If there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s that being at work is different than from being at home. Well, unless you work at home or live at work, which, um, maybe we can’t agree on anything. But! The things you do on the computer at work should probably be different from your Internetting at home. But sometimes you forget! Sometimes you use your work computer to go to porn sites. Sometimes you click a NSFW picture from your cubicle. Sometimes you opened Excel at home *GASP*.
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Skype has long claimed to be "end-to-end encrypted", an architectural category that suggests conversations over the service would be difficult or impossible to eavesdrop upon, even given control of users’ Internet connections. But Skype’s 2005 independent security review admits a caveat to this protection: "defeat of the security mechanisms at the Skype Central Server" could facilitate a "man-in-the-middle attack" (see section 3.4.1). Essentially, the Skype service plays the role of a certificate authority for its users and, like other certificate authorities, could facilitate eavesdropping by giving out the wrong keys.
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Bloomberg is reporting that the recent NSA Prism scandal is just a tiny scratch on the privacy surface. Citing "four people familiar with the process", the agency claims that in fact thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies work with US national security agencies.
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Everyone knows the IRS is our nation’s tax collector, but it is also a law enforcement organization tasked with investigating criminal violations of the tax laws. New documents released to the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the IRS Criminal Tax Division has long taken the position that the IRS can read your emails without a warrant-a practice that one appeals court has said violates the Fourth Amendment (and we think most Americans would agree). More »
This new web app mashes together insecure feeds from Trendnet home security cameras with Google Maps to let you spy on people all over the world. It’s horrible, dreadful, disgusting—and utterly compelling. More »
Bitdefender’s Clueful, once an iOS app in its own right that Apple apparently took offence to, is now back as a webapp. Use it to find out if your apps are spying on you, storing your personal information, and sending it anywhere you might not want them to. Essential for the paranoid; interesting for the curious. [Clueful via TUAW] More »
As if Instagram wasn’t already an amazing way to snoop on what people are doing around the entire planet, a new website called The Beat lets you see exactly where the photographs were taken, too. More »
Google’s released its twice-yearly transparency report, and there’s one message within it that rings loud and clear: the US government is spying on us harder than ever. More »
According to the New Zealand Herald, Kim Dotcom suspected he was being spied because of a 150 millisecond connection delay while playing his favorite game—Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. More »
A small victory in the fight for digital privacy: California Governor Jerry Brown has announced his signing of bills to prevent employers and universities from demanding social network login. More »
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