Employers Asking for Passwords to Employees’ Facebook Accounts

Source: Calgary Herald
Shelia Nonato

Job seeker Rob MacLeod says he was "taken aback" when an interviewer asked for his Facebook login and password so he could screen MacLeod's photos as part of the job interview.

But privacy experts say asking for social media passwords is crossing the line of "reasonable" employment criteria, akin to asking out-of-bounds questions on age or ethnicity.

MacLeod said he questioned why this was necessary.

"He just pretty much became defensive himself saying 'Oh, you know, if you have something to hide . . . we don't have to go forward in this process,' " MacLeod told Postmedia News.

MacLeod, a 28-year-old Oakville, Ont., resident, said he offered to log the interviewer in, but he refused, asking to access MacLeod's account directly.

"I have nothing to hide. (I said) 'You can look at it. I just don't like to disclose passwords,' " he recalled of the law enforcement position he applied for in 2009.

After the interviewer logged into MacLeod's account, MacLeod said the interviewer came back and explained, "We just want to see some of the photos and see what people you are involved in."

Meanwhile, privacy law experts worry about how the line between private and public life is being blurred in social media.

FBI Creating a System for Monitoring All Conversations on Social Networking Sites

Source: Natural News
J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) If you're a regular reader of NaturalNews, you're already well aware of the fact that government, the courts and private industry have all essentially disregarded the intent and meaning of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment privacy protections in the age of information technology. It seems that you give up your right to be "secure" in your "persons, houses, papers, and effects" if you dare to use a social media network or virtually any other information exchange system.

The latest onslaught comes from the FBI, which is only the most recent federal agency seeking to monitor all of your conversations on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The bureau has placed a request from tech firms to develop a program that would enable agents to sift through waves of "publicly available" information, ostensibly to look for keywords related to terrorism, criminal activity and other threats to national security.

'Early warning' system?

The goal, according to the bureau's request, is to develop a sort of early warning system that provides real-time intelligence to improve "the FBI's overall situational awareness." The proposed program must "have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents, and emerging threats."

The FBI joins DARPA - the secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in searching for a program that can "monitor" social media chatter (DARPA, ironically enough, invented the Internet, not Al Gore). The difference there, however, is that the Defense Department and the CIA focus on threats overseas; the FBI, meanwhile, is a domestic law enforcement apparatus, and as such, subject to constitutional restrictions regarding the development of its cases.

High-Altitude Surveillance Drones Coming to a Sky Near You

Source: Scientific American
John Villasenor

Last week President Obama signed a sweeping aviation bill that, among other things, will open the skies to “unmanned aircraft systems,” more commonly known as drones. Much of the discussion regarding the coming era of domestic drones has been focused on the many important questions regarding their use at low altitudes. To what extent will it be legal, for example, for drones to hover 300 feet above residential neighborhoods snapping pictures into backyards and windows? What level of human-in-the-loop control is needed to ensure safety in a crowded airspace? And how can we stop terrorists from piloting drones at treetop level towards a target?

But there is another portion of the airspace—the stratosphere—that while mostly empty today, will in the coming years will become increasingly populated by gossamer-like, solar-powered drones turning silent, lazy circles in the sky. These drones will stay aloft for years at a time, running on energy collected during the day using solar panels mounted on paper-thin wings. As their slowly turning propellers push them along at bicycle speeds, arrays of high-resolution cameras on their undersides will record the daily comings and goings of the population of entire cities.

...What, exactly, will these drones be able to see? A lot, as it turns out. They will record the route and speed of every vehicle on the streets. They will observe the movements of individual pedestrians. At night, they will capture the precise moments when the lights in living rooms and bedrooms are turned on and off. The data they acquire, which can be correlated with information from mobile devices and smart meters, will become an important component of the growing digital record of nearly everything we do.

Read Full Article 

Reports Reveal Facebook Spying on Smartphone Users' Text Messages

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

A report published by the London Sunday Times has revealed that Facebook has been accessing and reading the personal text messages of users of their social networking app.

