The innovation that allows you to talk to a stubby gadget sitting on your counter in order to hear your favorite song, get a recipe for meatloaf, or purchase any number of products has become practically mainstream through things like the Alexa virtual assistant from Amazon. This example of the Internet of Things (IoT) just…
Privacy advocates have become more concerned with how “big tech” companies (i.e. Google, Facebook and Amazon) gather and use data from people using their products. However, these companies have maintained their massive user bases and have mostly continued their concerning data practices. Trusting Big Data Companies Is Risky Companies that rely on big data to make money…
Let’s Encrypt has become a well-known service for helping websites enable SSL (or HTTPS) encryption. We can’t brush over the good that Let’s Encrypt has done for the internet as a whole, but it’s not the perfect solution. Let’s Encrypt Doesn’t Have “Skin In The Game” Let’s Encrypt is a certificate authority, meaning it issues…
Distributed computing is a computer system that runs on multiple devices, but that runs as a singular process. It’s a group of computers working together, but to the end user it looks like a single computer or process. According to IBM: “A distributed computer system consists of multiple software components that are on multiple computers,…
PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It is an encryption program that applies cryptographic privacy and authentication to online communications. PGP is most commonly used for keeping contents of emails encrypted and private. OpenPGP is an open-source version of PGP that has become widely used. How does PGP Work? PGP encrypts the contents of an email so…
If you spend time around software or internet tools you’ve likely heard the term “API”. API stands for “application programming interface”. There are tons of APIs available online for software developers to use to integrate information from other applications into their own software. What is an API? An API is a system of tools and…
Encryption is widely recognized as one of the best ways to keep all of your digital information private. The idea of keeping written communications private has been around for nearly as long as writing itself. Modern encryption methods are nearly impossible to crack, even using extremely powerful supercomputers. These services use encryption to protect your…
“Torrenting” is a way to share files online based on peer-to-peer, or P2P, technology. Torrenting lets people connect to the internet and share and download files without relying on a single source for downloads. Each “peer” is basically a mini-server so your downloads are more distributed. What is a Torrent? A torrent is a file…
Blocking ads is a great way to speed up your browsing and greatly improve your internet experience. Many of these Chrome extensions have extra features that set them apart and add convenience. Contents: AdBlock AdBlock Plus AdBlocker Ultimate AdGone AdGuard Ad Guardian AdLock Ghostery uBlock Origin AdBlock AdBlock is one of the most popular browser…
Devices are getting smarter. Everything from cellphones to refrigerators are connected to the internet. By 2020, there will be more than 20 billion IoT units in the world. The number of IoT devices in the world recently surpassed the world’s population. The installed base of hard-to-secure smart things, such as TVs, fridges, and security cameras, is…
Apple is widely regarded as a tech company that actually cares about privacy for people using its devices. However, using an iPhone over an Android device doesn’t guarantee you better privacy protection. One feature that concerns us from a privacy standpoint is the location suggestion feature. While Apple protects that location data with your pass code, FaceID…
Popular websites and internet companies, like Amazon, Netflix and Facebook, use collaborative filtering to make recommendations to users about what they may be interested in. Collaborative filtering is what lets Amazon recommend other products, Netflix recommend new shows or movies, and how Facebook determines which posts you see in your News Feed. What is Collaborative Filtering?…