Soluții pentru problemele tale IT
The Kindle e-reader used to have an accessibility setting called Inverted Mode that inverted the background and text color.Now, Amazon provides a quick toggle for the feature that instantly lets you switch between light mode and dark mode.
[mai mult...]În timp ce este din ce în ce mai evident faptul că cele mai multe tehnologii de criptare VPN sunt certificate și dezvoltate de către Institutul Național de Standarde și Tehnologie, noile dezvăluiri ale luiEdward Snowden, care arată că ANS a lucrat pentru a submina și a sparge aceste tehnologii de ani de zile, sunt oarecum șocante. Acest lucru ridică cu siguranță întrebarea „Oferă într-adevăr aceste tehnologii VPN condiții de siguranță”?
In momentul in care dorim sa accesam un “Shared drive” din drive-ul Google prin intermediul aplicatiei Google Drive in Windows 10 observam ca ne lipsesc anumite fisiere sau chiar foldere, care in interfata din Google Chrome exista.
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A “burner phone” is a cheap, prepaid mobile phone that you can destroy or discard when you no longer need it. In popular media, criminals often use burner phones to evade detection by authorities. You might use a burner phone for privacy reasons, as a last resort, or during an emergency. A “burner SIM” is a related term, and refers to a cheap, prepaid SIM card that you can insert into another phone. You may plan on only using the SIM card for a limited period of time and not linking it to your real identity.
A burner phone is a cheap, prepaid mobile phone that the owner generally doesn’t intend to use long term. These phones have traditionally been purchased with cash to avoid any kind of paper trail that would tie the phone number to an individual.
The term was popularized in the hit 2002 HBO series The Wire, where “burners” were used to avoid detection by authorities. Once a number was suspected of being compromised, the device was discarded or “burned” so that the trail would go cold. Since the rise of iPhones and Android devices, burners are more commonly referred to as “feature phones” or “dumb phones,” since the smartphones of today didn’t exist in the early 2000s. While the term “burner phone” is still common, SIM cards could also be used in such a manner.
Instead of purchasing an entirely new device, a burner SIM can be used in a smartphone to switch between numbers for a variety of reasons. Some smartphones can even accommodate more than one SIM at a time for this purpose. With that in mind, some of the applications of a burner phone rely solely on having a second dedicated device you can use.
You might use a burner phone or a SIM to protect your identity. If you can manage to procure a handset or SIM card that isn’t linked to your real-world identity, you can use the number without the risk of being identified.
There are all sorts of reasons that someone might want to remain anonymous. Maybe you’re phoning in an anonymous tip to an employer. Maybe you would like to use a secure messaging service like Signal or Telegram without disclosing your primary phone number. Maybe you’re trying to avoid giving your main phone number to marketers who will likely send you follow-up messages—like when you’re viewing a real estate listing or looking for insurance quotes.
Since burner phones are feature phones, they are severely limited in their abilities. Most lack cameras or access to a modern browser, and are instead limited to phone calls and text messaging. Since they are relatively lightweight devices, they have excellent battery life, too.
Many such devices will last for days on a single charge, and sometimes even months if you use the battery sparingly. This makes burner phones ideal for use in an emergency. They are often found in emergency survival kits since they can be charged and turned off until they are required. A burner phone is a spare phone with long battery life that doesn’t need an expensive cell phone plan—what’s not to like?
If you’re buying a burner phone for privacy reasons that extend beyond simply using the number to send anonymous Signal messages or avoiding spam, be aware that no cell phone provides you with true anonymity. It’s all about your “threat model”—what threats are you trying to protect your privacy from?
Just think about the process of getting a burner phone from the store. Let’s say that you drive to a store, buy the burner phone with a credit card, drive home, and turn it on. In the process of this: If you took your normal phone with you, your cellular carrier will know that you were at the store at the time the phone was purchased. License plate cameras on the route may have captured your license plate and recorded your movements. A camera in the store may have recorded you buying the phone. Your credit card company will have a record of you buying the phone. When you turn the phone on at home, the cellular carrier your phone uses will have a pretty good idea of where your home address is.
And if you carry your burner phone and normal phone at the same time and both are powered on, anyone looking at cellular phone records can get a pretty good idea that those phones are owned by the same person.
Yes, that’s a lot of ways that you could be traced by an adversary with serious resources. If you’re really trying to evade government authorities—well, good luck. You’ll need it. On the other hand, if you just want a new phone number that isn’t directly and easily linked to your identity by the companies you deal with and the people you call, that’ll do just fine.
And if you’re not looking for anonymity and just want a secondary cell phone with long battery life for use in emergencies, this doesn’t really matter.
If you’re really looking for anonymity, how far you want to go in anonymizing your purchase is up to you. You could ask someone else to buy it for you, or ask them to purchase you a gift card, which you then might use to buy the phone. You could also use cash in person. For the sake of anonymity, you probably want to avoid using your credit or debit card, so purchasing from an online retailer is probably not the best idea.
If you’re only purchasing a burner to throw into a survival kit or to keep in the car for emergencies, you can comb the web for the best deals without worrying about privacy implications. Amazon, eBay, or your preferred local service provider are great places to start.