Unfortunately the report itself is locked behind a pay wall, but the report has been partially summarized by Fox News (let’s just hope it’s more accurate than most of their reporting).

Facebook has reportedly even admitted reading the text messages, claiming that they were accessing data without the knowledge of users as part of a trial in an effort to launch their own messaging service.

This is just another piece of evidence which supports statements made by individuals like Julian Assange of WikiLeaks who said in an interview with RT, “Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented.”

It appears that Facebook is not alone, although my readers who have been keeping up on my coverage of Big Brother technology likely assume as much.

Some of the other culprits mentioned in Fox’s summary are Flickr, which is now under the Yahoo! umbrella, as well as Yahoo! Messenger itself.

The Sunday Times also reported that dating site Badoo has accessed the private data of smartphone users while also reporting that some apps allow companies to delve much deeper into the private lives of users.

Some apps apparently can even allow companies to intercept phone calls, although that isn’t all that surprising given that it is essentially what Google is allowing themselves to do with their new privacy policy which is not only impossible to opt-out of but also steps up their Big Brother practices to new heights.

Of course this is just yet another way the massive and accelerating data collection arms race amongst Silicon Valley giants manifests itself in our lives.

Google Announces Privacy Changes Across Products; Users Can’t Opt Out

Source: Washington Post
Cecilia Kang

Google will soon know far more about who you are and what you do on the Web.

The Web giant announced Tuesday that it plans to follow the activities of users across nearly all of its ubiquitous sites, including YouTube, Gmail and its leading search engine.

Google has already been collecting some of this information. But for the first time, it is combining data across its Web sites to stitch together a fuller portrait of users.

Consumers won’t be able to opt out of the changes, which take effect March 1. And experts say the policy shift will invite greater scrutiny from federal regulators of the company’s privacy and competitive practices.

FAQ: What exactly will Google be able to collect and integrate? How does this affect me?

The move will help Google better tailor its ads to people’s tastes. If someone watches an NBA clip online and lives in Washington, the firm could advertise Washington Wizards tickets in that person’s Gmail account.

Consumers could also benefit, the company said. When someone is searching for the word “jaguar,” Google would have a better idea of whether the person was interested in the animal or the car. Or the firm might suggest e-mailing contacts in New York when it learns you are planning a trip there.

But consumer advocates say the new policy might upset people who never expected their information would be shared across so many different Web sites.

A user signing up for Gmail, for instance, might never have imagined that the content of his or her messages could affect the experience on seemingly unrelated Web sites such as YouTube. 

“Google’s new privacy announcement is frustrating and a little frightening,” said Common Sense Media chief executive James Steyer. “Even if the company believes that tracking users across all platforms improves their services, consumers should still have the option to opt out — especially the kids and teens who are avid users of YouTube, Gmail and Google Search.”

Secret App On Millions of Phones Logs Key Taps

Source: The Register
Dan Goodin

An Android app developer has published what he says is conclusive proof that millions of smartphones are secretly monitoring the key presses, geographic locations, and received messages of its users.

In a YouTube video posted on Monday, Trevor Eckhart showed how software from a Silicon Valley company known as Carrier IQ recorded in real time the keys he pressed into a stock EVO handset, which he had reset to factory settings just prior to the demonstration. Using a packet sniffer while his device was in airplane mode, he demonstrated how each numeric tap and every received text message is logged by the software.

Ironically, he says, the Carrier IQ software recorded the “hello world” dispatch even before it was displayed on his handset.

Eckhart then connected the device to a Wi-Fi network and pointed his browser at Google. Even though he denied the search giant's request that he share his physical location, the Carrier IQ software recorded it. The secret app then recorded the precise input of his search query – again, “hello world” – even though he typed it into a page that uses the SSL, or secure sockets layer, protocol to encrypt data sent between the device and the servers.

“We can see that Carrier IQ is querying these strings over my wireless network [with] no 3G connectivity and it is reading HTTPS,” the 25-year-old Eckhart says.

