Thursday, November 27, 2014

...and a Happy Thanksgiving to you, EU. So now you can argue with two companies (Go and Ogle?)
The European Parliament Just Voted To Break Up Google
The EU doesn't actually have the power to break up the company, but it does send a message to Google that the EU is unhappy with its business practises.
… The European Parliament has never voted to break up a company before, making this a historic decision.


If I read this correctly (and I often do not) this is signaling that Kim Jong-un is on shaky ground and could suffer a fatal attack of gout at any time.
North Korea reveals Kim Jong-un’s sister’s top role in ruling party
North Korea has revealed that leader Kim Jong-un’s younger sister is a senior official in the ruling Workers’ Party, strengthening analysts’ views that she is an increasingly important part of the family dynasty that runs the country.
State media on Thursday referred to Kim Yo-jong as a departmental vice director within the party’s Central Committee.


For my Computer Security class.
Twitter wants to spy on the other mobile apps you download - here's how to stop it
Twitter is to start monitoring the other apps that you download to your mobile phone and use that data to help sell advertising.
The company says it’s about making a "more personal Twitter experience for you" so that it can deliver "tailored content that you might be interested in".
Twitter will only collect the list of names of apps you install - your "app graph" data - rather than the content within those apps, but it’s still a little creepy.
If you are using Twitter for Android
You need to go into settings, tap the account you’d like to adjust and under “other” you can adjust the setting to "tailor Twitter based on my apps".
If you are using Twitter for iOS
Go into settings, find the account you want to change and, under Privacy, you can change the setting to "tailor Twitter based on my apps".


Of course they do. (It's for the patients!) If they could guarantee security, this would not be an issue. So far, they haven't convinced me they even think about security.
Joseph Conn reports:
The American Medical Informatics Association is asking Congress to amend a central federal healthcare privacy rule, in order to give medical researchers access to patient records without their consent.
A see-saw battle has been waged at the federal policy level for more than a decade over patient consent regarding medical records, with patient privacy advocates arguing that control over information about one’s self is the definition of privacy.
So, not surprisingly, a leading privacy advocate reacted negatively to the AMIA request.
“It’s shocking that they don’t have enough data yet, they’re going after more?” said Dr. Deborah Peel, a psychiatrist who heads the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation in Austin, Texas. “We completely support the opinion that every research use should be disclosed to the patient.”
Read more on Modern Healthcare.
It’s not just disclosure, of course, that’s at issue. It’s also the issue of consent or at the very least, the right to opt out of use of PHI.
This blogger believes that Congress should not amend HIPAA to permit research use of PHI without patient consent.


For my Ethical Hackers. A nice summary!
Are Your Home Security Cams Being Streamed Online Without Your Knowledge?
Reports broke earlier this month about a website that was live streaming footage from more than 70,000 Internet connected security cameras. In the past few days, the media reports have gotten hysterical with the Daily Mail reporting — and I use that word loosely — that Russians spy on UK families via their webcams. This particular website has now been removed but the security threat is not gone.
I’ve looked into it, talked to a security expert and worked out some of how the supposed hack occurred.
All the cameras on the website were broadcasting their feed online because they were designed to do so.
… According to the site’s now-removed FAQ the cameras were found with what Kev calls “Google hacking”. Many of the effected cameras’ webpages include things like “live feed” and the camera model in the title tag. By using advanced search operators such as intitle: it’s possible to find all of these pages that have been indexed by Google.
Google finds sites by following links. If Google can’t find links to a site it can’t index it. All the affected camera’s webpages ended up on Google. This means, that for some reason, there is a link somewhere on the Internet pointed to the camera’s webpage.


A couple of these look interesting.
5 Useful Apps For All Smartphone Owners
Record Encounters With Law Enforcement Using Police Tape
It is an app (for both iOS and Android) which you can use to record an encounter with law enforcement, and then have it immediately uploaded (I couldn’t find out whether it is uploaded to YouTube or to the ACLU).
Once it’s uploaded, no-one can force you to delete it. And by taking the time to use this site to bone up on your legal knowledge, you can calmly and rationally discuss a situation with a police officer, knowing what is right and what is wrong.
Find Out How Good An App’s Privacy Levels Are With Privacy Grade
With the amount of apps an average person puts on their phone, there is a higher than average chance that some of them will have a back door to somewhere you don’t want it to go.
Privacy Grade is a site for Android apps only, but most of them will also have an iOS version, which won’t be that much different from its Android counterpart. It assigns a grade to each app depending on a multitude of factors, and since the research is done at Carnegie Mellon University, you can be assured that there is some credibility to these scores.

No comments: