Privacy

 In the previous video in our how-to series, Securing Facebook, we reported that the social networking giant was rapidly approaching one billion active users. Facebook has since surpassed that mark. Considering that, we produced a video detailing and explaining how to implement some simple, built-in features on the world’s largest social network that should help keep your profiles as private as possible. 

The security of social networks and the people who use them every day has become a serious concern for enterprises and consumers alike. Millions of people rely on networks such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate and connect with friends and colleagues and attacks against the networks themselves and the users on them undermines some of the trust people place in them. Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, recently answered questions on the security concerns surrounding social media and what people can do to protect themselves on these networks.

The Tor Project has fixed a flaw in its anonymization and privacy software that leaked information from memory on some machines running Tor that could give an attacker access to sensitive information stored in the cache. The issue was caused by the way that some compilers handle a specific function in the Tor client.

Nearly two years after other browser vendors implemented it, Google on Tuesday finally released a version of Chrome that supports the Do Not Track functionality that helps users prevent Web sites from following their movements around the Web. Google’s move to include the technology is a response to discussions with the White House earlier this year around privacy.

Mozilla is adding an extra layer of security in its Firefox browser by implementing HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), a mechanism that will force some sites into establishing a secure, HTTPS connection with the browser if its presented with the right certificate.

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced a crackdown on mobile application developers and companies that haven’t posted privacy policies, at least where users can easily find them.

It looks like it’s time for a do-over for DNT. The oft-maligned specification has become—like many other standards efforts before it—a political football. Parties with interests on both sides of the issue have their own agendas, cannot agree on semantics and ignore, in this case, what should be the heart of the issue for users—a clear personal choice about browsing privacy.