Tag: privacy

AT&T’s huge data breach

ssegraves

From TechCrunch —

U.S. phone giant AT&T confirmed Friday it will begin notifying millions of consumers about a fresh data breach that allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone records of “nearly all” of its customers, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.

 

Some of the stolen records include cell site identification numbers associated with phone calls and text messages, information that can be used to determine the approximate location of where a call was made or text message sent.

In all, the phone giant said it will notify around 110 million AT&T customers of the data breach, company spokesperson Andrea Huguely told TechCrunch.

It seems like Snowflake, a cloud based data analytics company, is the likely source of the breach. These types of breaches are becoming more and more common, with third parties who offer some sort of service, have poor or unchecked security practices. If you are an AT&T customer just keep an eye on your account and consider changing your password or passcode.

The hacking of culture

ssegraves

From Bruce Schneier and Kim Córdova —

Tech companies want us to believe that algorithmically determined content is effectively neutral: that it merely reflects the user’s behavior and tastes back at them. In 2021, Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote a post on the company’s blog entitled “Shedding More Light on How Instagram Works.” A similar window into TikTok’s functioning was provided by journalist Ben Smith in his article “How TikTok Reads Your Mind.” Both pieces boil down to roughly the same idea: “We use complicated math to give you more of what your behavior shows us you really like.”

 

Our digitized global economy has made us all participants in the international data trade, however reluctantly. Though we are aware of the privacy invasions and social costs of digital platforms, we nevertheless participate in these systems because we feel as though we have no alternative—which itself is partly the result of tech monopolies and the lack of competition.

 
It does feel like it’s nearly impossible to avoid some of the social media and digital platforms. I’ve managed to completely avoid TikTok but things like Instagram and Twitter I still check regularly, even though I would rather not. There’s definitely a FOMO element to it, but there is also a bit of empty time that these apps fill. Almost like a digital nicotine.