Sarahah Has Been Downloading All the Data In Your Address
Book
The anonymous messaging app, biled as a platform for
honest feedback, has reportedly also been saving all the contacts in your
phone. According to The Intercept, when users download the app for the first time, “it
immediately harvests and uploads all phone numbers and email addresses in your
address book.” In some cases, Sarahah
does ask for permission to access your contacts, but it does not disclose that
it will be saving the data to its own servers.
Sarahah’s founder, Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, tweeted in response to The Intercept's article , saying that the contacts were
being uploaded for a planned “find your friends” feature. The feature was then delayed due to “technical
issues” and was accidentally not removed from the current version of the app. He added that “the data request will be
removed on next update.”
(Related).
It seemed like such a friendly App…
With weather on everyone’s mind this week, this might be a
good time to point out that AccuWeather was caught sending user location data –
even when location sharing is off.
Last week, Zack Whittaker reported:
Popular weather app AccuWeather
has been caught sending geolocation data to a third-party data monetization
firm, even when the user has switched off
location sharing.
AccuWeather is one of the most
popular weather apps in Apple’s app store, with a
near perfect four-star rating and millions of downloads to its name. But what the app doesn’t say is that it sends
sensitive data to a firm designed to monetize user locations without users’
explicit permission.
Read more on ZDNet
and do read their
follow-up how the problem
persisted even after it was allegedly fixed.
There is value in anonymous speech.
China Tightens the Noose on Free Online Speech, Again
Chinese authorities have stepped up their war against free
online speech by banning web platforms from accepting comments from anonymous
users.
China's "cyberspace
administration" said in rules published Friday that internet forum providers had
to force their users to register using their real names, which they must verify, reports The
Diplomat. The web companies must also
immediately report illegal comments to the authorities, and pre-screen comments
on current affairs.
Illegal comments include those that
spread rumors, potentially disrupt social order, leak secrets, damage China's
national honor, incite hatred, undermine the state's policies about religion,
and insult people.
(Related).
Hundreds of Russians Protest Tighter Internet Controls
About 1,000 Russians braved pouring rain in Moscow on
Saturday to demonstrate against the government's moves to tighten controls on
internet use, with police arresting about a dozen protesters.
,,, In July,
Russia's parliament voted to outlaw web tools
that let internet users sidestep official bans of certain websites.
It allows telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor to
compile a list of so-called anonymiser services and prohibit any that fail to
respect the bans, while also requiring users of online messaging services to
identify themselves with a telephone number.
"Innovation and technology will win! We will defend our freedoms!" one
protester said, according to a broadcast of the march on YouTube.
Russia's opposition groups rely heavily on the internet to
make up for their lack of access to the mainstream media.
But the Russian authorities have been clamping down on
such online services, citing security concerns.
Fits in to the discussion my classes are having.
Kill animals and destroy property before hurting humans,
Germany tells future self-driving cars
Germany’s government has answered the car ethics question
once and for all: driverless cars should prioritize the protection of human
life over the destruction of animals or property.
On Wednesday, the nation's Federal Ministry of Transport
and Digital Infrastructure – a curious combination that suggests they took
"information superhighway" too literally – announced it will "implement" guidelines devised
by a panel of experts scrutinizing self-driving technology.
Back in June, the ministry's ethics commission produced a report on how computer-controlled vehicles should be
programmed and designed in future. The
panel of 14 scientists and legal eggheads suggested some 20 rules autonomous
rides should follow. Now, Germany's
transport regulator has pledged to enforce them in one way or another.
Among the proposed rules are:
- The protection of human life always has top priority. If a situation on the road goes south, and it looks as though an accident is going to happen, the vehicle must save humans from death or injury even if it means wrecking property or mowing down other creatures.
- If an accident is unavoidable, the self-driving ride must not make any choices over who to save – it can't wipe out an elderly person to save a kid, for instance. No decisions should be made on age, sex, race, disabilities, and so on; all human lives matter.
Ultimately, drivers will still bear responsibility if
their autonomous charabanc crashes, unless it was caused by a system failure,
in which case the manufacturer is on the hook.
I always thought of fingerprints as solid science. Perhaps the procedure needs review?
New on LLRX – Fingerprint Forensics: From Lore to Law
by
on
Notable developments in courtrooms, academia and
government institutions, both state and federal, are laying the groundwork for
challenges to fingerprint matching. This
extensively researched, comprehensive annotated bibliography by Ken Strutin includes new and noteworthy materials
such as key opinions, significant articles and online resources concerning
accuracy, reliability, validity as well as authenticity of fingerprint
evidence. It also includes information
on scientific and technological developments that are pushing the frontiers of
biometric analysis.
Tossing the baby out with the bathwater? Are we missing an opportunity to point out the
errors in their logic and more importantly, the opportunity to laugh at them? Worth reading.
Nazis, The Internet, Policing Content And Free Speech
… I want to discuss an issue that's already
received plenty of attention: how various platforms -- starting with GoDaddy
and Google, but with much of the attention placed on Cloudflare -- decided to
stop serving the neo-Nazi forum site the Daily Stormer.
… Let's start with
the basics: Nazis -- both the old kind and the new kind -- are bad. My grandfather fought Nazis in Europe and
Northern Africa during WWII, and I have no interest in seeing Nazis in America
of all places. But even if you believe
that Nazis and whoever else uses the Daily Stormer are the worst of the absolute
worst, there are many other issues at play here beyond just "don't provide
them service." Of course, lots of
services are choosing not to. Indeed,
both the Washington Post and Quartz are keeping running tallies of all the services that
have been booting Nazis and other racist groups. And, I think it's fairly important to state
that these platforms have their own First Amendment rights, which allow them to
deny service to anyone. There's
certainly no fundamental First Amendment right for people to use any service
they want. That's not how free speech works.
… As many experts
in the field have noted, these things are complicated. And while I know many people have been cheering
on each and every service kicking off these users, we should be careful about
what that could lead to. Asking
platforms to be the arbiters of what speech is good and what speech is bad is
frought with serious problems.
If nothing else, you must admit he can catch the spotlight
whenever he wants to. (Which seems to
be, every time he thinks people are beginning to forget him.)
Kim Dotcom Wants YouTube Stars to Test His Bitcoin Payment
System
Kim Dotcom, the file-sharing entrepreneur who is currently
fighting extradition from New Zealand to the U.S. on copyright violation
charges, has provided a glimpse of the new payments platform he says will make
it easier to reward creators for their work.
Dotcom first talked about his Bitcache micropayments platform
a year ago, when he said the bitcoin-connected system could provide a new
business model for file-sharing—this would involve those who upload copyrighted
media being able to charge downloaders small amounts. However, on the weekend
he showed off how the platform could be used.
In a YouTube
video, Dotcom showed how YouTube creators could embed a bar at the bottom
of their videos, encouraging their viewers to give them very small amounts of
money through their Bitcache accounts.
(Related)
Kim Dotcom to shift to Queenstown after assets and money
released
… Dotcom, who is
fighting extradition to the US, tweeted a Hong Kong judge had released some of
his fortune and four container loads of property.
… The entrepreneur
has fought for the past five years to have assets worth US$42.57m ($57.4m)
released after they were seized under the instruction of the US government.
… Dotcom is
flagging new court action against the New Zealand Government after a High Court
judgment revealed he was under GSCB surveillance far longer than
spies had previously admitted.
No comments:
Post a Comment