Warning: Is LinkedIn using spyware to harvest private email contacts?

LinkedIn Email Security: It all began when LinkedIn sent an email asking if I knew a certain individual.

I was shocked, because there was no public connection between us.

Our “private” communications were limited to a half-dozen recent emails about my latest book project.

He had a LinkedIn account/profile, but hadn’t updated it for over a year.

When I told him about the LinkedIn email, ” he promptly deleted his account.

We concluded that LinkedIn might be using spyware to: 1) harvest my email contacts and/or 2) scanned my recent emails when I clicked a link in one of their emails.

And then it happened again.

LinkedIn sent me an email asking if I knew the tech support person at a company that hosts one of my websites.

I wrote and asked him how LinkedIn could possibly know about our recent “private” communications. Again, there is no public connection whatsoever.

He wrote back with a bombshell: “A few days ago I went on the LinkedIn webpage to start an account. The last step shows a list of people you may know based on the e-mail address that you have entered — which means that it must go through the e-mail history in order to see who else from those email addresses matches a LinkedIn account. I actually decided not to join Linkedin because of the fact that I didn’t like it was already making suggestions for me before I even signed up for an account.”

How could LinkedIn could suggest his name to me – and my name to him – us unless they scanned my email history and preserved the information in a database, or alternatively, could somehow scan his email contacts without even sending him an email.

I don’t have answers, only questions.  If you know more, please share it with our readers.

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How to Counter Cyber Threats and Identity Theft Attacks: Homeland Security Begins at Home

Rights Radio.com features “Homeland Security Begins at Home” with Cyberterrorism Expert David Gewirtz on November 5, 2008. Topic: Stop Cyber Threats & Identity Theft Attacks on Your Home or Office. Guest: Dr David Gewirtz (ZATZ.com), prolific author, Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals and a columnist for …

 

 

 

White House Email, Cyber Security & Cyber Crimes: Cash for Access | Violating Email Privacy

When your email privacy and cyber security is violated in the name of a worthy cause. How email scam artists manipulate recipients to break the law. Are friends, family members & colleagues sending your private email address to the White House? Are they unknowingly helping bad guys commit real crimes? Dr. Joyce Starr interviews cyber security expert Dr. David Gewirtz on the Rights Radio Power Hour. Show Date: August 6, 2009

Your Cyber Security Rights

Rights Radio was ahead of the news! This program aired the very day that Google, Facebook and Twitter were targeted by a massively coordinated  cyber attack and a week prior to the White House email controversy.

On a related privacy security front, Cash for Clunkers turned out to be Cash in Trade for Administration control over auto dealer computers + access to the privacy information and confidential data of customers. This could include third party friends and family members of both customers and employees. I call this cash for cyber insecurity…

Dr. David Gewirtz, Editor-in-Chief of Zatz Magazines, is a renowned expert on cyber security and cyber privacy rights. This is his second appearance on Rights Radio.

Dr. Gewirtz will explain how small business owners and entrepreneurs can naively jeopardize and even destroy their businesses by forwarding emails and sending unwanted emails to business AND personal lists.

WARNING – The email you forward could be under the control of bad guys across the world. DO NOT OPEN OR FORWARD ATTACHMENTS FROM THIRD PARTIES EVER!!!!

Your friend or family member might send you something that says it’s a normal image or jpeg – but it is easy to hide a extension. The true file name (virus) is typically invisible to the naked eye. Even PDFS can harbor dangerous codes. Your computer is then used for attacks on other computers. We were attacked by three million computers. It reached the point where our security system literally melted.  – Dr. David Gewirtz

Don’t miss this show!

Dr. Gewirtz is a leading Presidential scholar specializing in White House email. He is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley extension, a recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering and was a candidate for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters. He is also authoring a book about the health care hostage crisis – with chapters featured on CNN in advance of publication.

How to Listen: The show is streamed below. Bookmark this page and tell your friends.

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I received a forwarded email this weekend advising recipients to break the law by sending a copy of the forwarded email to every person on their email list – without the permission of the persons and email addresses copied on the email. Recipients were told that the message chain would be broken if they failed to forward the email – and that the final destination was the White House.

Email chain spam is typically couched in “critically important” issues. The cause in this case: Stop the Administration from providing Social Security to illegal immigrants. It’s easy to agree with the message (don’t fix Social Security, just destroy it) – which is precisely what made this one of the most dangerous pieces of email chain spam that I’ve encountered.

For each and every violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, a business or person engaging in commercial emailings can be fined up to $11,000. State and federal agencies are beginning to team up with ISPs to bring down these SPAM rings. Recent busts have resulted in many years in prison and millions of dollars in fines.

Under CAN-SPAM, it is illegal to sell, trade, transfer, or offer for any purpose, email addresses of any recipients who have opted out, or requested that they be removed from your email list.

Homeland security begins at home!

To your cyber security!