The Actuator – January 31st

Check Back Soon: New Secure Messaging Guide On the Way! | Electronic Frontier Foundation

I do the exact same thing Thomas! I destroy my old hard drives. You should see what they do with the ones from work... the security people save them up for a while then a few times a year they go to place where they put all the stuff into a furnace and they have to witness the destruction. All of this is tracked and documented.

As soon as I saw the satellite overlays of the soldiers "fitness trackers" etc. on the internet and in the news I knew... THIS IS NOT GOOD AT ALL!

I still think this net neutrality stuff is blown way way out of proportion. I won't get into the politics of it but if I wanna pay more for better service I will. No ones forcing anyone to buy anything. Free market is free market. The real loser in NN is Netflix... they may no longer get a free ride to use 70% of the internet bandwidth after 6PM any longer. They run the whole thing out of AWS I believe if I'm not mistaken.

One things for certain right now... to be able to redraw the lines of political districts you have to uh... win elections first. Both parties do it... just some more recently more because... uh they won elections. Here in Arizona attempts to fix this actually made things worse than they already were before.

As far as personal data protection... start with installing Signal VOIP app and use it with everyone you talk to. Secure Messaging Scorecard | Electronic Frontier Foundation

petergwilson

I once worked at a secure site where dead hard disks were treated correctly. We had to hammer a six inch nail through them. They were then taken away by a large person you wouldn't argue with (and he had a gun). They would come back after being put through an industrial shredder. We had to sign for them then he would take the remains away to be disposed of. The signature was required to allow the asset to be written off and a new one purchased. Knowing the site I guess they were probably irradiated as well. Might be overkill but nuclear secrets are quite important.

petergwilson

Strava. I was wondering how long this would take to emerge. I have been shouting about it for a while. I used to work with a company who provided TV and radio for British Forces worldwide. When I went to Germany to upgrade all the radio stations I had to get military maps in order to find the bases as the satnavs only show large blank areas. It was obvious where the base was but there were no clues as to where the main gate was. Those that went to Afghanistan weren't allowed to take mobile phones as these could be tracked by the teletubbies. I'm really surprised that anyone is allowed to take a tracking device into a military base.

I think all those fitness trackers and the like will be banned soon. We aren't allowed to carry them into any closed areas today... I'm surprised the pentagon and others haven't banned these already.

I've studied gerrymandering. I've concluded it's one of the most insidious and unfair tools in use today to remove political power from groups.

Micro-dividing neighborhoods is done for political gain, not for improving efficiency and reducing costs. It's patently vulnerable to extreme manipulation resulting in discrimination.

ATM's vulnerable to physical access hack--is this really a surprise? Physical access could get you everything in a network, depending on how things are set up.

Hopefully banks will wise up to this and fix the problem.

Hopefully the bank security cameras catch the user's face and their vehicle's license number, etc.

Hopefully ATMs will go away and we can interface directly with people again. I do miss those days, no matter how inefficient it was to drive to your local bank, park, walk inside, greet people by name and share personal stories about family and adventures, make your withdrawal, and greet more people as you left the building. Life was slower and simpler then, and in many ways better.

If you honestly believe Microsoft is telling you everything about the data they're collecting about you without your knowledge and specific permission, then you deserve them.

I suspect many people would object and drop services to many systems (Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Instagram, etc.) if the people saw their data being taken, watched it being sold, saw the amount of money it generates for the vendors, and saw the personal privacy compromised by the entire process.

And there are others who don't care, who say "As long as I can access the streaming media or games or files I want, take what you want from me--I've nothing I want to keep private."

Sigh.

Strava reveals soldiers' habits and locations? How is it the government / military didn't understand this was the logical and inevitable outcome of sharing personal data tracking via the Internet?

The observations in the Cybersecurity / Boardroom article seem right on.

It appears the board members need to see the actual / hidden / secondary costs to their organization and resource flows before they're realize the true costs of doing business online without the right security in place.

I agree with the concept that a trustworthy solution to safeguard one's data and personal information is a good one.

But isn't this just putting a different spin on the problem, that some people will abuse that trust, and that you just can't guard against a slick operator all the time?

If we learn nothing pertinent to this topic by watching televangelists persuade people to send them money for empty promises of heaven and forgiveness, or by sending money to politicians who promise to cut government waste while simultaneously using their political power to enhance their own finances, well . . .I guess we should trust Personal Data Representatives to always protect our best interests and never be vulnerable to human weakness.

The Burger King story seems delightfully tongue-in-cheek with subtle snarkyness.

But the communication skills seem to need a bit of work:

How can one have a goal "to appeal to woke millenials"? What does even this mean?

Jfrazier

Regarding the fitbit and Steva...many smartphones will act like the fitbit and with their embedded GPS/Cell tower triangulation can provide the same data....as well as all the phone apps in the newer vehicles with built in cell technology and GPS....in the end it is all this "smart" technology that is providing others with data on our lives. It is not just the fitbits, which I believe the military should ban their use due to the risks, but all the connected bits and pieces that ultimately can be used against us.

Jfrazier

Many of the ATM's I see in rural areas don't have a LAN to connect to but use standalone cell phones and modems. Look for the cell phone antenna on top when using an atm at a convention center, some convenience stores/gas stations, etc. So hackage may not be as easy as some think. On that note, I have seen ATM's with older windows operating systems (pre 2000)...talk about virus magnet.

As much as I enjoy the chance to hurt myself with a power tool, I know that if I really want to hurt myself I need to upgrade to one of these for destroying hard drives: 6080S hard drive - YouTube

Yes, I would agree that nuclear secrets are quite important.

I'm a bit surprised as well. Then again, this could be another example where technology moves faster than the rules (or laws) can be applied. I really don't have an explanation for this.

Agreed, and it's been that way for centuries. Everyone hates it, and yet it seems to remain.

If you want life to move slower, we should just use Bitcoin. It can take hours to process a transaction.

Yes, I honestly believe Microsoft, because if they aren't being truthful it will come back to hurt them in their wallet. There is too much risk for them to play games with data privacy. I'm more concerned about the companies that aren't making an effort in this area.

How much will it cost them if they suffer a breach? That's the only question they need to answer. Decades ago, when SOX became a thing, non-compliance meant we would be out of business. That made our efforts to be compliant easy to put into a dollar amount at risk.

Yep, just like we trust accountants, and lawyers, and doctors, etc. We expect they are acting in our best interests, at all times.

It means someone on the marketing team got a bonus for hitting all the right SEO words that day.

Yep, our phones are tracking us, even when we think they are not.

That was exactly my thought as well, that ATMs are often isolated and running on older software, probably because some manager doesn't see the need to keep systems up to date.

Lol this is so true... BitCoin mining is VERY inefficient. It would never work for massive bank transactions.

It's like people still running Windows XP.

And everyone does it.

I agree... MS is making an effort to be transparent which is much more than most can claim.

Exactly!