Category: Privacy Alert

Imagine you walk into your baby’s room, and discover that a complete stranger, an evil hacker even, is calling your newborn a “slut”. That’s exactly what happened to Marc Gilbert. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/terrifying-search-engine-finds-internet-143500735.html A new search engine can expose, and ultimately protect, devices that are connected to the internet: http://www.shodanhq.com/ Gilbert’s baby monitor was connected to the internet and was hacked by a…

On this sad day in our nations history… I just wanted to send a quick note to say ‘thank you’… Thank you for protecting your right to privacy… Thank you for allowing me to help you… Thank you for caring about our country… Thank you for standing up for what you believe… Thank you for…

I wanted to send a quick note with a free resource that was sent to me by a friend this week. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a terrific guide to protecting yourself from TSA agents and Federal agents while traveling. Most people don’t know that a TSA agent can demand to search your phone or laptop at a…

To delete or not to delete? That is the question. Admittedly, that’s an awkward paraphrase of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet when he famously asked: “To be or not to be? That is the question.” But, given the continuing revelations of the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans – including violating the NSA’a own lax privacy rules…

If there’s one common trait that gets us all in trouble when it comes to our security, it’s overconfidence. We become so certain that our homes, businesses, computers and physical well-being are secure – because we’ve taken steps to create that security – we overlook potential security breaches that are right in front of our…

A friend emailed this to me this week.  This needs your attention right away, because even you don’t have a smart phone, I bet you have loved ones or friends that do. And anyone who has a smartphone has pictures.  This news story shows how easily someone can tell exactly where you just took and posted a picture:…

I wanted to send a quick note to those folks who think having an open wifi network is not big deal. In this case, it nearly cost a family their life and freedom. Someone logged into their wifi system and then put threatening statements about the police department online. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/swat-team-throws-flashbangs-raids-wrong-home-due-to-open-wifi-network/ The police took the threats…

Looking through my inbox in the last few weeks I have come across some a really sneaky trick that spammers are using to try to get you to install malware on your computer. This one is especially tricky because it looks like something you really need.  It probably looks something like this: Name on Refill: Chris PetersonBilling and Shipping Address:…

We get a lot of questions about using credit cards and ordering online.  People want to know if its safe, and  quite a few people call us saying they never put their credit card online. As with most things related to privacy, there’s not a simple answer.  But here’s one thing that would probably surprise…

We received a user question this week:   How do you keep your smart phone from being tracked? – Andre E.   Great question, Andre.  This is the probably the issue that changes fastest, and we are in the process of updating the Patriot Privacy Kit with this information as we speak.  Here are some…