Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Price of Personal Data



Summary: Story about blackmail using personal data which goes out of hand; a timely reminder of the general associated risks (new Facebook examples)

A READER sent us the following message this morning:

A Warning About Non Free Software and the Microsoft Ecosystem



A Dell technician helping a woman named Tara recover pictures of her boyfiend helped himself to racy pictures and took her on a year long blackmail and con job with love letters, credit card fraud and her nude pictures posted on a "bitchtara" website.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100729/NEWS13/...

"She gave the technician permission to access her computer remotely and watched as he found the pictures and downloaded them. 'I trusted him because he was a Dell technician ... I've been violated. My life's been violated'."

This woman's story is sad but worse things are probably happening all the time. Non free software can not be inspected for malicious features and Windows is completely insecure, so Microsoft, OEM technicians and botnet owners have full access to people's private documents if they want it. Newer versions of Windows like Vista/Windows 7 actually make things worse by indexing everything the user does and establishing encrypted communications to Microsoft by default. Apple users should not imagine themselves above these kinds of problems.

The moral is that people should only run community administered, free software like Debian GNU/Linux, and should only have them serviced by trusted, local technicians. Nothing can protect people from violations of trust but free software greatly reduces the odds. The Windows EULA gives Microsoft the right to inspect and delete your files at their their discretion. Free software has excellent remote access capability but the user is always in control. Windows is owned by Microsoft and will always serve Microsoft at the user's expense. Non free software users have even less privacy than the hapless Winston of 1984 who could hide in a corner and write a private diary.


As a case study, let's use this month's news about Facebook because Facebook gives Microsoft its data. A lot of users are unaware of this.

Based on a survey published this month, Facebook scores low in user satisfaction and Facebook has also just been sued by Germany [1, 2, 3]. It faces a fine for privacy violations.

Facebook faces a fine from a German privacy regulator for failing to obtain the consent of the people whose contact details it stores.


In other news, Facebook is expected to start sharing people's personal data with Amazon, which cannot be trusted, either (we gave many reasons before).

Such a partnership could also lay the groundwork for Facebook to get key pieces of data, so it can start to quantitatively value how social recommendations translate into sales. (The company says it’s not getting purchase history on specific individuals.)


Facebook finally admits giving data to advertisers, but what happens when this sort of data gets 'leaked'?

PRIVACY SHREDDER Facebook is going into overdrive to convince its users that advertisers are their friends.


"Marketers are downloading data on 100 million Facebook users," says this headline. This data was harvested, which shows how data ends up going out of control, regardless of laws (like Wikileaks shows).

Facebook's privacy woes continue. This week a man harvested and published the profile details of 100 million Facebook users. If that weren't bad enough, he then made the file available for free download. You'd think that a lot of companies would be interested in acquiring such data. And you'd be right.


The harvester speaks out and the MSBBC gives him a platform.

The man who harvested and published the personal details of 100m Facebook users has spoken out about his motives.


The MSBBC is actually in the midst of some British controversy this month because Facebook users were called "saddos" on the main Web site [1, 2], which puts the MSBBC down alongside The Inquirer which says: "BBC insults 'Facebook Saddos'"

THE BBC appears to have forgotten to take its anti-INQUIRER pills and managed to insult the millions of members of the social notworking service Facebook.


"Facebook decides to protect kids after refusing," says The Inquirer in another article and ITWire says that "Facebook bans fake nipples".

Facebook is an easy target because of its scale, but the privacy policy still teaches a lesson and the connections with Microsoft offer room for discomfort (the previous post showed Apple's serious privacy breach). Microsoft tried to buy Facebook.

“Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.”

--Bruce Schneier



Recent Techrights' Posts

15 Countries Where Yandex is Already Seen to be Bigger Than Microsoft (in Search)
Georgia, Syrian Arab Republic, Cyprus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Turkey, and Russia
FSF Has Made It Halfway to Its Target (Funding Goal) a Week Before Christmas Day
$400,000 definitely seems reachable now, especially if they extend the "deadline"
 
