Teen tells how he repeatedly hacked CIA director’s email

John Brennan - Director of the CYA by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
John Brennan, Director of the CYA by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
Wired reports on a high schooler who contacted the New York Post in mid-October to tell them how he hacked into the CIA director’s personal AOL email and what he found there:

..sensitive government documents stored as attachments in Brennan’s personal account because the spy chief had forwarded them from his work email … and the sensitive 47-page SF-86 application that Brennan had filled out to obtain his top-secret government security clearance.

The privacy of one of the country’s highest ranking security officials along with sensitive US government data, was compromised by a teenager. SMH. read more

Hungry for privacy? Facebook de-friending won’t even get you close

You are being tracked
I’ve been really thinking about a Facebook friend’s earlier post, saying she feels exposed by having 822 friends and will start deleting some in order to get more privacy. I just had to reply to the privacy issue and afterwards, realized that my assertions needed to be backed up by reliable data. “I must say,” I commented to my friend, “I find it strange that you would play a game on Facebook or post anything here and voice concerns about privacy,” and followed that with my first information point: “Facebook sells your data to game creators – this is a well-known fact.” read more