[This part 2 of a multi-part series – start here.] Before we purge our online email history, we should make a complete and searchable backup. Blazing Trails Email apps, or “clients”, are designed primarily to send and receive emails. They also have the ability to store older emails, including searching them, organizing them into folders, […]
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For years, we’ve been depositing personal data into online accounts. And while it sits there, it’s not just stored – it may be analyzed, correlated, shared, monetized or leaked. It may be time to withdraw that data and put it somewhere safer. Let’s start with some of the oldest online data: email. Postcards, Not Letters
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The big AI companies are simultaneously touting the promise and peril of their wares. So… which is it? So Good It’s Scary In the last week, two of the leading AI companies announced the availability of new AI models that were so good at coding that they were basically afraid to release them to the
AI: Promise & Peril Read More »
Spring has sprung! And right now is an excellent time to clean up your digital devices. Subtraction Makes You Safer When we think about improving security and privacy, we tend to add things: password managers, VPNs, encrypted communication apps. But one of the most effective ways to protect yourself is much simpler: remove what you
There’s a very potent, very effective new malware delivery mechanism dubbed ClickFix, accounting for over half of all infections last year. I’ll tell you how to avoid it – and why you shouldn’t have to. What is ClickFix? We’re getting used to seeing CAPTCHAs that make us do weird things to prove that we’re real
This is a multiple-part series – go here for the full list, Welcome to Part 5 of my De-Google series. If you haven’t done so already, I’d start with the first article (strategy), even if you want to read the other articles out of order. You’ll find nice jump links at the bottom of the
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People are putting way too much trust in AI systems, giving them the ability to act on their behalf. It’s a recipe for disaster. Don’t do it… at least not yet. Artificial Intelligence, as a concept, is old. I wrote about this in a recent article that laid out the privacy risks associated with AI
Agents of Misfortune Read More »
This is another article in my series on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Let’s talk about how we can using some clever techniques to assert the truth of a statement without divulging personal data that proves the assertion. What problem are we solving? This is the question we need to always ask first. And there are several
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AI chatbots are all the rage. They’re powerful tools that do amazing things, but come with serious caveats and concerns. Today I’ll focus on privacy. Background Artificial Intelligence, as a technology, has been around since at least the 1950’s. But the current AI boom started with the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) around 2017,
[The coin promotion has ended, but the treasure chest promo is ongoing] The dragon challenge coins are back! It’s been too long since I’ve given away some of my highly-collectible, security-enhancing dragon challenge coins! The promotion will run through the end of January (2026), so jump on this while you can! Read on for details…
Jan 2026 Patron Promotion! Read More »
