In follow up to June 21st’s California might fix privacy laws Trump broke

California Legislature Sells Out Our Data to ISPs

In the dead of night, the California Legislature shelved legislation that would have protected every Internet user in the state from having their data collected and sold by ISPs without their permission. By failing to pass A.B. 375, the legislature demonstrated that they put the profits of Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast over the privacy rights of their constituents.

Earlier this year, the Republican majority in Congress repealed the strong privacy rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission in 2016, which required ISPs to get affirmative consent before selling our data. But while Congressional Democrats fought to protect our personal data, the Democratic-controlled California legislature did not follow suit. Instead, they kowtowed to an aggressive lobbying campaign, from telecommunications corporations and Internet companies, which included spurious claims and false social media advertisements about cybersecurity.

Sad when the corps have more influence than the peeps.

#politics #privacynews

California may restore broadband privacy rules killed by Congress and Trump

A proposed law in California would require Internet service providers to obtain customers’ permission before they use, share, or sell the customers’ Web browsing history.

The California Broadband Internet Privacy Act, a bill introduced by Assembly member Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) on Monday, is very similar to an Obama-era privacy rule that was scheduled to take effect across the US until President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress eliminated it. If Chau’s bill becomes law, ISPs in California would have to get subscribers’ opt-in consent before using browsing history and other sensitive information in order to serve personalized advertisements. Consumers would have the right to revoke their consent at any time.

I hope other states follow suit.

#politics #privacynews

Dear FCC

A new proposal would destroy the FCC’s net neutrality guidelines, leaving the door open to ISPs creating “Internet fast lanes” that prioritize certain websites over others.

Millions of people spoke out in 2014 to demand bright-line rules to ensure ISPs didn’t violate net neutrality. Now that victory is in jeopardy.

But you can save it. The FCC is accepting comments on this proposal. Use the link to submit comments to the FCC.

#politics #privacynews

This is an open letter to the politicians who decided it would be better if our browsing history wasn’t private.

As we all know on March 28th House Republicans outvoted the Democrats to repeal the “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunication Services” law. President Trump signed off on the bill on April 3rd.

I’ve heard and read people say that they’ve nothing to hide so why does it matter?

It matters because it’s not just us but our kids, too. If you have kids with phones or tablets, kids that get on the web and surf around — well what they do online is now up for sale. Comcast or your ISP of choice or cell phone provider can take that usage and sell it to Walmart or Target or whoever else they want.

It’s not just our browser history that we need to worry about either. Before the FCC’s privacy laws went into effect, various ISPs were actually hijacking their customer’s searches.

Imagine if you will:

1. You search for “brownies” in Google
2. Comcast intercepts your search and sends it to their partner before sending it to Google
3. The partner has a deal with Duncan Hines so the partner tells Comcast to send you to duncanhines.com
4. Comcast sends you duncanhines.com without you ever seeing Google’s search results page

ISPs were actually doing this in the past before the privacy laws took hold. Your online, personal data is no longer safe from prying eyes and people with money. We’ll now be profiled and sold and so will our kids and so will their searches.

Imagine again if you will:

1. You’re walking around in public with your cell phone
2. Verizon knows where you are based on the cell towers
3. Verizon analyzes where you went and sells all your travel/shopping patterns
4. Verizon does this every moment your phone is turned on

That’s real life but it’s no different if you swap out “walking around” with “surfing the web” or “snapchatting” or “facebooking.”

When Maggie asked me why the House voted to repeal the law, I told her that our laws often aren’t really about protecting or helping us, especially in this case. This law repeal is about helping corporations. It doesn’t serve us, the people of the United States, at all.

From the way I read S.J.Res. 34 though, we’ll have the option to opt-out instead of the more strict opt-in as before. I hope that’s the case. I couldn’t find any settings in my Comcast account on their website and I imagine it would be the last thing they’d add if they did.

Regardless, I set up PureVPN for Maggie and I to use. All our internet traffic is tunneled through it so Comcast and T-Mobile will only know we’re connecting to a VPN. Where we go from there and what we do will be off limits. PureVPN also doesn’t log our data.

