Natasha Singer reports: Admissions officers at Morehouse College in Atlanta were shocked several years ago when a number of high school seniors submitted applications using email addresses containing provocative language. Some of the addresses made sexual innuendos while others invoked gangster rap songs or drug use, said Darryl D. Isom, Morehouse’s director of admissions and recruitment. But last…
Category: Online
GOTCHA: Google caught STRIPPING SSL from BT Wi-Fi users’ searches
Darren Pauli reports: Google’s “encryption everywhere” claim has been undermined by Mountain View stripping secure search functions for BT WiFi subscribers piggy-backing off wireless connections, sysadmin Alex Forbes has found. The move described as ‘privacy seppuku’ by Forbes (@al4) meant that BT customer searches were broadcast in clear text and possibly open to interception. Read…
AT&T Ditches Tracking Header Program; Verizon Still Refuses
Jacob Hoffman-Andrews writes: Julia Angwin reported late Thursday that AT&T is dropping their tracking supercookie program. This comes in the wake of massive customer pressure over the discovery that AT&T and Verizon were quietly inserting unique tracking identifiers in their customers’ web browsing and app data, by means of an HTTP header. The tracking identifiers quickly became known…
ISPs Removing Their Customers’ Email Encryption
Jacob Hoffman-Andrews writes: Recently, Verizon was caught tampering with its customer’s web requests to inject a tracking super-cookie. Another network-tampering threat to user safety has come to light from other providers: email encryption downgrade attacks. In recent months, researchers have reported ISPs in the US and Thailand intercepting their customers’ data to strip a security flag—called STARTTLS—from email traffic. The STARTTLS flag is an…