US Congress Sells Out

Ladies and Gentlemen, Girls and Boys: Behold the list of both United States Senators and United States House of Representatives that voted to sell out your personal information while online (i.e., your precious online privacy) for monetary gain.

Each surname noted below, possesses a link to that Senator or Representative's contact page, to make it super-easy to let them know what you think. Oh, and for you parents/grandparents, gaurdians this includes all data requests coming from your home, i.e., your children's' data will also be swept up in this nightmare maelstrom example of the surveillance state. Enjoy

Senate of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA

YEA -- 50

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 115th Congress - 1st Session

Question: On the Joint Resolution (S.J. Res. 34 )

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Capito (R-WV)
Cassidy (R-LA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Cotton (R-AR)
Crapo (R-ID)
Cruz (R-TX)
Daines (R-MT)
Enzi (R-WY)
Ernst (R-IA)
Fischer (R-NE)
Flake (R-AZ)
Gardner (R-CO)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kennedy (R-LA)
Lankford (R-OK)
Lee (R-UT)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Perdue (R-GA)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Scott (R-SC)
Shelby (R-AL)
Strange (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Tillis (R-NC)
Toomey (R-PA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Young (R-IN)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

YEA -- 215

Abraham (R-LA)
Aderholt (R-AL)
Allen (R-GA)
Amodei (R-NV)
Arrington (R-TX)
Babin (R-TX)
Bacon (R-NE)
Banks (R-IN)
Barletta (R-PA)
Barr (R-KY)
Barton (R-TX)
Bergman (R-MI)
Biggs (R-AZ)
Bilirakis (R-FL)
Bishop (R-MI)
Bishop (R-UT)
Black (R-TN)
Blackburn (R-KY)
Blum (R-IA)
Bost (R-IL)
Brady (R-TX)
Brat (R-VA)
Bridenstine (R-OK)
Brooks (R-IN)
Buchanan (R-FL)
Buck (R-CO)
Bucshon (R-IN)
Budd (R-NC)
Burgess (R-TX)
Byrne (R-AL)
Calvert (R-CA)
Carter (R-GA)
Carter (R-TX)
Chabot (R-OH)
Chaffetz (R-UT)
Cheney (R-WY)
Cole (R-OK)
Collins (R-GA)
Collins (R-NY)
Comer (R-KY)
Comstock (R-VA)
Conaway (R-TX)
Cook (R-CA)
Costello (R-PA)
Cramer (R-ND)
Crawford (R-AR)
Culberson (R-TX)
Curbelo (R-FL)
Davis (R-IL)
Denham (R-CA)
Dent (R-PA)
DeSantis (R-FL)
DesJarlais (R-TN)
Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
Donovan (R-NY)
Duncan (R-SC)
Dunn (R-FL)
Emmer (R-MN)
Farenthold (R-TX)
Ferguson (R-GA)
Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
Fleischmann (R-TN)
Flores (R-TX)
Fortenberry (R-NE)
Foxx (R-NC)
Franks (R-AZ)
Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
Gaetz (R-FL)
Gallagher (R-WI)
Garrett (R-VA)
Gibbs (R-OH)
Gohmert (R-TX)
Goodlatte (R-VA)
Gosar (R-AZ)
Gowdy (R-SC)
Granger (R-TX)
Graves (R-GA)
Graves (R-LA)
Graves (R-MO)
Griffith (R-VA)
Grothman (R-WI)
Guthrie (R-KY)
Harper (R-MS)
Harris (R-MD)
Hartzler (R-MO)
Hensarling (R-TX)
Hice (R-GA)
Higgins (R-LA)
Holding (R-NC)
Hollingsworth (R-IN)
Hudson (R-NC)
Huizenga (R-MI)
Hultgren (R-IL)
Hunter (R-CA)
Hurd (R-TX)
Issa (R-CA)
Jenkins (R-KS)
Jenkins (R-WV)
Johnson (R-LA)
Johnson (R-OH)
Johnson (R-TX)
Jordan (R-OH)
Joyce (R-OH)
Katko (R-NY)
Kelly (R-MS)
Kelly (R-PA)
King (R-IA)
King (R-NY)
Kinzinger (R-IL)
Knight (R-CA)
Kustoff (R-TN)
Labrador (R-ID)
LaHood (R-IL)
LaMalfa (R-CA)
Lamborn (R-CO)
Lance (R-NJ)
Latta (R-OH)
Lewis (R-MN)
LoBiondo (R-NJ)
Long (R-MO)
Loudermilk (R-GA)
Love (R-UT)
Lucas (R-OK)
Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
MacArthur (R-NJ)
Marchant (R-TX)
Marshall (R-KA)
Massie (R-KY)
Mast (R-FL)
McCarthy (R-CA)
McCaul (R-TX)
McHenry (R-NC)
McKinley (R-WV)
McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
McSally (R-AZ)
Meadows (R-NC)
Meehan (R-PA)
Messer (R-IN)
Mitchell (R-MI)
Moolenaar (R-MI)
Mooney (R-WV)
Mullin (R-OK)
Murphy (R-PA)
Newhouse (R-WA)
Noem (R-SD)
Nunes (R-CA)
Olson (R-TX)
Palazzo (R-MS)
Palmer (R-AL)
Paulsen (R-MN)
Pearce (R-NM)
Perry (R-PA)
Poe (R-TX)
Poliquin (R-ME)
Posey (R-FL)
Ratcliffe (R-TX)
Reed (R-NY)
Renacci (R-OH)
Rice (R-SC)
Roby (R-AL)
Roe (R-TN)
Rogers (R-AL)
Rogers (R-KY)
Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Rokita (R-IN)
Rooney (R-FL)
Roskam (R-IL)
Ross (R-FL)
Rothfus (R-PA)
Rouzer (R-NC)
Royce (R-CA)
Russell (R-OK)
Rutherford (R-FL)
Scalise (R-LA)
Schweikert (R-AZ)
Scott (R-GA)
Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Sessions (R-TX)
Shimkus (R-IL)
Shuster (PA-IL)
Smith (R-MO)
Smith (R-NE)
Smith (R-NJ)
Smith (R-TX)
Smucker (R-PA)
Stewart (R-UT)
Stivers (R-OH)
Taylor (R-VA)
Tenney (R-NY)
Thompson (R-PA)
Thornberry (R-TX)
Tiberi (R-OH)
Tipton (R-CO)
Trott (R-MI)
Turner (R-OH)
Upton (R-MI)
Valadao (R-CA)
Wagner (R-MO)
Walberg (R-MI)
Walden (R-OR)
Walker (R-NC)
Walorski (R-IN)
Walters (R-CA)
Weber (R-TX)
Webster (R-FL)
Wenstrup (R-OH)
Westerman (R-AR)
Williams (R-TX)
Wilson (R-SC)
Wittman (R-VA)
Womack (R-AR)
Woodall (R-GA)
Yoho (R-FL)
Young (R-AK)
Young (R-IA)

