Just very recently, Google’s email service, Gmail, has been under attack. This resulted in hundreds of subscribers’ email accounts being compromised. It was either that their email passwords were stolen or their emails monitored. The secret attack is the second one, after a similar incident happened last year. This time, the victims belong to high profile individuals – some senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, some Asian countries’ officials, journalists and military personnel.

Last year’s source of the attack, according to Google, was pinpointed to China. Not long after the incident, the internet giant decided to transfer its Chinese search engine base to Hong Kong. The technology used in the recent incident is not as sophisticated as that of last year’s. However, the latter involved high profile individuals, making Google suspect that this one was carefully planned. The criminals used phishing, which enabled them to obtain the passwords of their targeted victims.

Launching this kind of attack needed masterful coordination and not just a “hit-and-miss” strategy. The targets were carefully selected, as well as the contacts of these targeted individuals. There is a contention that one or several email accounts were successfully intruded upon and from there, the criminals were able to break into others.

Do you like social networks but also want to guard your privacy? Flink12 is the new social network that was created as a safe and secure way to share your private life. It is playful, safe, extremely private and easy to use. A unique way of sharing and communicating, Flink12 allows you to share your life in a meaningful way with the people you know and care about the most. “Privacy first” is the highest priority at Flink12. This approach ensures that your personal information will remain completely secure. With no privacy settings to manage, your information is automatically safe. Personal information will not indexed on the web by search engines. You decide when, where and how much of your life you want to share and with whom. Check out this video to see what it’s all about:

To learn more, visit: http://www.flink12.com

As internet service became available to users, they have discovered that it can be used in a hundred and more ways. Then they became less mindful about uploading their personal information to various websites. After some time, their shared information became public and they wondered how that came about. They wanted know where it originated but they could no longer pinpoint which specific website started it.

There is a growing need for users to regain some degree of their privacy. Privacy problems date back to the day people started to share personal information online. They did it without second thought, even without reading any of the websites’ privacy agreements. Many of them did not want to go through the litany of text and alien legal terms. Sometimes, they freely gave their information to sites that were unknown.

Most websites openly present their privacy terms and agreement to users. They give details of what data users need to share and how this will be treated. However, a majority of users do not bother to fully understand its contents. Understandably, they thought these things were not important, only to find out otherwise. They failed to realize that they compromised their privacy by casually sharing their information. Since most of what they share is public domain, they should not wonder how it spread so rapidly.

Sometimes, people put their privacy at risk just because they do not know how to protect it. The use of GPS technology has greatly helped people to find places and locations more easily. When driving through an unfamiliar place, finding a restaurant or an ATM in town, GPS is needed. Recently, various concerns have been raised regarding privacy issues in the use of tracking technology. Many phones and cameras are now equipped with GPS, and users enjoy its capabilities from simple photo taking to uploading on the internet.

The main point of the issue raised is the risk involved with anybody being able to access the user’s location from cell phone data. Basically, many phones can keep detailed records of where a person has been. Using this data with Google maps, the phone owner’s location data can be easily mapped showing where he or she had been for any period of time.

GPS-enabled phones or cameras store photos using EXIF data which means Exchangeable Image File. The EXIF annotation is used in almost all new models of digital cameras. This enables storage of photos to include shutter speed, F number, exposure compensation, ISO number, date and time the image was taken, etc. The foregoing does not pose problems on privacy, but are just information about characteristics of the stored data. What stirs concern is that some cameras are capable of storing GPS information on the photo so that one can easily pinpoint where it was taken.

Watch out for the hair-raising truths about a new app that warns of an end to internet privacy. It is called Creepy, a “geolocation information aggregator” created by Yiannis Kakavas. Many privacy rights advocates have raised their concern about the potential impact of this application to privacy. Should this really be a cause for worry?

Kakavas created Creepy as a package for Linux or Windows. The third package for Mac OS X is now in the process. Basically, this app makes use of social networking services in order to pinpoint a user’s location. It can do this by gathering the information provided by the user to the network and putting together these pieces of information. The software has just been launched, but has already shown its job efficiency in living up to its name.

Creepy has an in-built search utility to find any individual in the internet. All that the user has to do is to input the Twitter or Flickr username of that individual then hit the “Geolocate Target” button. Creepy will then download all photos or tweets that the individual has published or posted. From each of the downloaded materials, Creepy will be particular with the user’s location at the time the material was published.

