2017-10-25 14:58
With net neutrality’s repeal looming over our heads – now is the time to push your politicians to care about this issue. Today, the Senate Committee on Energy and Technology, the… Read More
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Online Privacy blog by Private Internet Access VPN. Learn how an anonymous VPN can help protect you and your family along with other top tech news and info.
2017-10-24 14:52
Until the election of Donald Trump last year, multilateral trade deals were a key element of global politics, and affected many aspects of the digital world. Indeed, as the Internet moves ev… Read More
2017-10-22 13:09
The recent Wi-Fi “KRACK” vulnerability, which allowed anyone to get onto a secure network (and which was quickly patched by reputable vendors), had been in plain sight behind a c… Read More
2017-10-20 14:21
Governments all around the world hate encryption. Unless they are being incredibly cunning by pretending they can’t break strong encryption when they can, this seems to be because cryp… Read More
2017-10-18 14:49
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rather like the GNU/Linux desktop: every year is the one when it will finally take off. Indeed, this has been true for AI far longer than for the GNU/Linux de… Read More
2017-10-18 13:32
Smartphone users are becoming aware that their phone number and location isn’t private when they use the internet on their data plans. When you visit a website on your smartphone… Read More
2017-10-17 16:30
The British intelligence services have for years quietly claimed the right to collect so-called bulk personal datasets (BPDs) about people, most of whom may be innocent of any crime. The pra… Read More
2017-10-16 18:18
The encrypted messaging app Telegram continues to have a tough time in Russia. Having previously been threatened with blockage for not providing operational information, Telegram has now bee… Read More
2017-10-16 16:11
Something quite bizarre just happened on Twitter: the Swedish Minister of Justice went out of his way to lash out at the ISP most known for privacy in Sweden, criticizing the ISP for followi… Read More
2017-10-16 16:09
Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) has been proven to be insecure – leaving your device vulnerable on pretty much all wireless networks, whether they are public or private. The WPA2 KRAC… Read More
2017-10-15 19:54
With just your mobile IP address, a website can find out all of your billing information, and even your precise location. This has been going on for years, largely behind the scenes –… Read More
2017-10-10 13:23
Freedom of expression is not doing well in Brazil. A new law approved last Thursday by the Brazilian Congress allows political parties and candidates to force social media companies to remov… Read More
2017-10-09 17:00
Governments are still using “terrorism” as a scareword to get any insane law passed – like Britain’s digital book-burning law. But with its other hand, those same gov… Read More
2017-10-09 14:46
We wrote recently about clouds gathering over the Privacy Shield framework that governs transatlantic data flows for thousands of US companies. As that post explained, even if the Privacy Sh… Read More
2017-10-08 07:29
British Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced a fifteen-year prison sentence for watching terrorist propaganda, whatever that means this week. There is an exception for academics and journ… Read More
2017-10-07 13:22
On October 6th, House Representative Goodlatte and 12 other Representatives proposed the USA Liberty Act (H.R. 3989) – which would renew the currently active NSA’s mass surveilla… Read More
2017-10-06 14:31
British lawmakers have announced 15 years in prison for taking part of banned literature. However, the threat of prison only covers new story formats that lawmakers think don’t deserve… Read More
2017-10-06 12:21
Qatar is still blocking popular Voice over IP (VoIP) apps such as Skype, Facetime, Duo, Viber, and WhatsApp. In September, Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on Skype and WhatsApp. The VoIP issues… Read More
2017-10-04 13:16
Earlier this week, Facebook released a statement about ads it carried which had been paid for by Russian sources. It now says that around ten million people in the US saw the ads, and that 4… Read More
2017-10-04 11:18
Bell Canada, one of Canada’s major ISPs, is requesting the Canadian government to create a governmental censorship regime, blacklisting resources that Canadians shall not be reading. A… Read More
2017-10-03 15:18
Railing against the use of encryption by criminals has always been an exercise in futility, but it’s a great way to sound tough. What better way to assert your power as a law-enforcer… Read More
2017-10-02 14:02
Last week, the European Commission announced new guidelines to tackle illegal content inciting hatred, violence and terrorism online. Central to its new framework is expecting “online… Read More
2017-09-29 08:00
Catalonia is set to have an independence vote this coming Sunday and the Spanish authorities, who say the referendum is unconstitutional, are furious — to the extent that they arrested… Read More
2017-09-27 17:35
Korea has threatened to block Tumblr should the site not cooperate with the South Korean government to censor pornographic content. The Korean government’s position was revealed during… Read More
2017-09-27 15:09
