From an editorial in the Sunday New York Times: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a new plan to intercept Internet messages, calls and video chats. Instead of requiring companies like Skype and Google to build surveillance capabilities into their services as it suggested in 2010, the F.B.I. now proposes fining companies that fail to comply with [...]
Dutch rules requiring all websites to get express permission from visitors to use software known as cookies is to be watered down, economic affairs minister Henk Kamp has told parliament. MPs had urged the minister to take steps to stop the constant appearance of irritating popups on websites since the legislation came into effect last [...]
Ben Grubb reports: The federal government has been accused of sneaking mandatory web filtering through the back door after one of its agencies inadvertently blocked 1200 websites using a little-known law. Technology news website Delimiter this week revealed the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) last month used a telco law to ask major internet service providers (ISPs) to [...]
Jan Vermeulen reports: The Telkom IP addresses identified by Citizen Lab as command & control servers for the FinFisher spyware are part of the general dynamic pool assigned to ADSL users, a Telkom spokesperson recently told MyBroadband. FinFisher made headlines recently when a Citizen Lab report detailed how the spyware suite was used against political dissidents in Bahrain and Malaysia. Read [...]
Tony Romm writes: Federal law enforcers say they have their hands full with criminals who skirt legal surveillance by using hard-to-wiretap services like Google and Facebook. Now they’re about to inherit a new foe in the fight: Capitol Hill. Some of the top lawmakers closely aligned with civil liberties and Silicon Valley interests are expressing [...]
Philip Janquart reports: A bill intended to give parents the right to pull their children’s’ personal information off social networking sites has passed the California Senate. After a 23-10 vote, SB501, or the Social Networking Privacy Act, now moves to the Assembly, the lower house of the California Legislature. Read more on Courthouse News. “It’s [...]
The Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously to retain the July 1, 2013 date for implementation of the updated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). In a letter to industry organizations that had requested that the Commission reconsider the July 1 date, the Commission noted that implementation of the updated rule marks the culmination of a [...]