Category: Privacy & Security
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Pragmatic advice for buying “Internet of Things” devices
We’re hearing an increasing amount about security flaws in “Internet of Things” devices, such as a “messaging” teddy bear with poor security or perhaps Samsung televisions being hackable to become snooping devices. How are you supposed to make purchasing decisions for all of these devices when you have no idea how they work or if…
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How the Politics of Encryption Affects Government Adoption
I wrote yesterday about reports that people in the White House are using encrypted communication apps more often, and why that might be. Today I want to follow up by talking about how the politics of encryption might affect government agencies’ choices about how to secure their information. I’ll do this by telling the stories of…
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On Encryption Apps in the White House
Politico ran a long story today pointing to an increase in the use of encrypted communication apps by people in DC, government, and the White House specifically. Poisonous political divisions have spawned an encryption arms race across the Trump administration, as both the president’s advisers and career civil servants scramble to cover their digital tracks in…
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Engineering around social media border searches
The latest news is that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering a requirement, while passing through a border checkpoint, to inspect a prospective visitor’s “online presence”. That means immigration officials would require users to divulge their passwords to Facebook and other such services, which the agent might then inspect, right there, at the…
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Regulatory Questions Abound as Mobile Payments Clamor for Position in Apps
People frequently associate mobile payments with “tap and pay” — walking into a store, flashing your smartphone, and then walking out with stuff. But in-store sales really aren’t the focus of companies working on mobile payment issues. That’s because payment in stores generally isn’t a problem in need of a fix. Swiping a payment card…
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Concerned about Internet of Things Security?
There is no shortage of warnings about the need to improve security for the Internet of Things: The Guardian asks “Can we secure the internet of things in time to prevent another cyber-attack?”. The New York Times calls for “Stepping up Security for an Internet of Things world”. Technology Review reports that Security Experts Warn…
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AdNauseam, Google, and the Myth of the “Acceptable Ad”
Earlier this month, we (Helen Nissenbaum, Mushon Zer-Aviv, and I), released a new and improved AdNauseam 3.0. For those not familiar, AdNauseam is the adblocker that clicks every ad in an effort to obfuscate tracking profiles and inject doubt into the lucrative economic system that drives advertising-based surveillance. The 3.0 release contains some new features we’ve been excited to…
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NYC to Collect GPS Data on Car Service Passengers—Good Intentions Gone Awry or Something Else?
During the holiday season, New York City through its Taxi & Limousine Commission (the “TLC”) proposed a new rule expanding data reporting obligations for car service platform companies including Uber and Lyft. If the rule is adopted, car services will now have to report the GPS coordinates of both passenger pick-up and drop-off locations to the…
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Disrupting The Business Model of the Fake News Industry
By Katherine Haenschen & Paul Ellenbogen In the aftermath of the 2016 election, researchers and media professionals alike seized on the vast proliferation of so-called “Fake News” on Facebook as a cause for concern. An informed citizenry is a necessary condition for democracy, so it is far from ideal to have millions of people consuming…
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New Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection
[Joe Calandrino is a veteran of Freedom to Tinker and CITP. As long time readers will remember, he did his Ph.D. here, advised by Ed Felten. He recently joined the FTC as research director of OTech, the Office of Technology Research and Investigation. Today we have an exciting announcement. — Arvind Narayanan.] Arvind Narayanan and…