Last month we wrote about the increasing application of big data analysis by police forces, often using software from the shadowy outfit Palantir. But it’s by no means the only company… Read More
2017-09-25 12:58
Although many people are well aware of the many threats to their privacy, there is an underlying assumption that the use of strong encryption will always be available to mitigate those probl… Read More
2017-09-25 07:05
Every so often, you hear copyright industry lobbyists ask “why copyright law shouldn’t apply on the Internet”, suggesting that the Internet is a lawless land with regard to… Read More
2017-09-21 13:52
Here on Privacy News Online we’ve written a number of stories about the privacy implications of DNA. There’s an important case going through the Californian courts at the moment… Read More
2017-09-20 15:46
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which used to develop standards for the Web, has been captured by the copyright industry. In a doubly controversial vote, the W3C decided that media comp… Read More
2017-09-20 13:00
The statement “I have nothing to hide” is very popular. But recently reversing this statement has also become very popular: “Give me your bank account login, your email log… Read More
2017-09-19 13:38
It’s no secret that personal data has become the key commodity of the online business world. The Internet giants – Facebook, Google, etc. – all provide their services &ldqu&hell…Read More
2017-09-18 14:08
The CIA has had the tools to take over your router for over a decade, according to government documents leaked by Wikileaks. The software, CherryBlossom, is a custom Linux operating system (… Read More
2017-09-17 15:13
On October 10, an important committee in the European Parliament will vote on future copyright law. It hangs in the balance, and ordinary people like you and I contacting Members of the Euro… Read More
2017-09-15 14:43
Some Chinese high-tech companies may be bigger than you think. The e-commerce giant Alibaba has a market capitalization of over $400 billion. The social media and gaming company Tencent is n… Read More
2017-09-15 14:04
President Donald Trump has called (in a tweet) to “cut off” the internet following the September 15th London Tube bombing. The cited reason? Because it is a terrorist recruitment… Read More
2017-09-15 13:38
New research shows how a mobile phone can be turned into a passive indoor ultrasound sonar, locating people with high precision indoors using multi-target echolocation, and is even able to d… Read More
2017-09-15 13:24
California’s State Senate will vote today on A.B. 375 – the California Broadband Internet Privacy Act. The bill forces ISPs to get a customer’s express opt-in permission be… Read More
2017-09-13 14:02
The ‘creator’ of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has been identified. That, at least, is the claim in a recent article by Alexander Muse on Medium. But don’t get too excited. Th… Read More
2017-09-11 13:55
Equifax leaks 143 million social security numbers, and the tech world stands jawdropped, while the mainstream press treats it as a sideline note. This treatment of security on the sidelines… Read More
2017-09-09 19:55
A fascinating and horrifying new AI algorithm is able to predict your sexual orientation with 91% accuracy from five photographs of your face. According to the researchers, the human brain i… Read More
2017-09-09 02:00
Malaysia temporarily blocked Valve’s popular gaming engine, Steam, across the entire country on September 8th, 2017 over a 2D brawler called Fight of the Gods. The Malaysian government… Read More
2017-09-08 13:33
Togo’s netizens are currently in the midst of an internet shutdown. Internet and mobile SMS service in the small African country of Togo has been shut down as of September 7th. Connect… Read More
2017-09-03 13:29
A recent security study shows VPN use on the rise in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Wombat Security surveyed roughly 1,000 adults in the United States and 1,000 adults in the… Read More
2017-09-01 12:43
The Net Neutrality debate, hot as it is, would not exist if the old telco monopolies were behaving like ordinary companies who had to compete for customers. Most of their attitude can be tra… Read More
2017-08-31 14:43
As the Internet of Things (IoT) begins to enter the mainstream, concerns about the impact such “smart” devices will have on users’ privacy are growing. Many of the problems… Read More
2017-08-31 14:36
What if there were no prices on anything in your local supermarket, because everything in the entire selection was priced individually just for you, and the food prices would vary with your… Read More
2017-08-29 13:23
As readers of this blog know, VPNs are a great way to protect your privacy and security. But they address only some of the online threats we all face every day. Another important class of pr… Read More
Sweden Doubles Down On Data Retention Surveillance, Includes VPN Surveillance In New Leaked Proposal
2017-08-29 08:12
The Swedish government is doubling down on the court-banned and hated data retention surveillance. As a Western first, they’re also planning to introduce VPN surveillance, taking a pag… Read More
2017-08-26 13:53
I recently moved from Stockholm, Sweden to Berlin, Germany. It is quite illustrative to see how different these privacy cultures are, and in particular, the expectations from authorities on… Read More
2017-08-25 14:40
There’s a new frontier for digital privacy: home devices that understand spoken commands. That’s impressive and convenient, but it comes with definite risks, as Rick Falkvinge po… Read More
