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Anonymous data sets are an enormous boon for researchers, but the recent de-anonymization of Netflix customer data shows there are privacy risks as well. Commentary by Bruce Schneier. 
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The previous article looked at how pieces of blank paper can be uniquely identified. This article continues the fingerprinting theme to another domain, digital cameras, and ends by speculating on t...
Farid Mheir's insight:
How the noise from your camera sensor can help authorities identify you as the author of a picture. Nowhere to hide...
Maria Ioia's curator insight,
March 8, 2015 8:57 PM
I thought smart phone biometrics was interesting. This is ridiculous!
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If you are viewing online porn in 2015, even in Incognito mode, you should expect that at some point your browsing history will be publicly released and attached to your name.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Beyond the catchy title, this short post highlights some very important links to help you determine if your browser sessions are safe Mine are not it seems...
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Researchers at Stanford University and Israel's defense research group Rafael have created a technique they call PowerSpy, which they say can gather information about an Android phone's geolocation merely by tracking its power use over time through...
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A handful of purchases can unmask an anonymous credit card record
Farid Mheir's insight:
The article describes MIT research that proves anonymous data provides sufficient information to identify you when merged with location, date and other purchase data. There is no privacy when Big Data is mined. Compare this with previous posts on the subject http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses?tag=Privacy or this specific post about a German politician life exposed via his cell phone location data http://sco.lt/7shPsH
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There are things you can do—easy, free things!—to ward off the many entities (some nefarious, some just nosy) that want to steal your passwords, to know what websites you're looking at, or to gauge whether you're associating with someone who's on their list.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Read this article, then force your kids to read it too, then explain it to them. I know I will.
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US and British intelligence agencies undertake every effort imaginable to crack all types of encrypted Internet communication. The cloud, it seems, is full of holes. The good news: New Snowden documents show that some forms of encryption still cause problems for the NSA. Via Constantin Ionel Milos / Milos Constantin
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New devices can pinpoint what floor you’re on, aiding rescue crews but setting off privacy groups’ alarms.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Cell phones can now be tracked inside buildings using barometric sensors. Great for 911 calls, it also raises a lot of privacy concerns.
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The revelation that a Russian criminal gang stole more than 1.2 billion passwords have us asking if the hack was legitimate or if it even matters.
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Glenn Greenwald was one of the first reporters to see -- and write about -- the Edward Snowden files, with their revelations about the United States' extensive surveillance of private citizens. In this searing talk, Greenwald makes the case for why you need to care about privacy, even if you’re “not doing anything you need to hide."
Farid Mheir's insight:
Amazing talk on the reasons why privacy is so important in the digital age. Listen until the end as I find the Q&A during the last 3 minutes may help you to see Snowden as a whistle blower rather than a traitor. I was curious and dug the 2005 CNET article about the personal information that CNET has gathered on Eric Schmidt that Greenwald references in his talk.
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The message arrives on my “clean machine,” a MacBook Air loaded only with a sophisticated encryption package. “Change in plans,” my contact says. “Be in the lobby of the Hotel ______ by 1 pm. Bring a book and wait for ES to find you.”
Farid Mheir's insight:
A very good story that reveals some new information about what Snowden knows and has done. Very informative and well written.
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From
qz
For the past four years, a secret cyber-attack campaign, possibly state-sponsored, has been directed at several Latin American intelligence services, military, embassies and other government institutions. The Moscow-based cyber-security firm Kaspersky Lab, which claims to have unearthed the campaign, has given it a name: El Machete. According to Kaspersky, the attacks started in 2010. Its...
Farid Mheir's insight:
Interesting that cyber attacks are not a monopoly of USA, China and Russia, although they share similar features with the USA PRISM program and Israeli Flame and Stuxnet virus. The Best Explanation Yet Of How The NSA's PRISM Surveillance Program Works http://sco.lt/8rWyDx A world where everything is hackable via @Strata @acroll http://sco.lt/8pX85p
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Steve Kroft investigates the multibillion-dollar industry that collects, analyzes and sells the personal information of millions of Americans with virtually no oversight
Farid Mheir's insight:
A very well researched overview of the data privacy issues that we face online. The report exposes in very simple terms how your personal information is being collected as you browse the Internet. More on this topic here http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses/?tag=Privacy And also a specific post I wrote a while back on the tool featured during the interview: What is behavioural tracking? @gary_kovacs explains in 9min video: Tracking our online trackers via @TED #mustsee http://sco.lt/6nVELB
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Life quantification pioneer Nicholas Felton's latest annual report is his most ambitious to date. For the last nine years, Nicholas Felton--who you may know best for inspiring the Facebook timeline or creating the life-logging app Reporter--has been recording some aspect of almost every moment of his life. And each year, he turns this data into a elegant, printed book that visualizes the year called The Feltron Report... Via Lauren Moss
Farid Mheir's insight:
The Felton report is a beautiful peeping hole into someone's life when they start to quantify themselves. Focussed on fairly benign problem space - conversations during the year - it shows what possibilities, both good and bad, lie within the quantified-self movement which is bound to explode with the availability of Apple watch and others alike. Of course it brings tremendous opportunities for monitoring someone's life in order to improve it. Whether it is by measuring exercice (as we do today with step trackers) or heart rate or glucose levels in order to improve health or medical diagnosis. In the context of business, organizations can monitor employees in order to minimize injuries or prevent illness and time loss due to sickness. There is of course the dark side, where all this data, when made available without our consent or knowledge, can be used to track us and restrict our privacy or our rights. This is already happening in the contexte of government surveillance (ie. Edward Snowden http://sco.lt/5k4B29) or internet browsing tracking (ie. data brokers http://sco.lt/79yNZh)
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As promised, the release of Glenn Greenwald's new book, No Place to Hide, has brought plenty more Snowden leaks, and one document is particularly
Farid Mheir's insight:
Spying, just like in the movies! Also see United States of Secrets- #mustWatch via @FRONTLINE http://sco.lt/6kuPfV
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From
www
How did the government come to spy on millions of Americans?
