DMVs Are Selling Your Data to Private Investigators – This Week in Tech – 09/08/2019
DMVs Are Selling Your Data to Private Investigators
Departments of Motor Vehicles in states around the country are taking drivers’ personal information and selling it to thousands of businesses, including private investigators who spy on people for a profit, Motherboard has learned. DMVs sell the data for an array of approved purposes, such as to insurance or tow companies, but some of them have sold to more nefarious businesses as well. Multiple states have made tens of millions of dollars a year selling data…
Hong Kong Protestors Using Mesh Messaging App China Can’t Block: Usage Up 3685%
How do you communicate when the government censors the internet? With a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network that doesn’t use the internet…
Smart Ovens Have Been Turning on Overnight and Preheating to 400 Degrees
At least three smart June Ovens have turned on in the middle of the night and heated up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. The ovens’ owners aren’t sure why this happened, and June tells The Verge that user error is at fault. The company is planning an update that’ll hopefully remedy the situation and prevent it from happening again, but that change isn’t coming until next month…
In a Swipe at Chrome, Firefox Now Blocks Ad Trackers by Default
Firefox is continuing its fight against Facebook and Google’s online ad tracking empire. The browser, owned by Mozilla, will now block third-party tracking cookies by default. This Enhanced Tracking Protection will be automatically turned on for all global users as part of the standard setting. The improved privacy features have been trialled on new users since June 2019, and currently cover 20 per cent of users. From today, this will increase to 100 per cent of people using the Firefox…
Phone Numbers for as Many as 220 Million Facebook Users Were Reportedly Found Sitting Online in a File Where Anybody Could Have Found Them
Phone numbers linked to as many as 419 million Facebook accounts were recently found on an online server that was not protected by a password, according to a TechCrunch report on Wednesday…
In Lab Secrets, Tesla Is Talking About 20-Year Lithium Ion Batteries
If any particular technology takes all the oxygen from everyone else because it dominates an industry, then we’re going to have a dearth of investment in these other technologies, and we’ll just never know what we could have had. Let’s think about crystalline silicon solar modules controlling an industry which had a wealth of thin film innovation, and many other ideas. However, if a technology comes in and takes over, leading to broader industry expansion so that the investment crumbs are large enough to still support investment in these secondary ideas – and we get the great technology from the new leader – I’m going to argue we’ll benefit greatly…
Russia Accuses Facebook And Google Of Illegal Election Interference
The irony will not be lost on anyone—Russia has just accused both Facebook and Google of “illegal” and “unacceptable” election interference during a poll in the country. And, no, you didn’t read that wrong…