Well this is upsetting. A popular Android app, Brightest Flashlight Free, has been secretly selling location data even without user consent. This is an app that's apparently been downloaded over 100 million times, which means this isn't some isolated app that nobody has heard of. Android users should be outraged—we all should be—that an app would sell data like that behind a user's back...
When one blogger confronted LG after discovering the company's smart TV had been chronicling everything he watched—even after he turned the data collection setting off—and then sending that information to a centralized server the company dismissed his complaints, pointing to the Terms and Conditions he accepted upon activating the device. But after the story was covered by news sites...
Following reports that it was providing private information to the U.S. government, Apple in June published a "Report on Government Information Requests." That report covered data Apple released between December 2012 and May 2013, and today it released a new one that covers all requests received between January 1 and June 30. The company strongly re-iterated that it's not interested in...
Facebook on Tuesday published its first Global Government Requests Report in an effort to be more transparent about data it sends over to various governments around the globe. The company provided the total number of requests from each country from the six month period ending June 30, an estimated number of accounts and users requested, and the percentage of how often it produced data...
Last week we brought you our first installment of Tech Talks Back, where HTC’s senior manager of global products JB McRee discussed his inspiration and how he ended up in the business. This week, we present an opinion piece written by NQ Mobile’s chief product officer. Prior to joining NQ Mobile, Gavin also served as the general manager for Windows Phone product marketing at Microsoft,...
You might feel safe with your phone in your pocket, but that doesn't mean the device is safe from prying eyes. One researcher from Security Research Labs recently found that he and his team were able to compromise a mobile device using the SIM card in just two minutes by sending a special message to a cell phone with older encryption. The problem lies in the security on the SIM cards,...
A large consortium of companies, including tech heavy hitters Apple, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Reddit, Mozilla, LinkedIn, AOL Microsoft, Facebook and dozens of other companies, are preparing to release a letter calling on the NSA, and the U.S. government in particular, to disclose more information about NSA's PRISM activities. The letter is scheduled to release today, AllThingsD said, and...
PRISM and other government initiatives around the world may be tracking data behind your back, but things are getting a bit scarier now. If you're visiting the U.K, it's possible that your cell phone will be confiscated briefly while police take all of your private information off of the device, according to a report that was recently published by The Telegraph. The police officers at...
Retail stores are tracking your smartphone, according to a new report published by The New York Times on Monday. The news outlet found that Nordstrom is already tracking shoppers and that others, including Mothercare, Family Dollar, Cabellas, Warby Parker and Benetton are also interested or already testing ways to track shopping habits. The revelation is particularly concerning...
What can you get with $25? Your very own, cute little Raspberry Pi computer. What can you get with that, plus a little time, a few peripherals and some command-line know-how? Your very own Tor proxy and wireless access point. Adafruit's got the goods with an instructional on turning a Raspberry Pi into an "Onion Pi" — a terminal loaded with some serious surveillance-vanquishing power....