2017-08-24 03:28
Verizon’s 4K ban is now network-wide. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can be used to bypass video throttling by your internet service provider (ISP) or telecommunication provider. Sinc… Read More
2017-08-23 12:45
When what evolved into modern copyright was first drawn up in the eighteenth century, it was designed as a legal weapon to be deployed against printers that made infringing copies of publish… Read More
2017-08-23 11:05
Hardware maker Sonos has a new privacy policy, and is telling users that unless they agree to it, their devices may cease to function entirely. Of course, since people bought these devices… Read More
2017-08-22 11:41
The German newspaper Die Zeit has a long feature today about IMSI catchers and their countermeasures, words that were long heard only in countersurveillance cultures at Black Hat and Defcon… Read More
2017-08-21 14:16
The liberty we know as Freedom of Speech, when written into law, only says that your government cannot retaliate against you for speaking your mind. But your friends and family can, and woul… Read More
2017-08-18 16:14
Here on Privacy News Online, we often write about the impact on privacy of technologies such as facial recognition, iris scans, DNA databases, and drones. Individually, those powerful and ra… Read More
2017-08-16 14:20
Private Internet Access today releases the results of its Libsodium audit. Libsodium is an open source, cryptographic library that is used far and wide in projects such as Zcash as well as i… Read More
2017-08-16 14:20
Contents
1 Executive Summary2 Introduction2.1 Scope 2.2 Approach2.3 Classification and Severity Rating3 Findings3.1 Summary of Findings3.2 Overview of Cryptographic Design3.3 Static An… Read More
2017-08-15 17:10
The European Commission is circumventing bans on governmental censorship by asking communciations platforms like Facebook and Twitter to agree to “voluntary codes of conduct”, wh… Read More
2017-08-15 14:07
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking personal information, including IP addresses, of all visitors to a political website called disruptj20.org. In total, This past Monday, Dreamhost u… Read More
2017-08-14 13:02
The name “Palantir” bespeaks mystery. Its original meaning is the powerful artefact in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” that allows direct communications with dist… Read More
2017-08-14 08:42
Bitcoin’s value is an illusion of money. But so is all governmental money, all central-bank money. All governments always knew that the value of money is an illusion: they could just n… Read More
2017-08-10 12:58
The hugely popular internet tool, the Wayback Machine by the Internet Archive, has been blocked by an Indian court order. India has a long history of blocking sites that are not illegal. Pre… Read More
Putting The “face†In Facebook: How Mark Zuckerberg Is Building A World Without Public Anonymity
2017-08-10 12:33
Facial recognition has matured sufficiently that it is cropping up in real-world applications with increasing frequency, as recent Privacy News Online stories attest. There’s one well… Read More
2017-08-07 12:02
Last week, the FCC received two letters – one signed by 11 members of Congress and another signed by 21 members of Senate. The first letter was titled simply: “In the Matter of R… Read More
2017-08-07 11:33
The European Court of Justice (the ECJ, “the European Supreme Court”) ruled three years ago that anything published openly on the web may be freely reused by anyone in any way on… Read More
2017-08-07 10:49
National identity cards are an emotive topic. In the UK, the ID card debate raged for years before and after the authorities there passed a law in 2006 to introduce them. Five years later, a… Read More
2017-08-05 17:05
The European Union is preparing measures that would freeze savers’ assets in banks when the solvency of the bank is in question, to prevent a “run on the bank” and a certai… Read More
2017-08-03 13:35
The recent repeal of broadband privacy protection in the US has highlighted the highly-personal nature of browsing histories. One natural solution is to use a VPN in order to shield details… Read More
2017-08-03 12:59
Verizon’s new rewards program, Verizon Up, lets mobile subscribers get rewards and coupons on their bill every time they spend $300 – if they voluntarily agree to enrolling in Ve… Read More
2017-08-02 14:34
The Canadian government is using carrots to lure in new helpers in its quest for mass surveillance powers. A new app called Carrot Rewards is a behavioral modification mobile app that was or… Read More
2017-07-31 20:54
Putin has signed a new law that increases internet censorship dramatically and has been marked as the beginning of the Russia VPN ban, but does the new law actually ban and perhaps punish VP… Read More
2017-07-31 14:37
Last week, Europe’s highest court issued what might seem a fairly obscure ruling on an agreement between the EU and Canada on the transfer of passenger data between the two regions. In… Read More
2017-07-31 11:35
A society without rulebreakers doesn’t challenge the rules, the status quo, the established consensus. Yet again, as our society pretends to celebrate its entrepreneurs, its freethinke… Read More
2017-07-29 18:02
The Swedish IT leak scandal has caused a governmental crisis: even when having every kind of self-interest to read up on IT security, today’s politicians just can’t get it right… Read More
