Tag Archive for: surveillance

ACLU’s Jennifer Stisa Granick and Google’s Maddie Stone talk security and surveillance at Disrupt • TechCrunch

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In a world filled with bad actors and snooping governments, surveillance is the one factor that affects almost every business across the globe. While companies like Apple, Signal and LastPass fight against surveillance using end-to-end encryption and by shunning mass data collection — you can’t hand over data you don’t have — too many companies, big and small, remain unaware and deeply vulnerable to prying eyes.

The fast-changing surveillance landscape is why we’re thrilled that Jennifer Stisa Granick, ACLU’s surveillance and cybersecurity counsel, and Maddie Stone, a security researcher on Google’s Project Zero team, will join us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco.

In a panel discussion called “Surveillance in Startup Land,” Granick and Stone will join TechCrunch security editor Zack Whittaker to present a crash course on the surveillance state to inform, educate and inspire early-stage founders to think about how to protect their users and customers from threats they haven’t even thought of yet.

We’ll discuss the emerging threats today, like how spyware makers, like NSO Group, Cytrox and Candiru, which let governments secretly wiretap phones in real time, and data brokers — the companies that trade in people’s personal information and granular location — represent an ever increasing threat to privacy and civil liberties.

Surveillance isn’t just in the United States — it’s everywhere — and change can happen quickly and unexpectedly. Case in point: Fear over healthcare data tracking and privacy became a reality after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark legal case that guaranteed a person’s constitutional right to abortion.

The decisions that founders and investors make today can and will affect millions tomorrow. We can’t wait to hear our panelists weigh in on how companies should think about what they’re building now — and in the future — so they don’t inadvertently become extensions of the surveillance state.

Jennifer Stisa Granick fights for civil liberties in an age of massive surveillance and powerful digital technology. As the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel…

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Telegram founder says WhatsApp is a surveillance tool and users should stop using it  

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WhatsApp recently revealed “critical” rated security vulnerability affecting its Android app. Telegram founder Pavel Durov takes a dig at WhatsApp and asks users to stay away from the app.  

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Telegram founder Pavel Durov warns people about WhatsApp security threats. 
  • Telegram’s founder claims that WhatsApp will never be secure for users.  
  • WhatsApp has fixed the ‘critical’ security bug that puts Android phones at risk.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov called WhatsApp a “surveillance tool” and urged users to stay away from the Meta-owned instant messaging app. Highlighting the security issue disclosed by WhatsApp last month, Durov said that WhatsApp has been putting user data at risk. He urged people to use any other instant messaging app except WhatsApp.

“Hackers could have full access to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users,” he said in his Telegram message. He also claimed that WhatsApp has been keeping the users’ data under surveillance for the past 13 years. And that the security issues found on WhatsApp are actually intentionally planted. He also said that the “planted backdoors” enable governments, law enforcement, and hackers to get around encryption and other security measures.

Durov further said that “Every year we learn about some issue in WhatsApp that puts everything on their users’ devices at risk… It doesn’t matter if you are the richest person on Earth – if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, all your data from every app on your device is accessible.”

This is not the first time that Telegram founder has dragged WhatsApp for being prone to security issues. Earlier, Durov said that “WhatsApp will never be secure” unless the company makes some fundamental changes to it. But till then he advised people to stay away from the app to save their smartphones from being hacked.

Explaining the security and privacy features provided by Telegram, Durov said, “I’m not pushing people to switch to Telegram here… Telegram doesn’t need additional promotion.” He also said that Telegram follows the privacy-first approach to its instant messaging app. The app currently has more than 700 million active users and is reportedly recording steady growth with around 2…

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NSO surveillance rival operating in EU

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The European Union has begun to wake up to the threat posed by an out-of-control surveillance industry, with Israel’s notorious NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware in its crosshairs.

As European Parliament hearings into hacking scandals resume this week, an investigation led by collaborative newsroom Lighthouse Reports alongside EUobserver, Der Spiegel, Domani and Irpimedia reveals the unreported scale of operations at a shady European surveillance outfit, whose tools are in use all over the world, including in countries with a recent history of corruption and human rights violations.

  • The exterior of the Rome HQ (Photo: Lighthouse Reports)

Tykelab, a little-known company based in Italy, and its owner RCS Lab are quietly selling powerful surveillance tech inside and outside the EU, boasting that it can “track the movements of almost anybody who carries a mobile phone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent”.

The new investigation, based on confidential telecom data and industry sources, found the companies employing a range of tracking and hacking tools — including surreptitious phone network attacks and sophisticated spyware which gives full remote access to a mobile device — against targets in southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as inside Europe.

MEPs, telecom specialists and privacy experts have reacted with dismay to the revelations, describing them as a danger to rights and security, and calling on governments and industry to do more to regulate Europe’s spy firms.

“This is a story of a large spyware vendor abusing the rule of law, this time based within Europe,” MEP Sophie In ‘t Veld said. “It is high time that the entire spyware industry within the EU, which acts in a sort of twilight zone of legality, is regulated and sees the light of day. Limits have to be set, otherwise our democracy is broken.”

Edin Omanovic, advocacy director of the NGO Privacy International, said: “The threat posed by the mercenary spyware industry must now be clear to Brussels and European capitals: they need to take decisive action to protect networks, stop this trade and sanction companies complicit in abuses, as the US has already done.”

The…

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Is your employer watching you? Demand for employee surveillance software skyrockets

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Déjà Leonard is a copywriter and freelance journalist based in Calgary.

You log in to your work computer, coffee in hand, sweatpants on, ready to work. It’s just you, your tasks for the day and anyone else you might share a living space with – or is it?

According to a recent report from top10vpn.com, an internet security firm that reviews VPN services, the demand for employee surveillance software is up 59 per cent since the pandemic started.

While this may seem sinister to some, and unsurprising to others, the uptick in interest isn’t completely unwarranted. One study reveals that eight in 10 remote workers in the U.S. admit to slacking off during work hours, and more than 43 per cent admitted to visiting pornographic websites on their laptops.

The problem with surveillance software

“The rapid rise of such invasive software risks setting new standards of workplace surveillance and dramatically undermining employees’ right to privacy,” the top10vpn report states.

While privacy is a concern, when you dig deeper, the more prominent issue for both employers and employees may be withdrawal.

Research from behavioural Scientist suggests that when people know they are being monitored, the breakdown in trust can lead to disengagement, which ultimately, and somewhat ironically, leads to even less productivity.

The report shows two of the most popular software for monitoring employees included Hubstaff and FlexiSPY. Here’s a quick look at some of the features of these software.

Hubstaff
  • Screen monitoring
  • Keystroke logging (recording the keys struck on a keyboard)
  • Location tracking
  • Time tracking
FlexiSPY

Everything Hubstaff can do, plus:

  • Remote-control take over
  • Call tapping
  • Webcam surveillance
  • Instant messaging (IM) monitoring

How governments and people are taking action

In Canada, governments are starting to look at the issue. Recently, Ontario became the first province to require companies with more than 25 employees to disclose if and how they are being monitored electronically including through…

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