As you might remember, Google was harvesting personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks, as well as sharing phone and laptop locations. The official statements from Google led us to believe that this data collection was “accidental,” but the FCC reports appear to indicate otherwise.

The engineer at Google who was working on this code told his colleagues about the controversial data collection again and again. He told them that it was designed to collect this personal data, and even a higher-ranking senior manager was in the know, but nothing was done about it until the issue rose to the surface and the public became aware of it. This practice went on for at least three years without us knowing, but they knew. They knew all along.

And for this violation of our privacy, what punishment did Google receive? A mere $25,000 fine, a drop in the bucket for such a huge company. I’m sure that data is worth way more to them.

[Source]

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The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has not sparked too many protests compared to SOPA and PIPA, but it is certainly a reality and the US House of Representatives has passed the bill by a vote of 248-168.

But the result has not come as a surprise as there have been no major US corporations opposing CISPA. Although there were protests from advocate groups such as Demand Progress, Sum of Us and the Center for Democracy & Technology, no major technology corporations have come out against the controversial bill like the way Facebook, Reddit, Wikipedia and others did against SOPA.

But it is unlikely that the bill would clear the Senate. On Tuesday, a statement from the White House condemned the legislation and on Wednesday, President Obama threatened to veto it saying that the bill “fails to provide authorities to ensure that the nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions” of privacy law.

Just to refresh your memory, CISPA will allow Internet companies and the US government to share information with each other for protecting and defending themselves against cyber attacks. That means that the government can get access to web users’ private data if a cyber threat is suspected. That’s certainly against Americans’ privacy rights.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that the bill is “needed to prepare for countries like Iran and North Korea so that they don’t do something catastrophic to our networks here in America”.

But according to David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, “Congress needs to wake up and respect Americans’ growing concern about increased corporate and government control of the Internet. We applaud President Obama’s veto threat, and urge members of the House to oppose CISPA, even while supporting amendments that would provide greater privacy protections. The Internet is ever more important to the functioning of our society, and more and more Americans are prepared to vote against politicians who interfere with Internet freedom“.

Head here to take a peek at the full version of the bill.

[Image Source]

The post CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Passes US House, Might Not Get Through The Senate appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Obviously enough, when you use Dictation, the audio file of your voice data is necessarily sent up to the Apple servers so that it can be processed and turned into actual words. However, it looks like some additional data is also being beamed up to complete the process. These include the names of all your contacts, as well as data about songs and other media that you may have stored on your iPad.

The rationale is that you could be wanting to write something related to the people that you know and by providing your list of contacts along with the voice file, the Apple servers can get a little more context and do a better job at doing the voice recognition stuff. Most of this gets deleted after it has served its purpose, but Apple does retain some “disassociated” data “for a period of time to generally improve Dictation and other Apples products and services.”

So, it’s probably best that you don’t use Dictation for something that you’d rather keep reasonably private, just to be sure.

[Source]

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Apple certainly is not planning to bring Adobe Flash to their iOS devices, in fact they iBlocked it. But OnLive has managed to find a way to go around that, and much more. The company’s OnLive Desktop Plus, the new version of their OnLive Desktop remote access app, will allow you access to an entire PC remotely which is equipped with Flash.

In case you are new to all this, OnLive, which was founded by Steve Perlman (famous for his Quicktime video and WebTV), started streaming full 3d games (cloud gaming) across the net to desktops, laptops, and tablets, before putting Windows on the iPad. Their OnLive Desktop iPad application allowed users to play with cloud-based Windows desktop and Windows applications.

Their newly released update to the application brings gigabit-speed accelerated browsing with support for Adobe Flash, something that iFans have long wished for.

According to OnLive CEO Steve Perlman, “You can expect even the most elaborate Flash websites to load in seconds, even if it would have taken your home computer minutes to load the same page. Animation, video and sound come through impeccably and instantly. And, large cloud storage files and Web email attachments—even 50 MB PowerPoint presentations—to upload or download in less than a second”.

The folks over at Wired.com got to play with OnLive’s Flash browser earlier, and they are talking about download speeds of at least 100 megabits.  But there’s a few things Wired, and many other mainstream media outlets did not talk about, Privacy.

