Category «Privacy»

What Does Palantir Actually Do?

Wired – no paywall: “Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it. Palantir is arguably one of the most notorious corporations in contemporary America. Cofounded by libertarian tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the software …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, E-Records, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Instagram Map lets your friends, and possibly exes, track your every move

Washington Post – no paywall or MSN: “Instagram has a new feature to share your precise real-time location with friends. There are many, many reasons you should think twice before enabling it. I’ll show you the settings you need to know. Starting this week in the U.S., Instagram rolled out a new map view, which …

Subjects: E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Federal court filing system hit in sweeping hack

Politico: “The electronic case filing system used by the federal judiciary has been breached in a sweeping cyber intrusion that is believed to have exposed sensitive court data across multiple U.S. states, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. The hack, which has not been previously reported, is feared to have compromised the …

Subjects: Courts, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

I Refuse to Surf the Web Without These Essential Web Extensions

Hot to Geek: “Have you noticed how cluttered and obnoxious the web is at times? For example, cookie banners and blinding white themes are a constant barrage of annoyance and distraction. Thankfully, modern web extensions solve many of those problems, but there are a few essentials that I can’t live without. Science fiction has been …

Subjects: E-Commerce, E-Records, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

Curate your own newspaper with RSS

Molly White: Curate your own newspaper with RSS. “What if you could take all your favorite newsletters, ditch the data collection, and curate your own newspaper?…increasingly, your reading is spying on you in a way a print newspaper never could, with websites tracking when you click a link or scroll down the page, and even …

Subjects: E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, RSS, Search Engines

LLRX July 2025 Issue – Articles and Columns

LLRX July 2025 Issue – Articles and Columns The Trump Administration’s Continued War Against Science, Research and Public Health – Sabrina I. Pacifici’s overview of selected articles highlights the devastating impact of the Trump administration’s dismantling of agencies across the federal government, with a focus on cancelling critical scientific and health related research grants. The …

Subjects: AI, Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Copyright, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Education, Energy, Environmental Law, Financial System, Government Documents, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

White House instructed NASA to terminate two major climate change-focused satellite missions

Futurism: As NPR reports, Trump officials reached out to the space agency to draw up plans for terminating the two missions, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. They’ve been collecting widely-used data, providing both oil and gas companies and farmers with detailed information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and how it can affect crop health. One …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Congress, Environmental Law, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

Protecting the Virtual You: Safeguarding Americans’ Online Data

Statement of Alan Butler, Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Hearing on “Protecting the Virtual You: Safeguarding Americans’ Online Data Before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, July 30, 2025. “Chair Blackburn, Ranking Member Klobuchar, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding this hearing …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

States Have More Data About You Than the Feds Do. Trump Wants to See It.

The New York Times – no paywall – “Critics fear that personal data might be used to monitor immigrants and political foes, and to spread false tales of fraud. As the Trump administration has sought to amass personally sensitive data on millions of individuals in America, it has run into one roadblock. The states, and …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Economy, Food and Nutrition, Government Documents, Health Care, Internet, Legal Research, Medicine, Poverty, Privacy

Block Google Sign in PopUp

Mark Wyner Won’t Comply  @[email protected] – So…who hates those Google log-in pop-ups that are seemingly everywhere now? Wanna make them go away? Get uBlock Origin (which you should have already been using): https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock Open the plugin and click the settings button. Click on the “my filters” tab and paste this into the input: ||accounts.google.com/gsi/*$xhr,script,3p

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

How Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine and DOGE Got Access to a Federal Payroll System That Serves the FBI

Wired: “…The NFC is an agency nested inside the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that handles payroll for 650,000 government employees—over a fifth of the federal workforce—across more than 170 agencies, including the SBA, according to a source familiar with it who was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press. …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Government Documents, Privacy