Twitter has publicly disclosed a security “incident” that points to long-standing problems with how the service handles phone numbers. Twitter announced it had discovered and shut down “a large network of fake accounts” that were uploading large numbers of phone… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Security’
Congress Must Stop the Graham-Blumenthal Anti-Security Bill
There’s a new and serious threat to both free speech and security online. Under a draft bill that Bloomberg recently leaked, the Attorney General could unilaterally dictate how online platforms and services must operate. If those companies don’t follow the… Read More ›
Lawsuit in India Seeks to Shut Down Access to U.S. Journalism Website
Computer security researchers and journalists play a critical role in uncovering flaws in software and information systems. Their research and reporting allows users to protect themselves, and vendors to repair their products before attackers can exploit security flaws. But all… Read More ›
FTC Takes Action Against Stalkerware Company Retina-X
The FTC recently took action against stalkerware developer Retina-X, the company behind apps MobileSpy, PhoneSheriff, and Teenspy. The FTC settlement bars Retina-X from distributing its mobile apps until it can adequately secure user information and ensure its apps will only… Read More ›
Why Adding Client-Side Scanning Breaks End-To-End Encryption
Recent attacks on encryption have diverged. On the one hand, we’ve seen Attorney General William Barr call for “lawful access” to encrypted communications, using arguments that have barely changed since the 1990’s. But we’ve also seen suggestions from a different… Read More ›
Private Companies, Government Surveillance Software and Human Rights
It’s old news that governments around the world are misusing private company-sold digital surveillance software track and target people for human rights abuses. Recently, Amnesty International reported finding that two prominent Moroccan human rights defenders had been targeted using Israeli-based… Read More ›
Certbot’s Website Gets a Refresh
Certbot has a brand new website! Today we’ve launched a major update that will help Certbot’s users get started even more quickly and easily. Certbot is a free, open source software tool for enabling HTTPS on manually-administered websites, by automatically… Read More ›
Same Problem, Different Day: Government Accountability Office Updates Its Review of FBI’s Use of Face Recognition—and It’s Still Terrible
This week the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued an update to its 2016 report on the FBI’s use of face recognition. The takeaway, which they also shared during a Congressional House Oversight Committee hearing: the FBI now has access… Read More ›
Powerful Permissions, Wimpy Warnings: Installing a Root Certificate Should be Scary
More lessons from “Facebook Research” Last week, Facebook was caught using a sketchy market research app to gobble large amounts of sensitive user activity after instructing users to alter the root certificate store on their phones. A day after, Google… Read More ›
Detecting Ghosts By Reverse Engineering: Who Ya Gonna Call?
This article was first published on Lawfare. The most recent purportedly serious proposal by a Western government to force technology companies to provide access to the content of encrypted communications comes from Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson of the Government Communications Headquarters,… Read More ›