In one of the creepier, more invasive – or brilliant, depending on your views – uses of the Internet of Things, smart CPAP machines are being monitored, and even adjusted, from across the Internet, and if you aren’t using yours often enough (known as ‘CPAP compliance’ or being ‘CPAP compliant’, your medical insurance company won’t pay for it, and your life insurance and health insurance premiums could go up. Now, for recent users of the CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machines, this may be old news, but for the rest of us, HOLY CPAP!

The United Kingdom has passed a law that recognizes ‘domestic violence over social media’, and makes it a punishable offense. According to the new law, threatening or even monitoring someone via social media counts as domestic violence. So how do they distinguish between the average act of ‘following’ someone on Facebook or Twitter, and monitoring? Good question.

We were stunned to discover that Facebook is monitoring your self-censorship! When you type something but don’t send it (this is what is meant by self-censoring on Facebook), Facebook takes note of that self-censorship! And Facebook is analyzing that self-censoring behaviour. And remember that the NSA has its fingers in Facebook’s data.

State Farm, the insurance company, has just released an iPhone app that evaluates how you drive. Called the State Farm Driver Feedback app, the iPhone application uses your iPhone’s accelerometer and GPS to track your acceleration, cornering, and braking, and then gives you a grade. But is that all it gives you? What about increased insurance rates, or even being declined insurance, based on how you drive, as recorded by the State Farm Driver Feedback app?

In response to the howls of outrage over the news that iOS4 is tracking and storing every location you visit with an iPhone or iPad, Apple has finally, more than week later, issued a statement on the matter,. In essence, they say that a bug made them do it, and they are going to fix it. Sort of.

According to government officials and insiders, the Federal government is seeking broad authority and discretion to monitor all Internet communications, including communications on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, instant messaging systems, and even (or hey, perhaps especially) encrypted emails.

Oh goody. The anti-privacy folks at Flexi Spy, who brought you cell phone tapping software for Nokia 60, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones back in 2007, have just announced a new iPhone cellphone spying software version of FlexiSpy. Whee!