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Biometrics are like passwords, but worse.
Biometrics are like passwords that you leave everywhere (fingerprints, facial recognition, voice patterns), except that unlike passwords, you can’t change them when they’re lost or stolen. It’s easy to change your password, a bit harder to get a new retina. Like passwords, risk goes up as they are stored globally (in the cloud) versus locally (on a physical device).
In addition to the biometrics mentioned above that most of us have come to accept as commonplace, there are many other methods in use or under exploration:
- hand geometry
- vascular pattern recognition (analyzing vein patterns)
- iris scans
- DNA
- signature geometry (not just the look of the signature, but the pen pressure, signature speed, etc.)
- gait analysis
- heartbeat signatures
Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "What are biometrics", Biometric, Biometric Scans, Biometric Security, Biometrics, Define Biometrics, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Security, Sileo
NSA Angry Birds are Stalking You
So you’ve had a rough day at the office. You plop down on your couch with a cold beverage nearby, ready to let the day go. You have twenty minutes until your chicken pot pie dings, and the thought of chicken reminds you of, well… Angry Birds. Harmless fun. NOT!
While you may be enjoying a mindless game, somewhere far off in cyber land others are just beginning to work very hard. WHO THEY ARE: advertising companies and intelligence agencies alike. WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO YOU: gathering all of the most personal data off of your mobile device: everything from your name, age, sex, location, and perhaps even your political alignment or sexual orientation—and lots more!
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Angry Birds, John Sileo, NSA, NSA Angry Birds, Privacy Expert, surveillance
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYTp1T2Mqvo&rel=0]
Watch Tech Geek Curtis Nasalbaum’s Response from the Leonard Nimoy Cruise
Every year, several of my keynote speeches are to ultra-high-wealth audiences. Because they have a lot of net worth to protect, their incentive to prevent identity theft and online fraud is on steroids. But for the average family with a normal amount of wealth, the incentive is just as important, because their wealth (albeit smaller), is just as vital to their lifestyle as it is to the wealthy.
And this isn’t just about wealth. All of us want to be able to keep hackers out of our private and often valuable online accounts, including: Gmail, Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, Hotmail, Yahoo, banks, investment companies and all types of sensitive communications.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Online Privacy, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Authentication, John Sileo, Multi Factor Authentication, Security Tokens, Sileo, Text Verification, Two Factor Authentication, Two Step Verification
Dictionary.com has chosen its “word of the year”. Thank the etymological gods it’s not selfie, twerk or hashtag. No, this year’s most relevant, most searched word is:
Privacy.
Call me geeky, but this is happy news to privacy experts, because it raises consciousness that this stuff (your right to keep certain information to your self) actually matters.
And consciousness has definitely been raised in 2013:
- Data security and privacy experts everywhere should thank Edward Snowden for exposing the NSA surveillance programs that monitor every American’s phone calls, Facebook posts and emails for signs of terrorism (and any other data they care to intercept).
- Thanks to SnapChat for making deleted photos recoverable (despite claims they disappear).
- Additional kudos to Google Glass for raising awareness on how easy it is to capture intellectual property as criminals videotape their way through Fortune 500 offices, record ATM PIN numbers of the bank customer in front of them and deploy instant facial recognition software in a variety of social engineering schemes.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: data privacy expert, Dictionary.com, John Sileo, Privacy Expert
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsezLe4l4fE&rel=0]
Today’s Burning Question for online privacy expert John Sileo:
“Who is the bigger spy, the NSA or Google?”
I thought that was a really fascinating question. Of course, it comes because in the last couple of months the NSA has been outed by Edward Snowden, the former NSA employee. The NSA (National Security Agency) has been spying on our phone calls- who we’re calling and when, our emails- who we’re emailing and what about, and even our social media posts.
