Yesterday I received an e-mail from Google about the changes to their privacy policy. On the face of it, it seems reasonable that they would like to consolidate all their policies into one. The downside to this is that they also plan on sharing that information across their products which gives them a better picture of all your Internet activities. The question the, is what will they do with this information.

Having stated the above, some sites are very clear on their privacy policies.  For example, look at the Trollbeads privacy policy.  They state that they do not give out your information.  Given that this is a jewelry site, they would gain very little in giving it out.  The site’s goal is to sell jewelry.

Google on the other hand is interested in your information.  They make money based on it.

If you are concerned about privacy, there are two simple steps you can take to obscure the information that any website or search engine sees.

1. Use multiple user names or ID’s when you access a site.  This spreads your data across accounts which breaks any direct linkage to you.
2. Use an anonymous proxy that changes your IP address so that your accounts are not linked to your IP address.  Even better would be to use a shared proxy because many people will be using the same IP addresses thus rendering the information collected by the website useless.

Whether you are student studying abroad, or a business professional working on a project overseas, you will need to access the internet.  The problem is that not all websites are available in all countries.  Some may only be available in the United States.

Whenever you sign on to the internet, your IP address gives away your location.  If you are not in the United States, a website that you need to access may be blocked.  Whether you are signed up for a webinar, or need to do research, or if you just want to relax and watch your favorite TV show or a movie, if the site you need is blocked, it doesn’t help you much.   In order to “fool” these sites into opening, you must hide your IP address.

To hide your IP address, you must use a proxy server.  When you use a proxy server, the IP address used to locate you will be the address of the server.  This allows you to hide your true location, which opens up websites that would normally be blocked in the country you are in.

If you connect to a server in the US, then your US IP address will always show that you are in the United States.

You will be able to attend that online class in the United States while you are studying overseas.  You will also be able to watch movies and TV shows that would normally be blocked in some other countries.  There will be no limits on where you could go on the internet.

Want to try if for yourself?  Sign up for the risk-free trial and you will be hooked from the first time you use it.

Hindi maipagkakailang lalong nagiging tanyag ang pag gamit ng mga mobile devices. Sa kabila nito, lalo din namang nadadagdagan ang bilang ng mga cyber crimes. Sa ngayon, ang internet ay accessible o bukas halos sa lahat, gamit ang smartphones at iba pang digital devices. Ito ang isa sa malalaking dahilan upang ang mga maykapangyarihan ay maghanap ng makabagong paraan upang labanan ang ganitong uri ng mga krimen. Hindi na umuubra ang mga nakagawiang paraan; kailangan ang maparaang pagharap dito, gamit din ang teknolohiyang gamit ng mga cyber criminals.

Sa state ng California sa United States of America, itinatag ang bagong eCrime Unit upang manghuli at maglitis ng mga internet crooks. Ang team na ito ay binuo ng isang state attorney general at kinabibilangan ng dalawampung abogado at imbestigador. Bihasa sila sa mga makabagong paraan upang matunton at matukoy ang mga maysala. Kabilang sa mga tinututukan ng team na ito ay mga email scams, piracy, child pornography, online fraud, at marami pang iba. Kawawa lamang ang mga taong nabiktima at patuloy na nabibiktima mapa-offline man o mapa-online.

Naipakulong na ng team ang isang lalaking nahatulan ng guilty sa kasong hacking ng mga email at Facebook accounts. Marami nang nabiktima ang lalaking ito na ang karaniwang modus ay pasukin ang account ng ibang user. Pagkatapos ay maghahanap siya ng mga kontrobersiyal na larawan ng may-ari ng account. Tatakutin niya ito na ikakalat sa internet ang mga larawan kapag hindi sinunod ang gusto niya.

