How to Geek – “Have you been scrolling through Google settings looking for the button that turns off AI overviews in search? I tried it too and learned two things. First, there’s no official way to disable AI overviews. Luckily, there are workarounds to get rid of those experimental search results on Google. Google Doesn’t… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
De-Google your life: How to delete all photos from Google Photos
Proton Blog: “Using Google Photos to store and share your pictures means allowing the company to see, analyze, and process them. Many people concerned about their privacy have taken steps to move away from the Google ecosystem, despite the company’s efforts to hide its surveillance-based business model. Apart from privacy concerns, Google made promises about… Continue Reading
In November 2024, everything is at stake
“The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate. That’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson, and it’s super-relevant to our situation today. Our schools aren’t doing enough to create an educated electorate, and most of our journalists are doing a terrible job. This is terrifying, because the 2024 elections could be the… Continue Reading
Thousands of Corporate Secrets Were Left Exposed. This Guy Found Them All
Wired – Security researcher Bill Demirkapi found more than 15,000 hardcoded secrets and 66,000 vulnerable websites—all by searching overlooked data sources [unpaywalled]: “If you know where to look, plenty of secrets can be found online. Since the fall of 2021, independent security researcher Bill Demirkapi has been building ways to tap into huge data sources,… Continue Reading
The mining of the public domain
Jessamyn West, Librarian.net – “Public.work is a search engine for public domain content.” The site claims to have over 100,000 public domain images. This in and of itself is not that special, but the interface is. It’s gorgeous, a fun and engaging discovery layer where every search becomes a URL that can be shared [example]… Continue Reading
Evaluating People Search Site Removal Services
New Report: Data Defense: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services – “Seven years ago, I typed my own name into a search engine and was horrified to learn that my name, age, home address, and phone number were publicly posted by multiple people-search sites without my knowledge, let alone consent. Shortly after finding my own data… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024 – 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 the increasingly complex… Continue Reading
OpenAI says its latest GPT-4o model is ‘medium’ risk
The Verge: “OpenAI has released its GPT-4o System Card, a research document that outlines the safety measures and risk evaluations the startup conducted before releasing its latest model. GPT-4o was launched publicly in May of this year. Before its debut, OpenAI used an external group of red teamers, or security experts trying to find weaknesses… Continue Reading
It’s not worth paying to be removed from people-finder sites
Ars Technica: “If you’ve searched your name online in the last few years, you know what’s out there, and it’s bad. Alternately, you’ve seen the lowest-common-denominator ads begging you to search out people from your past to see what crimes are on their record. People-search sites are a gross loophole in the public records system,… Continue Reading
Artificial Intelligence Impacts on Privacy Law
Rand Research Published Aug 8, 2024 -“The European Union (EU)’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act is a landmark piece of legislation that lays out a detailed and wide-ranging framework for the comprehensive regulation of AI deployment in the European Union covering the development, testing, and use of AI. This is one of several reports intended to… Continue Reading
How to protect your college laptop: A student’s guide to cybersecurity
PCWorld: “Security is essential for any laptop, whether you’re on a college laptop, a gaming laptop, or especially a business laptop. But college laptops face unique challenges. For example, if you’re a student and you’re connecting your own laptop to your school’s network — perhaps in a dorm — then you should really be using… Continue Reading
Hackers Allegedly Steal Billions of Personal Records From Fla. Security Firm
PC Mag: “A little-known company in Florida allegedly lost records on 2.9 billion individuals to hackers, according to a class-action lawsuit. National Public Data specializes in background checks and fraud prevention. But the data it collects appears to have ended up in the hands of a hacking group called “USDoD.” It began selling access to… Continue Reading
