The recent news that AOL released a log file containing more than 20 million search requests from more than 650,000 subscribers is frightening for many obvious reasons (see here for examples of inane and sometimes downright creepy queries). I’m not sure if AOL violated any legal agreements with their user community (see the AOL.com [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Security'
Nigerian Email Scams and Facebook
May 18th, 2006 · Comments · Business Models, Security
If you haven’t seen the May 15, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, it’s worth finding a hardcopy (I can’t find an online version). In particular, the issue has two great articles:
First, how many times have you received emails from someone claiming to have millions of dollars waiting to be transferred out of one [...]
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The Future of Privacy
December 14th, 2005 · Comments · Policy, Security, Technology Trends
Nearly six years ago, Scott McNealy famously said that privacy issues are a “red herring… you have zero privacy anyway.”
Regardless whether you agree or not, there’s little question that it’s easy to access certain types of personal information for almost anyone. For example, Google provides reverse telephone number lookups–type in a land line [...]
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Sony’s Copy Protection: Foiled With A Piece of Tape?
November 21st, 2005 · Comments · Security, Technology Trends
Quick update on an earlier post about Sony’s terrible copy protection software…
The highly controversial XCP digital rights management (DRM) technology bundled by Sony BMG on 52 of its audio CD albums can be defeated by applying a small piece of tape to the discs, according to analyst firm Gartner.
(via vnunet.com)
Amazing…
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An Internet Epidemic?
November 17th, 2005 · Comments · Security, Technology Trends
Check out Bruce Schneier’s excellent story in Wired about Sony’s Rootkit/DRM debacle.
The controversy relates to Sony’s desire to prevent customers from illegally copying music CDs.
Here’s what happened: if you bought a Sony music CD and tried to play it on your Windows PC, Sony’s CD would covertly install a batch of [...]
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