Security News for the Week Ending October 29th, 2021
Smartphone Counterespionage Tips for Travellers
Most people say “who would be interested in me?” but the reality is that foreign governments track Americans for a variety of reasons, both good and bad. Read this article to find some tips that could keep you below the radar and your information safer.
Are Surveillance Cameras the Answer to Worker Productivity
ZDNet wrote a story this week about a boss who texted an employee at night about what the boss perceived was employee laziness. Apparently the boss was completely uninformed and when the employee pointed out what was really happening, the boss doubled down. The employee told the boss to take his job and shove it. That doesn’t mean that management should ignore what they think they see, but as we are seeing in this recovery after the pandemic shutdowns, employees seem a lot more empowered and your employees may tell you to shove it. Read the details here.
State Department Recreates Cybersecurity Effort After Trump Disbanded it
Cybersecurity will be a core part of the State Department’s mission with the new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Congress forced the issue by legally creating the department after Trump eliminated the position of cyber coordinator in State. State will also add 50% to it tech budget and new civil service positions. Credit: Dark Reading
Britain’s Privacy Commissioner Calls for More End to End Encryption
Britain’s privacy protection agency, the ICO, has called for video conferencing companies to implement end to end encryption at the same time that police and politicians are calling for the elimination of any secure end to end encryption. The ICO attempted to do some spin after the fact, but their statement still stands. Police say that having to get warrants to obtain information is inconvenient for them. This follows last year’s call by British, Canadian, Australian, Chinese, Swiss, Gibraltarian and Hong Kong data protection regulators also asking for end to end encryption. The police have vocally asked for a master decryption key because, of course, you can trust them. This week the master encryption key used to secure Covid passports in the EU was publicly exposed. Covid vaccine passports for Adolf Hitler and Mickey Mouse have been found and fake Covid passports signed with this key are now available on the web. Not to worry, if we give the thousands of police agencies access to these keys, I am sure this would never happen. Credit: The Register
Proton Wins Swiss Appeal Over Surveillance Rules
Weeks after Proton Mail was force to capture the IP address of a user after receiving a Swiss subpoena, they won a different court battle. Swiss courts had earlier ruled that companies like Whatsapp and Zoom were not Internet providers and did not have to maintain surveillance records of their users’ actions, but for some reason, the Swiss Post thinks that Proton does have to. The appeals court said no to that and remanded the case back to a lower court to “change their mind” so to speak. Credit: Cybernews
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