Torrent Freak's Updated VPN Privacy Profiles

From Torrent Freak:

Millions of people use a VPN service to protect their privacy, but not all VPNs are as anonymous as one might hope. In fact, some VPN services log users' IP-addresses for weeks. To find out how secure VPNs really are TorrentFreak asked the leading providers about their logging policies, and more. . . .

Unfortunately, not all VPN services are as anonymous as they claim. Following a high-profile case of an individual using an ‘anonymous’ VPN service that turned out to be not so private, TorrentFreak decided to ask a selection of VPN services some tough questions.

By popular demand we now present the third iteration of our VPN services “logging” review. In addition to questions about logging policies we also asked VPN providers about their stance towards file-sharing traffic, and what they believe the most secure VPN is . . . 

21 Notable Data Sets from NYC Open Data

Over the last few years, more and more states and cities have begun bringing open data sites online and making vast troves of information freely available to the public in both machine and human readable formats.  The federal government launched data.gov back in 2009 and since then, numerous states have done the same.  New York State launched its open data site last year, and New York City's Open Data Portal has been up and running for at least a couple years now. With thousands of massive data sets at your fingertips, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available.  And if you're looking for a specific piece of information, it sometimes feels like you're looking for a piece of hay in a haystack.  Today, we'll try to narrow things down a bit and take a look at a number of notable data sets available at NYC's Open Data Portal.


Internet

Wifi Hotspot Locations
"Location of wifi hotspots in the city with basic descriptive information."

City Government Social Media
"Twitter, Facebook, Youtube statistics from various NYC agencies and organizations."

Jobs

NYC Jobs
"This data set contains current job postings available on the City of New York’s official jobs site . . . Internal postings available to city employees and external postings available to the general public are included."

NYC After School Programs, Jobs and Internships
"Facilities in New York City, by agency and site, that offer the following after-school job and internship programs: Summer Youth Employment, In-School Youth Employment (ISY), Out-of-School Youth Employment (OSY), Youth Employment, and Adult Employment Programs for children in age groups 14 to 24, 16 to 21, children in all grades, and adults"


Complaints and Grievances

311 Service Requests from 2010 to Present
"All 311 Service Requests from 2010 to present. This information is automatically updated daily."

NYC Public Drinking
311 service requests filtered for public drinking complaints.  

NYC Graffiti
Take a tour of reported graffiti locations across the city.


Demographics

Ratio of Single Men to Single Women, by Neighborhood
Can't find a date? Maybe you're looking in the wrong neighborhood.

Population by Census Block
"Population Numbers in New York City by Census Tracts."

NYC Top Baby Names, 2009-2010
There sure are a lot of 4 and 5 year old Isabellas and Jaydens out there.


Food and Drink

Sidewalk Cafes 
With spring around the corner, you may find this data set helpful to locate a sidewalk cafe anywhere in the city if you're looking to sit and relax and watch the world go by.

Farmer's Markets
This data set contains a list of 137 farmer's markets in all five boroughs. The information is somewhat dated (it's from 2012), but it is highly likely that many if not the vast majority of these markets are still going strong.

Transportation

Subway Entrances
"Map of NYC Subway Entrances."

Parking Facilities
They seem to be everywhere, but you can never find one if and when you really need one.


Politics and Government

City Expense Budgets by Agency
"Data set contains expense budgets by agency for actual fiscal years and five financial plan fiscal years in All funds."

City Council Discretionary Funding, 2009-2013
Wonder where all that tax money goes?  "This dataset reflects applications for discretionary funding to be allocated by the New York City Council between the years 2009 and 2013."

City Council Discretionary Funding for Upcoming Year 
"The dataset reflects applications for discretionary funding to be allocated by the New York City Council in the upcoming fiscal year (July 1 - June 30)."

Campaign Contributions, 2013
"A listing of campaign contributions for candidates for City office during the 2013 election cycle."

Campaign Expenditures, 2013
"A listing of campaign expenditures for candidates for City office dating back from the 2013 election cycle."


