An app circulated among the protesters in Hong Kong that supposedly was for coordinating protest efforts, but was in reality a phishing attack that would track keystrokes, messages, and identity information of devices it was installed on. Many signs point to the Chinese government as the origin of the malware, though. Not the first time a government has done something like planting spies and monitoring protestors. We saw this in Little Brother too, with the DHS spies on the Xnet.
The NSA's (useless) bulk phone metadata collection program is now over. #fywscrypto https://t.co/H7SL3S1QSQ
- Derek Bruff (@derekbruff) December 1, 2015
"Latest on the computer analyst whistleblower who provided the Guardian with top-secret NSA documents leading to revelations about US surveillance on phone and internet communications" - compilation of news sources on Edward Snowden
"With end-to-end encryption in place, not even WhatsApp's employees can read the data that's sent across its network. In other words, WhatsApp has no way of complying with a court order demanding access to the content of any message, phone call, photo, or video traveling through its service. Like Apple, WhatsApp is, in practice, stonewalling the federal government, but it's doing so on a larger front-one that spans roughly a billion devices."
This article may be biased but it is still interesting. It implies that the government is using cell phones to track citizens in the same way bus passes were used in Little Brother.
Whether it is on Facebook, Twitter or a text on your cell phone, many will see photos and videos flying through cyberspace over the holiday season. Maybe some of these pictures and videos won't be so joyous; this is when digital decisions may have been made in haste.
College students should be on the lookout for breaches in their social media accounts. In this digital age, college kids put most of their information on their social media accounts and should take the necessary precautions to create secure passwords.