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Tag: privacy

Glenn Fleishman 77 comments

Tune Find My for Travel Tracking to Avoid Annoying AirTag and Apple Device Alerts

Apple’s AirTag and other Find My trackers—along with Find My-tracked Apple devices—may be too aggressive about telling you where they are—or aren’t. They can be useful for tracking luggage and other valuables while traveling, particularly with others, but you will likely need to tune your settings to reduce notifications.

Adam Engst 14 comments

Instagram and Facebook Could Track Everything You Do in Their In-App Browsers

Meta’s Instagram and Facebook iOS apps open external links in an in-app browser instead of Safari, enabling them to inject custom JavaScript code into every website you visit using the in-app browser.

Adam Engst 30 comments

How to Securely Erase a Mac’s SSD or Hard Drive

If you need to get rid of a Mac or external drive, how do you ensure that no one can access the data on it? Adam Engst runs through the various methods you can employ, one or more of which should address your situation.

Adam Engst 62 comments

Survey Results: Which iOS 15 and macOS 12 Monterey Features Do You Actually Use?

The results are in and wow, do people not use a lot of Apple’s features. In fact, only 4 of 20 features garnered more votes from those who used the feature than those who didn’t. Some of the usage patterns are no surprise—SharePlay, really?—but others caught us off guard.

Adam Engst 88 comments

Facebook Change Ensures Tracking by Preventing URL Stripping

If you use Brave or Firefox to protect your privacy from the social media sausage machine, note that Facebook has just changed its URL scheme to prevent privacy tools from stripping URL tracking parameters.

Josh Centers 12 comments

Apple Improves the AirTag “Unwanted Tracking” Sound

Apple has released an AirTag firmware update that makes it easier to hear the alert sound from an unwanted AirTag.

Josh Centers No comments

A New York Times Reporter Tracked Her Husband’s Every Move. Here’s What She Learned

New York Times privacy reporter Kashmir Hill used an AirTag, a Tile, and a GPS device to track her husband’s every move (with his consent). It’s a fascinating story of how well the different products worked and how creepy it felt.

Adam Engst No comments

Apple Explains How It Will Address AirTag Privacy Issues

Media reports of AirTags being abused by criminals have stirred controversy. Apple has published a brief but detailed plan on how it is addressing privacy concerns.

Josh Centers No comments

FBI Purchased Now-Banned NSO Group Spyware

An extensive New York Times investigation has revealed that the FBI bought the controversial Pegasus spyware in 2019 but never used it.

Glenn Fleishman 4 comments

New Apple Guide Offers Personal Safety Advice

Apple has consolidated advice shared across many of its support documents and user manuals into one relatively concise guide. While welcome, it has room to improve.

Glenn Fleishman 90 comments

AirTags: Hidden Stalking Menace or Latest Overblown Urban Myth?

Mainstream and technology media report that stalkers and criminals use AirTags to track unsuspecting people and aid in car theft. Do a handful of anecdotes truly reveal a broader pattern?

Josh Centers 17 comments

Verizon Collecting Browsing Data On Users

If you’re a Verizon customer, the company has likely already enrolled you in its new “Custom Experience” data-collection scheme, but you can turn it off and delete the collected data.

Josh Centers 7 comments

Life360 Family Tracking App Is Selling Its Customers’ Precise Location Data

The Life360 app lets subscribers see where their friends and family members are at all times, but unfortunately, the company is also selling access to that data to data brokers that repackage and resell it widely.

Josh Centers 13 comments

Cut Down on Junk Mail with iCloud+’s Hide My Email

The new Hide My Email feature of iCloud+ helps you avoid junk email by creating disposable forwarding addresses when you sign up for websites and apps. Here’s how to take advantage of it.

Josh Centers 5 comments

Remember, Communication Services Cannot Guarantee Privacy

No matter how private a communication service may claim to be, it’s only as private as its weakest link, as two recent stories illustrate.