Links 19/12/2024: Astronaut Record and Observer Absorbed
Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Seven Dirty Words and Isle Release v0.0.3 (Alpha)
Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Nurses Besieged by "Apps", More Harms of Social Control Media Illuminated
Links for the day
Links 19/12/2024: Magnitude 7.3 Earthquake and Privacy Camp
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/12/2024: Port Of Miami Explosion, TurboQOA, Gnus
Links for the day
Fake Articles About 'Linux'
Dated yesterday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 18, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 18, 2024
[Meme] The Master Churnalist
Speaking of press releases being passed off as "journalism"
Spamnil's TFiR: Still Pretending Press Releases Are 'Articles' (TFiR 'Originals' as Plagiarism or Fluff)
Same as last year
Links 18/12/2024: Zakir Hussain Dies, TuneIn Layoffs
Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Karate Love and Advent of Code
Links for the day
Windows (or Microsoft) Has Become the "One Percent" (Market Share) in Chad
How long before it falls below 1%?
Arvind Krishna, IBM's CEO, Will Eventually Suck Up to Donald Trump Like His Predecessor Did or the Watson Family Did With Adolf Hitler
Literally Hitler
Being a Geek Need Not Mean Being Sedentary
"In the past 18 months," Berkholz writes, "I’ve lost 75 pounds and gone from completely sedentary to fit, while minimizing the effort to do so (but needing a whole lot of persistence and grit)."
GAFAM Kissing the Ring of the Mafia Don
"resistance" to dictatorship and defenders of democracy?
Slop Spaghetti From the Chef, Second Time Today
Fresh slop ready out the oven!
IBM - Like Microsoft - Lies About the Number of People It's Laying Off (Several Tens of Thousands, Not Counting R.T.O. "Silent" Layoffs and Contractors/Perma-Temps)
How many waves of silent layoffs have we seen so far at IBM this year?
Links 18/12/2024: EU Launches Probe Into TikTok (At Last!)
Links for the day
Links 18/12/2024: Doha/Qatar Trafficking, Bloat Comfort Zone, and Advent of Code 2024
Links for the day
Saving What's Left of Decent and Independent Journalism on the Web
We increasingly (over time) try to make local copies (hosted on our server) of important documents; it's hard to rely on third parties
[Meme] Microsoft's Latest Marketing Pitch
"Stop Being Poor; buy a new PC with TPMs"
In South Africa, a Very Large Nation, Web Developers Can Already Ignore Microsoft Browsers (Edge Measured Below 3% in 55 Nations)
The dumb assumption you must naively test with Microsoft browsers is no longer applicable in a lot of places
Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the Voice of Bill Gates and Satya Nadella
Not hard to see what they've done with the money
Microsoft Boasts That Its (Microsoft-Sponsored) "Open Source AI" Propaganda Got Cited in Media (That's Just What the Money Did)
This is a grotesque openwashing campaign
In Many Places Around the World, Perhaps as Expected, Yandex is Nearly Bigger Than Microsoft (Like in Several African Countries)
Microsoft may soon fall to "third place" in search
Keeping Productive This Christmas
We've (pre)paid for hosting till almost January 2026 and fully back on the saddle
IBM and Canonical Leave Money on the Table Because Microsoft Pays Them Not to Compete and Instead Market Windows, WSL, Microsoft 'Clown Computing', and TPMs
Where are the regulators?
Other Editors Who Agree "Hey Hi" (AI) is Just Hype But Won't Say So Publicly as It Might Upset Key Sponsors
Some media would gladly participate in a scam to make money
Brian Fagioli's Latest "Linux" Article Appears to be Fake
Another form of plagiarism/ripoff using bots?
IBM (and Red Hat) is a Patent Troll, Still Leveraging Software Patents to Extract Money Out of Other Companies by Suing Them
Basically, when it comes to patents, IBM is demonstrably part of the problem, not the solution
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 17, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 17, 2024
[Meme] When the People Who Falsely Accuse You of Pedophilia Turn Out to be Projecting
When you attack something or someone using falsehoods, as happens a lot to Richard Stallman (RMS), there's risk that the attacks will backfire, badly
In Some Countries, Such as Greece, Almost 80% of Windows Users Are on Vista 10 and About 85% Need to Move to GNU/Linux for Security Patches
Vista 11 was a failure
[Meme] They Don't Want the Public to Know What "Responsible Encryption" Really Means
They also blame "China" for their own back doors (because China learned how to exploit those)
The Linux Foundation's Certificate Authority (CA) Significantly and Suspiciously Raises the Number of Certificates It Issues (Quantity Increase/Inflation) by Lessening Their Lifetime in the Name of 'Security' (That Barely Makes Sense!)
LE made 3 months the "standard" for most, soon to become just 6 days instead of 6 months?
Why I Continue to Believe That at the End Software Freedom Will Win
a short and incomplete list of factors which I believe contribute to the sentiment that we can - and will - win the battles over hearts and minds in the "Tech" realm
Links 17/12/2024: More China Sanctions, GOP Scheming to Prop Up Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/12/2024: The Streisand Effect and Productivity-systems Desiderata
Links for the day
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part X
By Dr. Andy Farnell
Links 17/12/2024: More "Tesla Autopilot" and "Hey Hi" (AI) Blunders
Links for the day
Instead of Promoting GNU/Linux (or Ubuntu) Ahead of Vista 10's EoL Canonical is Marketing Microsoft's Proprietary Software
It's like Canonical employs people who work for Microsoft, not for Canonical
Links 17/12/2024: Many Abuses by Microsoft and War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Content Management Systems (CMS) Bloat/ Static Site Generators (SSG) Trouble
some Web site management stories
DEI Room at fedoraproject.org Pretty Much Dead
We're not against diversity but against its weaponisation by greedy people who do not value diversity at all
The "Latest Technology News" at BetaNews is Slop About Slop
This is at the very top of the "news" (front page) at the moment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 16, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, December 16, 2024