The French government has voted in favor of greater powers of surveillance, giving it intelligence-gathering capabilities on a par with the NSA. The move came in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack which led to the deaths of 12 people and prompted the Je Suis Charlie support campaign.

The new laws allow for NSA-style mass collection of metadata online as well as setting up the National Commission for Control of Intelligence Techniques (CNCTR) to oversee data collection. It has been criticized by some as being the French equivalent of the Patriot Act and the ruling Socialist Party is accused of prying too far into the private lives of normal people in the name of counter-terrorism.

Continue reading →

WikiLeaks prides itself on bringing information to public attention that might otherwise stay hidden. In order to get this information out in the open, the organization is reliant on a wide range of sources. The sort of stories which WikiLeaks deals with would often not come to light if those breaking the stories could not be guaranteed anonymity.

A few days ago the Sun newspaper revealed that it was using SecureDrop as a way for people to give anonymous tips about stories, and it was touted at the time as being a WikiLeaks-style tool. Now Julian Assange has announced that WikiLeaks has upgraded its own submission tool to offer even greater security.

Continue reading →

The likes of Julian Assange's WikiLeaks have set the standard for blowing the lid on huge stories based on tips from anonymous sources. Whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden have brought to public attention stories which would otherwise have been kept hidden from the public, and it has been with the help of newspapers such as the Guardian that this information has been disseminated around the world.

Other newspapers are keen to ride on the coattails of those blazing a trail in the world of investigative journalism, and the latest to join the party is The Sun. Today, Murdoch-owned News Corp's newspaper and website launches SecureDrop -- a way for whistle-blowers to anonymously leave tip-offs that can be further investigated.

Continue reading →

Technology makes it easier than ever for businesses to collect data but that also means they have greater responsibility for looking after it.

Data protection specialist Druva has released the results of a new study conducted by Dimensional Research which examines companies' efforts to protect sensitive data, the challenges they face ensuring data privacy and gathers respondent views on protecting data privacy in the cloud.

Continue reading →

Online ads are a serious pain in the ass, and lots of people turn to the likes of AdBlock Plus to clean up their browsing experience. Ad blockers are not universally liked, however; many website owners despise the tools. So hated is AdBlock Plus, in fact, that a case was brought against the tool to try to prove that it is illegal.

Now a court in Hamburg has come to a decision, and ruled that AdBlock Plus -- in case there was ever any doubt -- is entirely legal. The plaintiffs in the case alleged that AdBlock Plus should not be permitted to block ads on the websites it owns. The judge presiding over the case disagreed.

Continue reading →

Twitter has updated its privacy policy, creating a two-lane service that treats US and non-US users differently. If you live in the US, your account is controlled by San Francisco-based Twitter Inc, but if you're elsewhere in the world (anywhere else) it's handled by Twitter International Company in Dublin, Ireland. The changes also affect Periscope.

What's the significance of this? Twitter Inc is governed by US law, it is obliged to comply with NSA-driven court requests for data. Data stored in Ireland is not subject to the same obligation. Twitter is not alone in using Dublin as a base for non-US operations; Facebook is another company that has adopted the same tactic. The move could also have implications for how advertising is handled in the future.

Continue reading →

I best be watchful, for my wife is smarter than she pretends to be. If not, she's the mother of all coincidence. Because by all appearances, the woman used the vendor online tracking everyone suspects to snake a great discount from Amazon. Maybe you can turn to advantage persistant invasion of your privacy.

Our story starts on Feb. 11, 2015, when following days of price comparisons she ordered a 12-pack of one pound Café Bustelo from the Internet retailer. Price: $52.90. As we consumed coffee, she returned to Amazon on March 17, when a shocker waited: Same item cost $69.31. Ah, yeah. That's a 31 percent increase. But by apparently gaming the system, she later purchased for 19 percent less than previously paid.

Continue reading →

There were 783 reported data breaches in 2014, up 27.5 percent over the previous year and the most in any year of the past decade. The average cost of each of those breaches was $3.5 million, up 15 percent over 2013.

These are among the statistics highlighted in a new infographic from user behavior intelligence specialist Exabeam. Ten breaches each led to more than a million records being reported stolen, the biggest being Home Depot with 56 million records.

Continue reading →

Last month, it was Kanye West and now it’s HBO’s award-winning medieval drama Game of Thrones that must suffer the dreaded online leak. However, these are just two examples from countless others -- it seems as though in the digital world online leaks have become the norm.

The Internet, which has vastly improved global communication by enabling ideas to be shared and projects to be collaborated on, has also led to information being leaked with increasing regularity.

Continue reading →

For every ten British adults, seven are seriously concerned about the privacy of their online data and fear it might get stolen by hackers, a new study has revealed.

The study, conducted by international internet-based market research firm YouGov, surveyed more than 2,000 British adults and found that 72 percent are concerned about their private online information, while 32 percent are willing to pay someone to keep their data safe.

Continue reading →

Largely due to the exposés in the media following Edward Snowden's NSA revelations, there is now great interest in security and privacy. From this sprang a new breed of report -- transparency reports detailing the number of data requests legal and governmental agencies made about a particular service.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple are among the companies who have released transparency reports, and the latest name on the list is Snapchat. As with other similar reports there is a limit to what they are able to reveal, but it does show that various agencies had an interest in no fewer than 666 Snapchat accounts.

Continue reading →

Do Not Track will not be enabled by default in future versions of Microsoft web browsers, the company says. The decision comes in response to the latest draft of the World Wide Web Consortium's DNT standard which states "in the absence of user choice, there is no tracking preference expressed".

Microsoft is concerned that if the setting is enabled by default in Internet Explorer or Project Spartan, sites would have a loophole permitting them to ignore a DNT signal. In the future users will need to manually enable the feature, and Microsoft says that clear information will be provided about how to do this.

Continue reading →

Last week we reported on the PoSeidon malware threatening credit card security by stealing transaction details.

Charles Henderson vice president of managed security testing at information security specialist Trustwave believes that there's a bigger underlying problem with the way retailers implement PoS systems putting them at risk.

Continue reading →

Edward Snowden is heralded as both a hero and villain. A privacy vigilante and a traitor. It just depends who you ask. The revelations he made about the NSA's surveillance programs have completely changed the face of online security, and changed the way everyone looks at the internet and privacy.

But just before the whistle was blown, it seems that the NSA was considering bringing its telephone data collection program to an end. Intelligence officials were, behind the scenes, questioning whether the benefits of gathering counter-terrorism information justified the colossal costs involved. Then Snowden went public and essentially forced the agency's hand.

Continue reading →

You'd think that governments would be encouraging people to keep their computers and personal data safe. Until relatively recently, this has been exactly what the FBI has been pushing -- suggesting that phone users should enable encryption on their handsets. But it seems that there has been something of a change of heart. It's probably Snowden's fault.

Now, as part of an "ongoing website redesign", advice about using encryption and protective PINs has vanished from the FBI website. Forget the security-focused devices such as the Blackphone 2, it appears that the bureau wants your data, and you, to be insecure.

Continue reading →