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The Best VPN Service Providers Of 2020

There are now over a hundred VPN providers located across the world. To create this list of the best VPN service providers, I test customer service, the reliability of their network, and commitment to privacy.

Getting Started With Ethereum

Ethereum is a decentralized computing platform and crytocurrency. Ethereum uses Bitcoin’s blockchain technology to create a protocol for “smart contracts”.

New U.S.-E.U. Online Privacy Agreement Lacks Teeth

The United States made new promises this week that European citizens’ data stored on U.S. servers would not be subject to surveillance by the U.S. government. But so far, promises are the only thing the U.S. has offered to assure European concerns about online data privacy. The promises were part of a new agreement between U.S. and European officials about …

U.K. Government Monitors Taxpayers’ Online Activity

Why do government authorities want to monitor Internet users’ online activity? In the United Kingdom, one big reason is to find tax evaders by tracking social media accounts. The Belfast Telegraph reports that HM Revenue & Customs — the agency that collects taxes in the U.K. — has deployed a tool called Connect to monitor citizens’ social media activity. It …

Court Rejects Censorship of Pirate Bay BitTorrent Hosting Site

The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular BitTorrent indexing sites, won’t be censored in its own country — at least for now — according to a recent decision by a Swedish court. The site, which launched in 2003, is based in Sweden. It is already censored in numerous other countries, primarily in response to allegations that it permits …

Europe Wants U.S. Companies To Provide “Bullet-Proof” Privacy

Government authorities in the United States and European Union are negotiating new policies that could have a major impact on the way multinational companies share private user information. The talks began following the European Court of Justice’s rejection last month of the “Safe Harbor” arrangement between the United States and the European Union. That deal allowed companies to transfer European …

FCC Rejects “Do Not Track” Petition, and It’s a Good Thing

“Do Not Track” requests from Web users will continue to have little real meaning in the wake of a recent FCC ruling that does not require websites to respect the requests. The ruling was a response to a petition that the group Consumer Watchdog created. The petition called upon the FCC, which regulates Internet communications in the United States, to …

New Report: Privacy Ignored While Apps and Devices Proliferate

Lack of digital privacy between individuals and companies, increased hacking of private data and new security and privacy risks associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) will top the list of cyber threats in 2016, according to a recent report from Georgia Tech. The study, titled “2016 Emerging Cyber Threats Report,” outlines what researchers at Georgia Tech and elsewhere believe …

Microsoft Report Says China Tops List of Censorship Requests

China tops the list of governments that requested censorship of content from the Bing search engine and other Microsoft online platforms in 2015. That’s according to Microsoft’s latest Content Removal Requests Report. The report, published last Wednesday, lists requests that Microsoft received during the first half of 2015 for removing content or disabling accounts in its products. According to Microsoft, …

TPP Trade Agreement Could Spur Internet Censorship in Asia, Americas

Could the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP, mean more Internet censorship in Asia and the Americas? That’s what some online privacy advocates are saying as the new trade agreement moves closer to approval. The countries involved in the TPP approved a final version of the trade agreement on Monday, Oct. 5. Now, the document needs approval by the legislatures and …

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Alibi Offers User-Specified Traffic Routing to Avoid Censorship

Most anti-censorship tools focus on getting Internet data inside countries that attempt to block it. Alibi Routing, a new system created by academic researchers in the United States, does the opposite. It lets users prevent their data from passing through certain countries in order to avoid government sniffing. When data travels across the Internet, it can hop between servers in …

Chinese Officials Advocate “Internet Sovereignty”

Chinese officials continued to push the concepts surrounding “Internet sovereignty” — a notion that reinforces online censorship — in high-profile talks in Seattle in September, showcasing the government’s interest in maintaining censorship activities. Chinese authorities first introduced the concept of “Internet sovereignty” in 2010, shortly after Google made headlines by announcing that it would no longer do business in the …