The 11th draft of the online privacy bill is now ready to be formally introduced. The concern about online privacy has been here for years. Different proposals have been offered to the authorities yet until now, the bill is still in its formative stage and was never given the approval for its implementation. Critics have continually pointed out the need for modernized and applicable online privacy laws. The present laws being implemented are already archaic. These old laws cannot give full security to users, however, the process of modernizing has been very slow.

One of the strong supporters of the online privacy bill is Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. He has been working on it for some time. To get an ally, he persuaded some of the country’s biggest tech companies to support him. Senator John McCain of Arizona is his co-sponsor, and the bill is now supported by eBay, Intel, Microsoft and HP.

These companies have allowed their spokespersons to announce their support to the bill. A Microsoft representative in a declaration through Adweek said that the bill is heading in a positive direction. The company just waits for the endorsement of the bill and will then give some more comments.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is managing a series of committee hearings. This pertains to the state of online consumer privacy; the first one was conducted last March 16, 2011. The hearing mainly revolved around online commercial practices. It tried to look into practices that involve collecting, maintaining, using and disseminating large volumes of consumer information. These may also involve those that are very private and confidential in nature.

Testimonies were given by several persons. The first one who testified was FTC Chairman Liebowitz. He described latest efforts by the FTC to guard consumer privacy. FTC is doing this through law enforcement, education, and policy initiatives. Then he added some highlights from the Staff Report on consumer privacy. Finally he discussed concerns related to the “Do Not Track” proposal. He itemized five vital principles that any “Do Not Track” proposal should contain.

First, a Do Not Track system should be implemented universally. This would free consumers from continually opting out of tracking on several sites. Second, consumers should find the choice mechanism user-friendly. This means that any user should find navigation simple and easy to use. Third, the system should be persistent and should always present the options in each attempt. It should not be easily deleted when a user clears his or her cookies or updates the browser. Fourth, it should be able to allow users to opt out of advertising and tracking at the same time. Fifth, it should not contain loopholes, be enforceable and effective.

Despite the never ending debate about online privacy, technology giants Microsoft and Facebook continue to call for stronger customer security. They are determined to lay down new ways of improving the status of web privacy. For a number of times they have not succeeded but these new ones seem to be different.

Just recently, Microsoft presented the model of its do-not-track tool to its Web browsing software. Using this, users would be able to get around those unwanted online behavior monitoring and tracking. The user can stay away from those targeted ads that are simply annoying. This would become part of its Internet Explorer browser, as shown in the technical paper that was endorsed.

Facebook also has its own version of a new privacy policy. This “better version” has been expected for quite some time. This disclosed its new strategy of handling information and advertisements. It is simpler to understand and to use. It uses headings such as “your information and how it is used” and “how advertising works”.

A campaign to vote against the extension of the PATRIOT Act was called for by several groups. The voting was scheduled February 8, 2011. The so-called H.R. 514 is about to be extended, but it needs a YES vote by a full two-thirds of the House’s members. The reauthorization was seen as being fast-tracked to the House floor.

Contentions were aired questioning the manner the bill would be extended. One point that was raised was that there were no significant reforms to the old law that would merit its extension. According to critics, there is no provision for oversight and accountability. If ever, it is very weak and would not hold water.

Last year yet, the bill was proposed and debated on. Among the proposed reforms were on the areas of checks and balances. As the old version was criticized as lacking of these features, the new one is “ripe” with those. But the debates and deliberations went on until the deadline was already close. The move for extension of the old version came up when the amendments could no longer make it to the deadline. In February of last year, the extension was moved until this February 2011. In addition, there was a promise made to fully consider the raised issues before the next deadline.

Goodbye to those unwelcome advertisements that are annoying. Surf the net feeling more secure. Do not worry about someone tracking your online behavior. This time, you can always choose to remain private and safe. The time has come for online users to determine how they would behave online.

Better times for internet users are slowly gaining higher ground. After much of debates and proposals, regulators are now expecting for some positive effects of their crusade. Google and Mozilla, two of the largest names in internet announced the availability of new software. Users would now have more freedom as their web browsers would use this. What is the most significant feature of the software? It is its capability to allow users to permanently stay out of online tracking system. Many advertisers used to follow online activities. With correct profiling, they can build profiles and deliver tailored ads to target users.

Large internet advertisers and data trackers including Google and Yahoo initiated this move. They would now enable users to easily opt out of tracking on their sites. It used to be that opting out was rather complicated and more demanding. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer would add a feature where users could intentionally block monitoring efforts.