Self-Healing Endpoint

Apparently, this product is now embedded in a wide range of devices (ranging from Apple Inc. to Dell Computers and more). I do architect & advise end-point security efforts in my work (agnostic that I am - I do not recommend individual products), but certainly not an embedded product in BIOS or EFI. Could it be rightly called 'The Self-Healing Endpoint of Privacy'? Has a meme been created? You be the judge - Me?, I'm going back to paper and pencil, air-gapped (of course - dammit, air-gaps are no guaranty of secure platforms either...). What to do. Tip o' the Hat.

ACM CFP - CODASPY 2017 →

General Chair for the Organizing Committe of the ACM Conference on Data and Appilication Security and Privacy - Gail-Joon Ahn - has issued a Call for Participation for the Confab. Slated for March 22, 2017 through and inclusive of March 24, 2017. THis is sure to be an outstanding conference, with both two outstanding keynotes (which can be found here: http://www.codaspy.org/keynotes/.

Organizing Committee:

• General Chair: Gail-Joon Ahn, Arizona State University
• Program Co-Chairs: Gabriel Ghinita, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Alexander Pretschner, Technische Universität München
• Industry Track Chair: Elisa Bertino, Purdue University
• Poster Chair: Jaehong Park, University of Alabama in Huntsville
• Panel Chair: Adam Doupe, Arizona State University
• Proceedings Chairs: Martin Ochoa, Singapore University of Tech. and Design and Hongxin Hu, Clemson University
• Publicity and Web Chair: Ram Krishnan, UT San Antonio
• Workshop Chair: Adam Lee, University of Pittsburgh
• Local Chair: Ziming Zhao, Arizona State University
• Organization Chairs: Kristina Nelson, Arizona State University and
• Melissa Pagnozzi, Arizona State University
• Steering Committee: Ravi Sandhu, UT San Antonio (Co-Chair), Elisa Bertino, Purdue University (Co-Chair), Alexander Pretschner, Technische Universität München and Gail-Joon Ahn, Arizona State University

Anon, Maiden Fair... →

via the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), comes this important privacy-and-web-browsing-related press release wordsmithed by John Sullivan of Princeton, with the specific report by Arvind Narayanan, Ph.D., Professor of Computer Science, Princeton University, and Sharad Goel, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor at Stanford University, and others.

