“Since the brain retains memories of images, especially faces, very accurately, new security systems are going graphical.”

“The Trojan horse applications discussed within this website are remote administration hacker utilities that will allow a user to control another user’s computer across the Internet. Trojan horse applications can provide equal, if not more control of a remote PC system than the person sitting at its keyboard.”

“An Internet security firm has posted a new study ranking Web sites that make the most frequent use of ‘Web beacons.’ These hidden little routines, also called ‘Web bugs,’ let sites know where you’ve already been on the Web. According to Security Space’s Web Bug Traffic Count Report, the 10 biggest users, ranked by traffic, are the following…”

“For your anonymous surfing pleasure, here are quick links to opt out of the 3rd-party tracking cookies issued by some of the large banner-ad networks. Some of these links go to an opt-out form, which you must click or submit; others do the opt-out automatically.”

“Well it finally happened. The Big One. A coordinated hacking attempted on over 40 companies in the United States, and an unknown total world-wide. Industry doomsayers have been predicting this for years. Security consulting firms have been holding this over our head for years. Security product firms have been spending more time slinging dirt at each other, and patting themselves on the back, than dealing with the potential for a coordinated attack of this caliber.”

“The table in this report illustrates the top 100 web sites that are benefiting from web bugs. This is based on a sample of 701176 pages retrieved from 101991 different sites.”

“The Internet’s phone book is up for sale — and though the listings may represent a treasure trove for marketers, the move also risks a serious privacy backlash. At issue are millions of entries in the domain-name database operated by the Network Solutions unit of VeriSign Inc., Mountain View, Calif. It is, essentially, the master address book for the Internet. Since the dawn of commerce on the Web, companies that want their own dot-com addresses have registered with Network Solutions.”

“The phenomenal rise, and technological sophistication, of workplace surveillance leads the list of the Top 10 privacy stories of the year 2000, according to a Privacy Foundation analysis. Also in the Top 10 are proposed new medical privacy rules; the FBI’s controversial use of the Carnivore email wiretap; DoubleClick’s stalled plan to track consumers online; and the arrival of chief privacy officers in corporate boardrooms.”

“Researchers say visual memory is far more powerful than the ability to recall precise sequences of symbols. We’re drowning in passwords, and our brains are rebelling. Most of us have one of two strategies for remembering all these new strings of letters and numbers: use the exact same password across the board, or keep written reminders of the various secret phrases. Either way, the entire purpose of passwords — security — is undermined.”

“…if you use the RealNetworks RealDownload, Netscape/AOL Smart Download, or NetZip Download Demon utilities in their default configuration … EVERY TIME you use one of these utilities to download ANY FILE from ANYWHERE on the Internet, the complete ‘URL address’ of the file, along with a UNIQUE ID TAG that has been assigned to YOUR machine, and — in the case of Netscape’s SmartDownload only — YOUR computer’s individual Internet IP address, is immediately transmitted to the program’s publisher. This allows a database of your entire, personal, file download history to be assembled and uniquely associated with your individual computer … for whatever purpose the program’s publishers may have today, or tomorrow.”

“The internet company we work for was asked to redesign [an airline’s] current website in order to increase the proportion of seats booked on-line. …We used qualitative methods for our analysis: interviews, observations, content analysis, analysis of existing customer feedback, etc. …Among the 181 observations there is one unexpected finding with a relevance that goes beyond this particular case. We noticed that people’s perception of security when doing on-line transactions depends on the simplicity of the site and on the availability of user support.”

“Like easy listening? Classic rock? Howard Stern? Next time you drive to a concert arena or down a freeway, your car radio could be transmitting some information of its own: your listening tastes. For the last four years, Mobiltrak, based in Birmingham, Ala., has been marketing a device that finds out what radio stations people are listening to inside their cars.”

“The study by the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center scrutinized privacy policies on 100 of the most popular online shopping sites and compared those policies with a set of basic privacy principles that have come to be known as ‘fair information practices.’ The group found that none of the 100 sites met all of the basic criteria for privacy protection…”

“Privacy and consumer groups are complaining that the flaw allows companies to put cookies on e-mails and follow users around the Web.”

“What’s the TRUSTe seal of approval really worth? The Good Housekeeping of Internet Privacy sidestepped RealNetworks’ recent data-collecting fiasco, according to Salon.com. Rather than revoking its endorsement of Real, the non-profit group said the privacy violation was one related to software, the RealJukebox player, and not the Web. To make things better, TRUSTe said it will begin to monitor software that collects personally identifiable data.”