A child pornography case in California has grown into a strange thing over the years, as lawyers for the defendant argued — and later proved — that the FBI had been paying Best Buy employees after they found illegal content on customers’ devices. Now the EFF is suing the Justice Department to find out just how the feds found, recruited, and trained these informants, and just how widespread the practice is. [More]
Data & Privacy
Digital Rights Advocates Sue Justice Dept. To Learn More About FBI Paying Off Best Buy Informants
By 6.1.17
Do You Use OneLogin? Change Your Password Now
By 6.1.17
If you use OneLogin to keep all your, well, login information straight, it’s time to change your password, as the password manager’s U.S. data centers are at the center of the latest hack attack. [More]
Kmart Victim Of Second Hack Attack In Three Years
By 6.1.17
Even with fewer stores and sales floors full of boxes, Kmart is still an attractive target for ne’er-do-wells: The retailer has found itself on the receiving end of another hack attack, just three years after its last security breach. [More]
Delta Tests Replacing Boarding Passes With Fingerprints For Lounge Access
By 5.31.17
While it’s trying facial recognition automated baggage drops in Minneapolis, Delta Airlines has implemented another form of biometric identification at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Ultimately, the airline plans to let passengers use their fingerprints in place of boarding passes to check in, check bags, and board their flights. [More]
JetBlue Hopes Facial Recognition Tech Can Speed Up Boarding At The Gate
By 5.31.17
For some flights, you’ll spend more time in line at the airport than you will in the air. Checking your bags, going through security, then boarding at the gate (not to mention the idle time spent in the jet’s aisle while the people in front of you invariably stow their over-large rolling suitcases improperly in the overhead bins and then remember they have to get something from that bag). JetBlue is hoping that using facial recognition technology can speed up at least one portion of this process. [More]
Chipotle Confirms Data Breach Hit “Most” Restaurant Locations
By 5.30.17
Chipotle recently made a vague disclosure to investors that its card-payment system had likely been breached by cybercriminals. Now the burrito chain is confirming that this attack affected most Chipotle stores — including its Pizzeria Locale restaurants — for nearly a month. [More]
RNC, Chamber Of Commerce Say A Robocall Isn’t A Robocall If It Goes Straight To Voicemail
By 5.26.17
An automated, prerecorded phone call that goes straight to voicemail may be slightly less annoying than a robocall that causes your phone to ring, but is it any less of a robocall? The Republican National Committee and the lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce think these “ringless” robocalls are just fine, and have asked the FCC to allow telemarketers to use them. [More]
Comcast Backs Off On Threat To Sue Operators Of ‘Comcastroturf’
By 5.26.17
Comcast didn’t win over many people when it recently threatened legal action against Comcastroturf.com, a website created by net neutrality advocates to call attention to the trove of fake anti-neutrality comments filed with the FCC. After some reflection, Comcast has decided it won’t sue to take the website down. [More]
Customer Accuses Chipotle Of Covering Up For Manager Who Put Spy Cam In Bathroom
By 5.25.17
A woman in Texas claims that not only did a manager at her local Chipotle repeatedly install spy cameras in the restaurant’s female restroom, but that the restaurant and its corporate office covered up the peeping; a charge the Chipotle HQ denies. [More]
Hacker Uses Printed Photo, Contact Lens To Trick Samsung S8 Iris Scanner
By 5.24.17 — Updated: 5.25.17
Weeks after a security researcher demonstrated how he could fool the facial recognition software in Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 smartphone with a digital photo, someone else has managed to hoodwink the phone, this time by tricking the phone’s iris scanner with a printed picture and a contact lens. [More]
4 Ways A Drug Company Makes Billions Off Patients With The Rarest Diseases
By 5.24.17
It’s no secret that there’s big money to be had in drugs. The cost of many pharmaceuticals has increased dramatically. But the real money makers for the drug industry aren’t necessarily the commonplace prescriptions for antibiotics of painkillers that most of us know by name; it’s the drugs that are used by very few people, who often need them to survive. [More]
Target Will Pay $18.5M To 47 States To Close Investigations Into 2013 Data Breach
By 5.23.17
Just like those embarrassing Facebook photos of you with your ill-advised “Macklemore” hairdo, Target’s massive 2013 data breach continues to haunt the retailer. Today, the company reached an agreement to pay $18.5 million to close the book on investigations by 47 states (and D.C.) into the month-long attack that exposed information for more than 60 million payment card accounts. [More]
Passengers Say Commuter Rail App Illegally Collects Personal User Data
By 5.23.17
Many cities’ commuter rail systems now have apps for users to do things like buy tickets, check schedules, and receive alerts. However, users of one system’s mobile app claim it is illegally collecting sensitive information about users’ devices and location. [More]
Google Following Your Offline Credit Card Spending To Tell Advertisers If Their Ads Work
By 5.23.17 — Updated: 5.24.17
Google’s holding its annual conference for marketers today in San Francisco, and to kick it off they’re announcing some new tools advertisers can use. One of them promises to tie your offline credit card data together with all your online viewing to tell advertisers exactly what’s working as they try to target you and your wallet. [More]
Some Vine Users’ Email Addresses, Phone Numbers Exposed
By 5.19.17 — Updated: 5.25.17
Like stumbling onto a bunch of Pitbull songs some ex put in your music library four years ago, the ghost of video-sharing platform Vine continues to haunt the internet. See, even though Vine is dead and gone, its cache of user information is not — and now some of that data has apparently been leaked. [More]
Bank Sends Tax Forms, Personal Information To Wrong Customers
By 5.19.17
Tax forms mailed out by your bank contain all sorts of information you probably don’t want to land in the hands of a random stranger: Name, address, partial Social Security number, account number, and more. Yet, one large bank screwed up and sent this sensitive information to the wrong customers. [More]
FCC Votes To Move Forward With Process Of Killing Net Neutrality
By 5.18.17
As expected, the Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 this morning to move forward with Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to roll back “net neutrality” rules that currently prevent internet service providers from having any say in what you see or do online. [More]
Yale Dean Apologizes For Snooty, Elitist Yelp Reviews
By 5.17.17
In theory, college deans are supposed to advise and mentor students, sometimes guiding them through times where their worst impulses might get the best of them. Hopefully, Yale students are not following the lead of one dean who repeatedly used Yelp to make rude, condescending comments about local businesses and her fellow customers. [More]