The service will run you $4.99 per month, it essentially gives you access to a remote version of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Reader, and also 2GB of cloud-based storage.  But all your data, even your actions, clicks and sites you visit are remotely cataloged in the cloud on OnLive servers by your IP Address.

Website & Service Logs: OnLive may collect information in the form of website and/or service logs (collectively “Logs”). These Logs are files that record activity on the Websites and Services and gather statistics about users’ activities, such as how many users have visited the Websites, how often, how many “hits” a particular webpage has received, sign-in and sign-off times for the Services, type and quality of the user’s Internet connection to the Services, identification of the user’s hardware and software running the Services, which features on the Services you used, and the frequency of use. The entries comprising the Logs contain IP addresses, user IDs, email addresses, and identification of the Internet service provider that provides your connection to the Internet. Generally, we use the Logs to operate and improve the Websites and Services, to identify the popularity of certain features, to assist with internal marketing and demographic studies, to enable us to assess overall efficiency and activity on the Websites and Services, and to assess users’ web-browsing and Service activities, preferences, and habits. We also use the Logs to monitor traffic on the Websites and Services, to troubleshoot technical problems, to support OnLive CS operations, for security reasons, and to foster the safety of the Websites and Services.

The post Privacy: OnLive Desktop Plus Adds Flash To Your iPad, Also Tracks Everything You Do In Realtime appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Uh oh. Big Brother is watching you and his name is Google. Amidst all kinds of other privacy concerns, another one has popped up at the Big G. It seems that the Google Street View cars were not only taking pictures of the streets and buildings; they were also collecting (and sharing) the locations of millions of laptops, PCs, cell phones, and other WiFi-enabled devices.

This goes beyond the sharing of unsecured WiFi networks that they already collected and shared. The cars went around and collected the information of devices connected to these various WiFi access points too. This includes the unique identifiers (MAC addresses) of said devices and the data was made publicly available until only a few weeks ago. They would know where your computer was located, whether it was at a coffee shop, your workplace, or your living room.

I find it unlikely that Google had malicious intents here. It was more likely just some sloppy coding that fell through the cracks, collecting info that they had no intention of collecting, but that doesn’t make the situation any better. I wouldn’t say it’s malicious, just negligent. Thoughts?

The post Google Street View was sharing cell phone and laptop locations appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The Dutch company is apparently taking all of that GPS-laden data from the navigation devices and turning them over to police and other local authorities for a profit. The good news is that the data is completely anonymous, but you have to realize that they’ve been selling this data without customer permission (or knowledge, for that matter). That can’t be good. Apparently, it only affects customers in the Netherlands too.

“When you connect your TomTom to a computer we aggregate this information and use it for a variety of applications, most importantly to create high quality traffic information and to route you around traffic jams. We also make this information available to local governments and authorities. It helps them to better understand where congestion takes place, where to build new roads and how to make roads safer.…

“We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit. We are aware a lot of our customers do not like the idea and we will look at if we should allow this type of usage.”

Yes, I understand that TomTom’s business might be hurting as more people turn to their smartphones for navigation rather than these standalone devices, but going behind their back to sell this aggregate data is a big no-no in my books. For shame. Now it makes you wonder if others, like Garmin and Magellan, are getting in on the data-selling business too.

The post TomTom Caught Selling Customer Driving Activity Data appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The news spread last week when it was discovered that the iPhone and iPad 3G automatically recorded your location data everywhere you went. So what, big deal, well, that data could be accessible by nearly anyone. Giving raw GPS data with timestamps of your whereabouts to who knows who.

I just came back from a trip the other day where I was “randomly” scanned for bomb particulites at every security checkpoint I encountered. How random is that. I never make it easy on the complacent officers when I argue with them politely with my overgrown facial hair and tanned skin, so they offered up some information to me in order to save their dignity as I accused this of not being a random search, “when you walk through the gate we get an indicator light up on the machine that is triggered by someone in one of our three security offices watching you on 20 different cameras. Basically that’s how it works. ” the officer explained.  That’s a massive sidestep if you ask me, just admit it, you’re all part of the same crazy  money gobbling tax dollar siphoning airport security program.  I don’t care if its your buddy up in the computer lab, or you down here in the pits.  And now, Apple is side stepping this one by saying ”The iPhone is not logging your location,” but it’s “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.”   So tell me, why does your device need to know the location of a hotspot or cell tower?  There’s no explanation or benefit of this that I am aware of, at least not in a long-term situation.  But it sure sounds like a twist in the yellow brick road to me. Basically, a timestamped database of your exact location and time according to Apple is “not tracking your location” while actually “tracking your location.”

