Thursday, February 13

Technology

Windows 7 Is Dead: What You Need To Do Now…
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Windows 7 Is Dead: What You Need To Do Now…

    How to move on from or keep living with Windows 7 A legion of vocal PC enthusiasts swears by Windows 7. Why? Because it stays out of your way, and it just works. Until today. On January 14, 2020, Microsoft ends Windows 7’s extended support. Windows 7 has reached end of life and the free Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus program will no longer be supported either. Your PC will keep operating, of course. Microsoft isn’t literally pulling the plug on your devices. But Windows 7 won’t receive any more updates or security patches, meaning your PC will also be very vulnerable to all those nasty malware programs garnering headlines seemingly every day. If you keep using Windows 7 and over a quarter of all computers run it, per NetMarketShare you’re on your own, and ...
Facebook slapped with $5bn fine for privacy violations
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Facebook slapped with $5bn fine for privacy violations

    Facebook must adopt new protections for data users share on the social network and pay a record-breaking $5 billion fine as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The social networking giant must expand its privacy protections across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and adopt a corporate system of checks and balances to remain compliant, according to the FTC order. Facebook must also maintain a data security program, which includes protections of information such as users' phone numbers. This settlement concludes a year-long FTC investigation, prompted by the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook suspended the data analysis and political consulting firm in March 2018 for improper access to user data. That move came after The New York Times an...
How to tell if your computer has been tampered with
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How to tell if your computer has been tampered with

    Whether you're in an open office where colleagues regularly wander past, or live somewhere like a college dorm where you may feel comfortable leaving your laptop unattended in the presence of relative strangers, it can be all too easy for someone else to sneak a look at your computer. If you want to keep your device secure in communal environments, your best bet is to understand how to stop unauthorized access in the first place. Still, there’s some detective work you can do if you suspect someone else has been using your device. Since prevention is better than a cure, you ideally want to prevent others from accessing your laptop in the first place. A simple way to do that is to lock your laptop behind a password whenever you step away from it. On macOS, you can ge...
Facebook to face record £4bn fine
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Facebook to face record £4bn fine

    The Federal Trade Commission voted this week to approve a roughly $5 billion settlement with Facebook that could end an investigation into its privacy practices, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak on the record, a deal that could result in unprecedented government oversight of the company. The settlement adopted with the FTC’s three Republicans supporting it and two Democrats against it -- could end a wide-ranging probe into Facebook’s mishandling of users’ personal information that began more than a year ago. The FTC’s $5 billion punishment against Facebook sets a new record as the largest penalty ever assessed against a tech company that broke a past promise to the government to improve its privacy practices. The matter fro...
Google is scanning your Gmail inbox
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Google is scanning your Gmail inbox

    Google and other companies store massive amounts of your personal data, some that you may not even be aware of. In fact, Google tracks what you buy and keeps the extensive history compiled on your account. As CNBC recently discovered, a page called "Purchases" shows Google users a list of purchases they've made. The list doesn't include a complete history of what you've bought, though, and only includes purchases that come with a digital receipt sent to your Gmail account. Essentially, Google is mining your inbox to compile this list in one place. For me, my Purchases page include coffees bought at shops that use Square, food delivery through Grubhub and Seamless, and orders made on Amazon. Google traces back my purchasing history back to 2013, when I was still buy...
Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws
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Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws

    Facebook has targeted politicians around the world including the former chancellor, George Osborne promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook’s behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed. The documents, which have been seen by the Observer and Computer Weekly, reveal a secretive global lobbying operation that has targeted hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 member states of the EU. The documents include details of how Facebook: Lobbied politicians across Europe in a strategic operation to head off overly r...
School charges parents £2 ransom to return confiscated phones
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School charges parents £2 ransom to return confiscated phones

    A Leicester school is charging parents £2 to return mobile phones confiscated from their children during class time. South Wigston high school bans phones because it says the devices are a major facilitator for bullying and also a distraction to learning. However, it has now been accused of holding phones to ransom, following the introduction of the charge. Lawyers have also argued that the school could be breaking the law, reports Schools Week. The electronic device policy of the school says mobiles can only be left in the school office at the start of the day by parent request, for emergency reasons. One unnamed pupil at the school described the charge as a tax and a ransom. The £2 fee has also been challenged by lawyers. One, Ramona Derbyshire, a partner at T...
German antitrust authorities restrict Facebook data use
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German antitrust authorities restrict Facebook data use

    German antitrust authorities ruled Thursday against Facebook combining user data from different sources, saying it was exploiting its position as a dominant social media company in violation of European regulations. The Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, said Facebook was guilty of "exploitative abuse" by forcing users to agree allow it to collect data from other Facebook-owned services like WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as third-party websites through the "Like" or "Share" features, and assign it to a user's Facebook account. On the one hand there is a service provided to users free of charge, Cartel Office president Andreas Mundt said. On the other hand, the attractiveness and value of the advertising spaces increase with the amount and detail of user d...
Concerns over WhatsApp merger
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Concerns over WhatsApp merger

    Facebook plans to partially combine its most popular messaging apps and some lawmakers don't sound happy about it. On Friday, The New York Times broke the news that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing his company to merge the back-end of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The change would mean that users of one app would be able to message users of another, and it would tie the currently disparate Facebook-owned products far more closely together. The change comes as Facebook attempts to move on from months of bruising scandals and intense scrutiny over its handling of users' data, from Cambridge Analytica's misappropriation of more than 80 million users' info to Facebook's role spreading hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar. The criticisms are indicati...
Nasa warns of near miss asteroid passing Earth
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Nasa warns of near miss asteroid passing Earth

     A giant asteroid is due to whizz past the Earth in the early hours of this morning as Nasa warns another rock could destroy the planet next century. The asteroid will make an Earth Close Approach" today, passing around two million miles away from our planet that is about eight times the distance to the Moon away. It may seem a lot, but in space terms that is deemed near all the more alarming given its whopping size, as big as 460 feet in diameter, which is considered 'potentially hazardous'. Dubbed Asteroid AG3, it measures around twice the wingspan of a Boeing 747 aeroplane, reports the Express. A NASA report on asteroid dangers reads: Larger Near-Earth Objects greater than 140 meters have the potential to inflict severe damage to entire regions or continents. ...