Privacy

A congressional inquiry conducted at the behest of Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., found that law enforcement agencies made 1.3 million requests to cellphone carriers in 2011. They sought such information as individuals' text messages, their locations, and even lists of phone numbers they called when i...

Facebook's email drama continues to unfold a week after it was revealed that the social network unilaterally switched its users' publicly posted email listings to their "@facebook.com" addresses. More recently, users have begun complaining that Facebook's mobile app seems to be swapping out informat...

When Microsoft announced recently that Internet Explorer 10 will have its Do Not Track feature turned on by default, it seemed those concerned about online privacy would hail the move as a step in the right direction. Consumer advocates and other groups had been agitating for such a feature for some...

Facebook rolled out a new mobile social discovery tool recently, only to deactivate it hours later and pull it from its iOS and Android apps. The service, which Facebook called "Find Friends Nearby," was designed to help Facebook users find other users who were in the same vicinity. Before the compa...

Google and Apple are bent on a mission to provide the world -- or at least users of their respective technologies -- with digital images of every place on this planet. Using their systems is the only way many people can see for themselves what everyday life is like in faraway places. However, as the...

Facebook is moving forward with its acquisition of Face.com, reportedly paying between $55 million and $60 million in a mix of cash and stock for the facial recognition technology startup. The Face.com technology could give Facebook users quicker and easier photo-tagging abilities, but it also raise...

There's evidence that Google's consumer privacy policy is being extended to government contracts for its software services, according to SafeGov.org. Citing contracts in Texas, Illinois and California, the group contends that Google's privacy policy is the "minimum standard" for handling customer da...

Google has begun informing certain individual users whom it believes may be the target of state-sponsored cyberattacks. Those users will see a pink ribbon at the top of their Google pages bearing a warning notice. However, the warning only means Google believes the account holder may be a target for...

Microsoft on Thursday unveiled the latest version of its Windows 8 Release Preview in 14 languages. This is the second preview release of the OS. The first, called -- appropriately -- "Windows 8 Consumer Preview," was released in February. The newer release includes new apps; improvements to existin...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

DCAC: A Field Day for the Heat

"Domestic Communications Assistance Center" is the kind of name you'd give to a couples counseling collective. At the FBI, though, it's the name that's been given to an agency designed to be at the cutting edge of digital snooping. The mission of the DCAC, located at the FBI facility in Quantico, Va...

The UK government has proposed plans to monitor the electronic communications of everyone in that country. It claims it's not seeking to read the content of the communications, according to reports, but instead wants to know who the senders and recipients of messages are, the places from which messa...

Even though it has been signed by 22 of the European Union's 27 members, ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is unlikely to be ratified by the EU, according to The Guardian. ACTA had gained favor among lawmakers looking to harmonize copyright enforcement around the globe, but a series of ...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is urging Internet companies to provide back doors that facilitate online surveillance. The bureau aims to increase the amount of data they can collect through online channels. Because of a shift in popular communication methods -- from phones to online corre...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

The Malicious Hacker's Ever-Sharper Eye

Targeted attacks on organizations and Web-born infections like the recent Flashback outbreak on Macintosh computers will continue to poison the security landscape in 2012, according to John Harrison, Symantec group product manager for endpoint threat protection and security technology and response.

The British government will discuss new measures to restrict children's access to Internet pornography. Under consideration is a plan that would require parents to explicitly enable pornography. From the BBC: "Under the plans it would be up to customers to opt in to receiving adult content when they...

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