December 13, 2023 — “The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new rules to further protect consumers from scam communications by directly addressing some of the biggest vulnerabilities in America’s robotext defenses and closing the “lead generator” robocall/robotexts loophole. The new rules allow blocking of “red flagged” robotexting numbers, codifies do-not-call rules for texting, and encourages… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
Proton Mail Now Has a Desktop App
How to Geek: “Proton now makes a whole suite of software geared towards privacy and security enthusiasts, following the strictest standards of encryption, but it all had its start back when the company launched Proton Mail. It was the company’s first product back in 2013, but there still hasn’t been a true desktop client. That’s… Continue Reading
How to Remove Your Personal Info From Google
ZDNet – The best online data removal services. Erasing yourself from the internet isn’t an easy or quick process, but these services can assist you. Google – Find and remove personal contact info in Google Search results. “When you use “Results about you,” you can find out if your personal contact info, like your home… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 9, 2023
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 9, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading
Mozilla Privacy Not Included Gift Guide
Mozilla Foundation: “Make smart choices to protect your privacy. Search for products. Read expert reviews. Get tips and tricks. Dozens of products are reviewed, include Tips to Protect Yourself when using each product, What data does the company collect for each product, as well as the following explanations that document each evaluation: A Little Creppy,… Continue Reading
Facebook watches teens online as they prep for college
PopSci: “Picture a high school student who wants to go to college, likes to cheer on her school’s football team, and plays in a sport or two herself. . One day after school, she signs up for an official ACT account so she can schedule her college entrance exam and see what score she gets after taking… Continue Reading
Apple admits to secretly giving governments push notification data
Ars Technica: “Governments have been secretly tracking the app activity of an unknown number of people using Apple and Google smartphones, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed today. In a letter demanding that the Department of Justice update or repeal policies prohibiting companies from informing the public about these covert government requests, Wyden warned that… Continue Reading
A Bold New Plan for Preserving Online Privacy and Security
IEEE Spectrum: “…We’re all hoping that companies will keep us safe, but it’s increasingly clear that they don’t, can’t, and won’t. We should stop expecting them to.” To ensure that cloud services do not learn more than they should, and that a breach of one does not pose a fundamental threat to our data, we… Continue Reading
Your car is probably harvesting your data. Here’s how you can wipe it
The Record: “It is so easy to vacuum up private data from vehicles that Andrea Amico taught his daughter how to extract text messages from her mom’s car when she was only eight years old. Blue-haired and an engineer by training, Amico has a hacker’s mentality, which has manifested in giving drivers a way to… Continue Reading
Gmail’s AI-powered spam detection is its biggest security upgrade in years
Ars Technica: “The latest post on the Google Security blog details a new upgrade to Gmail’s spam filters that Google is calling “one of the largest defense upgrades in recent years.” The upgrade comes in the form of a new text classification system called RETVec (Resilient & Efficient Text Vectorizer). Google says this can help… Continue Reading
Tracking people in-and-out of Mar-a-Lago was easy thanks to commercial software
Rolling Stone: “Spying on presidents used to be a tough business. One of the great unsung heroes of American history was a formerly enslaved woman named Mary Bowser, a spy who infiltrated the family of Jefferson Davis as a domestic servant, and eventually landed a full-time job in the Southern White House, the political seat… Continue Reading
Automakers’ data privacy practices “are unacceptable”
Ars Technica: “US Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) is one of the more technologically engaged of our elected lawmakers. And like many technologically engaged Ars Technica readers, he does not like what he sees in terms of automakers’ approach to data privacy. On Friday, Sen. Markey wrote to 14 car companies with a variety of questions… Continue Reading
