Items tagged with Privacy
Contrary to what some may think, hackers can have scruples and, in some cases, honorable intentions—it's kind of the whole idea behind white hat hacking and events like Pwn2Own. But then there are the kind who wouldn't think twice about breaching a cancer center and swipe personal details of hundreds of thousands of...
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A new feature in the latest beta for WhatsApp gives users more peace of mind that their messages and calls made within the app are end-to-end encrypted. The latest enhancement provides a visual confirmation that their chats are indeed securely encrypted using the Signal protocol.
Most people who use WhatsApp do so...
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It turns out that you do not need Chinese backdoors in products if people are just installing IoT devices with poor security. This is evidenced by a recent report regarding video doorbells manufactured by a Chinese company, which can be easily compromised. Further, these doorbells are sold around the United States at...
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Privacy is a hot-button issue for individuals and the enterprise, which has lead to some clever innovations, such as self-destructing USB drives, among other devices. To that end, the Biden administration is looking to address data privacy with a new executive order with a goal to “protect Americans’ sensitive...
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The European Union (EU) has set its sights on ByteDance’s TikTok app concerning a range of potential violations, including an overly addictive design, privacy shortfalls, and other concerns. EU industry chief Thierry Breton remarked the EU is launching an investigation into the app over a suspected breach of...
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Around the world, countries are plagued with oppression, corruption, and misguided leadership that journalists and ethical hackers are trying to fight. However, keeping data safe from prying eyes can be difficult in some of these places with restrictive laws and invasive policies in place. Despite this, though, people...
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Artificial intelligence is increasingly more pervasive, across many industries. The technology, however, does pose some risks, such as the capability to help create bioweapons or other nefarious things. AI technology can also be used for deepfakes, which the Federal Communications Commission is trying to quell with...
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Meta’s WhatsApp says it will soon bring other encrypted messaging apps into one handy dandy location, making finding users a lot easier. The upcoming change is not all WhatsApp’s doing, however, as European lawmakers deemed Meta, the parent of WhatsApp, to be one of six “gatekeeper” companies that fall under the...
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It's sort of a sad state of things that your smartphone is almost assuredly tracking your every action and movement, and then sending that data to nebulous remote services. Perhaps that's not surprising to, but this really shouldn't be the way things are. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in today, however. Your...
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It might not be nice, but it might just be fair to call anyone who uses Google Chrome's Incognito Mode and then expects real privacy a "rube," given that Google is a company that makes an incredible amount of money on selling other people's information. We're not saying that, though, and the reason is simply because...
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For millions of Chrome browser users, third-party tracking cookies are no longer part of the deal while surfing the internet. That's because Google has finally begun implementing its plan to phase out third-party cookies, albeit initially for a small fraction of Chrome users—just 1%. While that may seem like a...
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No one likes to lose things, so Facebook's new "Link History" sounds okay at first. It's a new feature rolling out to the Android and iOS mobile apps that promises to keep a list of the links you've recently visited from Facebook. Is this a rare instance of benevolence from Mark Zuckerberg? Nope, Link History might...
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In a move designed to enhance the privacy of user data, Google is changing how some data is stored in Google Maps. The company remarked in a blog post that the change will store data from a user's Timeline locally on their actual phones, instead of Google's cloud.
The company says it wants users to “spend less time...
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In less than 72 hours from now, Google will start deleting Google accounts that have been deemed inactive. If you want to save your content, there are some things you can do to ensure that your account and associated content is not caught in the snare of the accounts purge. However, the clock is ticking, so you best...
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You ever Googled yourself? No, it's not an improper question—we're talking about the actual process of putting your own name into Google and seeing what comes up. You might be surprised. Shady websites charge fees to list huge databases of personal information, matching names with addresses and phone numbers that may...
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AI chatbots and assistants are being integrated into nearly every software product and services at a blistering pace. Take, for example, Windows, which has recently been infused with Bing Chat AI via a feature called “Copilot.” While this feature might be cool for some, others may not want an AI bot lurking in the...
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Using wireless signals to discover what is on the other side of a wall is not necessarily a new concept but one that has improved in recent years with advancements in math and machine learning. This has been showcased most recently by a team of researchers out of the University of California Santa Barbara who were...
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A privacy study conducted by Mozilla just uncovered what many of us have feared: automotive driver data privacy has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. The study found that every major car brand failed to adhere to privacy and security standards for internet-connected vehicles.
Even as auto manufacturers...
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Imagine being able to walk up and unlock your front door or start your car with a simple wave of your hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi mind-tricking his way through Stormtroopers. One such person took that idea seriously and implanted (and programmed) 25 under-skin chips.
Miana Windall, a software engineer, walks around...
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Attempts at or unintended incidents of tracking military members have been happening for years, such as when the Strava running app leaked the location of military bases thanks to a published heat map of running locations. Now, however, a threat actor is either being incredibly precise, or companies are just trying to...
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Escape From Tarkov is a hardcore first-person looter-shooter set in the fictional world of Tarkov. With semi-regular updates and changes, players are always looking for an edge to give them an advantage in combat, up to and including data mining the game for stats and other information. However, the developers...
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In the era of tracking your every move online, DuckDuckGo has been the privacy-forward search engine that puts a digital condom over your searches so none of your data goes where it shouldn’t. However, browsers are implementing features to aid in tracking you across the web, so, of course, a privacy-focused browser is...
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