How do they plan to handle this? In an inadvertent way of not admitting guilt, but accepting that something needs to be changed, Apple will release an iOS update that will reduce the size of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data cached on your iPhone or iPad 3G and wipe the cache when the Location Services are turned off. The cache will also become encrypted. It’s still tracking you now, so until an Apple update comes down the pipe, you’re where about’s are known.  This Apple is getting more rotten by the day.

The post Apple Responds to Location Tracking Accusations with “Fix” appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The extra security steps won’t be as lengthy or strenuous as waiting a month for your Adsense account verification postcard to come in the mail, or the fifty-question “which friend is this and when’s their birthday” quiz you get when you try to log into your Facebook account from an internet café in Ecuador. Instead, Google will simply text you a code number to enter alongside your password when you’re signing in for the first time on a new browser, computer or device.

This two-step verification ensures that anyone looking to gain access to your information will have to get not only your password, but your cell phone, too.

“Your Gmail account, your photos, your private documents—if you reuse the same password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked, or your password is conned out of you directly through a phishing scam, it can be used to access some of your most closely-held information,” wrote Nishit Shah, security product manager at Google, on the Google blog.

If you’re stuck on a pricey pay-as-you-go plan, or want to avoid the hassle or expenses of a text message or phone call for whatever other reason, Google has also created a phone app called Google Authenticator that can generate a code for you.

The post Google Accounts Get Security Upgrade appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The information was published in a recent study released by the Institute, a research branch of the American insurance industry, which shows the stop light cameras led to 17 percent fewer fatal crashes per capita at intersections using the cameras.

The study comes on the heels of last fall’s decision in Houston, Texas to end their use, and a statement from one Virginia lawmaker who’s looking to ban the cameras. Automatic intersection cameras have been faced with a lot of opposition, with some claiming they’re a cash-grab for a lazy police force and an invasion of privacy.

The Institute analysed traffic and collision data from the 99 largest cities in the country over two time periods: ’92 to ’96 for pre-camera data, and ’04 to ’08 for post-camera numbers. They then compared the rate of collisions in cities with cameras to those without.

Consensus seems to come down to the concept that drivers in cities with intersection cameras tend to drive more cautiously, leading to fewer overall collisions, both fatal and non-fatal.

What’s news to me is that there are so many people out there who haven’t just accepted these cameras as part of modern life. If you’re in a public place, piloting thousands of pounds of steel and gallons upon gallons of explosive liquids at speed in the midst of pedestrians and buildings, you can’t expect anyone in a legal position of authority to allow you to make stupid choices. And you definitely can’t expect anyone else to care at all when you’ve run over their babies at an intersection because your own self-imposed hurry was more important than the collective safety of the traffic light system.

That’s just selfish. </sarcasm>

[Wired]

The post Institute: Red light cameras really do save lives appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

According to Google, this personal data was “picked up accidentally.” Whether you believe the search giant or not is up to you, but they were harvesting emails, passwords, website addresses, and whatever else they could pick up. Well, the search giant has finally agreed to delete said data.

That’s the good news, atleast for all the people whose passwords were floating about in a Google Street View data bank some place. The bad news is, as far as I can tell, this ruling is only applying to the UK for now. I imagine that the deletion process will extend to other areas afflicted with Street View data harvesting in due time though. Luckily the UK wants the data deleted, some governments just want it.

“We will be keeping a close watch on the progress Google makes and will follow up with an extensive audit,” said Information Commissioner Christopher Graham. “I welcome the fact that the wifi payload data that should never have been collected in the first place can, at last, be deleted.”

And here I am, using Google as my primary search engine, while reading through Google Reader and checking my Gmail in my Chrome web browser…

SOURCE: Daily Mail

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