The Wall Street Journal analyzed 100 of the most used applications that connect to Facebook’s social-networking platform to see what data they sought from people. The Journal also tested its own Facebook app, WSJ Social. See the apps tested by the Journal, along with the permissions they ask users to grant them.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What The Know series online.
Many popular Facebook apps are obtaining sensitive information about users—and users’ friends—so don’t be surprised if details about your religious, political and even sexual preferences start popping up in unexpected places.
A Wall Street Journal examination of 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some seek the email addresses, current location and sexual preference, among other details, not only of app users but also of their Facebook friends
Not so long ago, there was a familiar product called software. It was sold in stores, in shrink-wrapped boxes. When you bought it, all that you gave away was your credit card number or a stack of bills.
Now there are “apps”—stylish, discrete chunks of software that live online or in your smartphone. To “buy” an app, all you have to do is click a button. Sometimes they cost a few dollars, but many apps are free, at least in monetary terms. You often pay in another way. Apps are gateways, and when you buy an app, there is a strong chance that you are supplying its developers with one of the most coveted commodities in today’s economy: personal data.
Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
Web Giant, Others Bypassed Apple Browser Settings for Guarding Privacy
The Wall Street Journal, Page One
Google Inc. and other advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of people using Apple Inc.’s Web browser on their iPhones and computers—tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and read the full What They Know series online.
The Surveillance Catalog allows readers to peruse secret marketing materials published by companies that make tracking equipment.
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and “massive intercept” gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
Stewart Baker, the former assistant secretary for Homeland Security, talks with Julia Angwin about the need for balancing privacy rights with security concerns. In The Big Interview, Mr. Baker explains why privacy may one day be a luxury available only to the privileged and the rich.
State and federal authorities follow the movements of thousands of Americans each year by secretly monitoring the location of their cellphones, often with little judicial oversight, in a practice facing legal challenges.
Electronic tracking, used by police to investigate such crimes as drug dealing and murder, has become as routine as “looking for fingerprint evidence or DNA evidence,” said Gregg Rossman, a prosecutor in Broward County, Fla.
The use of cellphone tracking by authorities is among the most common types of electronic surveillance, exceeding wiretaps and the use of GPS tracking, according to a survey of local, state and federal authorities by The Wall Street Journal.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
WikiLeaks’ Backer’s Information Sought
The Wall Street Journal, Page One
The U.S. government has obtained a controversial type of secret court order to force Google Inc. and small Internet provider Sonic.net Inc. to turn over information from the email accounts of WikiLeaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
Plus, more on Sonic.net, the little ISP that stood up to the government.
The Wall Street Journal, Page One
Major websites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, new research shows.
The new techniques, which are legal, reach beyond the traditional “cookie,” a small file that websites routinely install on users’ computers to help track their activities online. Hulu and MSN were installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
The Wall Street Journal, Page One
With this device, made by BI2 Technologies, an officer can snap a picture of a face from up to five feet away, or scan a person’s irises from up to six inches away.
With the device, which attaches to an iPhone, an officer can snap a picture of a face from up to five feet away, or scan a person’s irises from up to six inches away, and do an immediate search to see if there is a match with a database of people with criminal records. The gadget also collects fingerprints.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
The Wall Street Journal, Page One
As the surreptitious tracking of Internet users becomes more aggressive and widespread, tiny start-ups and technology giants alike are pushing a new product: privacy.
Companies including Microsoft Corp., McAfee Inc.—and even some online-tracking companies themselves—are rolling out new ways to protect users from having their movements monitored online. Some are going further and starting to pay people a commission every time their personal details are used by marketing companies.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal and see the full What They Know series online.
