Security News for the Week Ending September 17, 2021
LA Police Collected Social Media Account Info From People They Talked To
I’m sure they were just curious. The LA police watchdog says that officers were instructed to collect civilians’ social media details when they interviewed them. An Email from the Chief dating back to 2015. He said it could be beneficial to investigations and possibly even future outreach programs. These are people who are neither arrested or cited. I am sure that using people’s email addresses for social outreach is far more effective than, say, Twitter, Facebook or even the 6:00 News. Not. For harassing and scaring people, yes. Credit: MSN
Germany Admits Police Used NSO Group Pegasus Spyware
Germany’s Federal Police admitted that they used the Pegasus Spyware, which can totally own a mobile phone and all the data on it, when testifying before Parliament. They said that some features were disabled due to German law. What features and how many people were not revealed. Likely they are not alone – they just got caught at it Credit: Security Week
Taliban and China Are Reportedly in Bed Together
China has reportedly sent its best (?) cyber spies to Kabul to help the Taliban hack land lines and mobile calls, monitor the Internet and mine social media. While all governments, including ours, does this, the Taliban is not likely to put any controls on what gets monitored. China has been, US intelligence sources say, wooing the Taliban for years getting ready for this. One can only assume that the Taliban will reciprocate, like by giving China access to stuff we left behind. CreditL Mirror
FTC Says Health Apps Must Notify Consumers About Breaches
The FTC warned apps and devices that collect personal health information that they must notify consumers if their data is breached in a 3-2 vote, with the two Republicans voting against it. This is designed to specifically address the gap that apps are not considered covered entities for the most part, hence they are not covered by HIPAA. The two Trump appointees who voted against it are not necessarily against having app makers tell users that their data has been compromised, but would prefer to drag the decision out for a few more years as the government does its normal bureaucratic rulemaking process. Credit: FTC
Cop Instructed to Play Loud Music to Disrupt Public Filming of Their Activities
Police – or at least some police – do not like being filmed while performing their job. One Illinois police department officially came up with an interesting tactic. While it doesn’t stop people from filming them, it MIGHT cause the videos to be taken down from social media, which seems to be the goal. When they detect someone filming them, they turn on copyrighted music to be included in the recording. Most social media have been sued enough that they have tech that detects at least popular copyrighted music and if detects it, it removes the post so they don’t get sued. I think it is pretty simple to distort the music a little bit so the filter won’t work while still allowing a listener to hear the interaction with the police. My guess is that if a case like this came to court over copyright, the court would rule in favor of the person filming, but we are talking about the law here, so who knows. Credit: Vice
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