NYPD

NYPD Complaints Per Uniformed Officer 2009-2011
"This table represents complaints per uniformed officer."

NYPD Disciplinary Penalties 2009-2011
"This data set represents police department disciplinary penalties imposed by NYPD."

Type and Number of NYPD Allegation Complaints 2009-2011 
"This table represents the type of allegation and total number of allegations received for a particular type of complaint. Types of allegations and complaints are Force, Abuse of Authority, Discourtesy, Offensive Language."

Missing Plane Belies Claims of Mass Surveillance Advocates

At Computer World, Ron Miller points out how the missing Malaysian airliner undercuts all the primary claims of those who argue for unqualified support of the national security police state and surveillance society.  Excerpt:

That a jumbo jet could simply disappear without a trace is mind-boggling. We are told that the NSA is collecting every bit of data on us. We are told that we can be easily tracked through our smartphones and other electronic devices. We are told that this data collection is done in the name of making us safer, by stopping a terrorist attack in real time.

We are led to believe that if we collect enough information -- indeed, if we collect all of the information -- we can see the connections and make the leaps and stop attacks before they happen.

That's what we're told. That's the justification for all this surveillance. And yet if we can't find a jumbo jet after nine days in a world covered by satellite cameras and radar facilities, are we supposed to believe that collecting every one of our emails and listening to every one of our phone calls and following every one of us around as we move through our lives will make us safer?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question. But folks should be careful of this line of argument.  There is no doubt that the national security fetishists and the totalitarian surveillance advocates will counter with their usual claim: this only shows that we need MORE surveillance.  

Congress Continues Its Crusade Against a Free and Open Internet

In case you thought SOPA was defeated, here's a reminder that it has merely been turned into a zombie bill that cannot be killed via traditional means.  From Geek:

Two years ago, major websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit blacked out their services as a form of digital protest against SOPA, the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act . . . Eventually, the widespread outrage over the bill was acknowledged and Congress knocked it off. Various forms of SOPA attempted to make a comeback since the original proposal back in 2011, but none have made it through. Now, though, SOPA might be making a comeback, but in a much sneakier fashion.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee met to discuss copyright reform, but rather than redesign SOPA, it is instead taking the more sinister route of voluntary commitments from individual entities to comply with a ruleset similarly sinister to SOPA.  

In other words, the old SOPA policies would be administered on a voluntary basis, meaning the rule of law on the issue would be outsourced to the arbitrary policies of copyright fundamentalists. 

Facebook to Government: Back Off! Spying on Facebook Users is OUR Job!

From the NYT:

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, has complained directly to President Obama about the continuing revelations that the United States government has secretly spied on the activities of some of his company’s 1.2 billion users.

Mr. Zuckerberg spoke with the president on Wednesday following the most recent news report on the National Security Agency’s surveillance tactics. The account, published in The Intercept from documents leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, described how government computers sometimes masqueraded as Facebook servers in order to send malicious software to infect the machines of Facebook users. The documents say the process was automated so the N.S.A. could target millions of people for the attacks.

What Does Your Metadata Reveal About You?

Last year, when the Snowden leaks started dripping into the mainstream media, the apologists of the National Security Police State and Surveillance Society went to great lengths to downplay the fact of the illegal surveillance, arguing that "It's just metadata! Nothing to see here!"  An article in the Guardian reports on a study that reveals just how much about a person can be inferred from their metadata:

Identities of cannabis grower, woman seeking an abortion and MS sufferer inferred in study that confirms danger of widespread access to metadata . . .

Warnings that phone call “metadata” can betray detailed information about your life has been confirmed by research at Stanford University. Researchers there successfully identified a cannabis cultivator, multiple sclerosis sufferer and a visitor to an abortion clinic using nothing more than the timing and destination of their phone calls.

Jonathan Mayer and Patrick Mutchler, the researchers behind the finding, used data gleaned from 546 volunteers to assess the extent to which information about who they had called and when revealed personally sensitive information.

NSA Spreads Malware By the Millions

From the Intercept:

Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.

The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.

The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic.

In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.