Tag: privacy

FBI Document Says the Feds Can Get Your WhatsApp Data — in Real Time

As Apple and WhatsApp have built themselves into multibillion-dollar behemoths, they’ve done it while preaching the importance of privacy, especially when it comes to secure messaging.

But in a previously unreported FBI document obtained by Rolling Stone, the bureau claims that it’s particularly easy to harvest data from Facebook’s WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage services, as long as the FBI has a warrant or subpoena. Judging by this document, “the most popular encrypted messaging apps iMessage and WhatsApp are also the most permissive,” according to Mallory Knodel, the chief technology officer at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has articulated a “​​privacy-focused vision” built around WhatsApp, the most popular messaging service in the world. Apple CEO Tim Cook says privacy is a “basic human right” and that Apple believes in “giving the user transparency and control,” a philosophy that extends to the company’s wildly popular iMessage app. For journalists, activists, and government critics who worry about government mass surveillance and political retribution, secure messaging tools can mean the difference between doing their work safely or facing imminent danger.

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Scottsdale Unified Assures Parents Of Privacy In Aftermath Of Secret Dossier Discovery, Parents Call For Greenburg Resignation

The Scottsdale Unified School District’s administration is scrambling to do damage control after a group of mothers discovered Governing Board President Jann-Michael Greenburg had access to a Google Drive full of personal information, documents, and photos of about 47 people, including children.

An email sent out Wednesday evening by the SUSD’s Communications Office sought to assure families that their personal and educational data is safe. However, the district also solely blamed the discovered digital dossier* site on Mark Greenburg, the father of Jann-Michael Greenburg.

The damage control appears to be too little too late for many parents in the Scottsdale Unified School District, including Amy Carney, a mother of six, who is among those calling for Greenburg to step down.

“I am calling for the immediate resignation of our board president Jann-Michael Greenburg. We cannot allow anyone in a leadership position to secretly compile personal documents and information on moms and dads who have dared speak out publicly or on social media about their grievances with the district,’ said Carney, who is running for a seat on the Scottsdale Governing Board in November 2022.

Even though Mark Greenburg is listed as the Google Drive owner, records from an Aug. 17 special SUSD board meeting show Jann-Michael admitted sharing a computer with Mark. With Mark and Jann-Michael sharing a computer and a home, there is no way to know which of them has been uploading files (now known as the “G Files”) to the drive, according to concerned parents.

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INFRASTRUCTURE BILL COULD ENABLE GOVERNMENT TO TRACK DRIVERS’ TRAVEL DATA

THE SENATE’S $1.2 TRILLION bipartisan infrastructure bill proposes a national test program that would allow the government to collect drivers’ data in order to charge them per-mile travel fees. The new revenue would help finance the Highway Trust Fund, which currently depends mostly on fuel taxes to support roads and mass transit across the country.

Under the proposal, the government would collect information about the miles that drivers travel from smartphone apps, another on-board device, automakers, insurance companies, gas stations, or other means. For now, the initiative would only be a test effort — the government would solicit volunteers who drive commercial and passenger vehicles — but the idea still raises concerns about the government tracking people’s private data.

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I found an Amazon folder with thousands of audio recordings from my home gadgets

A woman was shocked to discover just how much data Amazon has collected about her.

She posted a viral TikTok video explaining how she requested to see the data but wasn’t expecting to receive so much.

TikToker my.data.not.yours explained: “I requested all the data Amazon has on me and here’s what I found.”

She revealed that she has three Amazon smart speakers.

Two are Amazon Dot speakers and one is an Echo device.

Her home also contains smart bulbs.

She said: “When I downloaded the ZIP file these are all the folders it came with.”

The TikToker then clicked on the audio file and revealed thousands of short voice clips that she claims Amazon has collected from her smart speakers.

She described them as “so scary” and played one of her talking about turning on a light.

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The VPN Empire Built By Intelligence Agents

For many people, a VPN is accepted as being their best bet for protecting their data and online privacy. While cyber security is certainly a concern for them, most VPN users aren’t exactly adept when it comes to information technology. Like any consumer, they typically err on the side of using a trusted name within the industry. In many ways, ExpressVPN is that standard-bearer. Since it began in 2009, ExpressVPN has signed up millions of users for its service under the promise that it does everything from encrypting data on their internet browser to masking their IP address in order to protect users against hackers and government surveillance.

What most of the 3 million users who currently use ExpressVPN probably weren’t aware of when they signed up is that the service proves the point that hackers and government surveillance aren’t mutually exclusive. On September 13th, ExpressVPN was sold to the Israeli-based company Kape Technologies in a $936 million cash and stock purchase. This acquisition added ExpressVPN to a catalog including several other VPN providers acquired by Kape Technologies since 2017. The acquiring company touted its purchase as being integral to defining the next generation in its fight for online privacy. However, the centralization the VPN services Kape Technologies owns and an examination of its history reveals the company’s efforts to undermine that very cause as a distributor of malware with ties to US and Israeli intelligence operations.

