Episodes

Today, most of us take the internet – and access to the internet – for granted. It’s ubiquitous. However, the current war in Ukraine has (hopefully) made us realize that things can change dramatically overnight. While we can always hope for the best, we should be at least minimally prepared for the worst. I’m not suggesting we all prepare for military invasion, but there are much more likely scenarios that might lead to power and communications infrastructure problems like bad storms, natural di...

I wrap up my de-Google project this week with two biggies: Google Drive and Google Docs. I decided to reduce my Google data footprint as one of my 2022 New Year’s resolutions, so I’ve done a ton of research to replace all the major Google services with privacy-respecting alternatives. My hope is that you can use this information to reduce your own Google data exposure (and help your friends and family, while you’re at it). In other news: UK police arrested seven people that may be tied to the L...

Today I’m speaking with a fellow privacy evangelist: Henry from Techlore. Like me, Henry and his team are on a mission to teach regular, everyday people how to secure their data and improve their privacy. Henry and I have a frank discussion about the importance of privacy today and the struggles we have when deciding which privacy-oriented products to recommend. First of all, everyone’s privacy “threat model” is different. Second, many people still don’t understand the true impacts of privacy fa...

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2022 is to reduce my Google footprint – to try to de-Google my life as best I can – and hopefully inspire you to do the same. In today’s show, I’ll talk about replacing Google’s many communications apps (Meet, Hangouts, Chat, Talk), Google Authenticator (the Kleenex of 2FA apps), Google Maps and Waze, and YouTube. In security and privacy news: ISPs in the UK are complaining about Apple’s Private Relay feature; the Federal Trade Commission has a new weapon to...

We didn’t use to think too much about physical computer security because most computers were safely stored in our homes or businesses. But many people today use laptops which can be lost or stolen while traveling or toting them back and forth to work. Having physical access to a computer makes it much easier for bad guys to hack into them and steal our data. By “sniffing” the data signals on the wires in computer motherboards, bad guys can actually pull out security keys that would allow them to...

As my de-Google project progresses, I realized that I skipped the most important step: reconnaissance. Before you can de-Google your life, you need to first make a list of the Google products and services you interact with – and not all of them have “Google” in their names. Google also owns YouTube, Waze, Nest, Fitbit, Chromebooks, and much more. Furthermore, you need to know and understand what information Google already knows about you. And while you’re doing that, you should delete all the ex...

Your cell phone is a super computer and phenomenally powerful tracking device. Even George Orwell wouldn’t have dreamed that telescreens would be pocket sized and that citizens would willingly carry them 24/7. That one device knows all about you and has access to your most personal and critical information, including contacts, emails, social media, financial accounts, medical information, and much more. Furthermore, these devices are often used to secure our accounts through two-factor authentic...

One of my big goals for 2022 was to minimize my Google footprint. In the last news show, I covered Google Search, Chrome and Android. In today’s show, I’ll tackle two other big ones: Google’s email (Gmail) and calendar (Gcal) services (and Google’s contacts, for good measure). I actually replaced Gmail with two different services, because they each address two different needs I have. In others news: Microsoft finally disables Word and Excel macros by default for any file downloaded from the int...

You may not know it, but our world has already been basically taken over by free and open source software, or FOSS – specifically, the Linux operating system. Just about every single electronic appliance or device today, from your smartphone to your smart toaster, is running some flavor of the Linux operating system. Furthermore, open source software projects are the bedrock of many for-profit software applications, operating systems, mobile apps and web apps. It’s everywhere, and yet you probab...

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2022 is to minimize my Google footprint. In reality, it’s very difficulty to completely avoid Google products, if you include things like Google Analytics, Google’s cloud computing, and other services that we may not directly choose. But thankfully, there are many excellent, privacy-respecting alternatives to Google’s more well-known products and services. In today’s show, I’ll start with some of the most basic ones: Google Search, Google Chrome browser, and ...

We tell our search engines a lot of very personal things. They arguably know more about us than our best friends and significant others do. A history of your search terms can reveal so much about you, especially when viewed over the course of days, months and even years. And unfortunately, companies like Google use this privileged position to better target us with advertisements. This may seem innocuous, today’s guest, Kelly Finnerty, will explain how this data collection can lead to some truly ...

Personal data privacy isn’t going to just happen on its own. We have to somehow collectively construct it. But how? Will it require regulation or can consumers drive change by consciously choosing privacy-respecting products and services? When it comes to regulations, why are things so different in the European Union versus the US and other global markets? What do privacy teams look like in modern corporations and how should they function? I’ll pose these and many other questions to my guest, Wh...