The latest scandal is called “Muscular”. Somehow, the NSA has gotten between the transmissions of Google and Yahoo. In other words, the NSA has been “sniffing” the emails going back and forth between the two largest email providers in the US and this has angered the tech giants like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Online Privacy Expert", Big Data, Google Surveillance, John Sileo, MUSCULAR, NSA Surveillance, PRISM, Privacy Expert, Yahoo Surveillance
What makes a privacy expert nervous? Glimpsing the size of the iceberg under the surface. When National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden became a whistle blower earlier this year, I think we all knew we were really just seeing the tip of the iceberg about exactly how much information the NSA was gathering on the average American citizen. And it was a pretty large tip to start with.
Here’s a reminder of what started the whole thing. Snowden provided reporters at The Guardian and The Washington Post with top-secret documents detailing two NSA surveillance programs being carried out by the U.S. Government, all without the average voter’s knowledge. One gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records and the second allows the government to access nine U.S. Internet companies to gather all domestic Internet usage (so they are tapping pieces of your phone calls and emails, in other words). The intent of each program respectively is to use meta-data (information about the numbers being called, length of call, etc., but not the conversation itself, as far as we know) to detect links to known terrorist targets abroad and to detect suspicious behavior (by monitoring emails, texts, social media posts, instant messaging, chat rooms, etc.) that begins overseas. As a privacy expert, I understand the need to detect connections among terrorists; the troubling part is the scope of the information being gathered.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: John Sileo, NSA, NSA Surveillance, online privacy, Privacy, Privacy Expert, Sileo, Surveillance Expert
Does your digital footprint expose your secrets to the wrong people?
National Public Radio and the Center for Investigative Reporting recently presented a four part series about privacy (online and off) called, Your Digital Trail. To get the gist of how little privacy you have as a result of the social media, credit cards and mobile technology you use, watch this accurate and eye-opening explanation of how you are constantly being tracked.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqWuioPHhz0]Marketers, data aggregators, advertisers, the government and even criminals have access to a vivid picture of who you are. NPR calls it your digital trail; for years, I’ve referred to it as your digital footprint. Let’s take quick look of what makes up your digital footprint.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: digital footprint, Digital Footprint Expert, Digital Trail, Engaging Speaker, John Sileo, online privacy, surveillance
Social network monitoring becomes big business. Fresh off the heels of learning that the NSA has been gleaning data about us using information found on social networking sites comes the news that a school district in California is paying a monitoring service to watch and report on what students are posting on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Glendale Unified School District is paying $40,000 over the next year to a company called Geo Listening to monitor its students’ social media activity. This program was introduced after one of their students, 15-year-old Drew Ferraro, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of Crescenta Valley High School. It started as a pilot project in three schools last year and is now being rolled out to all middle and high schools across the district.
Posted in Social Media Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "schools monitoring", “social network monitoring”, Expert, Facebook Monitoring, identity theft expert, John Sileo, monitoring kids social media, monitoring our kids, monitoring students", school surveillance, Sileo, Social Media Privacy, Social Networking Privacy, Speaker, Twitter Monitoring
I’m in the business of encouraging people to keep their guard up. I’m always telling people to watch for signs of something that doesn’t feel quite right, take precautionary measures, and stay informed. But even I have to question the tactics some are recommending when it comes to reacting to the NSA PRISM surveillance program leaked by Edward Snowden. In a previous post on this topic, I said it isn’t a black or white argument, but some people are asking you to make it one.
Best-selling author, technology expert and Columbia Law School professor, Tim Wu, has said that web users have a responsibility to quit Internet companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and Skype if it is indeed verified that they have been collaborating with the NSA. In fact, Wu bluntly proclaimed, “Quit Facebook and use another search engine. It’s simple. It’s nice to keep in touch with your friends. But I think if you find out if it’s true that these companies are involved in these surveillance programs you should just quit.” Wu acknowledged that there is still much to learn about this program and admitted it was no surprise that PRISM exists, saying, “When you have enormous concentrations of data in a few hands, spying becomes very easy.”
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Online Privacy, Sileo In the News, Uncategorized by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Expert, NSA, PRISM, Privacy, Sileo, Snowden, surveillance
