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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley What information is sensitive? What information should you never give to anyone? The answer is, it depends. Sometimes it
[See the full post at: What should you consider sensitive?]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
I think it’s a matter of what a person feels comfortable sharing. My advice is never give your personal info like SSN, address, phone, medical history, or any close to home/subject data that loops around over the internet, regardless of location on the map where you plant your roots. Anything that reveals your day to day personal life and whereabouts. Photos contain GPS info and dates, which can take anyone to your location if they’re looking to do that. I’m not always in sync with my own advice, but it’s a matter of preference and concern. Knowledge is key in staying safe. With any action taken when tapping at the keyboard, just know the consequences when opting to share your life’s blueprint.
MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS
Photos contain GPS info and dates,
One can (in Windows, anyway) delete identifying data.
In Explorer: Rt-click on the photo, which displays Properties
. . . Properties > Details > Remove Properties and Personal Information
– – one then has a choice:
– Create a copy with all possible properties removed [default]
– Remove the following properties from this file: [select items to delete]
One can also remove metadata from Office files. This metadata, among other things, identify the owner of the software the file was created with (e.g. you). Something I learned long ago, the hard way.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
The guidance I was given when google came into existence..
“If you wouldn’t dare print it out and nail it to your front door” or gate (so it’s visible from the street), “it’s sensitive and shouldn’t be on line for anyone you don’t know to find”.
That way it doesn’t matter which principality the on line data is stored (as it isn’t mainly) in which is a particular issue in some businesses with regulations on that, and Windows 10 coming with onedrive for the user to configure by default. (think remote working, documents syncing to cloud copies..)
That is to say, not only “what is sensitive” but “where is it going to be stored” in the physical world.
One can also remove metadata from Office files.
“Everything you do generates data somewhere. That data, when collected and analyzed, becomes information. That information can tell someone more about you than you probably want them to know.”
Written by: Guy McDowell, – Posted on: June 17th, 2019 in: MS Office Tips – online-tech-tips dot com
How to Completely Delete Personal Metadata from Microsoft Office Documents – Plus the reasons why you want to do this
Susan says a caller might ask for a fraction of information to “confirm that it’s you.”
When someone does that to me, my response is “You called me; you know who I am. Prove to me who you are. Tell me some secret you know about me.”
Some professions such as legal and medical are forbidden from sending much more than a “hello” or a confirmation via email. That’s why you have to chat and share documents through their portal. I look forward to when all email clients offer a universal, encrypted communication by default.
In principle, a good idea, to demand that the caller authenticate themselves, but I don’t think I would encourage doing it in this way. They might have something that has leaked, and where they really do know. And some of them are pretty adept at trying to convince you that they have that information, even if they don’t. This is the kind of methodology that some of the extortionists use, especially the ones that threaten to expose illicit activity.
One thing in this area that may help is in notifying the caller that the conversation is being recorded (even if it’s only a bluff).
Most of us are used to the notification of “this call may be recorded” notifications (which we generally ignore, or forget within a few seconds of the notifications (much as we don’t give much thought to click-through EULA agreements), but for any non-personal call, it can be useful to put the person at the other side on notice about recording, even if you’re not actually recording.
The two programs I use to erase the metadata from jpgs are JPG Cleaner 2.6 (Originally written for Windows 98, but still works on new Windows versions.), and JPEG and PNG Stripper. I learned you should run both programs in this order. As to why you should remove the metadata from images, a more lucid and mainstream reason came to the fore in April 2020, when somebody posted images of a Chicago bar (taken from outside of it) which was definitely violating COVID-19 occupancy restrictions. The poster who had left in all the metadata was the person who received death threats. 🙁
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