Of course, every week should be “data privacy week”, but we do set aside a specific time each year to focus on privacy – particularly educating as many people as possible about it. Until this year, we only dedicated one day for this – but as of 2022, it’s been promoted to an entire week! Data Privacy Week runs from January 24-28, so today I’m going to prep you for it with several of my top privacy protection tips! In the news: the FBI uses foreign intelligence services to sidestep US surveillan...

It’s the start of a brand new calendar year! And therefore it’s time to engage in that annual ritual of planning to do better this year by making our list of New Year’s Resolutions. To help you with the cybersecurity and privacy items on your list (an area where we all need major improvement), I will share with you my personal list of cyber goals for 2022. Yes, even security advocates can suffer from the “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. We’re all human, and there are plenty of things that I ...

Navigating the online world today is hard enough as an adult. But it’s way worse for kids. Not only are they short on life experiences that would give them the context they need, but as students during a pandemic, their privacy rights are being sorely tested by new “edtech” apps and services. Today I speak with Jill Bronfman from Common Sense Media about their new report on the state of privacy for kids. Their research is quite comprehensive – and (spoiler alert) the results aren’t great. Obviou...

We’ve come to the end of another year. As we take a breather and gather with family and friends for the holidays, it’s a good time to look back over the year that just passed. I’ve collected a handful of snippets from some of my favorite shows from this year, along with some a little commentary. If you’re new to the show, you can catch up on some stuff you may have missed. Or if you’d like to introduce someone else to the podcast, this would be a great one to share. You can find all the origin...

The internet is on fire this week. The worst cybersecurity vulnerability of the last ten years (and perhaps more) has kicked the internet ant hill. Companies around the globe – big and small – are scrambling to repair a gaping hole in a ridiculously mundane but widely popular open source tool called Log4J. What it is and what does it mean for you? I’ll get into all of that today. In other news: many popular wireless home routers are riddled with security bugs (update your firmware now); family ...

The rampant collection and sharing of personal data is not just a creepy nuisance. Surveillance capitalism has actually had seriously deleterious effects on society and democracy. In the United States, we have certain rights enshrined in the Constitution that are supposed to protect citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are supposed to have to jump through some non-trivial legal hoops in order to access our personal data. But with a massive m...

Transparency is critical when it comes to trust – and right now, particularly in the United States, we’re having some real issues with trust in our elections. Most of our election systems today are completely opaque in terms of their hardware and software design because they’re made by private companies who want to protect their intellectual property. But this secrecy also seriously impedes independent third parties from being able to test and verify these devices that are crucial to our democra...

Credit cards are more secure than debit cards. I’ve said this in my book, my podcast, my blog and my seminars. Credit card transactions are loans – you’re not out any money if a fraudulent charge comes through (assuming you or the credit card company catches it first). With debit cards, any fraud activity will actually take your money from your account – it’s gone and you have to convince your bank to give it back. And so, I almost never use my debit card. And yet, I was still hacked. My card wa...

When you think about improving your privacy and protecting your personal information, it’s important to realize that it will also improve your security. According to Craig Danuloff, CEO of The Privacy Co. and maker of the Priiv app, privacy harms fall into at least four different buckets: personal data leaks (embarrassment and reputation harm), online tracking (targeted ads and manipulation), financial accounts (including fraud and identity theft), and harassment (stalking, bullying, even physic...

The gift-giving season is officially upon us, and with covid supply chain issues, if you’re going to order gifts, you need to get on it. And in today’s show, I’ll share the highlights of my annual Best & Worst Gift Guide where I focus on the privacy and security of popular gifts. You won’t be surprised at a lot of the items on my naughty list, but I’ll bet you’ll find some interesting ideas from the nice list that you can give your loved ones this holiday season. I will also cover several news ...

Nothing is arguably more fundamental to a democracy than voting. But it’s not enough to have a secure election. The electorate also needs to trust that the results are valid. In the United States today, that trust is in short supply – many people believe that the 2020 election was rigged. On one hand, many of our electronic voting systems are demonstrably insecure and trivially capable of being hacked. On the other, our cybersecurity experts, government agencies and election officials are tellin...

There were lots of scary computer security and privacy stories in the news this week, coinciding nicely with Halloween. We’ll start off with an unfortunate new cybersecurity term: killware. This is software whose end result is actual physical harm to human beings, including death. Sadly, this is now a thing. And I don’t know about you, but Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of the future (the “metaverse”) is pretty damn scary, too. In other news: a hacker seems to have stolen the government identity info...