Tag Archives: privacy

Apple/FBI Shenanigans Probably Just Theatre

With the news that the FBI has allegedly managed to ‘crack’ the iPhone allegedly used by the perpetrators of the San Bernardino shootings without the assistance of Apple, I can’t help but wonder what has really been going on. iPhone Used By San Bernardino Shooter Cracked By FBI Did they really need Apple’s help getting […]

The Metadata Minefield

Despite there being little or no evidence on the effectiveness or usefulness of mass data retention in jurisdictions where it has been implemented, our current Australian government seems determined to steamroll legislation through the parliament to introduce it here. For its part, despite some noises against the idea, the current opposition Labor party – (the […]

Snowden Passport Cancellation Irony

I read with a chuckle last night, a Bloomberg article reporting on the apparent cancellation of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s US passport. “Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s U.S. passport has been revoked, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.” On “condition of anonymity” hey? So presumably shouldn’t have been […]

Why Are We So Shocked About PRISM?

Ever since The Guardian started revealing details of secret internet surveillance against private citizens undertaken by US government agencies – (such as the NSA) – which ultimately lead to the whistleblower Edward Snowden outing himself as their source, there has been international outcry as to the nature of these activities. As there should be. Many […]

Facebook Now Lets Anyone Message You At No Cost

Facebook has once again changed its privacy settings, allowing anyone to message you, where previously you could limit who could message you. It was a great mechanism that stopped randoms from sending you messages. I was greeted with the following “information” on my account this afternoon. For some time, Facebook has been toying with the […]

Nice Start Google – But Not Enough

Many people will remember the “storm in a teacup” that was the inadvertent possible collection by Google of data from wireless networks, when performing photographic and geo-spatial data collection for their Street View product early last year. Even our good friend Senator Stephen Conroy got in on the act, labelling it the “single biggest privacy […]

iPhone Tracking Data – How Dangerous?

There has been a lot of to-and-fro -(particularly in the tech industry) – over the last week or so in regards to whether or not Apple’s tracking of iPhone locations is a good or a bad thing. Many commentators have landed on the “it is bad” side of the argument. Many have landed on the […]

Dell Email Database Breached

This evening it was reported that Australian customers of global computer manufacturer Dell, may have been part of a security breach in which their name and email address have been exposed to hackers. I received the following email warning from Dell: Are you affected? If you’ve ever done business with Dell which included the supply […]