Group items tagged

"The problem of securing biological research data is a difficult and complicated one. Our ability to secure data on computers is not robust enough to ensure the security of existing data sets. Lessons from cryptography illustrate that neither secrecy measures, such as deleting technical details, nor national solutions, such as export controls, will work. "

"Over the past four years, Google has admitted 'scanning and indexing' student email messages and data mining student users for commercial gain." What to take away? Data mining is present everywhere and better encryption is becoming more and more relevant in the digital life of a college student in 2018.

Using data from cellphone locations in Kenya, analysts are better able to predict how malaria will spread.

Blackberry to stop operating in Pakistan because of government requests to monitor customer data. https://t.co/8kBg6QCEAF #fywscrypto - Derek Bruff (@derekbruff) December 1, 2015

Schools have a responsibility to protect your information, but it can be vulnerable to release or data breaches. Be careful when giving out personal information and try to educate yourself on your rights as a student so that you can best protect yourself.

To any future college students: Be careful of what you type on the internet or reveal about yourself in an online forum. Despite the shocking revelations of the size and scope of the government's surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden, the majority of Americans don't understand the kind of information the government has on them, have taken few steps to protect their online data, and believe that such programs don't go far enough in tackling terrorism. Ironically, these same Americans also overwhelmingly believe that consumers have lost protection of their data to companies who have used their clients' privacy as a commodity. I would advise you to be careful of what you post online, and follow a few steps, such as passwords, encryption, and clearing your cookies, to help protect at least some of your data online and allow you to remain private. These programs continue to this day, and it's important that you protect what little privacy remains.

What are the mechanisms behind surveillance? How precisely are people surveilled in the US?

Mobile devices offer incredibly low security or protection from criminals trying to decipher data. 

Has the government been reading your email, Facebook posts, tweets, etc.? Yes, yes they have.

Encrypted analysis of data in the cloud would allow secure access to sensitive information.

Homomorphic encryption is pretty amazing. What they're proposing in this article is a bit like having a computer analyze an encrypted novel and determining which sentences were grammatically incorrect--without even knowing what the plaintext sentences were!

"Over time, all data approaches deleted, or public."

"A factory refurbished Thinkpad shipped with Windows 7 and a scheduler app that ran once a day, collecting usage data about what you do with your computer and exfiltrating it to an analytics company. "

I found this article interesting because it actually mentions the "firesheep" add-on we discussed during class as well as the encryption of our data.

Good find. It's important to note that this piece is from 2011, shortly after the Firesheep controversy. As far as I can tell, HTTPS use is now mandatory, at least on Facebook.com. I don't know about the Facebook app, however. That might be something to look into.

The APWG is the global industry, law enforcement, and government coalition focused on unifying the global response to electronic crime through development of data resources, data standards and model response protocols and systems for private and public sectors.

The way NSA did to track individual's information in the credit cards.

"Since the dawn of the information age, we've bought into the idea that a password, so long as it's elaborate enough, is an adequate means of protecting all this precious data. But in 2012 that's a fallacy, a fantasy, an outdated sales pitch. And anyone who still mouths it is a sucker-or someone who takes you for one."

This article, written by the one and only Cory Doctorow, highlights the privacy concerns associated with Google Chromebooks. More and more schools are issuing its students Chromebooks, which exfiltrate all data to Google data-centers and infringe one's privacy. This site also includes other interesting articles related to security and privacy.

This is a PDF file of a chapter taken from a book that contains essays on many issues that arise from "big data." This chapter specifically pertains to our privacy versus security debate because it provides reasons as to why bulk data collection does not work as well as alternative options to mass surveillance.