We’re hearing an increasing amount about security flaws in “Internet of Things” devices, such as a “messaging” teddy bear with poor security or perhaps Samsung televisions being hackable to become snooping devices. How are you supposed to make purchasing decisions for all of these devices when you have no idea how they work or if […]
Engineering around social media border searches
February 10, 2017 by
The latest news is that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering a requirement, while passing through a border checkpoint, to inspect a prospective visitor’s “online presence”. That means immigration officials would require users to divulge their passwords to Facebook and other such services, which the agent might then inspect, right there, at the […]
Regulatory Questions Abound as Mobile Payments Clamor for Position in Apps
February 1, 2017 by
People frequently associate mobile payments with “tap and pay” — walking into a store, flashing your smartphone, and then walking out with stuff. But in-store sales really aren’t the focus of companies working on mobile payment issues. That’s because payment in stores generally isn’t a problem in need of a fix. Swiping a payment card […]
Concerned about Internet of Things Security?
January 30, 2017 by
There is no shortage of warnings about the need to improve security for the Internet of Things: The Guardian asks “Can we secure the internet of things in time to prevent another cyber-attack?”. The New York Times calls for “Stepping up Security for an Internet of Things world”. Technology Review reports that Security Experts Warn […]
AdNauseam, Google, and the Myth of the “Acceptable Ad”
January 24, 2017 by
Earlier this month, we (Helen Nissenbaum, Mushon Zer-Aviv, and I), released a new and improved AdNauseam 3.0. For those not familiar, AdNauseam is the adblocker that clicks every ad in an effort to obfuscate tracking profiles and inject doubt into the lucrative economic system that drives advertising-based surveillance. The 3.0 release contains some new features we’ve been excited to […]
