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How Law Enforcement Gets Around Your Smartphone’s Encryption | Ars Technica

January 16, 2021January 16, 2021 mdbincbi

Lawmakers and law enforcement agencies around the world, including in the United States, have increasingly called for backdoors in the encryption schemes that protect your data, arguing that national security is at stake. But new research indicates governments already have methods and tools that, for better or worse, let them access locked smartphones thanks to weaknesses in the security schemes of Android and iOS. Read full story here: How Law Enforcement Gets Around Your Smartphone’s Encryption | Ars Technica

Google And Apple Are Banning Technology For Sharing Users’ Location Data | The Verge

December 11, 2020December 11, 2020 mdbincbi

You may have never heard of the company X-Mode Social, but its code may be in some of the apps on your phone, tracking and selling your location data. Now, Google and Apple are trying to put a stop to it. According to a Wall Street Journal article, the tech companies have told developers to remove X-Mode’s code from their apps, or risk getting them pulled from their respective app stores. X-Mode works by giving developers code to put into their apps, known as an SDK, which tracks users’ location and then…

Windows 10 Is Installing Office Web Apps Without Asking Permission | Engadget

October 19, 2020October 19, 2020 mdbincbi

Mandatory Windows 10 updates aren’t new, but the latest example is raising a few hackles. Windows Latest, ZDNet, The Verge and users are reporting that Windows 10 is force-restarting PCs to install links to Office web apps that launch in Edge, including in the Start menu. And despite initial reports, this isn’t limited to Insider members — people using standard Windows 10 releases have seen the change as well. The apps take up no storage or other resources. Until now, though, installing Office web apps was optional. Windows isn’t asking for your permission, let alone informing you of…

LED Lights Can Help Save The Planet, One Bulb At A Time | CNET

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020 mdbincbi

Upgrading your light bulbs is the easiest and smartest way to help reduce your home’s carbon footprint. Here’s the math. Our lights are usually the first things we turn on when we wake up, and the last things we turn off before we go to sleep. We use them every day and to do almost everything: cook, work, enjoy family meals and relax with a book. But we hardly ever think about how one type of light can be a success story in the fight against climate change. Read full…

Uncovered: 1,000 Phrases That Incorrectly Trigger Alexa, Siri, And Google Assistant | Ars Technica

July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 mdbincbi

As Alexa, Google Home, Siri, and other voice assistants have become fixtures in millions of homes, privacy advocates have grown concerned that their near-constant listening to nearby conversations could pose more risk than benefit to users. New research suggests the privacy threat may be greater than previously thought. The findings demonstrate how common it is for dialog in TV shows and other sources to produce false triggers that cause the devices to turn on, sometimes sending nearby sounds to Amazon, Apple, Google, or other manufacturers. In all, researchers uncovered more…

Oil Prices Dip Into Negative Territory As Market Crashes | Roadshow

April 20, 2020April 20, 2020 mdbincbi

The US oil market witnessed history as the price dived under $0 a barrel for the first time as the coronavirus pandemic bites. US oil prices crashed below $0 a barrel on Monday and spiraled into negative territory for the first time ever. In a historic crash, oil futures opened at their lowest level since 1983. With hundreds of millions of people around the world staying at home to stop the spread of COVID-19, travel by car or plane is nearly nonexistent. Factor in a major lag in manufacturing and…

Apple And Google Are Building Coronavirus Tracking Tech Into iOS And Android | CNET

April 10, 2020April 11, 2020 mdbincbi

The two companies are working together, representing most of the phones used around the world. Two of the tech industry’s biggest players are working together to fight the coronavirus, announcing a new set of tools that could come to a majority of smartphones around the world. The new technology, outlined in white papers published by Apple and Google Friday, relies on Bluetooth wireless radio technology to help phones communicate with one another, ultimately warning people about people they’d come in contact with who are infected with the coronavirus. Apple and Google plan to…

Governments Could Track COVID-19 Lockdowns Through Social Media Posts | CNET

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 mdbincbi

A research group scrapes more than 500,000 Instagram profiles in Italy to see if people abiding by the quarantine. The Italian government enforcing its nationwide lockdown measures to control the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. Your posts on social media have been harvested for advertising. They’ve been taken to build up a massive facial recognition database. Now, that same data could be used by companies and governments to help maintain quarantines during the coronavirus outbreak. Ghost Data, a research group in Italy and the US, collected more than half a…

Coronavirus Pandemic Changes How Your Privacy Is Protected | CNET

March 21, 2020March 21, 2020 mdbincbi

Data protection officials around the world are loosening rules on how your data can be used during the COVID-19 outbreak. Privacy protections around the world are getting lifted during the coronavirus outbreak. As the coronavirus pandemic gets worse, privacy commissioners are lifting data restrictions for health officials to keep track of the outbreak. A review of policy changes around the world shows that data protection agencies are prioritizing lives over privacy, and it could be a sign of what’s to come for the US. In Hong Kong, the city’s privacy…