Ang internet ay napakahalaga sa ekonomiya, sa mga tao, at sa mga negosyo. Dahil dito, hindi na kailangang maghanap ng biktima ang mga cyber criminals. Napakaraming maaaring maging biktima ng pagnanakaw ng mga impormasyon. Ang taong 2012 ay nakikinikinitang magiging taon ng matinding pakikipaglaban sa online crimes. Naranasan noong isang taon ang napakaraming mga scams at inaasahang marami pang darating ngayong taon.

Ito naman ang dahilan ng pagpapaigting ng kampanya laban sa ecrime. Ang bagong eCrime Unit ay naglalayong makagawa ng isang bagong trend ng pakikipaglaban sa online crimes. Sinabi ng attorney general mula California na gusto nilang manguna sa makabagong paraan sa paghahanap at paglilitis ng mga maysala. Gamit ang internet technology na siya ring gamit ng mga criminal, mapatutunayang ang batas ay mangingibabaw sa lahat ng oras.

There are many names to call it, but all in all, a natural disaster is one that comes with or without warning. The past year was overloaded with natural catastrophes that cost billions of dollars. People in the United States alone suffered from several hurricanes and tornadoes. There were many areas that were rocked and destroyed by earthquakes, like the East Coast, Colorado and Peru. Japan had her share of tsunami, and Queensland, Australia, Bangkok and most recently, the Philippines suffered from destructive floods. These events tend to send a lesson across – that natural disasters should be put in the top risk concern.

Today, businesses and government agencies should prepare for all of these looming disasters. Each should have an individual plan for disaster recovery. In today’s information-driven world, further disasters can result from power outages and network failures. There should still be time for every business to adjust and respond to risks. In any possible event, there should be uninterrupted and continuous access to either personal or corporate data.

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As the world of information technology says goodbye to 2011, it also welcomes the new year of 2012. There was big news in IT within the last year, and there are high hopes that the coming year will yield even bigger news. There are technological changes that happen every day, and analysts expect some of these to happen sooner or later. To them, the next major events and developments in IT will be driven by these three: big data & analytics, security and cloud computing.

There is an expectation that the role of social media in big data and analytics will grow and broaden. Given that there will be new data sources, more organizations will use these in order to generate their transformations. After all of this has been done, there will be more considerable benefits gotten out of social networking. The growth in the number of organizations using the social media command center in 2011 was remarkable. The number is expected to grow even more in the coming year. The familiar use of marketing services agencies is slowly replaced by the more advanced, and more effective use of social media.

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The continuous increase in data breaches at health care providers has raised privacy concerns. There were some studies conducted in order to find out the main cause of these breaches. Some of the hospitals surveyed said that it is due to insufficient funding for security. Others said that lost or stolen devices contributed greatly to the sudden surge in data breaches. The first reason could be attributed more to the government’s priorities in dispensing funds, but the second one seems to point to human error, or the lack of knowledge on the part of the health care professionals on how to secure patient data.

Mobile technology is now widely used in almost all private and public organizations. The use of smartphones or tablets has made it very convenient for people to manage data. Doctors and other health care professionals are now using these gadgets for electronic health records. These tools, as observers point out, lack the much needed, required security. Working on their own, some doctors are using these gadgets without ample knowledge on the use of encryption technology, or even passwords.

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For every increase in the number of shoppers who visit retail stores, there is a corresponding increase in incidents of identity theft and fraud. It seems that it is connected with the use of credit cards, checks and identification documents. Shoppers have been warned to be extra careful when using these personal information-containing cards and documents. Thieves are out there waiting for the right opportunity to steal personal information or to commit fraud. The holiday season encourages them to heighten their operations because shoppers seem to be more energized than observant.

In the United States, at least two regions have reported a large increase in identity crimes, most of which are data breaches. The cost of information that is stolen from companies costs more than $150 billion in the national picture. This was reported by LifeLock Consumer Education that spanned the years from 2005 to 2010. The theory is that this is a result of technology that criminals take advantage of, plus human error on the part of consumers.

