Information Privacy

CNET/H-P Suit: Good Personal Privacy v. Bad Personal Privacy VIolator

Your accountant can no longer sell your social security number to Russian hackers

Letters to the Editor

Week of June 11, 2003

Big Doctor Is Watching

As of April 14, the national security police can monitor your medical records without your knowledge. So can the local police.

The International Poindextering of Poindexter

Is it good or bad if 124 Web sites around the world post the home phone number of the architect of Total Information Awareness?

Letters to the Editor

Cyberspies; Fathers and Sons

I Have a Dream 2.0

New Seybold upgrade brings ethics, privacy, adulation, salvation via Internet

Cyperpornocopia

Milpitas residents Carleen and Robert Thomas found a lucrative way to sell the hardest of hardcorepornography to smut fans all over the country: by computer bulletin board. Then their little Silicon Valley startup attracted the interest of a U.S. Postal S

Russian Sergey Brin and Google: A KGB-style Propaganda and Spying Machine?

Milpitas residents Carleen and Robert Thomas found a lucrative way to sell the hardest of hardcorepornography to smut fans all over the country: by computer bulletin board. Then their little Silicon Valley startup attracted the interest of a U.S. Postal S

The Voice of the Mission

Milpitas residents Carleen and Robert Thomas found a lucrative way to sell the hardest of hardcorepornography to smut fans all over the country: by computer bulletin board. Then their little Silicon Valley startup attracted the interest of a U.S. Postal S

ACLU Launches Internet Privacy Campaign

Do you know your dotRights?Dot what?A portal to the soul​The American Civil Liberties Union's San Francisco-based Northern California office is launching a campaign to beef up Internet privacy. In a statement released today, the ACLU seeks to "spotlight the need to upgrade laws protecting consumer ... More >>

DJ, Party Guest Given Back Laptops Confiscated By Cops

SF Weekly's Jennifer Maerz earlier this month broke the story about an apparently far-reaching San Francisco Police strategy to keep that damn noise down. Cops, it seems, were systematically seizing the laptops of DJs playing at underground parties -- or, in some cases, even some who claim they were ... More >>

SFPD Returns Laptops to DJ, Party Guest (from The Snitch)

Tom Dougherty​Fellow SF Weekly reporter Joe Eskenazi followed up on the story I broke Nov. 16 about problems DJs and partygoers were having with the SFPD seizing laptops and DJ equipment. This morning, Electronic Frontier Foundation's Jennifer Granick represented a DJ and a partygoer from a SOMA H ... More >>

Hackers Take the Person Out of Personal

via flickr by ortizmj12hacker hoopla​Hackers: 1, Gaming Developers: 0Angry Internet users are suing a Redwood-City-based game developer, accusing the company of grossly neglecting to protect personal information of nearly 32 million users. Apparently, RockYou, which claims to be one of the "fastes ... More >>

Will Facebook Privacy Ties Wreck Chris Kelly's AG Campaign?

Chris Kelly claims he's not being private about his Chief Privacy Officer gig at Facebook​These days, touting the title "Chief Privacy Officer at Facebook" on one's resume must feel a bit like being the Head of Safety for BP or Lead Acting Instructor at the William Shatner School of Drama. Followi ... More >>

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Announces Privacy Reforms

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg​Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a raft of privacy reforms today at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto in an effort to stanch outrage from the social-networking site's users over public availability of their profile information. Zuckerberg said th ... More >>

Kamala Harris Calls AG Opponent Chris Kelly Liar, 'Rookie' in Latest Attack Ad

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has launched a new television ad attacking former Facebook executive Chris Kelly, her foremost adversary in the Democratic primary for the California Attorney General's race.In this latest bout of mud-slinging between Harris and Kelly, the D.A.'s campaig ... More >>

Nina Draws the Truth

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has launched a new television ad attacking former Facebook executive Chris Kelly, her foremost adversary in the Democratic primary for the California Attorney General's race.In this latest bout of mud-slinging between Harris and Kelly, the D.A.'s campaig ... More >>

Has the Android Data-Stealing Scandal Been Overcooked?

Are Android phones like this stealing your personal information?​The tech world has been buzzing with news that a San Francisco firm, Lookout Mobile Security, has discovered that wallpaper applications used by millions of phones with Google's Android operating system send subscribers' information ... More >>

Department of Homeland Security Sued Over Secret Traveller Files

Matt SmithWe'll collect all this personal information, y'see. And then we'll make a giant database...​San Francisco travel writer Edward Hasbrouck has sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over what he says is the agency's refusal to give a complete accounting of secret files detailing his ... More >>

Travel writer Edward Hasbrouck sues Homeland Security over travel data

Matt SmithWe'll collect all this personal information, y'see. And then we'll make a giant database...​San Francisco travel writer Edward Hasbrouck has sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over what he says is the agency's refusal to give a complete accounting of secret files detailing his ... More >>

Wikileaks Supporters Rally in San Francisco

Gil RiegoRainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation speaks in support of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning​ Martin MacKerel wanted to make sure no one got confused about the location of a hastily organized rally in favor of Wikileaks and its founder, Jullian Assange. Around 50 demon ... More >>

Apple Sued for Privacy Invasion -- Again

What does he know about you?​The number of iPad and iPhone users that claim Apple has passed around their private information is growing by the day.In December, two separate groups of iPad and iPhone users sued Apple, Inc., claiming the company had created apps that distributed personal informatio ... More >>

GameStop Sued for Swiping Buyers' Private Information

Personal information is....personal​The thing about giving away your personal information -- it's no longer personal. One Alameda County woman trusted a local GameStop employee who had asked her for her private numbers -- address and credit cards -- as she bought games from the retailer.  She ... More >>

Don't Panic

Personal information is....personal​The thing about giving away your personal information -- it's no longer personal. One Alameda County woman trusted a local GameStop employee who had asked her for her private numbers -- address and credit cards -- as she bought games from the retailer.  She ... More >>

Reroute Your Commute, More BART Protests to Come

Michael ShortAll Anonymous all the time​Protesters are planning yet another BART demonstration next week that will undoubtedly ruin your commute home -- again. The group claiming responsibility for the organized protests, Anonymous, is using Twitter to spread the word of the upcoming protest on Mo ... More >>

Copyright Fight the Subject of Juvenile Flamewars

​To the uninitiated, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce might sound like a larger version of local chambers of commerce: something like the Elks or the Rotary Club, where dull businesspeople get together for dull meetings to eat rubber chicken and to "network." But the U.S. Chamber is the largest lobb ... More >>

Judge Grants Feds Access to Twitter Accounts as Part of WikiLeaks Investigation

Only you and the government know your passwords​In a major blow to Internet privacy, a district court judge ruled today that federal investigators were allowed to collect private records of three Twitter users as part of their investigation related to WikiLeaks.According to the Electronic Frontier ... More >>

Wikipedia: Should it Go Dark to Protest the Stop Online Privacy Act?

​Should Wikipedia shut itself down to protest the bizarrely clueless anti-piracy measures Congress is considering? As with many things about Wikipedia (such as whether an encyclopedia that anybody can edit is a good idea), it's not an easy question to answer. Would it even be effective? It's har ... More >>

Shawn Williams, Former City Employee, Accused of Stealing Personal Information

Doing your job is the surest way to prove you are a productive worker ​A former Human Services Agency employee appeared in court Tuesday afternoon where she pleaded not guilty to multiple charges claiming she stole Social Security and other confidential information from more than 3,000 Medi-Cal ap ... More >>