continue Reading →

A newly discovered vulnerability in TweetDeck for Chrome is allowing attackers to remotely execute javascript code through an unpatched vulnerability. Users have reported seeing random pop-up windows reading “Yo!” or “Please close now TweetDeck [sic], it is not safe.” The vulnerability is believed to be confined to web version of TweetDeck, but other users have Continue Reading →

A couple of 14-year-old computer whizzes have the Bank of Montreal upgrading their security measures after they hacked an ATM machine. Matthew Hewlett and Caleb Turon, both Grade 9 students, found an old ATM operators manual online that showed how to get into the machine’s operator mode. On Wednesday over their lunch hour, they went Continue Reading →

It’s 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday in New York City. People in their apartments in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan have their air-conditioners blasting and don’t hear the slight whirr of the two drones hovering 35 stories in the air outside. They’re on the couch watching Family Guy, Duck Dynasty or the Good Wife on Continue Reading →