Posts tagged "Spying"

Is the CIA Spying on the Senate?

CIA spying on senate?What happens when a spy agency spies on the Congressional body that was created to keep spying in check in the first place? What are the implications of the CIA spying on the Senate?

That is exactly what Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asserts has happened.  In a scathing address to the Senate, Feinstein, who has been a strong advocate of the intelligence community in the past, accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of violating “the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution including the Speech and Debate clause”.

This accusation stems from an agreement between the committee and the agency to allow committee aides to review millions of confidential documents related to the post 9/11 Bush administration detention program for handling terror suspects.  In the process of reviewing these documents, staffers came across an internal review of the agency’s practices. When the CIA became aware of this, Feinstein claims they searched the network — including the committee’s internal network — and removed the documents.

Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Internet Explorer 9 Privacy Feature Limits Tracking

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Microsoft has announced that the latest version of Internet Explorer will offer users a new anti-tracking privacy feature. This will help prevent marketing and advertising companies from watching where you surf and what you do online without your consent. Users will be able to set their preferences to prohibit companies from obtaining sensitive tracking information. This is a first step in the right direction – browsers should step up as the first line of defense against unwanted information collection.

This comes at a time where advertisers want to reintroduce the use of deep packet inspection in order to more closely watch and market to consumers online.  This method reads and analyzes raw packets of your personal data as they travel across the Internet – for obvious reasons deep packet inspection has been the subject of much controversy. Internet users are becoming more aware that what they do online is not private and are beginning to ask for tools to protect their browsers from spying.

Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Google Spying Cost Them $1

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Some months ago, Google got caught sniffing the wireless connection in our homes as they photographed our houses to post on Google Street View. Although the case may be newsworthy, the settlement is only peanuts.  Google has been found guilty of trespassing on Aaron and Christine Boring’s home and will have to pay them the astounding amount of $1 for punitive damages. The search engine giant admitted that they trespassed when they took a picture of the plaintiffs house for Google Street View and ended up settling the case. The couple were hoping to make a point, but also realized that they financially can’t take on the huge corporation.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker .
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Geotag, You’re It! Disabling GPS Coordinates

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Geotagging allows others to track your location even though you don’t know it.

With the increased use of Internet-enabled mobile devices such as the Blackberry, Droid and iPhone, geotagging has seen a huge increase in popularity. When social media users take a picture or video and upload it to their page, they are probably transmitting far more data than they think. With the ability to quickly add GPS information to media, smartphones make geotagging a simple task.

So What is Geotagging?

Simply, geotagging is where location or geographical information, such as your GPS coordinates, are added and embedded to different types of media (.jpg, .mov files, etc.). Invisible to the naked eye and the casual observer, geotags are part of the meta-data, or underlying data about the data, that accompanies each file. Examples of meta-data include when the file was created or modified, by whom, using what device and software. This data is often loaded on to your computer along with the original file.  Browser plug-ins and certain software programs can reveal the location information to anyone who wants to see it.

Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker .
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