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An investigation into the international surveillance trade.

Activist group Privacy International has launched an ambitious project to track the spread of commercial surveillance, spying and tracking technology and the often secretive firms selling into the booming sector.

“This research was conducted as part of our Big Brother Incorporated project, an investigation into the international surveillance trade that focuses on the sale of technologies by Western companies to repressive regimes intent on using them as tools of political control,” said Matt Rice of Privacy International in his introduction to the database. “What we found, and what we are publishing, is downright scary.”
Read more: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066744/privacy-international-begins-tracking-surveillance-industry.html
Posted by DontMineonMe

This won’t stop government snooping but it might make it more difficult for them to read your old tweets.

Internet services can toughen their security to mitigate government surveillance, but that won’t do much to lock down information that’s already in snoops’ hands.
Read more: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/22/twitter-perfect-forward-secrecy/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget&ncid=rss_semi
Posted by DontMineonMe

There are real world consequences for spying on your customers and employees.

Lawyers representing two top executives of IKEA France have confirmed that preliminary charges have been brought against them in a case alleging they spied illegally on employees and customers.
Read more: http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20131121/101129.shtml
Posted by DontMineonMe

These “Smart TV’s” report every time you change the channel.
Is this what you signed up for?

LG’s Smart TVs have reportedly been logging details of owner viewing habits even after users disable data collection in the settings menu. The alarming discovery was made by one user, who found that even after he turned off an option that enables “collection of watching info,” the Smart TV still phoned home to a non-functional URL with specifics on channels he’d been watching and even filenames of movies stored on an attached USB drive. “I decided to do some traffic analysis to see what was being sent,” he writes. “It turns out that viewing information appears to be being sent regardless of whether this option is set to on or off.”
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/19/5123900/lg-tvs-logging-viewing-habits-regardless-of-privacy-settings
Posted by DontMineonMe

Google to pay $17 million for circumventing the Privacy settings on Apple’s Safari browser.

Google has entered into a $17 million settlement with 37 states and the District of Columbia after the company was found to circumvent privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser. Between 2011 and 2012, Google secretly stored web tracking cookies in Safari, overriding Apple’s default settings that forbid third-party cookies from being installed. “By tracking millions of people without their knowledge, Google violated not only their privacy, but also their trust,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/18/5119054/google-agrees-to-pay-states-17-million-in-privacy-settlement
Posted by DontMineonMe

The Government should NOT be able to read our electronic communications without a warrant.  Sign this petition if you agree!

Americans are deeply concerned about NSA surveillance. But the NSA’s not the only problem. An outdated law says the IRS and hundreds of other agencies can read our communications without a warrant.
Read more: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-ecpa-tell-government-get-warrant/nq258dxk
Posted by DontMineonMe

Feds say letting us know they are spying on us would violate our Privacy.
Are you kidding me?


Adding limited public accountability to the NSA’s vast electronic spying programs would actually harm the privacy of Americans, Obama administration officials told a Senate hearing today.
Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/11/nsa-transparency-effect/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Fpolitics+%28Wired%3A+%28Section%29+Politics%29
Posted by DontMineonMe

Users should have no expectation of Privacy when using the Social Network!The social network’s most recent privacy recalculation prevents excluding your profile picture, cover photo, and other formerly hide-able information from search results.
Read more: http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57612001-285/the-private-information-facebook-now-makes-public/
Posted by DontMineonMe

Sony reveals they can monitor and record all your PSN activity should they feel like doing so, including all voice and text messaging!

In an update on the PSN usage terms, Sony has revealed that they can “record any and all of your PSN activity”, which includes voice and text communications, among other things.
Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-pulls-big-brother-psn-network/63384.html
Posted by DontMineonMe

Do these fines really have any effect on Google’s data collecting policies?

Following a complaint from the Brazilian Institute of Computer Policy and Rights, a judge has ordered Google to hand over private data collected through its Street View program or face fines of $50,000 USD a day, that could rise to a maximum of $500,000 daily.
Read more: http://www.neowin.net/news/google-ordered-to-hand-over-street-view-data-or-face-massive-daily-fines
Posted by DontMineonMe