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How it feels to survive Silicon Valley and a pandemic
It shouldn’t feel like it took a pandemic to get Twitter to boot 7,000 QAnon accounts (and crack down on 150,000 more related to the violent conspiracy group), but it does. At least Twitter is doing harm mitigation around its role in this interconnected disaster. Five months in, you’d think 145,000 American deaths would move platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to ban virus “truther” content, but nah.
Yes, the Patriot Act amendment to track us online is real
Looks like more bad news with the renewal of the Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act — and its terrible provision to allow government collection of Americans’ internet browsing and search histories without a warrant.
How to secure your video calls like a pro
During a cyberpunk dystopia, a highly contagious pandemic, and tons of leadership incompetence, it's surprising that video call privacy and security is pissing me off the most.
Zoom is now 'the Facebook of video apps'
A lot of us are wondering just how full of crap Zoom is. Acting like Facebook is already bad, even more so now that we’re all fighting for our lives.
The surveillance profiteers of COVID-19 are here
Our worlds are so upside-down and backwards right now that Wired claims Surveillance Could Save Lives Amid a Public Health Crisis, and privacy activist Maciej Cegłowski flat-out stated We Need A Massive Surveillance Program.
Coronavirus bursts Big Tech’s bubble
Virus enthusiasts from all over the world converged in San Francisco this week for America's largest security event: RSA Conference 2020. Before it began, fourteen companies withdrew from RSAC over concerns about the impending Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On opening day, organizers sent a message through the conference app asking attendees to stop greeting each other with handshakes.
It doesn’t matter if China hacked Equifax
On Monday the FBI and AG Barr announced "an indictment last week charging four members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) with hacking into the computer systems of the credit reporting agency Equifax and stealing Americans' personal data and Equifax's valuable trade secrets." China's military refutes the charges.
Phishing scams leveled up, and we didn’t
More than a bit of "I'm smarter than you" politics creates the divide between hacking headlines and what we actually need to worry about. On one side, researchers present findings at conferences hoping someone will raise the alarm and practical things will get done before things get worse. On the other, we have Jeff Bezos and his iPhone.
How home assistants ruined us, an explanation
Our situation became clear when my friend ran through Trader Joe's screaming "ALEXA WHAT TIME IS IT?" This wasn't a cringey mockumentary comedy segment. It's the way we live now. I'm certain San Francisco's sea of terrified Postmates and Prime delivery runners parted for her, trampling an Instacart personal shopper already wallowing in the misfortune of crawling along the baked goods aisle, feeling blindly under tortillas for lost earbuds. Everyone wondering if they should yell at Google or Siri to call 911. Several cameras are trained on everyone, of course, to memorialize and broadcast these special moments forever.
How did Google get Pixel 4 face unlock this wrong?
Like many tech writers, I've been struggling to wrap my head around the brand-new Pixel 4's face unlock security #fail. Before the phone was even released, BBC technology reporter Chris Fox discovered that his review unit had a deeply disturbing security flaw: The phone's only biometric security option, facial recognition, worked just fine if the subject's eyes were closed.
Alleged JPMorgan hacker set to plead guilty
Andrei Tyurin, one of the key suspects in the huge JPMorgan Chase hack in 2014, is set to plead guilty, according to a court filing obtained by Bloomberg. The Russian reportedly struck a deal with federal prosecutors and will appear at a plea hearing next week in New York.
Here’s how AG Barr is going to get encryption 'backdoors'
If you heard the reverberation of a few thousand heads exploding last week, it was the sound of information security professionals reacting to US Attorney General Barr saying that Big Tech "can and must" put backdoors into encryption. In his speech for a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University, Barr warned tech companies that time was running out for them to develop ways for the government to break encryption. FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed with him.
How a trivial cell phone hack is ruining lives
On a Tuesday night in May, Sean Coonce was reading the news in bed when his phone dropped service. He chalked it up to tech being tech and went to sleep. When he woke up, his Gmail account had been stolen and by Wednesday evening he was out $100,000.
2018 in cybersecurity: Regrets, we have a few
This was the year security slips, privacy fails and outright stupidity went from bad to surreal. It was a year in which warnings went unheeded and companies lost whatever trust we gave them. It was a nesting doll of security disasters. A clown car of willful negligence. A long 12 months of totally unsexy, nonconsensual edge-play with our data.
Engadget giveaway: Stay protected and connected courtesy of Kaspersky Lab!
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FCC shrugs at fake cell towers around the White House
Turns out, Ajit Pai was serious last year when he told lawmakers that the FCC didn't want anything to do with cybersecurity. This past April the Associated Press reported "For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages."
In time for hacking season, the US has no cybersecurity coordinator
Picture the scene: John Bolton stands proudly against a backdrop of an American flag, smiling beneath his pruriently confrontative mustache, dusting his hands off as befits a man who's just completed a task of wistfully virile middle-management. John Bolton just eradicated the White House positions (and people) who would stand between the United States and cyberattacks against our voting processes, our infrastructure and the tatters of our democracy. John Bolton grips his red stapler. John Bolton is in his happy place.
DNA is just another way we can’t opt out of data sharing
Growing up in California, serial killers are as much a fact of life as year-round citrus or having a bit of Spanish in your daily vocabulary. News of the Golden State Killer's arrest came as a surprise and a relief to most of us whose early lives were shaped by a generation of fear. The Golden State Killer raped at least 51 women and killed 12 people (that we know of). Our parents literally slept with guns and knives under the killer's shadow, and the many others like him.
How police are using corpses to unlock phones
If you've ever imagined a scenario where police demand you unlock your phone and thought, "Over my dead body!" — we have bad news for you. Here in our absurd dystopian future, having a phone means that upon your demise you could find yourself participating -- limp and lifeless -- in a legal search and seizure of your own digital property.
Mark Zuckerberg got grilled by Congress. Was it worth it?
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Zuckerberg gave testimony to Congress in response to his company's role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Russian election interference and his website's utter nightmare of data privacy. He impressed people by wearing his absolute nicest human suit.