[This article is part of a Beginners Week blog series from my publisher, Apress.] While humans have had several millennia to adapt to the dangers of the natural world and many decades to react to the advancements of the modern age, the virtual world of the internet is relatively new. The risks of the physical

As Independence Day rolls around for those of us in the USA, our right to privacy is under attack from many angles. While surveillance capitalism is the area I tend to discuss most, our own democratic governments are perhaps the most existential threat to individual privacy. Welcome to Big Brother 2.0. Going Dark? The leaders

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then it should come as no surprise in the age of surveillance capitalism that marketers are clamoring to look deeply into yours. That’s metaphorically speaking, of course. In reality, it’s more skin deep. As humans, we’ve been trained since birth and via natural selection to rely

A critical vulnerability has been found in older versions of Microsoft Windows. If you’re affected, you need to patch your operating system immediately (see below). If you know anyone with an older PC, you need to make sure they’re aware of this ticking time bomb. But what you really need to do, frankly, is update

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Google can read your Gmail. You may even realize that Google is scanning your emails for things like trip itineraries, which allows them to automatically add flights and hotel reservations to your Google Calendar, for example. But you may not realize how much other juicy info is there

I ran across a disturbing article in The Verge about mental health apps that were oversharing user data. As usual, I’m not surprised, but still really angry. This is wrong and has to stop. The study by JAMA Network Open on 36 apps for smoking cessation and depression found that 29 of them shared some

I’ll be honest… I’m finding it hard to even summon the energy to write yet another freaking article about a Facebook fiasco. In fact, there are two this week alone. But they’re serious and if for some reason you have not already deleted Facebook, you need to hear about them. A Tale of Two Screw-Ups

It can be very challenging to hide your tracks when surfing the web, either on your computer or your phone (or really any modern “smart” device). Even if the contents of your communications are encrypted, it’s nearly impossible to hide the metadata: when you communicate, with whom you’re communicating, how long you communicate, etc. Operator,

What happens to your digital life when you die? The laws haven’t kept up with the times and there aren’t clear rules for who has legal rights to your online accounts or the files you’ve stored in the cloud. Let’s talk about how to prepare for your inevitable Digital Afterlife. Getting Your Digital Effects in

I’ve written a comprehensive guide to choosing the best web browser (which you should definitely read), but the choice just keeps getting clearer. If you’re not already using it, you really need to switch to Firefox. Privacy vs Security The main point of my browser guide is that there is a big difference between security