And for the people who voted for Trump, Maggie and I thank you.

#politics #privacynews #maggie

Here’s How to Protect Your Privacy From Your Internet Service Provider

We pay our monthly Internet bill to be able to access the Internet. We don’t pay it to give our Internet service provider (ISP) a chance to collect and sell our private data to make more money. This was apparently lost on congressional Republicans as they voted to strip their constituents of their privacy. Even though our elected representatives have failed us, there are technical measures we can take to protect our privacy from ISPs.

Bear in mind that these measures aren’t a replacement for the privacy rules that were repealed or would protect our privacy completely, but they will certainly help.

I’ve been using PureVPN as of late on my Mac and iPhone and so far it’s pretty good.

#privacynews

Vibrator maker ordered to pay out C$4m for tracking users’ sexual activity

The We-Vibe 4 Plus is a £90 bluetooth connected vibrator, which can be controlled through an app. It is marketed as a way to “allow couples to keep their flame ignited – together or apart”. Its app-enabled controls can be activated remotely, allowing, for instance, a partner on the other end of a video call to interact.

But the app came with a number of security and privacy vulnerabilities, which added up to produce something that many would feel uncomfortable about using.

The app that controls the vibrator is barely secured, allowing anyone within bluetooth range to seize control of the device.

In addition, data is collected and sent back to Standard Innovation, letting the company know about the temperature of the device and the vibration intensity – which, combined, reveal intimate information about the user’s sexual habits.

I’d bet for sure that the Standard Innovation is selling that data to anyone and everyone.

#meanwhile #privacynews

Microsoft’s new small print — how your personal data is (ab)used

Microsoft has renewed its Privacy Policy and Service Agreement. The new services agreement goes into effect on 1 August 2015, only a couple of days after the launch of the Windows 10 operating system on 29 July.

[…]

But Microsoft’s updated privacy policy is not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis as the company warns:

“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to”, for example, “protect their customers” or “enforce the terms governing the use of the services”.

#privacynews #microsoft

Google Maps is tracking everywhere you go

All of this is either fine or incredibly creepy. Luckily, it’s very easy to turn off the tracking ability on your phone. For Google to record data on your phone’s location, you must have enabled both location reporting and location history. Luckily, Google has provided step-by-step instructions for how to turn those off in case you’re entirely creeped out. And if you’re not, well, now you have Google to help you remember all those times you’ve gone down to the corner store for milk because it was the only thing open at 4 a.m.

This is one of the reasons why Google has turned my stomach in the last year or so. They’re an advertising company and that kind of business model depends on user data — whatever kind they can get.

#privacynews #google

The Horror of a ‘Secure Golden Key’

This week, the Washington Post’s editorial board, in a widely circulated call for “compromise” on encryption, proposed that while our data should be off-limits to hackers and other bad actors, “perhaps Apple and Google could invent a kind of secure golden key” so that the good guys could get to it if necessary.

This theoretical “secure golden key” would protect privacy while allowing privileged access in cases of legal or state-security emergency. Kidnappers and terrorists are exposed, and the rest of us are safe. Sounds nice. But this proposal is nonsense, and, given the sensitivity of the issue, highly dangerous. Here’s why.

A “golden key” is just another, more pleasant, word for a backdoor—something that allows people access to your data without going through you directly. This backdoor would, by design, allow Apple and Google to view your password-protected files if they received a subpoena or some other government directive. You’d pick your own password for when you needed your data, but the companies would also get one, of their choosing. With it, they could open any of your docs: your photos, your messages, your diary, whatever.

Privacy is important. See also: Apple, iPhone and your privacy

#privacynews #apple

Apple Says iOS 8 Update Keeps Data Private, Even From the Police

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” the company said on the new webpage. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

Christopher Soghoian, a principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Apple’s new privacy policy reflected the revelations of the government surveillance programs revealed in documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden. “The public has said they want companies to put their privacy first, and Apple has listened,” Mr. Soghoian said.

A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy.

A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.

Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.

One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.

Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

This topic was top of my list when I switched from Google and Android to Apple and iPhone.

Google wants to know everything and Apple wants to sell hardware.

#apple #google #privacynews