The headlines have been on fire with stories about 3 billion people’s data being leaked from a company you’ve never heard of. But like many such stories, the mainstream media gets a lot of the important details wrong and glosses over a lot of the important nuances. Today we’re going to dive into what really happened and what you should do about it, whether your data was part of the breach or not.

In other news: Illinois waters down its landmark biometric information law; US court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional; FTC to investigate :surveillance pricing” and files rule impacting shady product reviews; the CFPB cracks down on some types of consumer data sales; and Consumer Reports evaluates several top data deletion services.

Article Links

1. [Reuters] Illinois governor approves business-friendly overhaul of biometric privacy law https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/illinois-governor-approves-business-friendly-overhaul-biometric-privacy-law-2024-08-05/


2. [TechCrunch] US appeals court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/13/us-appeals-court-rules-geofence-warrants-are-unconstitutional/


3. [Electronic Frontier Foundation] To Fight Surveillance Pricing, We Need Privacy First https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first


4. [ftc.gov] Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials


5. [natlawreview.com] CFPB Forecasts New Rule Cracking Down on Consumer Data Sales https://natlawreview.com/article/cfpb-forecasts-new-rule-cracking-down-consumer-data-sales


6. [Los Angeles Times] Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of every American. How to protect yourself https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-08-13/hacker-claims-theft-of-every-american-social-security-number


7. [troyhunt.com] Inside the “3 Billion People” National Public Data Breach https://www.troyhunt.com/inside-the-3-billion-people-national-public-data-breach/


8. [consumerreports.org] Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services https://innovation.consumerreports.org/new-report-data-defense-evaluating-people-search-site-removal-services/


9. Tip of the Week: OSINT Final Steps https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/osint-final-steps/ 

Other Helpful Links

• Have I Been Pwned: https://haveibeenpwned.com/ 


• NPD Data Breach search tool: https://npd.pentester.com/ 


• Privacy Guides data removal tools: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/data-broker-removals/ 


• Techlore video on data removal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tESbBM2LZHM 


• Google’s Results About You: https://myactivity.google.com/results-about-you?pli=1 


• How to freeze your credit: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/credit-freeze-now-is-the-time/


• How and why to plant your flag: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/why-you-need-to-plant-your-flag/ 


• Strong passwords: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/need-a-bigger-password-haystack/  


• Backing up 2FA codes: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/how-to-backup-2fa-seed-codes/ 

Further Info

• Send me your questions! https://fdsd.me/qna 


• Check out my book, Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: https://fdsd.me/book 


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• Support our mission! https://fdsd.me/support 


• Generate secure passphrases! https://d20key.com/#/ 

Table of Contents

Use these timestamps to jump to a particular section of the show.

• 0:04:00 : News preview


• 0:06:33 : Illinois governor approves business-friendly overhaul of biometric privacy law


• 0:11:18 : US appeals court rules geofence warrants are unconstitutional


• 0:14:51 : To Fight Surveillance Pricing, We Need Privacy First


• 0:21:56 : FTC Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials


• 0:28:25 : CFPB Forecasts New Rule Cracking Down on Consumer Data Sales


• 0:32:57 : Hackers may have stolen the Social Security numbers of every American


• 0:44:25 : Inside the “3 Billion People” National Public Data Breach


• 1:03:48 : CR: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services


• 1:06:36 : Tip of the Week: OSINT Final Steps


• 1:19:55 : Wrap-up