Facebook Tracks You Even After Logging Out
Sometimes you’re being followed when you think you’re alone. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
An Australian technologist has caused a global stir after discovering Facebook tracks the websites its users visit even when they are logged out of the social networking site.
In alarming new revelations, Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic conducted tests, which revealed that when you log out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify you.
Whenever you visit a web page that contains a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending details of your movements back to Facebook, Cubrilovic says.
“Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit,” Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.
He backed up his claims with detailed technical information. His post was picked up by technology news sites around the world but…
Germany Makes Facebook “Like” Button Illegal
“Websites in Schleswig-Holstein must remove their Facebook Like button by the end of September 2011 or they will face a fine of up to €50,000 ($72,000).”
Northern Germany has announced that the Like button, with its ability to track a user’s movement across the internet, violates German and European privacy law. But without tracking plugins, how will corporations and advertisers record our activities and interests, so that they can better serve and satisfy? Via ZDNet:
Commissioner Thilo Weichert, of the Independent Center for Privacy Protection, said the social network’s “Like button” plugin illegally puts together a profile of their Web habits.
The ULD said if you visit Facebook.com or use a Facebook plugin such as the Like button, you should expect to be tracked by the company for two years: Facebook allegedly builds a broad profile for individuals not on the service as well as a more personalized profile for its members.
Traffic and…
The Death of Privacy with Steve Rambam – Right Where you are Sitting Now
Right Where You are Sitting Now – Episode 40 – The Death of Privacy with Steve Rambam
iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
This week we talk to private investigator, and head of Pallorium Inc, Steve Rambam. Steve is famous in the hacker community for his enlightening lectures on the death of privacy.
In this weeks episode we discuss: The death of privacy, smartphones: The little snitch in your pocket, The cavalier use of your data, how to (or not) avoid detection in the age of the Internet, why Foursquare is a really bad idea (see, we told you) and much more.
Steve’s fantastic talk, ‘Privacy is Dead – Get Over It’, is available over at Google Videos – Part 1, Part 2.
Steve Rambam Bio:
Steven Rambam is a private investigator operating out of New York and Texas. He has conducted several thousand missing-person searches over almost three decades. Steven is well known in the hacker community…
Cybershark Feeding Frenzy
An article (largely inspired by Disinfo posts—thank you) that contextualizes recent developments in an increasingly nosey society, published by Taki’s Magazine:
The perverse coupling of surveillance and exhibitionism forms a cornerstone of American technocracy. Most Americans, be they liberals or libertarians, are unnerved by government agents, corporate data-miners, or high-tech Peeping Toms probing their personal details. And yet invasive, weirdly intimate technologies multiply like digital cockroaches, all but devouring the expectation of privacy taken for granted only a generation ago. Progress is simply too en vogue to resist.
Reality television brings a glamorous air to perpetual surveillance. The genre has enjoyed immense popularity over the last decade—comprising nearly a fifth of new broadcast programs this season—with cameramen poking into American life’s every facet. From moneyed luxury’s heights to the working-class struggle’s dregs, everyone’s in line for their 15 minutes of fame.
Consequently, the art of living on film is continually refined. But the recent success of…
