Saudi Arabia The Saudi Crown Prince’s Digital Iron FistThe New York TimesCrown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia makes no secret of his desire to transform his country. Since he began consolidating power in 2015, he has marketed himself to domestic and international
Facebook Dating Don’t Trust Facebook With Your Love LifeThe New York TimesOn Thursday, Facebook announced the start-up in the United States of Facebook Dating, a product that allows users to search for love all without the hassle of leaving the app where your angry uncle continues
Opinion N.S.A. Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of WarThe New York TimesThe National Security Operations Center occupies a large windowless room, bathed in blue light, on the third floor of the National Security Agency’s headquarters outside of Washington. For the past 46
Personal Data About Small-Donor Democrats Is All Over the InternetThe New York TimesOne of the largest single disclosures of small-donor information in American history took place on July 31. On that day, the names, addresses, occupations and employers of at least 2.3 million people contributed
How an Online Mob Created a Playbook for a Culture WarThe New York Times The powerful lesson of a 5-year-old harassment campaign: How to wage a post-truth information war.
Opinion Give the F.T.C. Some Teeth to Guard Our PrivacyThe New York Times - By JESSICA RICHYou might think that after the Federal Trade Commission levied a $5 billion fine against Facebook for privacy violations relating to Cambridge Analytica, the agency has great power to protect our privacy
How Bodycams Distort Real LifeThe New York Times - By ALBERT FOX CAHNIt’s chilling to hear Tony Timpa’s words on a Dallas police officer’s bodycam recording because he was right. A few minutes after Mr. Timpa, 32, pleaded with the police for his life, it was over and his
Private Surveillance Is a Lethal Weapon Anybody Can BuyThe New York Times - By SHARON WEINBERGERThe plan was simple: Give the government of Uzbekistan the ability to monitor everyone’s communications. I first heard the story about five years ago from an American defense consultant. I had spoken him
Equifax Claims May Not Get You $125The New York Times - By CHARLIE WARZELEven during its public shaming, Equifax has found a way to rub it in the face of the tens of millions of people whose privacy it violated. Last week Equifax settled a lawsuit against the Federal Trade
Facebook A $5 Billion Fine for Facebook Won’t Fix PrivacyThe New York Times - By THE EDITORIAL BOARDThe Federal Trade Commission issued a $5 billion fine against Facebook on Wednesday. It’s an eye-popping number for sure, one that blows previous fines out of the water. It’s a number that makes for impressive
We Need a New Government Agency to Fight FacebookThe New York Times - By CHARLIE WARZELIn just the last month the Federal Trade Commission has brokered settlements with Facebook, Google and Equifax over data breaches and mishandling of consumer information. If you squint, it looks a bit
FaceApp Shows We Care About Privacy but Don’t Understand ItThe New York Times - By CHARLIE WARZELFaceApp, a mobile face-editing application, has all the necessary components for a viral privacy scandal: a catchy concept, celebrity users, a mysterious company and a stampede of public interest. Here’s
Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex WebsitesThe New York Times - By CHARLIE WARZELSilicon Valley’s biggest companies are always watching you — even when you’re browsing pornography websites in incognito mode. Trackers from tech companies like Google and Facebook are logging your most
Intel Executive: Rein In Data BrokersThe New York Times - By DAVID A. HOFFMANDid you know that your personal information is available online to anyone with $10? This isn’t some illegal, dark-web transaction. It’s a service provided by the online data-broker industry, which mines
Opinion The Racist History Behind Facial RecognitionThe New York Times - By SAHIL CHINOYResearchers recently learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement used facial recognition on millions of driver’s license photographs without the license-holders’ knowledge, the latest revelation governments
Google’s 4,000-Word Privacy Policy Is a Secret History of the InternetThe New York Times How a nascent search engine became a tech behemoth, one edit at a time.
The Worm That Nearly Ate the InternetThe New York Times - By MARK BOWDENJust over 10 years ago, a unique strain of malware blitzed the internet so rapidly that it shocked cybersecurity experts worldwide. Known as Conficker, it was and remains the most persistent computer ever
Stop Collecting Immigrants’ Social Media DataThe New York Times - By FAIZA PATELSince the 2016 election, Congress has woken up to the consequences of allowing social media companies to hold vast stores of information about hundreds of millions of users and use it for their own purposes.
What if All Your Slack Chats Were Leaked?The New York Times - By GENNIE GEBHARTSlack is one of many Silicon Valley unicorns going public this year, but it’s the only one that has admitted it is at risk for nation-state attacks. In the S-1 forms filed with the Securities and Exchange
A Major Police Body Cam Company Just Banned Facial RecognitionThe New York Times - By CHARLIE WARZELAxon, the company that supplies 47 out of the 69 largest police agencies in the United States with body cameras and software, announced Thursday that it will ban the use of facial recognition systems its
Queer Dating Apps Are Unsafe by DesignThe New York Times - By ARI EZRA WALDMANPete Buttigieg met his husband on a dating app called Hinge. And although that’s unique among presidential candidates, it’s not unique for Mr. Buttigieg’s generation — he’s 37 — or other members of the
Opinion | What if We All Just Sold Non-Creepy Advertising?The New York Times - By GABRIEL WEINBERGIt’s easy to see tech companies as a monolithic villain in the battle over consumer privacy. But in fact, there are countless tech companies, like mine, that believe that people have a fundamental right
I’m a Judge. Here’s How Surveillance Is Challenging Our Legal System.The New York Times - By JAMES ORENSTEINOn most weekdays in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, prosecutors will ask the magistrate judge on duty to issue lots of sealed orders authorizing them to use all sorts of investigative technologies
We Read 150 Privacy Policies. They Were an Incomprehensible Disaster.The New York Times The average policy took 18 minutes to read and required a college-level reading ability.
Want to See My Genes? Get a WarrantThe New York Times - By ELIZABETH JOHSomeone broke into a church in Centerville, Utah, last November and attacked the organist who was practicing there. In March, after a conventional investigation came up empty, a police detective turned
Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her MemoriesThe New York Times - By LESLIE BERLINSeveral days after my mother died in a car accident, my two sisters and I sat together in her apartment, stunned and overwhelmed. High on our horrible to-do list — along with retrieving her smashed vehicle
How Facial Recognition Makes You SaferThe New York Times - By JAMES O'NEILLIn 1983, when I was sworn in as a police officer, many of the routine tasks of the trade would have seemed more familiar to a cop from my grandfather’s day than to a new police academy graduate today.
Spying on Children Won’t Keep Them SafeThe New York Times - By JIM SHULTZLOCKPORT, N.Y. — I have a 16-year-old daughter, and like every parent in the United States today, I worry about her safety when she’s in school. But here in Western New York’s Lockport City School District,
Opinion | The Problem With ‘Sharenting’The New York Times - By ANYA KAMENETZParents this year were introduced to a goblin for the digital era: Momo, a bird-woman with an eerie grin who commanded the children who watched her videos on YouTube to harm themselves. The story turned
