ILI Student Blog

Author: JScott

  • Symposium – No Strings Attached: US Internet Governance in an Increasingly Global World

    February 24, 2012, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
    Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South

    The New York University Journal of Legislation & Public Policy and Journal of Law & Liberty invite you to attend “No Strings Attached: US Internet Governance in an Increasingly Global World.” This event will discuss how the rapid growth and necessity of the internet has presented new challenges to both legislators and regulators, and to what extent these policies are truly effective.

    In addition to a keynote address, the event features three panel discussions relating to ‘Getting Online’ and ‘Being Online’: Legislating and Regulating Internet Infrastructure, Control of Content on the Internet, and Mechanisms for Controlling Content and Providers. Each panel will consist of innovators in the field working in private industry, academia and the public sector.

    Please RSVP here.

  • Researcher’s Video Shows Secret Software on Millions of Phones Logging Everything

    “The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone.”  Read more here.

  • FTC Finally Goes After Flash Cookies

    The FTC and ScanScout came to a settlement over ScanScout’s deceptive use of Flash cookies.  ScanScout used Flash cookies to track users, but its privacy policy merely stated a user could “opt out of receiving a cookie by changing your browser settings to prevent the receipt of cookies.” Since Flash cookies could not actually be blocked through browser controls during the relevant time period the FTC investigated, the privacy policy statement was found to be deceptive.  Read more here.

  • Homeland Security moves forward with ‘pre-crime’ detection

    Documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the Department of Homeland Security is moving forward with a program called Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST).  The basic idea is to use various technologies to non-intrusively measure things like heart rate, eye movement, and voice pitch, among other things, to detect individuals who have “mal-intent.”

    Read more here.

  • iPhone and iPad Store Location Data of Everywhere You Go

    Researchers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan have discovered a file on the iPhone and 3G-enabled iPads that contain the “latitude and longitude of the phone’s recorded coordinates along with a timestamp.”  This file is also copied to the owner’s computer when synced.  There appears to be no current use for the data and Apple doesn’t seem to be transferring the data to itself.  See the full article here.

    Warden and Alasdair have created a webpage with more information and a downloadable application to check what data your iPhone or iPad has retained.

  • Supreme Court Backs Government Transparency Over Corporate Privacy Claims

    In FCC v. AT&T, AT&T argued it was a “corporate citizen” entitled to “personal privacy” and thus, entitled to the FOIA exemption that protects an individual’s private data.  AT&T was trying to block disclosure of documents pertaining to its participation in the government’s E-Rate program.  The Supreme Court  ruled corporations don’t have personal privacy rights.

    Read more about this here.

  • Social Network Monitoring

    From article: “New software released by Cisco Systems Inc. on Wednesday makes it much easier for banks, retailers, and other businesses — including your employer — to monitor the mountain of data on social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.”  See full article here.

  • HTML5 and Mobile Tracking

    From Ars Technica Article: “A New York-based mobile-web advertising company was hit Wednesday with a proposed class action lawsuit over its use of an HTML5 trick to track iPhone and iPad users across a number of websites, in what is believed to be the first privacy lawsuit of its kind in the mobile space.”  Full article here.