Scammers using hijacked GoDaddy domains to launch large-scale spam campaigns
GoDaddy took steps in January, 2019 to address the authentication flaw exploited by the attackers, according to Brian Krebs. Krebs first reported on the authentication weakness on January 22nd, when he outlined two massive spam campaigns during 2018 that were very successful at getting into people’s inboxes. Their success was due to the fact that the emails were sent through trusted but dormant domains, many of which were registered and owned by Fortune 500 companies.
Anti-spam researcher Ron Guilmette discovered that nearly all of these domains had used GoDaddy’s DNS service at some point. The scammers had realized that they could add domains to their GoDaddy accounts without proving that they owned the domains. GoDaddy quickly addressed the ... Read More
Oath fined $4.95 Million for violating Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”)
In December, 2018, the New York State Attorney General announced a $4.95 million settlement with Oath Inc., the result of an investigation into Oath's violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).
The NYAG found that Oath’s ad exchanges transferred persistent identifiers and geolocation from website users to DSP bidders in its automated auction process. While that may be fine for websites directed to grown-up audiences, COPPA includes persistent identifiers and geolocation in its definition of “personal information.” And under the law, companies must obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting or using children’s personal information.
But instead of seeking verifiable parental consent, Oath treated all websites (and therefore all user information) the same, despite knowledge that some ... Read More
COVID-19 private health information will no longer be private
A recent update on both iPhones and Droid phones allows our phones to publish our COVID-19 private health information (PII). Some of us may not even know this is happening. Here’s how to find out if your phone is.
On an iPhone, choose Settings > Privacy > Health and you get a screen with COVID-19 Exposure Logging near the top.
COVID-19 Exposure Logging is currently off. “Why the worry Mark,” you may ask. The worry is because I did not intentionally add this functionality. It appeared one day. I do not have an app to transmit data yet. However, I am nervous that a future iOS update will include a surprise app that will transmit this information and worse, ... Read More
Coronavirus coverage increases ratings
Coronavirus dominates our lives and our consciousness. So much so that we stop what we are doing to watch network news every day. It has returned to being a mandatory part of our lives. A local TV news station anchor began the broadcast with “And now the latest Coronavirus news.” It seems we cannot get enough news, even when the news is not really news anymore. It is just an update of what we already know.
Higher ratings
The news networks are benefiting from Coronavirus. They are enjoying increased viewership, which in turn produces higher ratings which in turn generates increased advertising revenue. I’m sure you get the picture. For the second quarter of 2020, all major news networks saw increased ratings. https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/cable-news-networks-tucker-carlson-tv-ratings-1234694846/ says ... Read More
Covid-19 coverage increases ratings
Covid-19 dominates our lives and our consciousness. So much so that we stop what we are doing to watch network news every day. It has returned to being a mandatory part of our lives. A local TV news station anchor began the broadcast with “And now the latest Covid-19 news.” It seems we cannot get enough news, even when the news is not really news anymore. It is just an update of what we already know.
Higher ratings
The news networks are benefiting from Covid-19. They are enjoying increased viewership, which in turn produces higher ratings which in turn generates increased advertising revenue. I’m sure you get the picture. For the second quarter of 2020, all major news networks saw increased ratings. https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/cable-news-networks-tucker-carlson-tv-ratings-1234694846/ says ... Read More