They say never to read the comments. But I do. Every day. I read every comment—the good, the bad, the so ugly it needs to be deleted—because it’s my job. I’m a community management consultant. And, believe it or not, my favorite commenters are anonymous.
On August 10, an apology was issued to Xiaomi phone users, as a result of independent researchers finding that the devices collect personal information entered by the user and send it to a remote server.
Hugo Barra, Xiaomi global vice president, took it to Google+ to deliver the apologies to the users, informing them that the data leak was due to the Cloud Messaging service, which is automatically enabled when the device is turned on.
More than two million unique login credentials for Australian internet users were stolen as part of the massive haul of 1.2 billion passwords by a Russian hacker outfit.
Earlier this month Hold Security reported that Russian hackers under the group dubbed CyberVors amassed the largest ever cache of stolen website passwords through automated and botnet-driven SQL injection attacks against horribly insecure websites.
A former Amtrak employee has been giving passenger information to the Drug Enforcement Administration in exchange for money for nearly two decades, according to reports from the Whittier Daily News. A total of over $854,460 changed hands over the last 20 years, despite the fact that information relevant to the DEA's work could have been obtained from Amtrak for free.
Yahoo users may have benefited most from the “Snowden effect.” The tech company was a laggard when it came to security practices until the NSA leaker’s disclosures made clear the extent to which weak security practices by tech companies are being exploited by talented hackers.
Some of those seeking to scrub their histories from the Web under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” rule are being economical with the truth when making their requests, Google said Thursday.
In a letter to European data regulators, Google listed some of the challenges it faces in complying with the ruling, which allows people to compel search engines like Google and Bing to remove links to pages that mention their name, if the references are “inadequate,” “irrelevant” or “excessive.”
An open-source project has released the first free application for the iPhone that scrambles voice calls, which would thwart government surveillance or eavesdropping by hackers.
Signal comes from Open Whisper Systems, which developed RedPhone and TextSecure, both Android applications that encrypt calls and text messages.
There's a distinctive sound your computer makes when an online friend is trying to get your attention. Sometimes its high pitched, other times its a low, warm tone, but regardless of your chat software, the onomatopoeia probably reads something like "bleep" which -- by no coincidence, we're sure -- is what BitTorrent is calling its new messaging platform. Unlike Google Hangouts, AIM or Skype, however, Bleep is a decentralized communication platform, design specifically to protect user metadata and anonymity.
The Tor anonymous encryption service offers internet users a way to surf the web with anonymity and prides itself on the level of security it offers. Well it looks as though the network was compromised earlier this year along with some user data, according to a recent Tor developer blog post. It also said that those who used Tor between early February and July 4th of this year "should assume" they have been in some way affected by the attack.
A new Senate proposal to curb the government's bulk collection of Americans' telephone records and increase transparency about the program has White House backing, and may get more traction with critics who have dismissed other bills as too weak.
Democrat senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the legislation in the United States upper house yesterday.
