Category Archives: Latest In Consumer News
Report: Automakers Fail To Protect Connected Cars From Security, Privacy Hacks
by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist
Last year, in a Defense Department-funded test on a 2012 model American-made car, hackers demonstrated they could create the electronic equivalent of a skeleton key to unlock the car’s networks. … [The] report found that nearly 100% of vehicles on the market include wireless technologies that could pose vulnerabilities to hacking or privacy intrusion. … Only two automakers were able to describe any capabilities to diagnose or meaningfully respond to an infiltration in real-time, and most said they rely on technologies that cannot be used for this purpose at all. Read More ›
Anthem Hack: Could The Insurer Have Prevented It?
by Matt O'Brien, San Jose Mercury News
[Critics] say encrypting personal data could have helped. “They claim it’s the expense. Really, there’s no excuse,” said Beth Givens, founder and director of San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “They don’t want to take the time and effort to decode it.” … Anthem’s breach affected up to 80 million people, far more than the 37.5 million actually covered by the insurer as of December, according to the company’s most recent earnings report. Those hacked included not just Anthem employees but also many former Anthem subscribers, many of whom long ago dropped the insurer. Read More ›
Anthem Hacked; Health Insurance Data On Up To 80 Million Exposed
by Chad Terhune and Ryan Parker, Los Angeles Times
“If confirmed, we are dealing with one of the biggest data breaches in history and probably the biggest data breach in the healthcare industry,” said Jaime Blasco, vice president and chief scientist at AlienVault, a San Mateo, Calif., information security firm. “For individuals, in a few words, it is a nightmare,” he said. “If the attackers had access to names, birthdays, addresses and Social Security numbers, it means that information can be easily used to carry out identity theft schemes.” Read More ›
CPUC Boss Equated Safety Advocate With Mass Murderer
Days after the 2010 PG&E gas explosion that killed eight, hospitalized many more and leveled 38 San Bruno homes, the Executive Director of the California Public Utilities Commission emailed a vice president at the company, equating pipeline safety advocate Mark Toney with an infamous mass murder. Perhaps … Read More ›
PUC Emails Appear To Show Former Chief Michael Peevey Overstepping His Role
by Marc Lifsher, Los Angeles Times
Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Group, estimated that the email banter and “backroom deals” have cost PG&E ratepayers millions if not billions of dollars, because they may have prejudiced legal decisions, including rate setting. “A regulator is supposed to have an arms-length relationship with the utility,” the ratepayer advocate said, “not an embracing relationship.” Read More ›
Verizon’s Super-Cookies Are A Super Privacy Violation
by David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times
Verizon is informing customers that they can opt out of having their personal information shared by visiting the company’s MyVerizon website. But here’s something Verizon is neglecting to mention. Any visit to MyVerizon will result in — you guessed it — a cookie being generated for your computer or wireless device that will automatically enroll you in what Verizon calls its Relevant Mobile Advertising program, which oversees all online tracking. Think about that: Verizon will violate your privacy even as you go through the steps the company has set up to protect your privacy. Read More ›
PG&E Wields “Pervasive” Influence At PUC, Now Described As A “Rogue Agency”
by George Avalos and Josh Richman, Contra Costa Times
“It’s almost as if PG&E was a Rasputin, or a Svengali, with the magic power to get the PUC to do what PG&E wanted,” said state Sen. Jerry Hill, whose San Mateo County district includes San Bruno [where a natural gas blast in September 2010 killed eight people and destroyed a neighborhood]. … The PUC remains under intense scrutiny because skeptics believe Peevey created and then nurtured a culture of cozy relations with San Francisco-based PG&E and other utility giants in California. Read More ›
‘Anonymized’ Credit Card Data Not So Anonymous, Study Shows
by Seth Borenstein and Jack Gillum, The Associated Press
The study shows that when we think we have privacy when our data is collected, it’s really just an “illusion” … . The use of so-called “big data” has been a lucrative prospect for private companies aiming to cash in on the trove of personal information about their consumers. Retail purchases, online web browsing activity and a host of other digital breadcrumbs can provide firms with a wealth of data about you – which is then used in sophisticated advertising and marketing campaigns. Read More ›
Agents Search Michael Peevey’s Home In PG&E Judge-Shopping Case
by Jaxon Van Derbeken, San Francisco Chronicle
The search warrant covering [former California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey and former PG&E executive Brian Cherry’s] homes said investigators were looking for evidence of improper “ex parte communications, judge-shopping, bribery, obstruction of justice or due administration of laws, favors or preferential treatment” related to matters coming before the utilities commission from December 2009 on. Read More ›
Uber’s Business Model Could Change Your Work
by Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times
The rise of Uber-like jobs is the logical culmination of an economic and tech system that holds efficiency as its paramount virtue. … “Can you imagine if this turns into a Mechanical Turk economy, where everyone is doing piecework at all odd hours, and no one knows when the next job will come, and how much it will pay? What kind of private lives can we possibly have, what kind of relationships, what kind of families?” said Robert B. Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who was the secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. Read More ›
California Health Officials Launch Campaign Against ‘Vaping’
by Laurel Rosenhall and Ellen Garrison, The Sacramento Bee
The report says the rising popularity of e-cigarettes – and a lack of regulations to curb their use – threaten California’s progress in reducing smoking rates and their associated health problems. In the last 25 years, California’s efforts to reduce smoking have cut the smoking rate in half, saved 1 million lives and saved $134 billion in health care costs … But the report’s findings on the current use of e-cigarettes suggest that many of those gains could be reversed. Read More ›
FTC Calls For Strong Data And Privacy Protection With Connected Devices
by Natasha Singer, The New York Times
Last year, for instance, an electronics company that marketed what it said were “secure” Internet-connected cameras, allowing parents to remotely monitor their babies, settled a complaint by the F.T.C. that lax security practices had exposed its customers to privacy invasions. A security flaw allowed anyone with the cameras’ Internet addresses to view, and in some cases hear, what was happening in customers’ homes. Read More ›
What You Need To Know About Toxic Chemicals Sprayed On Flame Retardant Furniture
by Anastasia Pantsios, Ecowatch
In late 2013, California passed new flammability standards which kicked in at the beginning of this month. While not banning flame retardants, they no longer require that furniture be resistant to open flame but only to smoldering cigarettes. Most upholstery fabrics meet that standard without chemicals, eliminating the need for fire-resistant foam underneath. For greater consumer protection, the state later added a requirement that products containing the chemicals be labeled. Read More ›