Apple Security
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Apple Releases 3 New Cybersecurity Measures

Apple introduced a number of new security features designed to better shield customers from an array of rising threats. On Wednesday, the tech giant unveiled three new features: iMessage Contact Key Verification, Security Keys for Apple ID and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. The new elements for iMessage will enable…

iPhone
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Making Your iPhone Work For You: 3 iPhone Privacy Practices To Start Now

This is the continuation of a previous post. You can find it here. This is the How to Make Your iPhone Work For You series, stepping right up to the gates of iPhone security. We’re covering where to begin securing your iPhone to make it work to the best of…

iPhone settings
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How To Make Your iPhone Work For You: Intro to PRIV.

Thanks for registering for this common core, How To Make Your iPhone Work For You: Intro to PRIV. 101 We’ve come a long way in learning how to adjust our iPhone settings to create our own ideal versions of iPhone. If you missed it, we’ve covered how-to’s on topics like…

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How to Reduce Spam Email: Remove Your Personal Information from the Internet at Places Like Crunchbase, Zoominfo, & Apollo.io

The best spam email blocker is not getting spammed in the first place. Here’s how to prevent spam email (or at least reduce the amount of spam you are getting) by removing your personal information from the Internet. You may already know this, but here in the United States, where the privacy laws are so lax, it’s perfectly legal for a company to scrape all of your contact information and then sell access to it. ZoomInfo, Spokeo, Crunchbase, Apollo.io, and RocketReach all do this, as do many others. And removing your data from those databases can help to reduce the amount of spam email that you receive. We’re going to tell you how to remove yourself from these top 5 sites, and then we’re going to tell you about a service that will remove you from all the sites (more than 500 of them), if you want to go in that direction.

LastPass Hack Update: Customer Information Accessed
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Amazon Giving Ring Doorbell Videos to Police without Warrant, Consent, or Knowledge of Owners, No Plans to Stop (Includes Full Text of Amazon Disclosure to Sen. Markey)

Amazon is giving the police video taken by private homeowners’ Amazon Ring doorbells not only without a warrant, not only without the consent of the homeowner, but without even the knowledge of the homeowner! And what Amazon has to say about the program is stunning. The Internet Patrol obtained the letter that Amazon sent to Senator Markey in response to Markey’s alarmed request to Amazon for disclosure, and what Amazon has disclosed is, frankly, frightening. Amazon’s Ring Neighbors app includes a ‘Neighbors Public Safety Service’ (NPSS) component, and through that portal a total of 2,161 law enforcement agencies have joined the Ring Neighbor app (so far), as have 455 fire departments. You can think of the Ring Neighbor app as being like Nextdoor, but specifically for Ring Doorbell owners. And, increasingly, the police. However unlike Nextdoor, Amazon is handing over private homeowners’ videos to the police without a warrant, and they’ve done it nearly a dozen times in the first half of 2022 alone. And they clearly fully intend to keep doing it.

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The Phone Privacy Handbook: How to Make Your Phone Location Nearly Impossible to Track

First, you need to know that you can’t make your phone location impossible to track and still be able to use it. But you can make your phone nearly impossible to track. And you can block your phone from being tracked, and block tracking apps. But it takes some work, and diligence. If you listened to a recent interview with Dina Temple-Raston, you’re probably looking for that phone privacy handbook; read on.

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Your Deepest Secrets are Not Safe with Your ISP

If you were expecting a piece of feel-good news, unfortunately this isn’t it. Unless you are like me, and find relaxation in reading articles which are gravely concerning for the future of privacy and digital human rights. Either way, we got you covered: A recent study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) put major league internet service providers on the line; and what they found might have you logging off. The FTC issued orders for information on consumer data practices, privacy, and the companies transparency in regards to such practices, and what they found was pretty horrifying.

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“Remember This Browser?” and Other Cookie-Pushing Questions

Cookies are delicious, depending on your palate. Some like sugar, I’m partial to oatmeal raisin. Others may prefer chocolate chip, and advertisers like the digital ones. And while the wording must be confusing for many, many people, there is no shortage of digital cookies. The majority of modern websites rely extensively on several different types of cookie to provide their users with services. Some are completely innocent, others may be more insidious. The thing is, a cookie by any other name is still a cookie, although the end-user may not realize it.

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How and Why Should the Average Person Use Protonmail?

If you’re reading this article, I’m sure there’s a reason. Maybe you are wondering why you should use encrypted email, or maybe it’s something else.

facial recognition
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Meta Facebook Says They Will Remove Facial Recognition Following Outcries and Concerns

Meta (c’mon, who is going to stop calling it Facebook? How about ‘MetaBook’ or ‘FaceMeta’?) says that they will stop using facial recognition, and will remove more than 1billion individual’s face recognition templates. This coming as, we are sure, heightened scrutiny when it comes to privacy in general, and facial recognition in particular, leads to Facebook Meta seeing the handwriting on the wall, and that handwriting says “there be potential lawsuits”.

WhatsApp's Business App and WhatsApp Business API
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Facebook Service WhatsApp Fined $267million for GDPR Violations

In what is the second-largest GDPR fine to date, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission announced today that they have fined Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp €225million, or the equivalent of $267,198,750.00 USD, for several gross violations of GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation in effect in the EU, as well as the UK since the UK’s ICO adopted it’s own “UK GDPR” following Brexit).

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How to Have Your Email Address and Other Personal Data Removed from Square in 2021

It can be frustrating trying to figure out how to remove your email address from Square, especially if you never gave it to them in the first place, and you are trying to invoke a ‘right to be forgotten’.

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Is Clubhouse Recording Your Conversations? You’d Better Believe It!

Just in time for Android users around the world to join Clubhouse, it’s irrefutably confirmed that yes, Clubhouse is recording your conversations.

Parler Shut Down but Not Before Massive Data Scrape of its Users and Their Posts Videos and Pictures
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Parler Shut Down but Not Before Massive Data Scrape of its Users and Their Posts, Videos and Pictures

As Parler sues Amazon for shutting them down, more than 70 TB of identifying Parler user data revealed to have been grabbed and archived.

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The 5 Best Note-taking Apps Ever

Inspiration, just like Lady Luck, is known to swing around when least expected. So, where do you put down your ideas and thoughts before they get crowded out by the day’s events? When you are on the go and someone suggests a movie you should watch, how do you ensure…