The Register: ‘Tesco probably knows more about me than GCHQ’: Infosec boffins on surveillance capitalism – “Cambridge Uni powwow broods on Facebook, Wannacry” There seem to have been a lot of good points made there. I’m rather sorry I didn’t get to it, but it’s a long way from my part of the world…
Surveillance by cookie isn’t, of course, confined to social media. Perhaps more people have become aware of them recently with the pitter-patter of GDPR-inspired pop-ups on sites noting that they use them, and on occasion requiring visitors to agree to their being used if they’re to continue using the site. What could go wrong? Here’s an interesting, mildly techie paper from Digital Interruption: Are Your Cookies Telling Your Fortune? – An analysis of weak cookie secrets and OSINT. OSINT, by the way, is Open-Source Intelligence, information gathered from publicly available sources.
Sophos: Facebook faces furious shareholders at annual meeting – “Another investor, Will Lana of Trillium Asset Management, said that his firm has been keeping track of the scandals in which Facebook is embroiled. It’s tallied “at least 15 distinct controversies,” he said, as he spoke in favor of a proposal to change the board’s approach to risk management”. [But don’t worry: Zuckerberg and the Board of Directors managed to ’emerge from the meeting unscathed’. Well, you can worry if you like…]
Thomas Claburn for The Register: Facebook insists device data door differs from dodgy dev data deal – “Facebook on Sunday said an arrangement that gave some 60 mobile device makers access to data about device users’ Facebook friends is not at all like the deal it made with app developers that gave rise to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.” Oh, good…
Given the number of Facebook denizens who are interested in genealogy and heredity, this seems a suitable place to mention a Brian Krebs article: Researcher Finds Credentials for 92 Million Users of DNA Testing Firm MyHeritage
Catalin Cimpanu for Bleeping Computer: Washington State Sues Facebook and Google Over Election Ads – “Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed two lawsuits on Monday against Facebook and Google on the grounds of breaking local campaign finance laws.”
Here are a couple of items I’ve also posted to the Mac Virus site, and which are also relevant to the anti-social media page. I haven’t paid much attention to news-recycling sites (apart from The Register, maybe) in recent years, but these two ZDNet reports actually mildly impressed me.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for ZDNet: Your iPhone is tracking your movements and storing your favorite locations all the time. He says: “Now, you may be like me and not care about this data being collected, and might even find it a useful record of where you’ve been over the previous weeks and months. But if you’re uncomfortable for any reason with this data being collected, then Apple offers several ways you can take control over it.” Even if you don’t mind these data being collected by your operating system, you also have to think about the apps that may be accessing it at second hand.
Kind of weirdly, Larry Dignan (also for ZDNet) tells us that Apple, Google have similar phone addiction approaches with iOS, Android. Well, it’s always nice (if unexpected) when Big Business displays a sense of civic responsibility. However, Dignan is probably right when he remarks: “The research is just starting to be compiled on smartphone addiction and what happens when your life is overloaded by apps and notifications. Think of the digital health push from Apple and Google as a way to provide talking points before screen time becomes a Congressional hearing someday.”
David Harley
The AVIEN Portal 