Privacy Archives

Weighing the Impact of GDPR

Communications of the ACM, November 2018
By Samuel Greengard

“When the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018, it represented the most sweeping effort yet to oversee the way businesses collect and manage consumer data. The law, established to create consistent data standards and protect EU citizens from potential privacy abuses, sent ripples—if not tidal waves—across the world.”

Articles / CyberSecurity

Deception, Identity, and Security: The Game Theory of Sybil Attacks

Communications of the ACM, January 2019
By William Casey, Ansgar Kellner, et al.

“Along with the low cost of minting and maintaining identities, a lack of constraints on using identities is a primary factor that facilitates adversarial innovations that rely on deception. With these factors in mind, we study the following problem: Will it be possible to engineer a decentralized system that can enforce honest usage of identity via mutual challenges and costly consequences when challenges fail?”

Articles / CyberSecurity

The End of Encryption? NSA & FBI Seek New Backdoors Against Advice from Leading Security Experts

Democracy Now!, July 8, 2015
By Juan González & Amy Goodman
Guest: Bruce Schneier

“FBI Director James Comey is set to testify against encryption before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, as the United States and Britain push for “exceptional access” to encrypted communications. Encryption refers to the scrambling of communications so they cannot be read without the correct key or password. The FBI and GCHQ have said they need access to encrypted communications to track criminals and terrorists. Fourteen of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers, computer scientists and security specialists have issued a paper arguing there is no way to allow the government such access without endangering all confidential data, as well as the broader communications infrastructure. We speak with one of the authors of the paper, leading security technologist Bruce Schneier..”

Articles / Computing & Technology

What Went Wrong? Facebook and ‘Sharing’ Data with Cambridge Analytica

Communications of the ACM, June 2018
By Susan Landau

“The road to the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal is strewn with failures. There’s the failure to protect users’ privacy, the failure to protect voters, and the failure to uncover the actions and violations of laws that may well have affected the Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election.”

CyberSecurity / Books, Reports, Films & Images

Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe

“The New York Times bestseller about a noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who wakes up to the serious damage Facebook is doing to our society – and sets out to try to stop it. “

Roger McNamee has been a Silicon Valley investor for 35 years. He co-founded successful funds in venture, crossover and private equity. His most recent fund, Elevation, included U2’s Bono as a co-founder. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and…

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screener uses a biometric facial recognition scanner on a traveler at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Computing & Technology / Articles

Being Recognized Everywhere

Communications of the ACM, February 2019
By Logan Kugler

“A core challenge for democratic governments will be continued adherence to the rule of law, where restrictions on individual liberty that flow from use of this technology must be justified by necessity, legitimate purpose, and use of the least restrictive means available.”

Computing & Technology / Articles

2018: A Big Year for Privacy

Communications of the ACM, February 2019
By Carl Landwher

“Innovation has its downside and loss of privacy is not easy to remedy. “

A view of the F.B.I. National Crime Information Center in Washington in 1967. In the 1960s, lawmakers began to question the government’s gathering of Americans’ data. Photo: Bettmann, via Getty Images

Computing & Technology / Articles

The End of Privacy Began in the 1960s

The New York Times, Dec. 5, 2018
Opinion by Margaret O’Mara

“In the fall of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson’s administration announced a plan to consolidate hundreds of federal databases into one centralized National Data Bank. It was meant as an efficiency move to make the Great Society even greater.”

Web Resources

Duck Duck Go – Search Engine

“We’re setting the new standard of trust online, empowering people to take control of their information. Search privately. What you search for is your own business. Switch to the search engine that doesn’t track you.”