The New York Times – “Google, Apple and Meta offer near-limitless digital basements in which to store photos, videos and important documents, but you should keep a copy of what you hold most dear…Getting all your data and figuring out how to securely store it is cumbersome, complicated and costly. There’s a reason most people… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
6 Mac Browsers You Should Try for Better Productivity
MakeUseOf: “Almost every popular web browser nowadays is powerful enough to help you get things done. Safari, the web browser built into macOS, is no exception. You can also consider options like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox if you need better extensions. But, in the end, Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox are general-purpose web browsers.… Continue Reading
The Best VPN Services of 2022
How to Geek: “It can be tricky to decide which VPN is the best service for you and your needs. We’ve used our considerable experience with these tools to create this list of the best VPN services out there.” Continue Reading
Everyone Is Using Google Photos Wrong
Wired: “Every year, more than a billion people use the Google Photos app to upload and store billions of pictures and videos. For many, the process is likely identical: You snap some photos with your phone and they’re automatically uploaded to Google’s cloud service. You might pick the best photo and share it on WhatsApp or… Continue Reading
Brave launches FrodoPIR, a privacy-focused database query system
Via Brave – FrodoPIR: a new privacy-preserving approach for retrieving data. “To read more about our FrodoPIR scheme, you can find details here. The paper has been accepted to the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), Vol. 2023, Issue 1, and will also appear here.” Bleeping Computer: “Brave Software developers have created a new privacy-centric… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 24, 2022
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 24, 2022 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading
Fediscope
“FediScope lets you find fediverse accounts for people in a field using Wikidata. You can then compile a custom CSV and import it into Mastodon. It was made by @[email protected] (code | toggle dark mode). Privacy: This tool directly interacts with Wikidata from your browser and does not log your queries. Wikidata creates records for… Continue Reading
Welcome to Hotel Elsevier: you can check-out any time you like … not
Dr. Eiko Fried: “In December 2021, Robin Kok wrote a series of tweets about his Elsevier data access request. I did the same a few days later. This here is the resulting collaborative blog post, summarizing our journey in trying to understand what data Elsevier collects; what data Elsevier has collected on us two specifically;… Continue Reading
What is an IP address and how can you change it with a VPN?
ZDNET: “Your IP address can be a gold mine for invasive advertisers, as well as thieves, hackers, and other bad actors. We’ll explain why it’s so sought after, and how you can protect your IP address by using a VPN…Why would I want to hide my IP address? The short answer is to protect your… Continue Reading
Twitter now shows how many people view your tweets
TechCrunch: “Twitter is rolling out a feature that shows how many people view your tweets, similar to features on platforms like YouTube that show how many times a video has been viewed. “Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video,”… Continue Reading
Google is making its internal video-blurring privacy tool open source
engadget: “Google has announced that two of its latest privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), including one that blurs objects in a video, will be provided to anyone for free via open source. The new tools are part of Google’s Protected Computing initiative designed to transform “how, when and where data is processed to technically ensure its privacy… Continue Reading
Spam texts are out of control, say all 51 attorneys general
FoxNews:”A proposal to force cellphone companies to block certain spam texts is gaining momentum. Meanwhile, there are simple things you can do right now to stop spam texts, which I’ll get to shortly. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has expressed his support for a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to put an end… Continue Reading