2017-07-29 13:23
Today, Chinese iPhone users woke up to discover that censorship-defeating apps such as the Private Internet Access VPN app are no longer present in the Chinese Apple App store. The move… Read More
2017-07-26 16:17
German police will be able to read encrypted messages using government malware by the end of 2017, according to leaked documents obtained by Netzpolitik. They are legally able to deploy this… Read More
2017-07-25 14:53
Freedom Mobile, Canada’s 4th largest mobile service provider with over 1 million subscribers, is throttling video playback on YouTube, Netflix and other video streaming sites using dee… Read More
2017-07-24 14:06
Over 2,000 protestors marched in Moscow, Russia over the weekend to protest the recent VPN ban and the tightening grip of internet censorship in Russia. The protest was in response to the an… Read More
2017-07-23 14:08
In Xinjiang, China, citizens are being forced to install a targeted surveillance mobile app called Jingwang. Additionally, the government has set up random checkpoints on the streets to chec… Read More
2017-07-22 19:23
The Swedish administration is leaking its secret intranet and databases to Russia, via its Transport Agency, via the IBM cloud, via IBM's subcontractor NCR (formerly AT&T) in Serbia, whi… Read More
2017-07-21 15:58
Sweden’s Transport Agency moved all of its data to “the cloud”, apparently unaware that there is no cloud, only somebody else’s computer. In doing so, it exposed and… Read More
2017-07-21 04:05
Verizon Wireless users on the Verizon subreddit and Howard Forums have reported that YouTube and Netflix are being throttled to 10Mbps regardless of the speed you have paid for. If it s… Read More
2017-07-20 12:28
VPNs are indispensable tools for today’s Internet users, and nowhere more so than in China. The famous “Great Firewall of China” – the name given to the set of techno… Read More
2017-07-19 16:08
The Trump Administration has officially thrown its support behind the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) net neutrality rolback – the quest to destroy net neutrality rules in Ameri… Read More
2017-07-19 12:22
Chinese censorship has hit new dystopian levels. Internet censors in China are now able to delete an image sent from Party A to Party B, before the image makes it to Party B. While China has… Read More
2017-07-17 18:51
The Digital Economy Law, which mandates compulsory age verifications on pornography sites and was passed in the United Kingdom (UK) last year, will officially be rolled out in April of 2018… Read More
2017-07-17 13:09
Privacy News Online has written a couple of times about the major review of copyright law currently underway in the European Union. It’s pretty bad: there are proposals to bring in a … Read More
2017-07-17 09:22
IBM acquired the detailed medical records of 61 million Italians, as reported on this site by Glyn Moody. This is a largely underreported story that doesn’t not just need more exposure… Read More
2017-07-16 12:46
The Internet had a Day of Action this past week in pointing out the necessity of Net Neutrality to governmental regulators. And yet, in arguing for governmental intervention, the bigger pict… Read More
2017-07-15 12:28
Australia’s Prime Minister Michael Turnbull doesn’t believe in the laws of mathematics – a troubling sign for a world leader to say the least. Australia’s leader spok… Read More
2017-07-14 12:13
This past Wednesday, the Netherlands Senate passed a new surveillance and data mining law that will go into effect on January 1st, 2018. The new law (available in Dutch) expands the gov… Read More
2017-07-14 11:53
As regular readers of this blog will have noticed, one of the hottest topics in the world of online privacy is government access to communications. Essentially, the authorities want to be ab… Read More
2017-07-13 12:25
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that China was in the process of blocking VPN in China by February 1st, 2018. Inside sources told Bloomberg that state-owned internet service providers… Read More
2017-07-12 11:52
Today, July 12th, 2017 is a special day. Browsing around the internet you may have noticed that many websites have messaging directing you to leave comments about net neutrality with FCC. Th… Read More
2017-07-11 12:29
Tomorrow, on July 12th, the Internet will commemorate a Net Neutrality Day of Action to stand up for net neutrality in the United States. Net Neutrality is the idea that internet service pro… Read More
2017-07-11 00:58
The Great Firewall of China is being bolstered in the coming months – increasing censorship for over a billion internet users. According to Bloomberg, the Chinese government has told s… Read More
2017-07-09 16:25
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which sets standards for the Web, has released what it calls a “disposition of comments“, designed to address objections to the controversial… Read More
2017-07-09 09:51
Imagine if copyright law listed tons of exceptions for free use that all publishers were required to respect. (Well, it does, kind of, even if the list in question is horribly deficient.) Bu… Read More
2017-07-08 16:30
Police already have access to visors with built-in face recognition and fugitive spotting. The technology was in prototype stage a few years ago, and was successfully tested when police offi… Read More
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