Evolution of Online Privacy Too Hot for Government to Handle: Google

Approximately 10 years ago, the discussion in the government meetings would have revolved around national security, people welfare, developmental programs, etc. Today, one of the biggest issues that the government has to deal with on a regular basis is online privacy.  Privacy is valued in our normal life, but internet has become such an integral part of our lives that online privacy is also important. This has necessitated the government to step up to the online privacy issue and make some policies that helps in protecting the citizens’ online privacy rights.

How a Twitter Malware Scam Is Carried Out

There were days when you could implant a malicious code in simple software. While the software was installed, the malicious code would also get installed. But today, anti-virus programs are more efficient and effective in detecting malicious code. So, miscreants are becoming more creative in devising ways to plant malicious software on the victim computers. Some use disguised links while others send emails which lure the victims to install the code on their computers, ignoring the warnings of their anti-virus programs. Then, there are the social networking sites.

Online Privacy at Your Workplace Must Be Protected: Supreme Court of Canada

Online privacy is something that we worry about almost every day. It has escalated to such a level that you have to worry about online privacy at your workplace also. While the people who exploit your privacy outside your workplace, and sometimes inside it too, are online miscreants such as hackers, the main culprits inside your workplace are your employers. Employers have time and again argued and maintained that you have no privacy while working on a computer that belongs to their organization.

Android User Privacy Threatened By Virulent Adware

There is no doubt that in the global mobile industry, Android commands more than 50% of the share. Although the exact figure keeps varying on a daily basis, competitors like Windows and Apple have not been able to completely overthrow Android. However, the downside to Android is that the security of the OS is not as good as it is expected to be. For all practical purposes, Android is an open source software and there is no governing body to impose security measures (like Apple for iOS and Microsoft for Windows). Time and again, we have seen that there have been reports of Android being targeted by a specific type of malicious software. This time, it is an adware that is increasingly becoming very virulent and attacking Android users.

An Easier Approach to Online Privacy

There is no denying the fact that online privacy is by far the most important issue that we are dealing with on a daily basis. In spite of the conveniences and technological advancements that the Internet Age has brought with it, online privacy is a bane that is haunting us and will continue to haunt us. As individuals, we have our own approaches to ensure our online privacy. Some use tools from other private companies; others use the privacy and security tools that the service provider makes available.

Absence of a Strong Reaction to Change in Microsoft’s Privacy Rules

When you sign in for a free email service, you might wonder how the company might meet the costs that are associated with providing such a service. The answer to this is the user data. The data that they gather when you are online and using their service is worth a lot of money and the companies will use this data to make profits. Microsoft recently announced that it will take more liberties with the data it will gather from some of the free services that include email, instant messaging, search engine, etc. This implies that they have made some major changes to the privacy policy that they were following. While the company has been publishing this change on all popular channels, the change is not getting the reaction that it warrants.

E-Commerce Sites to Hurt From Online Privacy Measures

It is now a well known fact that online tracking is a very important part of advertising and marketing strategies. But privacy concerns have made people very cautious about online tracking. They do not want to be subjected to any kind of tracking even if it is to save their own personal preferences. This has caused two types of problems to e-commerce sites. Firstly, cookies give them vital information about consumer behavior and help marketing and advertising professionals in devising their ad strategy. Another application of cookies is to save the personal preferences of online consumers when they log in to shop. Without cookies, these preferences cannot be saved, denying the experience for a personalized shopping experience, something that shoppers rate very highly.

Free Android Apps Pose Major Security and Privacy Risks

One of the reasons why people prefer Android over other mobile operating systems is because of the plethora of apps available for download on the Google Play store. More than 70% of the apps on the Google Play store are free of cost and some of them are really attractive with impressive features. But there is a downside to these free apps. Researchers from a leading German university have studied the source code of some of the most popular free apps on the Google Play store and have determined that the security features in these apps are really bad. They also said that these apps can be used by hackers and other miscreants as a point of access into your smartphones and tablets. Once they gain access, they can steal sensitive information, plant malicious software and cause a variety of other problems.

Creating Your Own Private BitTorrent Community

If you have been keeping up with news about torrents, you will be aware of the fact that the days of worry free torrents are long gone. BitTorrent has come under the scanner more times than we can ignore and there has been concrete evidence suggesting that the site is indeed tracking its users. A number of major torrent sites like the PirateBay have also been suspected of storing sensitive user information. In times like this, we think twice before downloading from torrents. However, here is a safe way of using torrents. You can create your own, private BitTorrent community and can share files with your family and friends.

Set Up Your Torrent Client

We will look at how to go about creating this private community with uTorrent as an example. You can use Vuze and qBitTorrent too in the same way but we will stick to uTorrent in this article.

