As someone who has been married a long time (longer than the Internet has existed), I never experienced the online dating scene.  Everyone has their own opinion on the topic, and without getting into the merits of online dating, there is risk for children, which is the subject of this privacy tip.

The Federal Trade

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, recently delivered the keynote address for a privacy conference, attended by policy experts and European Union (EU) lawmakers in Brussels, Belgium, where he advocated for new data privacy laws in the United States, similar to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Cook said that modern technology has led to the creation of a “data-industrial complex” in which personal data is “weaponized against us with military efficiency.” According to Cook, this problem doesn’t just affect individuals, but whole societies.
Continue Reading Apple CEO Calls for Comprehensive US Privacy Laws

By now most smartphone users are aware of location tracking used by both Apple and Android operating systems.  Basic location tracking is a system which uses GPS data to know the phone user’s location.  However, according to a recent article published by Quartz, Google’s data collection goes far beyond basic location tracking.  Not only does the data collected go beyond simple location information, but the ‘Opt In’ service Google uses to collect that data, Location History, isn’t as truly Opt In as users might expect.  According to Quartz, Google’s Location History underlies many of Android’s main apps, including Google Assistant and Google Maps.  Furthermore, Opting In to Location History for one app may actually give many apps access to Location History’s data and the ability to send that data to Google.
Continue Reading Google Tracking of Android Users Goes Beyond the Expected

In a precedential ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld a lower court’s ruling holding a criminal defendant in contempt for refusing to decrypt two external hard drives that were seized during a child pornography investigation.

During the investigation, the government seized the defendants’ property, including two iPhones, a MacBook Pro and

For decades, it has been assumed that MacBook and iPhone devices are hack proof and virus free. Their advertisements and claims for being indestructible were never questioned. Yet, nothing is truly immune to intrusion.

Consumers pay a high premium for the slick and glossy Apple devices. Their superior brand has continued to sell and grow throughout the years. With each new release or upgrade, their developers have patched up security holes and weaknesses while managing to stay under the radar.

Apple products in the business world take up less than 4 percent, therefore they are less of a target for  hackers to attack. Why develop a code for malware or a virus for a product that has such a small market share? Creating a Trojan virus that thrives in Windows code and spreads around a network of similar devices, is much more effective than attacking a lone device. 
Continue Reading The Truth in Mac Security

Apple has issued an urgent warning to iPhone users about a crucial iOS update that is the only way to protect iPhones from “the extremely malicious Pegasus software.”

According to Apple, Pegasus can completely take over an iPhone and only 86 percent of iPhone users have updated their phones by installing the iOS version 9.3.5.

Apple was ordered by a federal magistrate judge to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to federal investigators to unlock the password and access the encrypted data on a specific iPhone 5c used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. The iPhone, owned by Farook’s employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health (the