CISObyte 05-21-2020
A bill to protect your right to privacy online was narrowly defeated this week in the Senate. You shouldn’t wait for the bureaucrats to protect your rights to modify your online behaviors.
“Search and browser history can reveal people’s personal thoughts like perhaps nowhere else, serving as a kind of electronic confession booth as people put down their guards and stare into phones and computer screens.”
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “[The] right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
You have already forfeited this right if you’re browsing on an employer-owned device or on their networks. Your browsing behavior can and is tracked by every site that you are visiting, even if they specify that it is “only for site-improvement.” While I don’t want the world prying into my search history, It would be remiss to call it private behavior. I send a search request to a 3rd party (Hi Google!), they return a vast amount of results, and then I send and receive information from those additional parties. I’m not your lawyer, and I don’t know how this will play out, but as your security advisor, I’m telling you that you are already willingly sharing information with 3rd parties outside of your house, person, papers and effects.
If it concerns you, use a VPN service to obfuscate your identity, and don’t click that sketchy link. Ask me how I can help.
- Privacy
- Cybersecurity
- Patriot Act
- Surveillance
