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March 12, 2015 Willemstad, Curaçao One of the largest telecommunications companies in the world is now offering a unique new ‘feature’. For “only” $29 per month, AT&T is promising customers of its new broadband service that it won’t track their search and browsing history. How magnanimous. First of all, privacy shouldn’t be a
February 20, 2015 Los Angeles, California File this under ‘you can’t make this stuff up.’ Lenovo Group, the largest computer manufacturer in the world, has made a rather stunning admission that they have been pre-installing tracking software on their PCs. The tracking software is made by a company called Superfish, which apparently paid
December 17, 2014 Castries, St. Lucia As he speculated on the ethics of society, Aristotle found himself naturally led to the study of politics. Putting together his observations, he wrote a treatise on political philosophy (cleverly entitled Politics), in which he describes how a tyrant abuses power for personal benefit at the expense
November 11, 2014 Santiago, Chile This past week Brazil announced that it will be building a 3,500-mile fiber-optic cable to Portugal in order to avoid the grip of the NSA. What’s more, they announced that not a penny of the $185 million expected to be spent on the project will go to American
March 26, 2014 Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile Every organization has a unique way of measuring its own success. Apple tracks very closely, for example, how many iPhones and iPads they sell. Facebook monitors how many total users they have. And for the brand new Cyber Crime Unit (CCU) of the IRS Criminal Investigative
February 24, 2014 Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile It’s like 34 drunken sailors holding each other up. That’s the best way I can think of to describe the latest product from the good idea factory that is the OECD. Over the weekend in yet another cushy five-star hotel, representatives from this unelected supranational bureaucracy
August 2, 2013 Trakai, Lithuania In any discussion about privacy, there’s invariably someone who says, “Well, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” What a bunch of baloney. This may be one of the most ignorant statements ever uttered yet it’s held by a wide majority of people who
July 31, 2013 Vilnius, Lithuania Seven minutes. That’s how long it would take to crack one of the passwords I had been using for more than ten years, according to the crypto experts at Silent Circle. Let’s be honest. A lot of people use the same password over and over again across multiple
June 24, 2013 Santiago, Chile On March 10, 1975, a group of US diplomatic and national security officials gathered at the office of the Turkish foreign minister’s office in Ankara. Henry Kissinger was among them. The discussion turned to foreign aid and supply of parts for military equipment, at which point Kissinger (Secretary
June 7, 2013 Maule Region, Chile For some, it’s hard to even fathom… as if the headlines were ripped from the Onion instead of Atlas Shrugged or 1984: NSA Is Wired Into Top Internet Companies’ Servers, Including Google and Facebook NSA reportedly collecting phone records of millions Former NSA head defends agency reportedly
We’ve discussed many times before—hardly a month goes by without some major action against Internet users… from Obama’s ‘kill switch’, to ACTA, SOPA and PIPA, to stasi tactics against people like Kim Dotcom. Online privacy is becoming more important by the day. And nobody is going to give it to you, you have
February 22, 2012 Santiago, Chile “[T]he more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.” Benito Mussolini Grand Fascist Council Report, 1929 When I was a kid, the morning announcements at my taxpayer-funded public school dragged on for a good 15 or 20 minutes. They
We all know that Google is in bed with the government… I suppose it’s nice that CEO Eric Schmidt is at least open about it. In a recent interview with CNBC, Schmidt effectively admits that Google archives everything about a user– web searches (google), email and contact lists (gmail), online office documents (google
Over the weekend in Vienna, I had the pleasure of dining with a very interesting gentleman (I’ll call him “Chris”) who is a subscriber and new inductee into the Atlas 400 club that I’ve mentioned before. Chris travels extensively, like me, and we discussed how many countries are quickly becoming police states. In
Sending an unsecured email is like shouting something across a crowded room… if you expect the information to be kept private that is probably one of the worst methods available. You might as well rent a billboard so everyone can see. The problem with the internet is that there are so many touch
