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

Credit cards and debit cards are so similar that people often feel they are interchangeable. They look the same, swipe the same, and work in almost all the same places. But there is one huge difference between debit cards and credit cards: debit cards directly access your money. Credit cards are loans – they can

A little more than a week ago, we saw perhaps the single largest data breach dump in history. This followed another massive data disclosure from the same group just a couple weeks prior. Dubbed “Collections 1-5”, together these data dumps represent literally billions of unique user email addresses and passwords. While many of the records

Rather than write a new article every year, I’ve decided to update my original article on Data Privacy Day. This article tells you how to vastly improve your privacy and guard your data from prying eyes right now. Data Privacy Day 2019 also just happens to exactly coincide with the airing of the 100th episode

[UPDATED] The contest is over – thanks to everyone who listened to the PodCentennial show and entered! The Making of the Pod-Centennial The 100th episode of my Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons podcast will air on January 28th! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing my show every week for almost two years now. It all

What follows is a cautionary tale about a technology I’ve been recommending for years: two-factor authentication, or 2FA. Citizens of the Internet, hear me out! This could happen to you… The Case of the Missing Codes Last month, Apple offered a killer deal on iPhone trade-ins: they doubled the value of your old phone as