Newsletter Archives

• Kape Technologies, formerly Crossrider, now owns 4 top VPNs

  Posted on September 27th, 2021 at 02:43 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  A holding company with a controversial history — Kape Technologies — announced this month that it had purchased a leading virtual private network, ExpressVPN, adding it to a collection of three other major VPN companies that Kape acquired in 2017 through 2019.

  This concentration of VPN services has raised concerns.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.37.0 (2021-09-27).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender, Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy, Public Defender, security, VPN

• Apple gives privacy one minute

  Posted on September 20th, 2021 at 02:43 Silvia Eckert Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  APPLE NEWS

  

  By Silvia Eckert

  “California streaming” ducks the controversial CSAM issue at last week’s annual iPhone event.

  As reported by Brian Livingston in his column Apple plans to break its end-to-end encryption (AskWoody 2021-08-30), Apple announced about a month ago an initiative to limit the distribution of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) by looking for inappropriate imagery on its customers’ devices and reporting occurrences to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But because the technology represented what amounted to surveillance that could be applied to virtually anything, an enormous amount of backlash against the initiative occurred.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.36.0 (2021-09-20).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.36.F (2021-09-20).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter Apple, Apple News, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy, security

• Apple plans to break its end-to-end encryption

  Posted on August 30th, 2021 at 02:42 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Apple Computer shocked computer-security experts when the Cupertino company announced on August 5 that it plans to circumvent end-to-end encryption in Mac and iOS software, reporting US users if more than a few photos in their iCloud account match a national database of child pornography.

  “We want to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM),” Apple said in its announcement. But people with experience in the subject said the technology would be used for everything other than that.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.33.0 (2021-08-30).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender Apple, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, encryption, privacy, Public Defender, security, Surveillance

• Microsoft Edge imports other browsers’ passwords

  Posted on July 12th, 2021 at 02:45 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ISSUE 18.26 • 2021-07-12

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  When some readers installed the new Microsoft Edge browser — which replaces the old “legacy Edge” — they got a big surprise. They discovered that Edge had somehow magically absorbed all the usernames and passwords they’d carefully saved in their previously installed browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and legacy Edge.

  What’s even more surprising is that Edge — which until recently couldn’t import or export passwords at all — may be doing this new behavior by design.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.26.0 (2021-07-12).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.26.F (2021-07-12).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Edge, privacy, security

• Anom: A $2,000 smartphone that let the FBI listen in

  Posted on June 21st, 2021 at 02:45 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ISSUE 18.23 • 2021-06-21

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Special smartphones that were supposedly the most super-secretive in the world actually resulted in at least 800 arrests, the seizure of eight tons of cocaine, and the recovery of $48 million in currency from organized-crime gangs on June 6 and 7.

  The FBI, Europol, Australian Federal Police, and the law-enforcement agencies of several other countries announced on June 8 that they had quietly intercepted 27 million messages from what’s being called “WhatsApp for criminals.”

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.23.0 (2021-06-21).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.23.F (2021-06-21).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy, smartphones

• Other Apple privacy practices

  Posted on May 17th, 2021 at 01:03 Nathan Parker Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ISSUE 18.18 • 2021-05-17

  APPLE

  

  By Nathan Parker

  Not all privacy settings are neatly contained in the main Settings app in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

  In my previous articles in this series on Apple’s privacy settings, I enumerated those found in what we might call the “usual places.” There are some others involving privacy that are found elsewhere. This final article in the series will help you find those “out of the box” controls.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.18.0 (2021-05-17).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.18.F (2021-05-17).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy Apple, Apple privacy, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy

• Take control of your Mac’s privacy

  Posted on May 3rd, 2021 at 01:08 Nathan Parker Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ISSUE 18.16 • 2021-05-03

  APPLE

  

  By Nathan Parker

  Apple’s emphasis on privacy is focused on personal devices, such as iPads and iPhones. But Macs have privacy settings, too.

  In my recent article “Take control of your privacy — iPhone & iPad” (AskWoody 18.12, 2021-04-05), I discussed many of the settings provided by iOS and iPadOS to control the privacy and security of the device and the apps running on it. Although one might think all Apple systems would be in lockstep, I have noticed that the settings in macOS are not quite as granular, not quite as detailed, as those in iOS/iPadOS.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.16.0 (2021-05-03).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.16.F (2021-05-03).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, MacOS, privacy

• How to control the privacy of your Microsoft account

  Posted on May 3rd, 2021 at 01:02 Lance Whitney Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  MICROSOFT

  

  By Lance Whitney

  You can review and manage a host of privacy settings and collected data for your Microsoft account via a dedicated account website.