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Is there a new computer malware that was released in time for Christmas? Yes, and as always, this new malware attack comes in a disguise; this time as a license key. There are spam emails that pretend to come from Adobe, and the license key is supposed to be for Adobe InDesign. This desktop publishing software is one of Adobe’s most useful products at present.

The emails sent bear the subject InDesign CS4 License Key, and looks very convincing. It is not easy for users to suspect that the emails are spam. It uses very subtle encouragement for them to explore what is new about InDesign and how its features were enhanced. The email bears an attachment that supposedly contains tips, tutorials, and eSeminars.

It was noted that there were different versions of emails; each one being slightly different from the other. The emails also used different reference numbers in the subject line. Some attachments bear the filename “AdobeSystems-Software_Critical Update Dec_2011-[random].zip”; others have the filename “License_key_ID[random number].zip”.

Hackers know that users are concerned about their security so they use subtle threats in their emails. To make sure that users open the attachment, they “promise” such things as advanced features. Furthermore, there is insinuation that work productivity would not be enhanced unless users open the file.

Users who do not have sufficient knowledge about how malwares are spammed out are likely to open the attachment. Not realizing that it contains malicious software, they will install it and so, their Windows computers are infected with it. Sophos said that its antivirus software detects the malware as the Troj/Bedo-MY Trojan horse. It also reminded users that Adobe would not send emails to people and attach its updates in them. Users have to always remember that Adobe only uses its own website where users can visit for legitimate updates.

Maliban sa mga pekeng e-cards, meron pang ibang uri ng phishing scam sa internet. Makatutulong ng malaki kung ikaw ay may kaalaman sa mga ito. Kung sakali mang “makasalubong” mo ang ganitong mga estilo, alam mo na ang iyong gagawin. Sa ganoon, mananatili kang ligtas sa ibat-ibang paraan ng panloloko.

Kung ikaw ay naghahanap ng trabaho gamit ang mga online ads, umiwas sa mga nanghihingi ng iyong mga personal na impormasyon. Marami sa mga cyber criminals ang nagtatago sa likod nga mga legal na job sites para lamang magmukhang tunay din sila. Ang iba sa kanila ay gumagamit pa ng mga sikat na logo o ng mga salitang nakapanghihikayat nang sa ganoo’y makuha ang iyong atensyon. Malalaman mo na lang na peke pala ang mga links na kanilang ginagamit. Kapag pinindot mo ang mga ito, dadalhin ka lamang sa website ng isang kompanyang animo’y totoo, subalit wala palang ganoon.

Kung hindi manghihingi ng iyong personal na impormasyon, meron namang pagbabayarin ka kapalit ng isang serbisyo. Marami nang naging biktima ng ganitong estilo at sa katunayan, dumarami pa ang naloloko. Pagkatapos magbayad, saka palang nila malalamang wala naman palang ganoong klaseng serbisyo. Mahirap pa naman silang mahuli dahil biglang “nagsasara” ang kanilang kompanya at hindi mo na sila mahahagilap.

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Law makers have submitted to the appropriate committee a Congressional bill entitled “The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011”. Concerns have been raised by privacy advocates who said that so far, this would be the greatest threat yet to civil liberties. According to them, many internet users believe that this legislation is necessary and relevant to address child pornography. Such line of thinking is expected because every person in their right mind would always detest child pornography.

But why are these privacy advocates reacting negatively on the proposed law? The reason is that such legislation would turn each person who uses the internet into a victim. They argue that this law, if passed, would oblige all internet service providers, or ISPs, to track all on line activities of every user and save the information for 18 months. As an additional requirement, ISPs are supposed to store this data together with the user’s name, home address, bank account and credit card numbers, and their assigned IP address.

An argument raised says that tracking all of the user’s internet activities is not the solution to the problem on internet child pornography. Compared to the millions of internet users, there are only very few child pornographers who are hiding online. So why place everyone under “surveillance” where all internet users would become suspects of a crime that most of them would not even think about? Its final effect would be detrimental to freedom of speech and threatening to the online privacy of every American. Read Full Article