Tag Social networking

Here’s a recent LifeHacker article that may be well received: a manual on how to turn off the “read receipt” feature in some of the most popular apps, including What’s App. And yes, that’s another one up for privacy.

Latest NSA Revelations Not the End of the World

The latest NSA revelations about their ability to penetrate into computers that are not even connected to the Internet may have caused deep concerns but there are at least 2 defensive measures one can undertake.

You can find out more from my latest column here.

NSA Snooping Compromises the Cloud Computing Industry

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg complained last week that trust in social networks and Internet companies has dived ever since cyber snooping and spying activities by the US National Security Agency began to make global headlines earlier this year.

It is no surprise. In fact, as fugitive former NSA operative Edward Snowden pointed out, the encryption system adopted by the International Organization for Standardization and its 163 member countries were actually written by the NSA, convincing proof that online platforms being used by Internet companies and the commercial world, including banks, could in fact be easily compromised by the NSA.

In other words, the NSA designed their own secret back door into the global encryption system for their convenience. So until the encryption system has been overhauled and taken away from NSA’s control, no server and no cloud service provider is secure enough to be entrusted with any confidential data.

So why then are blindly trusting companies still moving ever more data into the cloud and onto servers, where online access to highly confidential information related to clients, customers, employees, deals, business plans and performances, etc., is available to the US snoops?

You can find the entire column here.

The Security Assault on Social Networks

Forget hacking. It works but it’s illegal.

Big data mining is the future of cyber espionage. It is not illegal as long as the data is open source and in the public domain. And all that data on “open” social networking Web sites are most vulnerable.

Two recent commercially developed software packages could soon be giving your government and employer and possibly anyone else who is interested – ways to spy on you like never before, including monitoring your words, your movements and even your plans now and into the future.

Please read the full column here and there.

A little secret and long overdue column – as I have promised some weeks ago.

How about leading a cyber lifestyle without the risks of compromising your computer, privacy and precious confidential data… ie. your life?!

There’s an easy solution and you do not have to be a computer expert. But the CIA, MI6, etc, wouldn’t want you to know the trick… because you can beat those spies and hackers by going online and leaving no trace.

Read the full article here.

Looking back at 2010: A Very Social World
The world has changed. More than ever before, it is dominated by two opposing forces: the compulsion to share information and the need to control it. The year 2010 can claim to have a pivotal spot in the technological history of mankind, though not evidently for the better.
On the eve of the New Year, I began to wonder what some of the most significant world events were and which of these stood out. How could they further have an impact on a world already paranoid about privacy and national security on one hand, and obsessed with the advancement of techno-devices on the other?
The WikiLeaks headlines obviously top the list on a global scale, followed by the Google pullout from China, which left its mark on the world of corporate espionage. Third is the pressure exerted on the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) to hand over its Blackberry encryption to several governments.
These three events signify a paradigm shift in the gathering and sharing of information… (Read the entire column here and there).