Kape Technologies was founded in 2011 by partners Koby Menachemi and Shmueli Ahdut under the name CrossRider. Early in its origins, CrossRider did not bill itself as a cyber security company. Instead, the focus of the company was on web browsing and advertising technologies. Just 20 months after its founding, the tech start-up with $2 million in working capital was purchased by Israeli tech billionaire Teddy Sagi for $37 million. Menachemi and Ahdut would stay on at the company as its CEO and CTO following the purchase. With the injection of capital that Sagi’s purchase put into the company, CrossRider pivoted its operations to change the scope of its outlook toward cyber security. In 2017, CrossRider cemented that change of direction when it purchased CyberGhost VPN for $10.4 million. Upon its acquisition of the Romanian-based VPN, CrossRider rebranded itself as Kape Technologies.

While CrossRider’s rebrand appeared to be a common tactic by a company marking a shift in its outlook as it made its first foray into cyber security, the basis of the change was rooted in a much different motive. By the time CrossRider had acquired CyberGhost VPN, the adware programs the company designed had been exposed as hacking tools. By attaching its adware to third party downloads, CrossRider was able to install potentially unwanted programs which attached to web browsers as spyware. Microsoft, Symantec MalwareBytes, and other cyber security websites categorized CrossRider’s malware program Crossid as a browser hijacker which collected user information such as browser information to IP addresses in order to monetize data for its value in targeted ad campaigns. With the CrossRider name being attached to this malicious spyware, the company was putting its newest VPN asset in jeopardy. In order to avoid losing users of CyberGhostVPN, rebranding to Kape Technologies was a measure designed to obfuscate the companies history as an entity producing malware programs which were antithetical to the interest of data security. The rebrand proved to effectuate the new image the company sought as it would go on to acquire additional VPN services years before its 2021 purchase of ExpressVPN. In 2018, Kape Technologies acquired Zenmate for $5.5 million and then Private Internet Access for $95 million in 2019.

With its growing portfolio, Kape Technologies had become increasingly more visible. Its umbrella of ownership centralizing multiple VPNs was a red flag for many who placed value in cyber security. Under growing scrutiny, the concerning origins of the company’s founders came to light. It was revealed that Koby Menachemi, Kape Technologies co-founder and former CEO, began his career in information technologies while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. Menachemi worked as a developer in the Israeli Intelligence Corps under Unit 8200. That division of the IDF was responsible for collecting signal intelligence and data decryption. Its alumni are estimated to have founded over 1,000 tech startups. Companies founded by former operatives of Unit 8200 include Waze, Elbit Systems, and slews of other startups who have since been acquired by the likes of Kodak, PayPal, Facebook, and Microsoft.

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Company That Routes Billions of Text Messages Quietly Says It Was Hacked

A company that is a critical part of the global telecommunications infrastructure used by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and several others around the world such as Vodafone and China Mobile, quietly disclosed that hackers were inside its systems for years, impacting more than 200 of its clients and potentially millions of cellphone users worldwide. 

The company, Syniverse, revealed in a filing dated September 27 with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission that an unknown “individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers.”

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12 best private search engines to use

Do you think searching on Google merely in incognito mode actually keeps your searches private? Not really. No matter which search engines you use, your searches are never private unless you seek more secure alternatives.

When someone refers to search engines, you can safely assume they are talking about Google. As of June 2021 statistics, it attracts 95.08% of mobile search traffic worldwide. While the laptop/desktop share of Google stands at a slightly lower number being 87.32%, it is still the leading search engine there, too.

According to the industry estimates by the Internet Live Stats, Google handles almost 3.5 billion searches a day on average. And the number of people using the search giant daily comes to more or less 1.7 billion.

These stats show how dominant Google is in the market. Also, this hints at the potential treasure trove of data Google holds because, as you’d already know, it tracks your searches.

But that doesn’t make it the only search engine responsible for breaching users’ privacy. Rather, the relatively less popular tools like Yahoo, Bing, and others also practice the same money-making strategy, i.e., monetizing users’ data.

Precisely, all the top search engines like Google serve as data compilation tools for advertising companies helping them go on you with targeted ads.

Therefore, unless you use a secure search engine, your information ends up in the hand of a third party, and you (the user) becomes the product.

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LAPD Orders Cops To Collect Social Media Data On Every Single Person They Stop

Los Angeles police officers have been directed to collect social media information on every civilian they interview, including people who haven’t been arrested or accused of a crime, according to the Guardian, citing leaked records.

According to the report, “field interview cards” used by LAPD officers contain instructions to record a civilian’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media accounts – along with basic biographical information. Chief Michael Moore has reportedly told cops to collect the data for use in “investigations, arrests, and prosecutions,” and has warned officers that the cards will be audited by supervisors to ensure they’re filled out completely.

“There are real dangers about police having all of this social media identifying information at their fingertips,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, a deputy director at the Brennan Center for Justice, which obtained the documents.

The Brennan Center conducted a review of 40 other police agencies in the US and was unable to find another department that required social media collection on interview cards (though many have not publicly disclosed copies of the cards). The organization also obtained records about the LAPD’s social media surveillance technologies, which have raised questions about the monitoring of activist groups including Black Lives Matter. -Guardian

Monitoring of social media accounts began in 2015, when the LAPD’s interview cards contained a line for “social media accounts.”

“Similar to a nickname or an alias, a person’s online persona or identity used for social media … can be highly beneficial to investigations,” wrote former LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck.

According to the LA Times, over half of civilians stopped by LAPD and had their personal details taken were not arrested or cited. Last October, criminal charges were filed against three officers in the LAPD’s metro division for using cards to falsely label civilians as gang members once they were stopped.

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