Chrome May Let Users Mute Site Audio, Helping Prevent Audio Tracking
Google is working on a feature in its Chrome browser that would enable users to mute audio on websites on a site-by-site basis. The feature could help prevent an emerging kind of user tracking that employs ultrasonic signals. The feature has shown up in the Canary build of Chrome, which is the early build that […]
Senator Pushes for Data on Warrantless Searches on Americans
A key member of the Senate intelligence committee is pushing the Department of Justice to disclose how often U.S. intelligence agencies are conducting so-called “backdoor” searches for data on Americans contained in raw signals intelligence. The request from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) refers to searches that may have been conducted under the authority of Executive […]
Google to Drop Trust For WoSign in September
Google has finalized its plan to remove trust in Chrome for all certificates issued by Chines CA WoSign, a result of the certificate authority run afoul of the intricate rules that govern CAs. As far back as 2015, officials began noticing certificates issued by WoSign that had one or more problems and violated rules established […]
National Security Letter Gag Orders Legal, Appeals Court Rules
In a decision that has drawn the ire of technology providers and privacy advocates, a United States appeals court has ruled that National Security Letters and the gag orders that often come with them don’t violate the First Amendment. The ruling came down Monday and from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the result is […]
Verizon Says Data Breach Exposure Limited
Verizon has acknowledged that millions of customer records, including phone numbers and account PINs, were exposed in a misconfigured cloud database, but says no one aside from a security researcher accessed the data. The data was in an Amazon cloud bucket administered by a third-party vendor used by Verizon in Israel. Chris Vickery, a researcher […]
Illinois Legislature Considers First of Its Kind Geolocation Privacy Law
The state of Illinois is about to put into law a bill making it illegal to track a user’s location via their phone without the consent of the user. The Illinois Geolocation Privacy Protection Act (HB 3449) was passed by the senate and house in Illinois and is expected to be signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner […]
FCC Ringless Voicemail Petition Is Dead
A company seeking to exempt ringless voicemails from rules that govern the use of robocalls has withdrawn the petition it submitted to the FCC. A marketing firm called All About the Message filed the petition in March, asking the FCC to declare that ringless voicemails aren’t actually calls. The petition contends that because the voicemails don’t […]
EU Parliament Seeks Ban on Crypto Backdoors
The European Parliament is considering a draft proposal that would effectively prohibit the introduction of backdoors in encryption systems and other kinds of interference with confidential information. The proposal, introduced before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, comes at a time when legislators in a number of countries are discussing the […]
California Lawmaker Seeks to Restore Broadband Privacy Rule
Three months after Congress voted to repeal some privacy protections that prevented ISPs from sharing customers’ browsing history and other sensitive data without consent, a California legislator has introduced a bill in the state assembly that would restore those protections. The federal legislation passed in March essentially rolled back a rule that the FCC had […]