  I know that some Windows users shy away from creating a Microsoft account because they’re concerned about the software giant siphoning up too much information about them. That’s certainly a valid concern. Like other tech companies, Microsoft will track many of your activities to “customize your experience” but also, sadly, to serve you targeted ads and other content.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.16.0 (2021-05-03).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Privacy AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Accounts, privacy

• Take control of your privacy – iPhone & iPad

  Posted on April 5th, 2021 at 01:02 Nathan Parker Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  APPLE

  Take control of your privacy – iPhone & iPad

  

  By Nathan Parker

  Apple heavily promotes its devices and services as being focused on your privacy, especially for those who heavily use Apple’s built-in apps and services.

  Apple has a prominent page on its site devoted to its view of privacy.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.12.0 (2021-04-05).

  Apple, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy Apple, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, iOS, iPadOS, privacy

• Here’s looking at you, kid: the child-cam scam

  Posted on March 1st, 2021 at 01:06 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ---

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  Here’s looking at you, kid: the child-cam scam

  By Brian Livingston

  It’s terrible when no one is paying attention to you. But it’s much worse when someone is paying attention to you whom you don’t WANT to be paying attention to you.

  Around the world, millions of nursery schools, daycare centers, and private homes have installed “child cams.” These are intended to allow parents to see what their kids and caregivers are doing at daycare, how their infants are sleeping in a crib room, and so on. Many of the systems allow the video to be viewed from a distance across the Internet.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.8.0 (2021-03-01).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender, Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Internet of Things, privacy, Public Defender

• Business cyber insurance: A sea change

  Posted on November 15th, 2020 at 21:00 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  SMALL-BUSINESS COMPUTING

  By Amy Babinchak

  For IT businesses — and by extension, their clients — adapting to a rapidly shifting technology environment has been a challenge.

  Not the least of those changes is insuring for data-related privacy and security losses.

  Not that long ago, insuring my business was relatively simple. We were covered primarily for liability and errors/omissions. Today, the array of events covered by my policy is mind-boggling — much of it focused on data security and privacy.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Business insurance, IT changes, privacy, security

• Privacy update: Brave is the most private browser, Edge blabs like crazy

  Posted on March 2nd, 2020 at 15:12 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  An interesting white paper from Prof Leith, Trinity College, Dublin (PDF):

  We measure the connections to backend servers made by six browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Brave Browser, Microsoft Edge and Yandex Browser, during normal web browsing. Our aim is to assess the privacy risks associated with this back-end data exchange. We find that the browsers split into three distinct groups from this privacy perspective. In the first (most private) group lies Brave, in the second Chrome, Firefox and Safari and in the third (least private) group lie Edge and Yandex…

  [When typing the text leith.ie/nothingtosee.html,] Edge sends text to www.bing.com as it is typed. A request is sent for almost every letter typed, resulting in a total of 25 requests. Each request contains contains a cvid value that is persistent across requests although it changes across browser restarts. Once the typed URL has been navigated to Edge then makes two additional requests: one to web.vortex.data. microsoft.com and one to nav.smartscreen.microsoft.com. The request to nav.smartscreen.microsoft.com includes the URL entered while the request to web.vortex.data.microsoft.com transmits two cookies…

  For Brave with its default settings we did not find any use of identifiers allowing tracking of IP address over time, and no sharing of the details of web pages visited with backend servers. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all share details of web pages visited with backend servers. For all three this happens via the search autocomplete feature, which sends web addresses to backend servers in realtime as they are typed…

  From a privacy perspective Microsoft Edge and Yandex are qualitatively different from the other browsers studied. Both send persistent identifiers than can be used to link requests (and associated IP address/location) to back end servers. Edge also sends the hardware UUID of the device to Microsoft [emphasis added] and Yandex similarly transmits a hashed hardware identifier to back end servers. As far as we can tell this behaviour cannot be disabled by users. In addition to the search autocomplete functionality that shares details of web pages visited, both transmit web page information to servers that appear unrelated to search autocomplete.

  So it looks like the new Edge (Leith says the tested version is 80.0.361.48, which is definitely Chredge) not only tracks what you’re doing, it flags all of your actions with a hardware-unique identifier.

  Somebody tell me again how Microsoft values your privacy?

  Thx Catalin Cimpanu.

  Windows News Edge, privacy
• « Older Entries