Geolocation

• “SimpleGeo Makes Location Data Free, Complicates Smartphone Tracking Worries” by Kit Eaton (Fast Company; 2011.04.22) – http://www.fastcompany.com/1749262/simplegeo-makes-location-data-free-complicates-smartphone-tracking-worries
• “Involuntary Geolocation To Within One Kilometer” 9SlashDot; 2011.04.08) – http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/04/08/1245244/Involuntary-Geolocation-To-Within-One-Kilometer
  Schneier’s blog tips an article about research into geolocation that can track down a computer’s location from its IP address to within 690 meters on average without voluntary disclosure from the target. Quoting: “The first stage measures the time it takes to send a data packet to the target and converts it into a distance – a common geolocation technique that narrows the target’s possible location to a radius of around 200 kilometers. Wang and colleagues then send data packets to the known Google Maps landmark servers in this large area to find which routers they pass through. When a landmark machine and the target computer have shared a router, the researchers can compare how long a packet takes to reach each machine from the router; converted into an estimate of distance, this time difference narrows the search down further. ‘We shrink the size of the area where the target potentially is,’ explains Wang. Finally, they repeat the landmark search at this more fine-grained level: comparing delay times once more, they establish which landmark server is closest to the target.”
• “Internet probe can track you down to within 690 metres” by Jacob Aron(NewScientist; 2011.04.05) – http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20336-internet-probe-can-track-you-down-to-within-690-metres.html
  Online adverts could soon start stalking you. A new way of working out where you are by looking at your internet connection could pin down your current location to within a few hundred metres.
• “Pinpointing a Computer to Within 690 Meters” by Bruce Schneier (2011.04.08) – http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/04/pinpointing_a_c.html

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Related here:

• iPhone (and Androids, too) doing surveilance, on whose behalf? – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/iphone-doing-surveilance-on-whose-behalf/:
  • packetlss – Android location service cache dumper – https://github.com/packetlss/android-locdump
  • iPhone Tracker – http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

Declawing Cookies

• “Flash to Offer More Control Over Cookies” by Keir Thomas (PCWorld; 2011.01.13) – http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216681/flash_to_offer_more_control_over_cookies.html

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Disabling Flash cookies (LSOs)

• 1) Go to http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html. You should see something like:
  

• 2) Disable the “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer” check-box:
  
  Since you are here, disable also “Store common Flash components to reduce download toimes.”, too.

Privacy and digital liberties

Organizations and sites

• EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) – http://epic.org/
  • Facebook issues – http://epic.org/privacy/facebook/places/default.html
  • Facebook Places and Privacy – http://epic.org/privacy/facebook/places/default.html
• EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) – http://www.eff.org/
• Seth Finkelstein’s Home Site – http://sethf.com/
• Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada – http://www.ipc.on.ca/english/Home-Page/

Blogs

• 33 Bits of Entropy – http://33bits.org/ – The End of Anonymous Data and what to do about it. | RSS – http://33bits.org/feed/
• Pr1vacy’s Blog – http://pr1vacy.wordpress.com/

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Related pages here: Privacy articles – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/privacy/ | Personal computer security – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/personal-computer-security/ | Online privacy tools – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/online-privacy-tools/ | Unending stream of Facebook privacy news – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/unending-stream-of-facebook-privacy-news/ | TSA folies – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/tsa-folies/

Surveillance, wiretapping, tracking, etc.

There are (at least) 4 types of big brothers:

• Type I: (True Big Brother) Governments and their services. They track population in order to prevent, detect, undercut and punish political dissent, frequently under pretense of enforcing various laws. They have full latitude to amend existing or generate the new laws (DMCA, ACTA, …) in order to legislate-out undesirable behaviors. Due to instrumentation of governments by certain well organized holders of the money (industry: e.g. RIAA, MPAA, etc), they frequently act as a suppressors of behaviors, groups and individuals that these branches of industry consider undesirable.
• Type II: (Small Big Brother) Commercial industry. There are two main motivations here: 1) suppression of threats to their current business model, and 2) acquisition of consumer data with intent to somehow monetarize collected information (e.g. by cross-pollination with other databases, targeted advertising, profiling the households, etc).
• Type III: (Wannabe Big Brother) Non-legal entities that look for (mainly) monetary gain by use of users data. This include various criminal groups, unaligned individuals, etc.
• Type IV: (Not-really Big Brother) family members, stalkers, etc

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Surveillance by Type I Big Brothers

USA:

