From The Register:

FTC tears into Apple, Google over kids’ privacy – or lack of

‘Impossible’ to know data collected by apps, watchdog fumes

By Brid-Aine Parnell

US regulators have told smartphone software makers to do more to protect the privacy of kids using their apps – or face the watchdogs’ wrath.

In a report that acknowledged the “tremendous” growth of mobile software, the Federal Trade Commission said app developers are not making “simple and short” declarations of their privacy policies. As a result, young users – picked out for their vulnerability – could be giving up their mobile phone numbers, contacts, location and other data without knowing about it.

It also warned that app stores run by Apple and Google needed to do more.

“Although the app store developer agreements require developers to disclose the information their apps collect, the app stores do not appear to enforce these requirements. This lack of enforcement provides little incentive to app developers to provide such disclosures and leaves parents without the information they need,” notes the report.

“As gatekeepers of the app marketplace, the app stores should do more.”

via FTC tears into Apple, Google over kids’ privacy – or lack of • The Register.

In contravention of Apple’s policies, and their own statements about consumer privacy, Google bypassed Safari’s security settings to store permanent cookies on Apple devices.

From Mashable.com:

Google Caught Tracking Safari Users: What You Need to Know

Google is in a lot of hot water over recent revelations about how it tracks user activity on Apple devices — particularly iPhones and iPads.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, an independent researcher has discovered that Google embeds hidden software on many websites — software designed to circumvent the default settings on a web browser to record a user’s behavior.

via Google Caught Tracking Safari Users: What You Need to Know.

By this logic, NO HOUSE or APARTMENT in the US is safe.  Houses get broken into, people lose house keys, and some people die alone. (no wills, no heirs)

The FBI applied similar logic when attaching GPS trackers, without warrants, to college student’s vehicles in the US.

Now, if you buy a phone with a fake name, or rent an apartment under a fake name, they argue you’ve forfeited your 4th Amemdment rights.

From Gizmodi & Wall Street Journal:

Feds Want to Warrantlessly Track Phones Bought with Fake Names

If the DOJ gets its way, it won’t need a warrant to monitor people who buy cell phones and other electronic services using a fake name, according to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal.

The DOJ is arguing that because a California man used a fake name when he bought a broadband card, service and a computer (and rented his apartment) he’s not entitled to protection under the fourth amendment.

The government used a device called a Stingray to locate the broadband card being used by Daniel David Rigmaiden. The Stingray mimics a cell phone tower, and pings the target device. It measures the signal strength, and then moves to another location and measures it again. It uses that data to triangulate the phone’s position. They are increasingly being used by law enforcement.

The FBI didn’t get a warrant when it used a Stingray to locate Rigmaiden’s location. At his apartment complex, it found he had used a fake ID on his rental application. It used that to get a search warrant, where it found the broadband card.

The government’s argument is that it didn’t need a warrant to locate Rigmaiden because he gave up his fourth ammendment rights and had no reasonable expectation of privacy when he used a fake name to rent and purchase his broadband card, service and computer.

It’s in the courts, but if the DOJ wins this one, it could mean that even if you use a fake name to buy something in a non-fraudulent matter—say a burner phone—it can track you down, and perhaps even listen in. Beware, Stringer Bell.

via Feds Want to Warrantlessly Track Phones Bought with Fake Names.

Rather that focusing on current threats, like a neo-naze group that murdered 10 people, they have been focused on spying on former East German radicals…including those that have been democratically elected, and hold political offices.

We saw this in the US in the 1950s-1970s, where the government spied on it’s political rivals, not actual threats.

This is the biggest long-term threat to privacy from Social Media, Cloud Computing and ubiquitous surveillance.

Like roach motels, once your data checks in, it never checks out. 

Once you’ve been tagged as a threat / problem / terrorist or rabble rouser, the cops, governments and databases will treat you as such for life.

The Occupy Wall Street protestors were the most heavily photographed and video demonstration in the US.  You can bet their names, photos, addresses are in hundreds of threat databases.