Farid Mheir's insight:
I watched episode #1, can't wait to see episode #2. Must watch, very good summary of all things in digital spying since 9/11.
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New models built with security and privacy in mind reflect the Zeitgeist of the Snowden era.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Read if you want to know more about the new blackphone and the encryption behind it.
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Have you ever wanted to disappear online? Simply vanish from the electronic realm? Read on to discover how to remove your private info from the Internet.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Very useful, if not complete, list of things to do to erase your life on the Internet. The post also has useful links to services that can partially automate the process.
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In 2010 I asked Professor Eben Moglen to speak to the Internet Society of New York about software freedom, privacy and security in the context of cloud computing and social media. In his Freedom in the Cloud talk, he proposed the FreedomBox as a solution: a small inexpensive computer which would provide secure encrypted communications in a decentralized way to defeat data mining and surveillance by governments and large corporations. Via Peter Azzopardi
Farid Mheir's insight:
Security and privacy concerns are top of mind for corporations and individuals looking to move their data to the cloud. This very technical story provides some insights into what may be offered in the future: fully encrypted data, as soon as it leaves the browser, with minimal overhead. Let's hope we can see this in commercial offerings soon.
Peter Azzopardi's curator insight,
April 18, 2014 6:54 PM
Homomorphic encryption allows data to be processed in an encrypted form so that only the end user can access it in a readable form. So far it has been too demanding for normal computers to handle.
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Disruptive technology: A 1568 printing press. The technology brought social upheaval. We haven’t come to grips with what is ethical, let alone with what the laws should be, in relation to technologies such as social media. Consider the question of privacy. Our laws date back to the late 19th century, when newspapers first started publishing personal information and Boston lawyer Samuel Warren objected to social gossip published about his family. This led his law partner, future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, to write the law review article “The Right of Privacy.” Their idea that there exists a right to be left alone, as there is a right to private property, became, arguably, the most famous law review article ever and laid the foundation of American privacy law. The gaps in privacy laws have grown exponentially since then.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Provides interesting historical perspective -printing press, steam engine, etc.- to privacy and other related issues that technology - and digital transformation in particular - have exacerbated.
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Thanks to a leak of Syrian web censorship data, internet researchers have been able to analyse, for the first time, exactly what steps an authoritarian regime takes to restrict traffic. Via Bob Boynton
Farid Mheir's insight:
I have not looked at the raw data or the report itself but I find interesting that - 98% of traffic goes through untouched - the analysis does not raise the question of how much traffic was "inspected" or looked at
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They plan to rebuild and change the way money moves from buyer to seller.
Farid Mheir's insight:
Bitcoins remain a risky proposition, we all know that. What this event provides is how much attention bitcoin have received - and speculation - in a world where there are no rules. No government regulation, just "code of conduct" from its users.
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We optimize ads, but not our mood. We know more about our tweets than our own bodies. That's all about to change. As wearables transform the 'quantified self' from a niche to a mainstream market, they are generating vast amounts of data about our health, habits, and lifestyles
Farid Mheir's insight:
Fascinating insight that companies such as jawbone can derive from the trove of data that is captured by their wearable devices such as the UP bracelet. I've been wearing a fitbit for 3 months now and the sleep data is to me one of the most fascinating because it represents information that I did not have before (as oppposed to number of steps for example). What I find interesting with Monica's work at jawbone is the anlaysis they've done over 50M nights of sleep and the kind of analysis that is expressed in the chart here. Wow, just so very insightful and useful. I'd love to be able to get insight on how I compare with similar people. And maybe one day get suggestion to improve my sleep. Of course, privacy is Paramount. I found that my sleep patterns are very personal and that I would not want them to become public. Something to consider and enforce at all costs.
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The device uses a secure version of Android and, judging by the pedigree of the team, it looks like a credible package for those seeking private communications.
Farid Mheir's insight:
This phone is not yet available and should be announced soon. Yet it offers a glimpse into the future: you want privacy, you'll have to pay for it. Otherwise they'll be plenty of free or subsidised phones to choose from.
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Curated by Farid Mheir
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Even anonymous data can be used to identify you, when coupled with other information.