It’s that time of year again! Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day and all the other gift shopping days between now and the end of the year. (Already missed Singles Day, though.) But you need to make sure that you’re not giving away your gift recipient’s privacy or giving hackers a means to rip off
. Consumer Reports is warning people about a recent spate of phone scams with callers claiming to be agents of the Social Security Administration. These fraudsters are using caller ID spoofing to make it seem as if they’re calling from 800-772-1213. While that is the actual number for the SSA, it’s not the SSA calling.
It’s no secret that I’m a big Apple fan. I’ve bought Apple computers for literally decades. (Okay, I did once have a cheap, sordid affair with a Power Computer Mac clone, but I swear it was meaningless.) That said, I’ve used Windows and Linux machines professionally over those same years. While each systems has its
Last Friday, Facebook notified users about a data breach that may have exposed up to 90 million Facebook users’ data. Facebook has certainly had their share of screw-ups and shady practices revealed in the last year or so, prompting me to finally just delete my Facebook account. Here’s what you need to know about the
It’s been over two years since I published the 2nd edition of Firewalls – and this update is a whopper! The third edition is 400 pages long and has 152 tips in it (compared to 326 pages and 131 tips for the previous version). It’s the most comprehensive version yet, updated for the latest Mac,
According to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), you can’t charge sick people more for their health insurance and you can’t deny people coverage due to pre-existing conditions. But given the current administration’s penchant for gutting regulations and their vehement dislike of the ACA, those protections may not be around much longer. If so, in
Ever since WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for a staggering $19B, the extremely popular global messaging app has been losing its focus on privacy. WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum (who grew up in the Soviet Union) has now left Facebook, and with him WhatsApp may have lost its last hope for retaining the user
Facebook, I’m breaking up with you… It’s not me… it’s you. In the last few weeks, Facebook has been rocked by one scandal after another. First the Cambridge Analytica thing, then the “Ugly Truth” memo, and then news that it’s been saving all your text messages and call info. But these are just the latest
If you don’t know what Facebook knows about you, you should – and you will, if you read this article. And then some. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google, Instagram… we commonly refer to these services as “social media”. The premise is that they allow you to easily share info with your friends and family. And
There’s a new option in the Facebook mobile app called “Protect”. Click this will take you to the app store and point you at the VPN service called Onavo. Facebook bought this company back in 2013 and it’s very clear that the purpose of pushing people to use this service is to collect more data
