You can think of the difference between tactical and strategic oversight as the difference between doing things right and doing the right things. Both are required.
Embedded in digital photos is information such as the date, time, and location – yes, many cameras have GPS – of the photo’s capture; generic information about the camera, lens, and settings; and an ID number of the camera itself. If you upload the photo to the web, that information often remains attached to the file.
Innocents and criminals alike use cell phones, e-mail, and Dropbox. It rains on the just and the unjust.
Writer and Internet activist Clay Shirky has noted that “institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
Surveillance is the business model of the Internet for two primary reasons: people like free, and people like convenient. The truth is, though, that people aren’t given much of a choice. It’s either surveillance or nothing, and the surveillance is conveniently invisible so you don’t have to think about it.
The world now knows that US telcos give the NSA access to the Internet backbone and that US cloud providers give it access to user accounts.
The most insidious RATs can turn your computer’s camera on without turning the indicator light on. Not all ratters extort their victims; some just trade photos, videos, and files with each other.
Retail store surveillance systems register our presence, even if we are doing nothing but browsing and even if we pay for everything in cash.
We are social animals, and there’s nothing more powerful or rewarding than communicating with other people. Digital means have become the easiest and quickest way to communicate.
The only reason we know this story is that Levison ran his own company. He had no corporate masters. He had no shareholders. He was able to destroy his own business for moral reasons.
Worldwide, Google has the capacity to store 15 exabytes.
This is why regulation based on the concept of “personally identifying information” doesn’t work. PII is usually defined as a name, unique account number, and so on, and special rules apply to it. But PII is also about the amount of data; the more information someone has about you, even anonymous information, the easier it is for her to identify you.
One analysis of 2013 financial reports calculated that the value of each user to Google is $40 per year, and only $6 to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Yahoo. This is why companies like Google and Facebook keep raising the ante.
A 2010 investigation found that 1,931 different corporations are working on intelligence, counterterrorism, or homeland security inside the US.
483,000 government contractors hold top-secret clearances: a third of the 1.4 million people cleared at that level.
How did he know that?” we ask. How did I lose control of who knows about my traumatic childhood, my penchant for tasteless humor, or my vacation to the Dominican Republic? You may know this feeling: you felt it when your mother friended you on Facebook, or on any other social networking site that used to be just you and your friends. Privacy violations are intrusions.
Many cyberweapons manufacturers sell hacking tools to governments worldwide. For example, FinFisher is an “offensive IT Intrusion solution,” according to the promotional material from the UK and German company that makes it, Gamma Group.
Apple has a worldwide database of Wi-Fi passwords, including my home network’s, from people backing up their iPhones.
For example, we know that the US government convinced Skype – through bribery, coercion, threat, or legal compulsion – to make changes in how the program operates, to facilitate eavesdropping.
The science and engineering of programming just isn’t good enough to produce flawless software, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. The.