Privacy

Federal regulations designed to protect children's privacy cover the burgeoning mobile apps business as well as other online vehicles accessible through laptops or desktops. In fact, providers of mobile apps need to pay attention to the privacy impact not only of services offered specifically to chi...

H.R. 1981, a U.S. federal bill which apparently seeks to combat child pornography, has stirred up opposition from various lawmakers as well as civil rights groups. The proposed law, introduced in May and now under consideration in Congress, is the joint creation of Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairma...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Scotland Yard Tightens the Pincers on Anonymous

It's been another wild and crazy week for the security community. Scotland Yard arrested two suspected members of Anonymous and LulzSec Thursday. Meanwhile, the major players in the browser market -- Google, Microsoft and the Mozilla Foundation -- have chopped Dutch certificate DigiNotar off at the ...

In a nod to users who have complained about Facebook's privacy settings for years, the social network announced new, simplified settings Tuesday that allow users to exercise greater control over what information is shared across the network. Going forward, users can choose a feature called "Profile ...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Hacker Smack Talk Escalates

This past week saw considerable hacker activity: AntiSec released to the Internet 1 GB worth of emails and documents stolen from the account of VanGuard Defense Industries SVP Richard Garcia. A related hacker community, Anonymous, hacked into the servers of the BART Police Officers' Association. Ano...

London's burning, and it may lead to a clampdown on social media in the UK. UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday suggested censoring social media in response to the violence. Mobs reportedly communicating in part through BlackBerry Messenger, and later social media sites, wreaked havoc throug...

EXPERT ADVICE

Social Menaces

In terms of online communication, social media is the biggest trend in recent years. There are billions of participants around the globe as well as an array of forms: blogs, forums, wikis, multimedia content, social bookmarking and, of course, popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+....

Could Facebook be the next target in hacker group Anonymous' crosshairs? A tweet from the Twitter handle "OP_Facebook" -- which is labeled "Anonymous" yet had only a single tweet in its history as of mid-day Wednesday -- urged readers to go to a Pirate Bay Web page or watch a YouTube video in which ...

The recent launch of Google+, which offers users a convenient way of managing who gets to see what, addresses the social networking privacy issue to an extent. However, the vast majority of Facebook's multitudes are still not terribly concerned -- they're having too much fun. There's a need to pay m...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Half-Pint Hackers and Rats in the Walls

It's been a mighty interesting week in security. Kids learned about cryptography and received a visit from federal authorities at a special session at DefCon, McAfee is duking it out with other security vendors over Operation Shady Rat, facial recognition is stripping away what little is left of our...

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a system that combines facial recognition technology with social networking data and information drawn from other sources, raising new privacy concerns. The research team, led by Alessandro Acquisti, associate professor of information technology ...

Google has begun cleaning up its recently launched Google+ service, and in doing so, it's deleted some legitimate users' accounts. Those with dumped accounts include a user calling himself "Dylan M," who has the Twitter handle @thomasmonopoly, as well as Limor Fried, A.K.A. "Ladyada." Dylan M. was a...

Membership in Google+, which was launched only about three weeks ago, is soaring. Calculations by Comscore indicate the service had 20 million visitors in just 21 days. Meanwhile, Google is reported to be preparing to add a social gaming feature to the Google+ service in order to attract even more s...

Mounting public anger over the News of the World newspaper's alleged practice of hacking into voice mail boxes of people targeted as subjects for stories has led to the arrests of eight people by the British police. Alleged victims of their hacking in the UK included the royal family, former British...

Google's privacy-conscious initiatives are often born in Germany. Heeding the objections to Street View, which rained down from national authorities and wary Germans, Google introduced an opt-out feature that allowed people to officially request that their homes be blurred out -- nearly 250,000 appl...

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