Maybe I’m getting too wary, but when I received a press release from something called the Internet Security Foundation, I wasn’t convinced. And I’m still not. The email was provocative enough: The headline ran “Microsoft’s Policy Leaves Millions Open to Identity Theft; Internet Security Foundation Releases Free Protection Tool”. An explanation followed that users were … Read more
I couldn’t help wondering about the privacy implications of airlines calling out people’s names over the airport PA system. In Sydney and Melbourne airports recently I lost count of announcements along the lines of ‘Would Mr and Mrs X of flight X to X please go to gate X where their plane, and hundreds of … Read more
Can services which allow you to track another person’s whereabouts be abused to monitor the movements of loved ones, employees etc without their knowledge? David Brake of Blog.org cites an article on Korea’s OhmyNews.com site that says yes. As he points out, there are plenty of services that offer this service with built-in safeguards to … Read more
Just how intrusive are the contextual ads in Gmail? Not a new question, I know, but there are some stories appearing that seem to belie Google’s claims that emails would not be mined for more sensitive subjects. Take the following examples I received from one friend: Emailing a friend about a chicken dish she’d just … Read more
Further to my ZeroDegrees debacle, in which I succeeded in spamming 2,000 people in my contact book with barely a click, here’s a response from ZeroDegrees‘ Jas Dhillon, CEO and president of the company, and Mark Jeffrey, VP of Product, to my questions. I’ve edited a little for length. How is it that even experienced … Read more