From The Economist:

Protection racket

The spooks can’t keep their eyes off the left

Feb 4th 2012 | BERLIN | from the print edition

GERMANY’S intelligence services failed to detect a gang of neo-Nazis who murdered ten people over several years. Never mind. They have a vice-president of the Bundestag in their sights.

Times are awkward for the 17 Offices for the Protection of the Constitution, as the domestic intelligence agencies are known (one at federal level and one for each of the 16 states). The “Zwickau cell” killed with impunity until two of its members shot themselves in November after fleeing a bank robbery. Perhaps that is because the spooks were busy watching the Left Party, the fourth-largest in the Bundestag. The federal office is monitoring 27 of its deputies, including Petra Pau (a Bundestag vice-president) and a member of the committee that oversees the intelligence services. The party, or affiliated groups, are also targets in most states. This constitutes “defamation of the opposition”, complained Jan Korte, a legislator on the watch list.

There are reasons to keep an eye on the Left Party. It is the direct descendant of East Germany’s communists and expanded westward by attracting disgruntled Social Democrats. Although the party espouses “democratic socialism” it harbours some groups that seem unsure about democracy. It has seats in 13 state legislatures and has helped govern, mostly pragmatically, three eastern states. The federal agency has been watching it since 1995.

via Germany’s intelligence services: Protection racket | The Economist.

The Australian police have been spying on web surfing, emails, cell phones with warrants for quite some time.

At least they’re in good company…along with the US, Canada, UK, Syria, Iran, China, Russia, etc.

From TheAge.com.au:

Police spy on web, phone usage with no warrants

Philip Dorling

February 18, 2012

Scott Ludlam.

Scott Ludlam, Greens senator … “We’ve already taken some pretty dangerous steps … towards the surveillance state.”

LAW enforcement and government departments are accessing vast quantities of phone and internet usage data without warrants, prompting warnings from the Greens of a growing ”surveillance state” and calls by privacy groups for tighter controls.

Figures released by the federal Attorney-General’s Department show that federal and state government agencies accessed telecommunications data and internet logs more than 250,000 times during criminal and revenue investigations in 2010-11.

The Greens senator Scott Ludlam highlighted the statistics while calling for tighter controls on access to mobile device location information.

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”There should be a higher standard of proof, or a higher standard of cause needing to be shown, to track down your every location through your life than there is for reading your email,” he said at a recent conference on internet privacy.

via Police spy on web, phone usage with no warrants.

I will also address the students and Faculty of NYIT-Vancouver on challenges to Privacy, Security and Civil Rights, and the role colleges can play today in developing the workforce, technologists, and civil libertarians of tomorrow.

When; Feb 27, 2012

Where: Nassau County Bar Association

URL: https://www.nassaubar.org/Calendars/other_meetings.aspx

What would you do if a Retailer knew you were pregnant, and when the due date was before you told your friends and family?

Or they figured out whether you got a bonus or were unemployed without you telling them?

This article in Forbes on Target’s Pregnancy Identifier database is eerily unsettling. Especially the way they created the “random coupons” baby book.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

[Pole] ran test after test, analyzing the data, and before long some useful patterns emerged. Lotions, for example. Lots of people buy lotion, but one of Pole’s colleagues noticed that women on the baby registry were buying larger quantities of unscented lotion around the beginning of their second trimester. Another analyst noted that sometime in the first 20 weeks, pregnant women loaded up on supplements like calcium, magnesium and zinc. Many shoppers purchase soap and cotton balls, but when someone suddenly starts buying lots of scent-free soap and extra-big bags of cotton balls, in addition to hand sanitizers and washcloths, it signals they could be getting close to their delivery date.

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

 

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

This is how BIG DATA works, and this is how Facebook, Google, Twitter are making their billions.

Collecting data, analyzing data to show you better targeted ads, and further sell your data to retailers, advertisers, insurers and governments.

- Online Dating Sites

- Texting, Sexting and amateur adult home videos

- Privacy and Surveillance trends

Click to listen.