• “SECURITY THEATER CREEP: FULL STRENGTH X-RAY BODY SCANNERS COMING TO AIRPORTS” by Steve Watson
  (Prisonplanet.com; 201.03.02)- http://imperialtwilight.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/security-theater-creep-full-strength-x-ray-body-scanners-coming-to-airports/ [Fringe]
  • See also: X-Ray Vans on US streets – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/x-ray-vans-on-us-streets/
• “10 Signs You are Being Watched” (The Line in the Sand blog; 2011.03.02) – http://thelineinthesand.net/2011/03/02/10-signs-you-are-being-watched/ [Fringe]
• “New Hampshire Vs. TSA” by Skip MacLure (2011.03.02) – http://skipmaclure.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/new-hampshire-vs-tsa/ [Fringe]
• 
  “Documents Reveal TSA Research Proposal To Body-Scan Pedestrians, Train Passengers” by Andy Greenberg (Forbes; 2011.03.03) – http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/03/02/docs-reveal-tsa-plan-to-body-scan-pedestrians-train-passengers/
• “TSA Lies To Justify Illegal Train Station Grope-Down” by Paul Joseph Watson (Prison Planet [http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-lies-to-justify-illegal-train-station-grope-down.html]; 2011.03.01) – http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-lies-to-justify-illegal-train-station-grope-down.html
  TSA’s VIPR team ordered disembarking train passengers to enter the building where they were exposed to detailed pat-downs. When the information about this check point was exposed to public, TSA lied that passengers entered building on their own volition.
• “What The Heck Is The TSA Up To?” by Skip MacLure (2011.02.28) – http://skipmaclure.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/what-the-heck-is-the-tsa-up-to/
• ACTA – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/acta/
• 2010.11.16: FBI Director meeting Google, Facebook, etc. in push for Universal Internet Wiretapping:
  • “F.B.I. Seeks Wider Wiretap Law for Web” (NYTimes; 2010.11.16) – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/technology/17wiretap.html?_r=2&hpw
• 2010.09.27: US government (FBI, NSA, DOJ) is pushing for back-doors in the various Internet-based communication services: for the encrypted communication systems like Skype and Blackberry, for the social communication networks (Ala FaceBook), etc.
  • “U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet” by Charlie Savage (TheNewYoirkTimes; 2010.09.27) – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
  • “US seeks to ease Internet wiretaps: report” (AFP; 2010.09.27) – http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i8U22zC5TxC326IHeLox-BX7bFxA
  • “Ready for the Facebook, Skype wiretap?” by Larry Dignan (ZDNet; 2010.09.27) – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ready-for-the-facebook-skype-wiretap/39680
  • US Government Seeking New Internet Wiretap Regulations (Security Watch blog at PCMag; 2010.09.27) – http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/09/us_government_seeking_new_inte.php
  • “Opinion: Say No to Insecure Systems” by Larry Seltzer – http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/09/opinion_say_no_to_insecure_sys.php
    • The Risks of Key Recovery, Key Escrow, and Trusted Third-Party Encryption – http://www.schneier.com/paper-key-escrow.html
• The New York Times’ topical articles feeds:
  • Surveillance of Citizens by Government – http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=des&v1=Surveillance+of+Citizens+by+Government&fdq=19960101
  • Wiretapping and Other Eavesdropping Devices and Methods – http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=des&v1=Wiretapping+and+Other+Eavesdropping+Devices+and+Methods&fdq=19960101>
• “The Digital Surveillance State: Vast, Secret, and Dangerous” at Wake-up Call blog (http://laudyms.wordpress.com/) –
  http://laudyms.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/the-digital-surveillance-state-vast-secret-and-dangerous/
• USA: TSA – https://eikonal.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/tsa-folies/

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Surveillance by Type II Big Brothers

• “Resisting the Online Tracking Programs” by Riva Richmond (NYTimes; 2010.11.10) – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/technology/personaltech/11basics.html
• “Removing and Blocking Ad Cookies, Browser by Browser” by Riva Richmond (NYTimes; 2010.11.10) – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/technology/personaltech/11basics-sidebar.html
• “Code That Tracks Users’ Browsing Prompts Lawsuits” by Tanzina Vega (NYTimes; 2010.09.20) – http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/technology/21cookie.html/?pagewanted=all

DNA registry for whole population

• “The Goblins Want Your DNA!” (The Line in the Sand blog; 2011.03.01) – http://thelineinthesand.net/2011/03/01/the-goblins-want-your-dna/
• “S. 1858: Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2007” by 110th Congress – http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1858 – This is a bill in the U.S. Congress originating in the Senate (“S.”). A bill must be passed by both the Senate and House and then be signed by the President before it becomes law.

Misc