A year ago, Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian published the first of what would become an avalanche of leaks from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the U.S. National Security Agency and the modern world of digital surveillance and spying. Here are the five most important takeaways from a year that changed our perspective on our privacy in the digital age — part 2.
A year ago, Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian published the first of what would become an avalanche of leaks from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the U.S. National Security Agency and the modern world of digital surveillance and spying. Here are the five most important takeaways from a year that changed our perspective on our privacy in the digital age.
This week in social media, Facebook added a Shazam-like feature that can automatically tag music, TV or movies in status updates, just by listening in to your life. Speaking of listening in, Facebook also changed some of its privacy settings for the better with a reminder for users what privacy level their status updates are set to. Also, Twitter's having a bad week on Wall Street (again) while both it and rival Instagram are meeting resistance abroad.
This week in social media, Pinterest emerged as a serious competitor in the social media industry. Meanwhile, Foursquare rolled out its new Swarm app, Yahoo bought a Snapchat clone called Blink, Snapchat itself was named one of the worst companies for data privacy, Twitter almost got banned in Russia, and Facebook tested a new location-based notification system that's a bit like Foursquare, with a little Google Now thrown in. It's time for Social Media Saturday!
U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) has garnered a reputation of questioning privacy implications for not only his constituents but for Americans across the country. With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5, Franken wrote a letter to the company's executives regarding the smartphone's fingerprint scanner.
Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, has a reputation for being a tough interviewer, to say the least. So when Whisper CEO Michael Heyward appeared on stage for an interview with the skeptical Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, the "Fireside Chat" turned into more of a trial by fire.
After a year of learning about the U.S. National Security Agency's internet spying programs, at home and abroad, frustration has led major U.S. technology companies to defiantly change their transparency policies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook have all announced they're updating their policies to inform users when the government requests a seizure of their data.
On Thursday, members of the American Postal Workers Union held demonstrations at several Staples locations in 27 states to protest a partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples Inc.
Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, a huge European multimedia company based in Germany, made a big splash this week when he wrote an open letter in a German newspaper saying that he and other European executives "are afraid of Google."
President Obama is preparing to offer legislation to make good on his promise to reform the National Security Agency's bulk collection of U.S. phone records, also known as metadata. Whether or not that legislation passes through Congress is yet to be seen.
This week in social media, Twitter turned eight years old and was banned in Turkey, Facebook faced off with the government over privacy (and it's the other way around this time), and Pinterest and Tumblr both got into marketing and ads. It's time for Social Media Saturday!
If you thought the National Security Agency, which is now famous for collecting U.S. phone records or "metadata," wasn't at least capable of listening in on the actual content of phone calls, think again. A new Washington Post report says the NSA has the capability to record phone calls and hold on to the entire record on a 30-day basis - for entire countries.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with most giants of the tech industry, has expressed his critical views on the U.S. National Security Agency's activities before, but it appears that the most recent NSA revelation published this week has pushed him over the edge. On Thursday, Zuckerberg called President Obama himself, after which he publically aired his grievances on (of course) Facebook.
Is that Facebook? Or is the U.S. National Security Agency pretending to be Facebook to install malware on your computer? It turns out, that's a question you might have to ask yourself.