Enter into the preferences section of the menu and go into the advanced preferences. Here, set the bt.enable_tracker to ‘true’. Restart the client for the changes to be applied. Again in the preferences section, enter the Connections subsection and uncheck the option that says ‘Randomize Port Each Start’. Also, make a note of your listening port. Next, in the advanced properties, make a note of the ‘Alternative Listening Port’ if you are using the web UI. If you are not using web UI, uncheck the option for ‘Alternative Listening Port’. Browse online for instructions on how to forward your listening port through your router and do it.

DynDNS Setup

Since your computer is configured to act as a private BitTorrent client, you will have to attach your IP to every torrent that you make. Your IP address will be changing constantly and your friends will be disconnected every time you restart your system. To avoid this, set up DynDNS service or No IP service on your computer. That will ensure that you will not face the problem of changing IP. You can use the internet for instructions on setting this up as well.

Creating and Sharing Torrents

In the file option of your BitTorrent client, you will have the create torrent link. After adding the source, you will have to add a couple more lines in the tracker section. They are http:// <your chosen domain name>:<port number that you found>/announce and http://localhost:<port number that you found>/announce. Once this is done, click on options ‘Private Torrent’, ‘Start Seeding’ and ‘Preserve File Order’ and then click on ‘Create and Save As’ link. Save the torrent file and send it to your friends. They can add the files to their torrent client and begin downloading.

The Pros and Cons of This Method

Coming to the pros, the undeniable advantages are that the files you will be downloading or sharing will be legitimate and the sources are also trustworthy. This will eliminate you downloading viruses or other malicious software accidentally also. Also, this link will be private to your friends only and you don’t have to worry about your IP being stolen and used for hacking or other malpractices.

The obvious downside to this method is that your file collection will be limited to the ones present with you and your circle of friends. Also, this method will not give you any control over the people who join to your network. In case your friend sends it to one of his friends and the file keeps circulating like that, you cannot do anything to change or avoid it. So make sure your friends are trustworthy. Another problem is the download speed. Since there will be only one seed, the speeds will be very limited especially if you are seeding to multiple people at the same time.

$1m Campaign Launched By Direct Marketers to Dispel Privacy Concerns

Direct marketers had recently made a rather controversial statement by saying that they will not pay heed to any privacy and tracking flags of their consumers and will continue to track them for advertising purposes. This statement had raised a lot of concerns and online security and privacy experts were rather befuddled by the rash approach of the DAA. The controversy had grown to big proportions and could have had an adverse effect on the campaigns of DAA members. This has forced the agency to go into damage control mode. They have started a campaign worth $1 million to educate the users about their rather controversial tracking techniques. The campaign will educate consumers about the techniques they use and also dispel any privacy concerns also.

Data-Driven Marketing Institute

The Direct Marketing association held its annual conference in Las Vegas this year and announced the launch of Data-Driven Marketing Institute in its keynote address. This institute is one of the major steps in creating awareness amongst consumers that advertisers and marketers are not invading the privacy of consumers in any way. The institute will do so by educating the consumers on the exact techniques that they use which will show them that their privacy is valued highly by advertising companies and they are safe online.

Linda Woolley, President and acting CEO of the DMA, said that the million dollars would be used for consumer education, advocacy tactics, and also will be channeled for research. The research would primarily be for correcting some misconceptions that the general public has about hoe marketers go about their jobs and also to ‘set the record straight’.

Billions at Stake

One might say that the DMA is rather making itself look desperate by investing such a huge amount on a campaign with apparently no profit. But we must understand the workings of the marketing industry to know the significance of this campaign. The direct marketing industry is worth billions of dollars and while IT and other markets are failing, consumer marketing is growing at an annual rate of an astounding 5%. If you take a look at last year’s figures, you will see that $163 billion was spent on direct marketing. Direct marketing also uses data lists of consumers but according to the agency and its latest campaign, they do not step over the privacy line and will always ensure that the consumers are given full freedom in that aspect.

Pressure from the Government?

Another reason for this expensive campaign might be due to an indirect pressure from the government. Although there are no reliable sources to suggest that the government might have had a hand in this, you cannot rule it out, especially since the presidential elections are going on. Online and offline privacy are the biggest concerns in today’s world, especially since we leave digital footprints all over the place. If someone has to track you, internet is THE source and we can safely assume that the World Wide Web will not disappoint the tracker if he/she has the right tools and resources.

What Are The Implications?

You might wonder why a marketing agency is spending so much just to let you know that you are, and can shop without being tracked, there are a number of forces at play under the table. Consumers are the people who are driving today’s economy and if that dips due to privacy concerns, there will be a major imbalance in the economy that will be very hard to set right. Also, the advertising industry is a billion dollar industry and there cannot be any doubts in the minds of consumers about the methods adopted by advertisers. This will have an adverse effect on the success of ad campaigns that marketers cannot afford.

The good thing about this campaign is that we can at least get a sneak peek into how advertising industry works and we can safeguard ourselves more effectively using that information.