The Database: Why Criminal Governments Spy On Citizens

From: Alt-Market

Brandon Smith 

At the very foundation of perhaps every modern day conflict between the expansive powers of unchecked bureaucracy and the dwindling freedoms of the ordinary citizen dwells the vital issue of privacy. Privacy and the right to hold personal and political views without being singled out and scrutinized by government is absolutely essential to any society which dares to deem itself “fair and just”. Ultimately, without the presence of these two liberties, and without people to defend them, a nation is ill equipped to circumvent the growth of tyranny, and anyone claiming to be “free” in the midst of such a culture is living a delusion of the highest order.

The EyeOpener- Exposing ‘In-Q –Tel’: The CIA’s Own Venture Capital Firm

From: Boiling Frogs Post

Sibel Edmonds

In-Q-Tel was formed by the CIA in 1999 as a private, not-for-profit venture capital firm with the specific task of delivering technology to America’s intelligence community. Publicly, In-Q-Tel markets itself as an innovative way to leverage the power of the private sector by identifying key emerging technologies and providing companies with the funding to bring those technologies to market. 

In reality, however, what In-Q-Tel represents is a dangerous blurring of the lines between the public and private sectors in a way that makes it difficult to tell where the American intelligence community ends and the IT sector begins.

 

In-Q-Tel has generated a number of stories since its inception based on what can only be described as the “creepiness” factor of its investments in overtly Orwellian technologies. 

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett presenting documented facts and cases on the CIA’s privately owned venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, in which well-connected board members drawn from the private sector profit from the investments made with CIA funds that come from the taxpayer.

Watch The EyeOpener Report with James Corbett 

The Week in Alternative News

Just a quick, weekly news update provided by Set You Free News, Activist Post, WideAwakeNews.com, The Intel Hub and Greenewave TV. Feel free to check out these alternative media sites. You can find their news feeds along with many other innovative, anti-censorship, open source, independent media sites right here at The Promethean Post. We will continue to support all alternative media that provides a venue for articles, editorials, videos and analyses on issues, events and information largely censored or blacked out by the mainstream media. The majority of the sites we link to and support are completely independent and have achieved this with reader support and no agenda-driven corporate funding, advertising or political party affiliation. Think for yourself and stay informed.

Facebook Sued for Tracking Users' Information

From: The Epoch Times

Caroline Dobson

Social networking giant Facebook Inc. is being sued for tracking users’ Web activity without their permission after they have signed out of the online application.

There is a social class lawsuit filed in a federal court in San Jose, Calif., by Perrin Aiken Davis accusing the Palo Alto, California- Facebook of using a “cookie” file that is installed on computers, which identifies users and their exchanges online while they are logged in their account, as well as when they are logged out as well.

“This admission came only after an Australian technology blogger exposed Facebook’s practice of monitoring members who have logged out, although he brought the problems to the defendant’s attention a year ago,” said the complaint based on a Bloomberg report.

Facebook & Google+ Spying on Us?

From: Infowars.com

Kurt Nimmo 

Remember when Mark Zuckerberg said you need to get over the fact that there is no privacy on the internet? He meant it. Many of you have likely viewed the video below. It documents Facebook’s connection to the CIA. Many people, however, think the fun of posting on and the interaction of Facebook overshadows the downside, or they merely ignore the negative aspects. Well, it turns out it is worse than we previously thought.

The Week in Alternative News 10

Just a quick, weekly news update provided by Set You Free News, Activist Post, The Intel Hub and Greenewave TV. Feel free to check out these alternative media sites. You can find their news feeds along with many other innovative, anti-censorship, open source, independent media sites right here at The Promethean Post. We will continue to support all alternative media that provides a venue for articles, editorials, videos and analyses on issues, events and information largely censored or blacked out by the mainstream media. The majority of the sites we link to and support are completely independent and have achieved this with reader support and no agenda-driven corporate funding, advertising or political party affiliation. Think for yourself and stay informed.