Category: dsdefender

There’s a recent article in the New York Times which reads a little nostalgic, but makes a good point. There’s no space left for smaller players in the consumer electronic space. Even given the innovation happening, smaller players get gobbled up quickly, and consumed into the huge data crunching consumer giants. Think fitbit… The other point Shira Ovide makes is that the largest consumer electronics companies have basically become “The Facebook that happens to sell us the screens, too”. In short if they can watch you jog, watch you watch, and watch you play, that data is as valuable as any physical electronic device they sell you.

The Internet has given us nearly unlimited access information of all kinds. We can learn about anything that interests us with a few clicks. So can our government, and when their topic of interest is your internet use, that’s a concern.

The federal government’s primary tool for monitoring the Internet activity of U.S. citizens is an initiative called PRISM, launched in the years following 9/11 and immediately covered up. Few people knew anything about it until 2013, when whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed it.

PRISM isn’t an acronym; instead, it’s a codeword that summarizes the government’s attempt to take large quantities of information and focus it in specific areas. In particular, PRISM allows the government to obtain information about individual users directly from the Internet’s biggest sites, such as Google, Facebook and YouTube. Also included in PRISM’s surveillance is mobile data, including location information and text messages.

The government claims that it only does this surveillance to ensure the safety of its citizens, and that PRISM only collects data when there is a given reason to look at the activity of a particular user. However, just as your Echo Dot can hear your conversations when you haven’t specifically said “Alexa”, there’s no guarantee that the government isn’t watching more of your Internet activity than you’re aware of.

Critics of PRISM claim that the program is unconstitutional. The truth is, we don’t really know what the government is doing with our data. The data may simply help the government to identify legitimate issues that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Or, the government may be compiling data to one day be used against us. Since there is so much grey area surrounding PRISM, which the government has neglected to clarify, many people assume the worst.

What should you, a law-abiding citizen, do about PRISM? Treat your personal data carefully. Protect it. Use safeguards wherever possible, including VPNs, data encryption and private browsing. Be wary of public wifi networks and online storage tools. Above all, be aware of the threats surrounding you, and make choices regarding you and your family’s Internet privacy knowing what’s lurking just out of sight.

18 C0-op food stores decided to test a system targeting shop-lifters and violent store visitors using a product from Facewatch. Where’d they get that name?

“In an open letter to the retailer, Privacy International questioned the legality of the technology in stores. It also asked whether information was being shared with the police.”

Facial recognition tech has become extremely controversial. Issues of racial profiling, come to mind but this stuff is going to be hard to put back in the box. A decent article from the BBC.

If this was even remotely possible… “The Commission said the guidelines require online platforms to identify the algorithmic parameters that determine ranking and to share them with companies.” I can imagine the wittier of the group responding with a single parameter, “result=”.

Margrethe Vestager is becoming something of a star in the European Commission, The Commission. Reuters gives you the basics here.

According to a lab in London, Researchers have solved “the protein folding” problem. If this is true, it’s a discovery which rivals, the washing machine. Protein structure and shape in the human body (and all other living things for that matter) define the behaviour of viruses and bacteria. DeepMind is a lab owned by Alphabet Inc. and whether they will share their technology is still an open question.

As much as we’re frustrated with Google’s abuse of individual data, in the fight between good and evil, this investment by Alphabet seems to be a positive one.

Data, data, data, from macro to micro. This article in the NYT is well written.

The latest from Apple complaining that Facebook abuses user data and promiscuously tracks its’ users is a bit rich! The PR firms are hard at work and Facebook is… Well, probably the worst, but what’s painful is to see how much better Apple is at managing this issue. Hypocritical without a doubt, they’ve been promoting an App Tracking Transparency feature and calling out Facebook along the way. It’s true the rhetoric is confusing, but Apple’s strategy here is to attack and distract. They’re up to their necks in a PR game of cat and mouse with Epic, why not attack Facebook and shore up their own spin? The news is all over the place, but this article hits a lot of the information.

They’re cutting the App Store fee from 30% to 15% for developers who generate less than $1Million and that’s 95% of us. When? January 1st. My favourite part of this Bloomberg story is Basecamp CTO’s quote from Twitter. “If you’re a developer making $1m, Apple is STILL asking to be paid $150,000, just to process payments on the monopoly computing platform in the US. That’s obscene!” In any case it’s better than nothing and might appease the courts and public opinion for a while. The fact is it’s a monopolistic platform and their problems won’t go away with the bone they’ve just tossed. Here’s a good article from Bloomberg.

Apple has been using this IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) for ‘ever’. As an app developer we see this each time we publish an app. If you want to integrate ads this is the ID that allows 3rd parties to track your usage. It goes without saying that Apple keeps a close eye on it as well. Now Europe is saying Apple is in clear violation of GDPR regulations. The real problem for apple isn’t allowing users to opt-in or not. They can do that easily. The problem is if a user opts-out, they opt-out of tracking for all of the app installations which use this identifier for their ads. And why give away a free app, if you can’t push ads… This Reuters article is decent.

Europe just doesn’t like getting lobbied by big tech. Someone leaked Google’s strategy for countering the EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton didn’t like it. No kidding. The tactics would be expected but treating Europe as you might treat a weak state without other options, might be a huge miscalculation. Europe and Google are on a collision course for everything ‘Data’. A few billion dollars is okay, but rules and regulations protecting EU member data is a ‘no go’ for Google. This Reuters article seems about right.

The apps are listening, watching and recording you. Don’t let them. Block their access to your phone’s camera and microphone. Most apps — regardless of their intended function — collect personal data and use it for their own benefit. One of the ways that apps get crafty about collecting that data is by accessing your phone’s camera or microphone. Deny that access, and you’ll be safer.

You would be surprised to know that most apps on your phone have access to your camera and microphone data. This may seem OK for social media apps, where you may post videos or photos directly from your device. However, there are hundreds of apps that access your camera and microphone without having an obvious need. They do it to harvest personal data and improve their tracking.

Listening, Watching, Recording

Have you ever logged onto Facebook and seen an advertisement for something you were just talking about? It’s not just a coincidence. In all likelihood, your microphone is turned on and the app is accessing that data. Listening. As a result, they can target ads based on your own stated needs and wants.

Any app is a potential security risk. The more you have on your phone, the greater the risk. If they’re all listening, watching and recording your behavior, they’re gleaning a whole lot of personal data from you. By keeping a minimal number of apps on your phone and ensuring that none of them has access to your camera and microphone, you can improve your personal cyber security.

How to Block Access to iPhone Mic and Camera

• Go to your iPhone Settings.
• Click on App tab.
• Look at each individual app on your phone.
• Toggle microphone and camera under each app in order to disable these functions.

How to Block Access to Android Mic and Camera

• Go to your Android settings.
• Click on the Apps tab.
• Look at each individual app on your phone.
• Disable camera and microphone permission settings for each individual app.

Disabling these functions on each individual app on your phone seldom impacts the functionality of the app itself. It does boost your privacy and security and undermine—a bit—Big Tech’s tracking efforts. Get in to you phone’s settings, toggle those switches and block access to your phone’s camera and microphone. And then delete the apps you haven’t used in a month. (Who likes zombies?)

Reprinted with permission.