Privacy

This week EFF released a new version its HTTPS Everywhere extension for the Firefox browser and debuted a beta version of the extension for Chrome. EFF frequently recommends that Internet users who are concerned about protecting their anonymity and security online use HTTPS Everywhere, which encrypts your communications with many websites, in conjunction with Tor, which helps to protect your anonymity online. But the best security comes from being an informed user who understands how these tools work together to protect your privacy against potential eavesdroppers.

Do you know what the worst thing is about Google's new no-privacy policy and attempt to collect data about everything you do online in one place no matter where you do it or on what site?

You have no choice but to go along with it, if you want to find the information you're looking for. Intrusiveness is one thing, intrusiveness to which it's impossible to say 'No' is another. Especially when Twitter and the other services you use online are being just as intrusive.

Earlier this week, it was uncovered that iOS apps had a glitch that gave app developers access to users’ photos once they allow an app to access their location information. Now a new investigation launched by the NY Times has discovered that a similar snooping can happen on Android, where third-party developers also have access to users’ photos without explicitly asking for permission.

Colorado federal authorities have decrypted a laptop seized from a bank-fraud defendant, mooting a judge’s order that the defendant unlock the hard drive so the government could use its contents as evidence against her.

The development ends a contentious legal showdown over whether forcing a defendant to decrypt a laptop is a breach of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination.

The tipster e-mail link for the Quebec government's anti-corruption inquiry has been shut down after it was reportedly hacked.

Seven e-mails – one of which claimed the bribing of a Montreal city employee by a construction company – were allegedly given to the QuebecLeaks website by hackers who said they were testing the site for security flaws.

Google’s new privacy policy takes effect Thursday. What’s new about it?

Now, it allows Google to integrate information it collects about you from all your Google accounts. So instead of treating your YouTube, Gmail and Google+ accounts as separate entities, Google now sees you as just one user. That should make it easier to target you with relevant ads.

Identity theft was the top complaint filed by US residents to the Federal Trade Commission in 2011, with Internet-related fraud also a top concern, the agency said Tuesday.

Fifteen percent of the 1.8 million complaints the FTC received through its online Consumer Sentinel Network involved ID theft, the agency said.

In the hour that Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs lets his 9-year-old daughter surf the web every day, her wanderings have been tracked by dozens of sites.

To some degree, it's to be expected. Tracking our online behavior is big business. The revenues involved in the top online tracking companies in the space is over $39 billion, Kovacs says. It's not something that will be slowing any time soon.

Developers of applications for Apple’s mobile devices, and Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge.

As it turns out, address books are not the only things up for grabs. Photos are also vulnerable. After a user allows an application on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to have access to location information, the app can copy the user’s entire photo library, without any further notification or warning, according to app developers.

Microsoft has launched an all-out assault on Google's privacy policies, but when it comes to protecting your privacy, Microsoft's Web site lags behind both Google and Apple, says the privacy organization PrivacyChoice.