privacy

Today's age is a privacy nightmare made real. Never mind rampant spying and hacking of our digital lives, technology as also made it easier for others to spy on us in places where we should feel safe. All hope is not lost though. Because while technology enables such illicit not to mention illegal behavior, it also empowers regular people to take their privacy back into their own hands. One such product is SpyAssociates' new SpyFinder Pro hidden camera detector, which turns you into somewhat like a spy to fight other spies.

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On April 1st this year, Internet giant Cloudflare made a serious announcement. It was launching a new DNS with the easy to remember 1.1.1.1 IP address. It may look like a joke but it was dead serious in its goal of providing faster and more private browsing experience. Problem is that switching to a different DNS isn't exactly a simple matter, especially on smartphones. That's why on November 11, because 11/11, Cloudflare launched the 1.1.1.1 mobile app to make that as simple as flicking a (virtual) switch.

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Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo, Google Home speakers, and Apple HomePod are becoming more and more common in houses. But more than just homes for smart assistants, these devices might very well become silent witnesses to crimes. That seems to be the reasoning leading to a ruling in North Hampshire where a judge has ordered Amazon to provide any and all recording made by an Amazon Echo in the home of one of two victims in a double murder case.

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Facebook's Portal and Portal+ smart displays are on sale, but the big "should I buy one?" question is about more than just the technology on offer. The social network raised more than a few eyebrows when it announced the two video calling-focused smart displays earlier this year, while still in the shadow of a data privacy controversy.

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Your Roomba robot vacuum cleaner is turning into a mapping explorer for Google, with the two companies collaborating on better understanding the layout - and the uses - of the smart home. The project promises more efficient interactions between IoT and connected devices, though owners will have to opt-in to see the benefits.

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With a company as far-reaching as Google, concerns about user data are naturally always at the forefront (or at least they should be). Google, after all, collects a lot of data on its users so it can serve those users with targeted ads. One of its biggest sources of that data is Google Search, which serves as the company's marquee product. Today, Google announced that it's making it easier to see the data that has been collected and manage it.

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They may sound delicious but like their sugary and carb-filled real-world counterparts, browser cookies can be bad for your digital wellbeing. Especially when said cookies come from third-party sites that want to track your every move, even when you ’ve moved away from that site. These tracking cookies leave crumbs that vendors and even hackers can follow to potentially violate your privacy or even influence your mind. Firefox version 63 will finally put a stop to that but only if you tell it to.

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Apple has launched a new privacy site allowing users of iPhone, macOS, and other products to see just what data the Cupertino firm has on them. The US expansion of the service follows its debut in Europe earlier this year, as Apple complied with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules imposed by the European Union.

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You don't have to be a politician or a celebrity to worry about email privacy these days, but if you're starting to eye your Gmail account with suspicion, startup Helm thinks it has the answer. The company's personal email server may look like a router, but in fact it's a standalone hub for your messages that puts security to the fore.

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The folks at AdGuard created a service called AdGuard Home, a bit of software that creates a DNS server for your home network to block ad tracking. This is for the people who aren't comfortable with every website using their browsing information to serve ads without asking. This isn't just to block advertisements, it's to block companies like Facebook from watching your every move, using your movements without your permission.

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Our smartphones have become a lot smarter, mostly thanks to the inclusion of artificial intelligence or AI in their software features. This AI trend, however, started back when even our powerful handhelds didn't have enough juice to perform all the processing and learning required to make these AI work. To some extent, they still aren't, at least on the learning part. Google, however, thinks the time and hardware is right to make most of the AI happen right on the Pixel 3, keeping data private and prevent it from leaking to the cloud and elsewhere.

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The issue of law enforcement and their need to unlock someone's smartphone is a complicated one, both technically and ethically. It turns out Apple's Face ID devices, like the iPhone X and iPhone XS, are only making this more difficult. A new leak has revealed that a forensics company is teaching police to not look at the screens of suspects' iPhones with Face ID, in turn ensuring they get as many chances as possible to unlock the device.

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