Tracking
Bluetooth 6.1 enhances privacy with randomized RPA timing
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced Bluetooth Core Specification 6.1, bringing important improvements to the popular wireless communication protocol. One new feature highlighted in the latest release is the increased device privacy via randomized Resolvable Private Addresses (RPA) updates. “Randomizing the timing of address changes makes it much more difficult for third parties […]
Brave’s Cookiecrumbler tool taps community to help block cookie notices
Brave has open-sourceed a new tool called “Cookiecrumbler,” which uses large language models (LLMs) to detect cookie consent notices and then community-driven reviews to block those that won’t break site functionality. The Brave browser has been blocking cookie consent banners by default on all websites since 2022 but found that blocking consent banners may cause website problems that […]
Chrome extensions with 6 million installs have hidden tracking code
A set of 57 Chrome extensions with 6,000,000 users have been discovered with very risky capabilities, such as monitoring browsing behavior, accessing cookies for domains, and potentially executing remote scripts. These extensions are ‘hidden,’ meaning they don’t show up on Chrome Web Store searches, nor do search engines index them, and can only be installed […]
Open-source tool ‘Rayhunter’ helps users detect Stingray attacks
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released a free, open-source tool named Rayhunter that is designed to detect cell-site simulators (CSS), also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays. Stingray devices mimic legitimate cell towers to trick phones into connecting, allowing them to capture sensitive data, accurately geolocate users, and potentially intercept communications. With the release […]
Microsoft to remove the Location History feature in Windows
Microsoft announced the deprecation of the Location History feature from Windows, which let applications like the Cortana virtual assistant to fetch location history of the device. By deprecating and removing the feature means that the data will no longer be saved locally and the setting will disappear from the operating system (Windows 10 and 11). […]
Cloudflare CDN flaw leaks user location data, even through secure chat apps
A security researcher discovered a flaw in Cloudflare’s content delivery network (CDN), which could expose a person’s general location by simply sending them an image on platforms like Signal and Discord. While the geo-locating capability of the attack is not precise enough for street-level tracking, it can provide enough data to infer what geographic region a […]
Allstate car insurer sued for tracking drivers without permission
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Allstate and its data subsidiary Arity for unlawfully collecting, using, and selling driving data from over 45 million Americans. The two companies are accused of paying millions of dollars to app developers to embed tracking code in widely used mobile apps to gather the location […]