Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

We didn’t use to think too much about physical computer security because most computers were safely stored in our homes or businesses. But many people today use laptops which can be lost or stolen while traveling or toting them back and forth to work. Having physical access to a computer makes it much easier for bad guys to hack into them and steal our data. By “sniffing” the dat...

As my de-Google project progresses, I realized that I skipped the most important step: reconnaissance. Before you can de-Google your life, you need to first make a list of the Google products and services you interact with – and not all of them have “Google” in their names. Google also owns YouTube, Waze, Nest, Fitbit, Chromebooks, and much more. Furthermore, you need to know and...

Your cell phone is a super computer and phenomenally powerful tracking device. Even George Orwell wouldn’t have dreamed that telescreens would be pocket sized and that citizens would willingly carry them 24/7. That one device knows all about you and has access to your most personal and critical information, including contacts, emails, social media, financial accounts, medical information, an...

One of my big goals for 2022 was to minimize my Google footprint. In the last news show, I covered Google Search, Chrome and Android. In today’s show, I’ll tackle two other big ones: Google’s email (Gmail) and calendar (Gcal) services (and Google’s contacts, for good measure). I actually replaced Gmail with two different services, because they each address two different nee...

You may not know it, but our world has already been basically taken over by free and open source software, or FOSS – specifically, the Linux operating system. Just about every single electronic appliance or device today, from your smartphone to your smart toaster, is running some flavor of the Linux operating system. Furthermore, open source software projects are the bedrock of many for-prof...

One of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2022 is to minimize my Google footprint. In reality, it’s very difficulty to completely avoid Google products, if you include things like Google Analytics, Google’s cloud computing, and other services that we may not directly choose. But thankfully, there are many excellent, privacy-respecting alternatives to Google’s more well-known pro...

We tell our search engines a lot of very personal things. They arguably know more about us than our best friends and significant others do. A history of your search terms can reveal so much about you, especially when viewed over the course of days, months and even years. And unfortunately, companies like Google use this privileged position to better target us with advertisements. This may seem inn...

Personal data privacy isn’t going to just happen on its own. We have to somehow collectively construct it. But how? Will it require regulation or can consumers drive change by consciously choosing privacy-respecting products and services? When it comes to regulations, why are things so different in the European Union versus the US and other global markets? What do privacy teams look like in...

Of course, every week should be “data privacy week”, but we do set aside a specific time each year to focus on privacy – particularly educating as many people as possible about it. Until this year, we only dedicated one day for this – but as of 2022, it’s been promoted to an entire week! Data Privacy Week runs from January 24-28, so today I’m going to prep you f...

It’s the start of a brand new calendar year! And therefore it’s time to engage in that annual ritual of planning to do better this year by making our list of New Year’s Resolutions. To help you with the cybersecurity and privacy items on your list (an area where we all need major improvement), I will share with you my personal list of cyber goals for 2022. Yes, even security advo...

Navigating the online world today is hard enough as an adult. But it’s way worse for kids. Not only are they short on life experiences that would give them the context they need, but as students during a pandemic, their privacy rights are being sorely tested by new “edtech” apps and services. Today I speak with Jill Bronfman from Common Sense Media about their new report on the s...

We’ve come to the end of another year. As we take a breather and gather with family and friends for the holidays, it’s a good time to look back over the year that just passed. I’ve collected a handful of snippets from some of my favorite shows from this year, along with some a little commentary. If you’re new to the show, you can catch up on some stuff you may have missed....

The internet is on fire this week. The worst cybersecurity vulnerability of the last ten years (and perhaps more) has kicked the internet ant hill. Companies around the globe – big and small – are scrambling to repair a gaping hole in a ridiculously mundane but widely popular open source tool called Log4J. What it is and what does it mean for you? I’ll get into all of that today....

The rampant collection and sharing of personal data is not just a creepy nuisance. Surveillance capitalism has actually had seriously deleterious effects on society and democracy. In the United States, we have certain rights enshrined in the Constitution that are supposed to protect citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are supposed to have to...

Transparency is critical when it comes to trust – and right now, particularly in the United States, we’re having some real issues with trust in our elections. Most of our election systems today are completely opaque in terms of their hardware and software design because they’re made by private companies who want to protect their intellectual property. But this secrecy also seriou...

Credit cards are more secure than debit cards. I’ve said this in my book, my podcast, my blog and my seminars. Credit card transactions are loans – you’re not out any money if a fraudulent charge comes through (assuming you or the credit card company catches it first). With debit cards, any fraud activity will actually take your money from your account – it’s gone and...

When you think about improving your privacy and protecting your personal information, it’s important to realize that it will also improve your security. According to Craig Danuloff, CEO of The Privacy Co. and maker of the Priiv app, privacy harms fall into at least four different buckets: personal data leaks (embarrassment and reputation harm), online tracking (targeted ads and manipulation)...

The gift-giving season is officially upon us, and with covid supply chain issues, if you’re going to order gifts, you need to get on it. And in today’s show, I’ll share the highlights of my annual Best & Worst Gift Guide where I focus on the privacy and security of popular gifts. You won’t be surprised at a lot of the items on my naughty list, but I’ll bet you&#82...

Nothing is arguably more fundamental to a democracy than voting. But it’s not enough to have a secure election. The electorate also needs to trust that the results are valid. In the United States today, that trust is in short supply – many people believe that the 2020 election was rigged. On one hand, many of our electronic voting systems are demonstrably insecure and trivially capable...

There were lots of scary computer security and privacy stories in the news this week, coinciding nicely with Halloween. We’ll start off with an unfortunate new cybersecurity term: killware. This is software whose end result is actual physical harm to human beings, including death. Sadly, this is now a thing. And I don’t know about you, but Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of the future (...

Today, we’re surrounded by strong encryption. Thanks to efforts like Let’s Encrypt, almost all web communications today at encrypted. And thanks to wonderful privacy communications tools like Signal, we can share private thoughts instantly and securely with anyone on the planet. But this was not always the case. This secure, private, encryption-enabled future we’re living now was...

Facebook had a horrible, no-good, very bad week. Not only did Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp go completely offline for about six hours, a whistleblower came forward to show the world what most of us already knew: Facebook values money over its users’ well being. And I have another story that backs that up, as well – one that you almost surely did not hear about. In other news: the FT...

Today I have the great honor and pleasure of speaking with two luminaries in the field of privacy: Michelle Finneran Dennedy and Melanie Ensign. Between them, they have decades of experience managing privacy processes, policies, technology and communications within dozens of big name tech companies. I get their unique perspective on data privacy and the evolution of how these companies approach th...

I admit it. I’m an Apple fan. Are they perfect? Definitely not. But in most cases, they’re actually trying to be good. And at the end of the day, their business model doesn’t rely on hoovering up your personal data. Apple just released a big update to its devices, iOS 15, and it’s got some really cool security and privacy features. I’ll tell you all about them in toda...

Apple was set to roll out controversial new on-device scanning technology in iOS 15 last week, but thanks to pushback from groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and people like you, Apple has since thought better of it and backed down. It’s not clear when or if these “child safety” features will come to iPhones, but in the meantime we can hope that Apple will listen care...