Tag Archives: tracking

Related News: Battery power alone can be used to track Android phones

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. BBC News published an article titled Battery power alone can be used to track Android phones.

Android phones can be tracked without using their GPS or wi-fi data by studying their power use over time, a study has found.

A smartphone uses more power the further away it is from a cellular base and the more obstacles are in its way as it reaches for a signal.

Additional power use by other activities could be factored out with algorithms, the researchers found.

They created an app designed to collect data about power consumption.

Source: BBC News

Related News: AT&T charges $29 more for gigabit fiber that doesn’t watch your Web browsing

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Ars Technica published an article titled AT&T charges $29 more for gigabit fiber that doesn’t watch your Web browsing.

AT&T’s gigabit fiber-to-the-home service has just arrived in Kansas City, and the price is the same as Google Fiber—if you let AT&T track your Web browsing history.

Just as it did when launching its “GigaPower” service in Austin, Texas in late 2013, AT&T offers different prices based on how jealously users guard their privacy. AT&T’s $70 per-month pricing for gigabit service is the same price as Google Fiber, but AT&T charges an additional $29 a month to customers who opt out of AT&T’s “Internet Preferences” program.

AT&T says it tracks “the webpages you visit, the time you spend on each, the links or ads you see and follow, and the search terms you enter… AT&T Internet Preferences works independently of your browser’s privacy settings regarding cookies, do-not-track, and private browsing. If you opt-in to AT&T Internet Preferences, AT&T will still be able to collect and use your Web browsing information independent of those settings.”

Source: Ars Technica

Related News: Verizon’s Mobile ‘Supercookies’ Seen as Threat to Privacy

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. MSN published an article titled Verizon’s Mobile ‘Supercookies’ Seen as Threat to Privacy.

For the last several months, cybersecurity experts have been warning Verizon Wireless that it was putting the privacy of its customers at risk. The computer codes the company uses to tag and follow its mobile subscribers around the web, they said, could make those consumers vulnerable to covert tracking and profiling.

It looks as if there was reason to worry.

Source: MSN

Related News: HealthCare.gov Sends Personal Data to Dozens of Tracking Websites

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Gizmodo published an article titled HealthCare.gov Sends Personal Data to Dozens of Tracking Websites.

EFF researchers have independently confirmed that healthcare.gov is sending personal health information to at least 14 third party domains, even if the user has enabled Do Not Track. The information is sent via the referrer header, which contains the URL of the page requesting a third party resource. The referrer header is an essential part of the HTTP protocol, and is sent for every request that is made on the web. The referrer header lets the requested resource know what URL the request came from. This would for example let a website know who else was linking to their pages. In this case however the referrer URL contains personal health information.

Source: Gizmodo

Related News: Man who owns a smart TV says he’s ‘afraid’ of using it after reading its privacy policy

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Yahoo! News published an article titled Man who owns a smart TV says he’s ‘afraid’ of using it after reading its privacy policy.

“The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy,” Price wrote. “The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It logs where, when, how, and for how long you use the TV. It sets tracking cookies and beacons designed to detect ‘when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message.’ It records ‘the apps you use, the websites you visit, and how you interact with content.’ It ignores ‘do-not-track’ requests as a considered matter of policy.”

Source: Yahoo! News

Related News: Facebook launches friend-tracking feature

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. CNN published an article titled Facebook launches friend-tracking feature.

Facebook is introducing a mobile feature called Nearby Friends that taps into that steady stream of location information so friends can track each other in real time.

The idea is to make it easy for people to meet up in real life, so they can have conversations in person instead of comment threads, temporarily replacing Likes and LOLs with eye contact and actual laughter. A live meet-up is also an excellent opportunity to grab a selfie with your pal and upload it to the Facebook owned Instagram.

In a refreshing change, the new Nearby Friends feature is not turned on by default.

Friends will not be able to see where you are unless you decide live-tracking is something you want in your life and visit Facebook’s settings to turn it on. Making a potentially invasive new feature opt-in suggests Facebook has perhaps learned from some of its past mistakes and privacy problems.

Source: CNN

Related News: Cell phone data latest threat to privacy

Posted on by
Reply

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. Fox News published an article titled Cell phone data latest threat to privacy.

Amid concerns from privacy advocates about the government’s sprawling surveillance programs, the Obama administration earlier this month petitioned the Supreme Court in support of a federal court ruling that allowed police searches of cell phones records without a warrant.

The implications of the petition are huge, given that today’s smart phones are giant repositories of private information and can serve as tracking devices, as well.

Source: Fox News