Your own personalised stalker
It always seemed slightly creepy that your computer shows advertising that is strangely accurately targeted at things you might have been interested in. On the surface, that seems quite useful. If you have to tolerate ads on your screen, at least having them show things you were interested in seems helpful.
Instead, we wonder how the system knows. It feels like a breach of our privacy.
It all starts when you install an app, and it pops up a question asking for permission to use your location, and/or your camera and/or your microphone.
This is useful for advertisers. For example, they can use your location. If the app reports this back to the content provider, they can match up your location and compare you to other people nearby. If you tend to go to the same places as other people, you are probably interested in the same things, so an advertiser might use that assumption to present advertising to you, or other people that you spend time with.
That does sound a bit overreaching, but we reluctantly agree to the presented terms simply because we want to use the app. If that is a condition of use, and we want to use the app, then we agree.
So, now we are seeing consumers getting the choice to push back.
Apple
Now, with iOS15, Apple are saying that you will get to see what apps are accessing your data. You will be able to see when an app used that permission, and there it was sent to. Whether that list of third party sites is any use or not is meaningful is unclear.
Not quite as advanced but following quickly behind is Google Android. With Android 12, you will have the option to de-personalise your data. They will still track usage, but won’t link it back to you.
Is there any truth to the rumour that your phone or TV is listening to you, and presented content based on private conversations it overhears?
Given how poor the voice recognition is on phones , cars, or tools like Alexa or Siri, its pretty evident this can’t be reality. If it, is, then heaven only knows what it thinks it’s hearing. The voice recognition tools are getting better all the time, but there is a long way to go.
MS OFFICE ZERO DAY ATTACK – MAY 31st
One of the scariest news items to wake up to is that there is a ‘zero-day’ vulnerability in a common piece of software. That means that the hacking community has found an opportunity to hack a bit of software and there is no update yet – ‘zero’ days to apply a fix....
Beware – When Anti-Money Laundering (AML) CREATES a risk
That’s right. AML is not only frustrating to many of us, but it has also created cyber-risks. The irony isn’t lost on us. We’re honoured to support a large number of NZ law firms as clients, and it is a responsibility we take very seriously. Law firms handle such a...
Get some Viva Inspiration
Viva Insights has given us the opportunity to say how we’re feeling, protect our time and even meditate. It now has a new feature - currently in preview mode - that lets you draw on a library of articles to inspire you. Drumroll please - it is called Inspiration...
Subject Lines in Teams Posts
Teams is great for sharing information by posting it to a Channel. However, a lot of the rich content we create becomes lost and is difficult to find based on the appearance as well as the quantity. To make things easier you can search. However maybe a bit more...
Is MFA driving you mad?
Getting tired of having to open your phone for access? If so, you are not alone! But, its necessary. Hackers are counting on you suffering from an excess of having to reach for your phone to approve access, with something called “MFA Fatigue Attacks”.MFA Fatigue...
Why have Microsoft changed the look of Outlook?
Depending on whether you have hit ‘coming soon’, you might have noticed that the navigation bar in Outlook has moved to the top left. This has sparked quite a lot of frustration amongst users, some of whom have added customised shortcuts to lists to the navigation...
When QR codes go bad
Thanks to Covid, we’re all familiar with QR codes. Of course, with Covid, we were using the official tracer app to scan them, but in normal use, you can just use your phone’s camera to open the link. It’s a great way to make it easy to visit a website without having...
Is nothing safe? Fake logins!
Every day, there is a new cyber-threat to watch out for, and to warn friends and colleagues about. I’m frequently stunned when talking to friends and colleagues that these threats are abstract and academic. For the sake of absolute clarity, these cyber risks...
What is Kinetics ITMAAS? Customer Stories.
IT is critical to the operation of almost every organisation. If your IT is more than computers and mobiles then WATCH THIS WEBINAR. If IT is a critical asset to your organisation, then WATCH THIS WEBINAR. If what IT does matters more than what IT is, then WATCH THIS...
What? An update to Windows 11 already?
We’ve previously posted about Windows 11. You won’t believe it, but there is an updated version to it, already! There are over a billion Windows 10 users, and many of those can’t upgrade to 11 simply because their current machines don’t have the horsepower, but that’s...