"Given a history with 30 links originating from Twitter, we can deduce the corresponding Twitter profile more than 50 percent of the time," the researchers note. "All the evidence we have seen piling up over the years showing the strong limits of data anonymization, including this study, really emphasizes the need to rethink our approach to privacy and data protection in the age of big data..." - via Sharad Goel, an Assistant Professor at Stanford University and an Author of the Study.

Retailers Begin Physical Customer Tracking →

Tracking, that is, with the assistance of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), that benevolent arbiter of all things computational... El Reg has conveniently provided a FAQ (direct from the chip fabricator) in their superlatively reported post. Today's Must Read.

Microsoft Begins Selling Windows 10 Telemetry →

News, of Microsoft Corporation (NasdaqGS: MSFT) selling of customer telemetry on Windows 10 has come to light via Martin Kauffman on GHacks. Martin superlatively details the phenomenal audacity of Microsoft in the matter of selling usage information; and, while not surprising, just another indicator of the onerous feet-of-clay syndrome now evident in Redmond. Oh, and by-the-way, the data being shared is with a security firm, simply astounding. As always, you be the judge.

Web of Trust, Not So Trustworthy After All →

Apparently, WOT is now a three letter acronym for Feet of Clay...

Burners, The Tightening

Well wrought thought piece on the use, and misuse, of prepaid cellular telephony hardware, the so-call Burner, and the effort to enforce regulations thereto. Entitled Burner Phones: Will Tightening Restrictions on Prepaid Cell Phones Solve Anything? Certainly today's Must Read post...

Purdue's CERIAS - Big Data Security and Privacy →

191 Million

Thomas Fox-Brewster, writing at Forbes, regales us with the latest display of the demise of privacy: The formerly private records of 191,000,000 United States citizen's voting data, apparently yearning to be free, was granted it's wish and published in an on-line database of reportedly unknown origins... Available for consumption on our beloved interwebs. Astounding.

License Plate Tracking Open Sourced →

Michael Byrne, writing at Vice's Motherboard, details the Open Sourcing of License Plate Tracking bits...

OpenALPR works well and fast, at least judging by the demo. It's also legal for the most part. As EFF lawyer Jennifer Lynch tells Ars Technica, "While a handful of states have passed laws explicitly restricting private citizens and companies from using ALPR technology, outside of those states, there is not much in the law that would prevent someone from using the technology unless its use rises to the level of stalking or harassment. License plates are exposed to public view, and ALPR companies like Vigilant consistently argue they have a First Amendment right to photograph plates and retain the data they collect." - via Michael Byrne, writing at Vice's Motherboard

X Device Tracking, The Invasion

via Martin Brinkmann, writing at ghacks, comes this sordid tale of advertising most foul...

Mozilla Privacy Fix, Too Late?

The always erudite Richi Jennings, writing at Computerworld expounds on the apparent longevity (or not) of Mozilla Foundations' Firefox web browser, and the privacy quotient, thereto. Today's Must Read.

Microsoft Phones Home →

In a well researched and written piece, Chris Hoffman, writing at How-To Geek, reveals at least thirty methods of data collection Microsoft Coporation (NasdsaqGS: MSFT) uses within Windows 10, violating any rational persons' sense of privacy. Is it time for the Federal Trade Commission to step in and investigate this travesty? You be the judge (after all, it's your privacy that's being violated).

Will The Real McCoy Please Stand Up?

via CEPro's Julie Jacobson, comes the tale of one company, with two long tails... With published plans for only one, that is. Vizio, the well known television manfuacturer seen so often in membership wholesale club stores, is going public, and divulging the true nature of it's business, originally founded in 2002. in Irvine, California.

However, in the documents germaine to that IPO, is a secret, and not one well kept, I might add. In this case, the real business of the company is not, in reality, TV sets, speakers, soundbars and the like, but data mining of it's customer's behaviors through those purchased systems.

'Vizio isn’t really luring investors with promises of really good TVs. That prospect is buried in its plans to deliver customer data, monitoring tools and e-commerce platforms to advertisers and online resellers. The core mission, as stated in Vizio’s filing, reads, “VIZIO’s mission is to deliver the ultimate entertainment experience through our community of connected consumers, advertisers and media content providers.”' - via CEPro's Julie Jacobson