Security
As laid out in a new and eye-opening article on Motherboard, a number
of popular email apps ??? including one that can be found in a list of
top 100 Productivity apps ??? have been busy scraping user emails and
selling anonymized data to third parties.
It’s important to note: ALLEGEDLY anonymized. All claims that any
data set has actually been anonymized should be considered false until
overwhelming proof of this has been produced. Why? Because as we’ve
seen over and over and over again, anonymization is a much harder problem than it appears and nearly everyone gets it wrong. Thus all such claims are extraordinary and require correspondingly extraordinary proof.
How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades
Operation RUBICON THESAURUS
The secret purchase of Crypto AG by BND and CIA
https://www.cryptomuseum.com/intel/cia/rubicon.htm
Crypto AG was a Swiss company that sold crypto equipment from 1970 to
2018. Many countries including Iran (hostage crisis) and Argentina
(Falklands war) used its stuff. It was owned by the CIA and the
German BND.
A fair amount of this has come out before but this is the most
complete albeit somewhat breathless coverage I’ve seen.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/
Huge Survey of Firmware Finds No Security Gains in 15 Years
https://securityledger.com/2019/08/huge-survey-of-firmware-finds-no-security-gains-in-15-years/
Google has secret webpages that feed your personal data to advertisers, report says
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-has-secret-webpages-that-feed-your-personal-data-to-advertisers-report-says/