I just published a short piece in the F-T in the wake of legal threats against users who tweeted or retweeted a link to a BBC report of child abuse that turned out to be wrong.  Here’s the full text — Those who didn’t see the false child abuse accusations against Lord Alistair McAlpine on […]

Smartphone tracking data. Two researchers reported last month that Apple has been storing time-stamped location information on users’ iOS devices since June. An unencrypted file with these data is saved onto a user’s computer each time she syncs her device with it, as well. Apple appears to have good reasons for collecting the location information, […]

In the past month we’ve seen two countries try to “turn off” the Internet. On January 27, in Egypt, which had previously known few restrictions on Internet access (though, to be sure, intimidation of bloggers and activists was common), nearly all ISPs stopped delivering bits to their subscribers, even though data transiting Egypt from the […]

Google calls out Facebook. Last month, Facebook added an information download feature that made users’ data portable. But there was one big exception. A user could download any content that he had uploaded or created — photos, wall posts, messages, etc.; however, he could only get a list of his friends, no contact information that […]

iPad security breach. Even closed systems can be vulnerable to exploitation.  A group of high-profile iPad owners, including President Obama’s Chief of Staff among 114,000 others, had their email addresses exposed by a web security group.  Although it was AT&T’s network that was compromised, Apple is shouldering much of the blame, since it denies iPad […]

Google launches Government Requests tool. Google is now making public information on the requests it receives from government agents to remove content from its search results or reveal private user data. The Government Requests tool currently displays the number and type of requests by country for the last six months of 2009. In a bit […]

On April 3, an Adobe technical project manager demonstrated that Adobe’s new Air software could be used to develop across platforms—he created a Reversi game app that runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows 7, Ubuntu, and OS X (see potential caveats in comments here). Cool! As JZ said, via email, “if this is really possible, […]

Did you know… -Prof. Z was elected to the Internet Society’s board of trustees for a three-year term. The Internet Society is an international nonprofit organisation founded in 1992 to “provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy.” – For those who missed it, the audio of the interview featured on WNPR (April 30) […]

March 29: 60 Minutes features the story, “The Conficker Worm: What Happens Next?” and posts two video interview with Prof. Z online: “Is the Internet in Trouble?” and “30 Percent Infected?” April 7: The Harvard Law School News reports on Prof.Z’s talk at the Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center’s 20th Anniversary Technical Symposium at […]

I never tire of listening to Prof. Z and am probably not the only one. For those who were unable to attend any of his classes, panels, and lectures in the past few weeks, several audio interviews are available on the Internet (where else?). * On NPR’s On the Media, Prof. Z talks about the […]