Technically Easy

Tag: Privacy

  • 3 Ways Companies Collect Your Data and How to Take Back Your Privacy

    3 Ways Companies Collect Your Data and How to Take Back Your Privacy

    In today’s world, data is the most essential, critical thing and is worth millions. All these big tech giants play high time on it. Companies like Facebook, Google go to any length to get this data. The significant deals are around the same. Without this data, online advertising falls flat. These internet giants hold the most vital part of the worldwide web and track your every move from the very moment you sign up with them.

    Once you sign up, you provide them with your personal information like name, residence, pictures, likes, interests etc. People trade through this data and use it for promoting their businesses.

    If today, you receive a call from an unknown number, you cannot be surprised- the reason being that we give our number at so many sites, it is easy to get to others.

    It is because of this unwanted flow of data that your phone is full of advertising messages, you get promotional calls, and all of this takes away your peace of mind.

    Therefore, it is essential to get your privacy back. Let us see how these big companies get our data, and how can we prevent them from doing so.

    1. In-Store or public WiFi activity

    Information sent via public or publicly exposed WiFi networks is vulnerable to hackers who eavesdrop and collect all your personal information. If you are available on any public network, you are making things difficult for yourself.

    To protect from this, use a VPN to encrypt your internet connection and transfer confidential data and private information without risking your privacy.

    2. Meta-data from social media activity

    When you upload a picture on social media, you also upload metadata related to it. It may include the location along with some other personal data like your name and mail-id. For protecting this data, the best way isn’t tot stop uploading pictures.

    Instead, one should change the privacy settings of the account. Moreover, if you are tagging a location, experts recommend sharing it only when the account is not public since the information can put to use abruptly.

    3. Facial recognition systems

    It has become a more convenient method to get personal data quickly. With the advent of AI, it is indeed the next big thing. However, there is a risk of this data misused in a lot of ways. One most prominent reason is the imperfection in the field.

    If the recognition is not done with perfection, anyone else can access your data without your knowledge. The best way to keep a check on this is by not allowing every other site/app to access this. Stick to old “unlock with passwords” till the AI masters it!

    Therefore, we can see that there are multiple ways through which the big companies access our data and hinder our privacy. However, we have the right to limit this sharing of data. The above solutions will help you for sure.

    We will keep coming up with such ideas, till then, stay protected and beware of how much you share. Like this, the Internet will become an even happier place.

  • Increasing Concerns Over Social Media Privacy Issues

    Increasing Concerns Over Social Media Privacy Issues

    The very idea of social network was to give people a platform through which they can interact with different people belonging to various cultures, inhibiting around varying parts of the world, and share their thoughts, humor, jokes, and feelings just to kill their time.

    Gone are the days when we were ardent users of MSN messenger and various chat rooms – now the internet has taken a giant leap in the form of social sites that are even more advanced and entertaining.

    But with these innovation come calamities – you are giving yourself out in front of people you don’t know, on a platform that you aren’t even sure if it is keen enough to keep you secluded from identity thieves and online bullying, which is why there is a rise of privacy issues on the social media.

    And there’s no stopping to it, until you, yourself step up and decide to take preventive measures for the sake of your identity online.

    Thanks to social media, we know what our friends were doing in the last weekend without us, and they very well know that we were sitting alone at home enjoying a movie via the status updated about it on Facebook.

    But with this minute-to-minute update is only making our barricaded life easy to deteriorate for the people who want to harm us. Sure, the social media want us to be more open about our lives on various social sites by asking us questions like “what’s happening?”, “what’s in your mind?”, “See what your xyz friend is doing right now” and many more.

    And we know why they do that – all information we put is indirectly bringing dollars to their pockets.

    Since the internet is always buzzing, it is hard for the sites to keep a check on everyone’s privacy. Security programmers have tons of things up in their sleeves and increasing numbers of interactions per second and users’ count aren’t doing them any favor.

    This ultimately leads to a colossal threat on security as a whole. Indeed there are various private sites that take immense security measures like Just10, but the public sites aren’t like that. And while most of these sites are on the breach of exploiting security and privacy issues, the only way this matter can be resolved is via users.

    Increasing Concerns Over Social Media Privacy Issues - Putting too much information online

    Those people who are putting up too much information over the internet have to take more meticulous approach to what they share and with whom they share.

    Even to cover up the potential threats users have regarding their security issues, social network like Facebook have set more privacy control in users hand for who will be able to watch the things they are doing. But even with loops of security settings, not everything is protected and identity thieves or hackers are breaking loose, still deciphering ways to threat users.

    This is why if a person is posting something online, they should think twice that although they are putting up pictures on a machine, the other side has actual people who can see things clearly.

    If you do not like dozens of people come walking around in your house and checking your new outfits, why would you allow hundreds of your Facebook friends to even look at your cloth’s pictures?

    Other problem comes when you allow random people to interfere in your online world. Seeing a friend request looks ravishing, but chances are that the person is probably an imposter, who is using someone else’s identity.

    If you are following someone thinking they were with you in high school, make sure to confirm their identity first – don’t be afraid to be skeptical here, no one is going to judge you for that.

    The new evolving completely private social network could be an answer to people who want extreme privacy settings. But will there be any social network that doesn’t breach security issues? We hardly doubt that.

    Any system that is complex always houses vulnerabilities. The only way the weaknesses can be resolved only by operators who are subjected to put few load on it.