The anounced change of WhatsApp’s privacy terms has lead to an exodus of users to alternative messengers. It’s no surprise that this happend, since WhatsApp’s mother company Facebook is interested in data and will find ways to moneytize it. They have done this in the past when they forced companies to use their WhatsApp Business […]
Tag Archives: Privacy
iOS 14 Changes Aren’t Bad for Small Businesses After All
Facebook’s full-page ad campaign claims that Apple’s new policy, which will ask users to opt-in for tracking, will hurt small businesses. While it cannot be denied that small businesses depend on advertising, Facebook’s monopoly on social media and it’s popularity means that many small businesses depend on Facebook. For example, take a look at the […]
Daring Fireball: Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy
John Gruber from Daring Fireball gives a very good description of how online ad tracking would work in the physical world: Imagine if you were out shopping, went into a drug store, examined a few bottles of sunscreen, but left the store without purchasing anything. And then immediately a stranger approached you with an offer […]
Is Apple Killing A Billion-Dollar Ad Industry With A Popup?
The focus on Apple’s WWDC 2020 Keynote was on the next iterations of iOS, mac OS Big Sur and of course Apple Silicon. From the perspective of advertisement agencies, there was a specific feature that made them – let’s say – uneasy. It’s a new iOS 14 privacy-feature that requires active opting-in from users. Starting […]
Uncovered: 1,000 phrases that incorrectly trigger Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant | Ars Technica
If you are a user of Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant you’re familiar with “false alarms”. You just utter a completely innocent phrase and suddenly one of these voice assistants springs into action. This can be funny sometimes, but has become quite a privacy issue. Researches managed to produce a list of more than 1.000 […]
WhatsApp Phone Numbers Pop Up in Google Search Results — But is it a Bug? | Threatpost
The WhatsApp feature “Click to Chat” exposes mobile phone numbers on the web and Google’s search engine is able to index them. You can try it using the search string site:wa.me “+43” The phone numbers are simply as part of an URL string (https://wa.me/<phone_number>) and available in plaintext. Facebook claims that this not a bug: […]
Jitsi for the win
Everybody seems to make video calls all the time these days. The usage of Zoom has skyrocketed and so have the privacy issues with this videoconferencing app. As alternative we recommend Jitsi. It’s open source (yay!), it uses a good level of encryption (yay!) and you can install it on your own server (yay!). And […]
Over 500,000 Zoom accounts sold on hacker forums, the dark web
More than 500.000 Zoom accounts have emerged for sale on the dark web and hacker forums, according to a new report by BleepingComputer. Zoom has become a very popular videoconferencing app in recent weeks when the number of people working from home has grown. With the growing popularity, concerns about the app’s security have also […]
Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition Tech Is Being Used By The Justice Department, ICE, And The FBI
Clearview’s facial recognition AI is not only used by law enforcement; there is a large number of private companies that have Clearview accounts, like Kohl’s and Walmart and banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. While most of these companies have no formal contracts with Clearview and appear to have used Clearview’s software on […]
The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It – The New York Times
How do you feel about the end of privacy on public places? In public transport? When you can identfy every stranger that passes by? When every stranger can indentify you without your knowledge? While this might be still a bit away, the NY Times reports that a start-up called Clearview AI is using a massive […]