If you’re simply looking for a second number that you can use to call and text from a computer, or to use with a service like Signal or Telegram, consider VoIP services. Google Voice, Skype, and other internet telephony providers can give you a number that you can use for basic texting and calling.
Google Voice only works in the U.S., but it’s free and easy to sign up for. You can register a new Google Account to use with your new number and take precautions like hiding your IP address using a VPN. Other providers exist, but they will likely charge you for a number (and that may require linking your card).
If you’re using a burner for privacy reasons, make sure that you take appropriate steps to distance your identity from your purchase. If your interest in a burner is purely for emergency or backup use, make sure that you charge the phone before you stow it (and consider an AA battery charger). Wondering how you can charge your burner while away from a power outlet? Learn how to charge your phone in the middle of nowhere. If you’re wondering how police have tackled this phenomenon in the past, consider watching The Wire.
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Secure messaging apps like Signal and Telegram go the extra mile to protect your privacy and secure your conversations. But what if you want to truly chat anonymously, without giving away your personal phone number?
In order to use Signal or Telegram, you need a phone number. This number is shared with anyone you talk to while using these platforms, and can even be used to find you. These apps may use end-to-end encryption and other practices to keep your information private, but that doesn’t mean that they are anonymous services.
People you speak with over Signal or Telegram will see the phone number you used to sign up. This could be a problem if you’re a whistleblower, an anonymous source, or someone who just doesn’t want your conversations linked to your real-world phone number.
You should think of these messaging services as an extension of your phone number. So, if you already have a main Signal or Telegram account and want to create an anonymous secondary one, here are some things to consider:
For Signal, only one phone number can be linked to your Signal account, which means that you never need to create a password. You’ll need multiple smartphones to use more than one Signal account at a time. Alternatively, you can deactivate your account, then switch to a secondary account. In Signal, switching accounts is inconvenient, since all of your conversations will be lost when you do so. Since Signal focuses on security, none of your correspondence is stored in the cloud. There’s no way of recovering messages or media you have sent or received unless you are transferring from an old device.
Telegram isn’t quite as restrictive. The Telegram desktop and tablet apps let you log in using a separate number on a desktop or tablet app. This doesn’t have to be linked to your smartphone or your “real” Telegram number. You can use this to your advantage, since you don’t need to abandon your main account to log in on a secondary one. If you’re wondering whether you should use Telegram or Signal for your confidential, anonymous messaging needs, you might find that Telegram is the more convenient choice between the two. Just make sure that you enable secret chats in Telegram before doing so.
One of the easiest ways of using a service like Telegram or Signal anonymously is to sign up with a new phone number. In many cases, you can grab a prepaid “burner” phone or SIM card for very little (sometimes for free), which you can use to log in. You do not need to send any messages using this number, so you don’t need to spend any money if you don’t want to. All you need the secondary number for is to receive a message with a code in it. This code is all you need to log in using either service, since your phone number is only used as a means of identifying you.
Signal requires access to this number the first time you log in (to receive a code). You will also need to use your primary device (an iPhone or Android smartphone) to add any linked devices you want to use with your anonymous number. Linked devices may need to be reauthorized from time to time, which will require access to your “burner” SIM, so keep it handy and active.
Telegram works the same way, except you won’t need to use a smartphone to add linked devices, since you can log in directly. Simply input your new “burner” phone number, enter the code you receive, and you’re off to the races.
If you don’t fancy switching SIM cards to go incognito, consider using a VoIP number instead. Google Voice is the obvious choice, offering a free U.S. phone number to those residing in the United States. You can also use a service like Skype, or any internet telephony provider that will give you a number (You may need to pay for it, though.).
There are a wide variety of other apps that can give you secondary “burner” phone numbers, too.
Once you’ve got your number, you can sign up as you would normally. For Signal, this means using a smartphone that isn’t already registered with the service or removing the app from your device. On Telegram, you can download the app for your platform of choice and log in.
Signal is primarily designed for use with a mobile number, but you can enter any number you like when signing up. This includes landlines, like the one sitting on your desk at work. Unfortunately, during testing, we couldn’t activate Telegram using this method (but you may have more luck).
When signing up this way, you won’t be able to receive your code in the standard manner via SMS. Instead, you can request that Signal call you. Selecting this option should prompt Signal to call you via an auto-dialer that speaks the required code out loud over the phone.
Signal attempts to send you a code via SMS when you enter your number. If you wait a minute, you’ll be able to tap the “I didn’t get a code” button, which will present you with the “Call Me Instead” option. Tap it, answer the phone, and listen to the code. You can then use this code to log in and send messages.
Telegram will also send you a code via SMS, alongside a “Haven’t received the code?” button, which doesn’t offer an option to receive a call by phone instead. This may have been due to the use of an Australian mobile number, so your mileage may vary using this method.
If you have already registered your personal number with either service, you might be surprised to see that there’s no option to log out of the service. The easiest workaround is to delete the app in question. This will remove local data from your device (including login tokens), forcing you to log in when you re-download the app.
In the case of Signal, this will remove all conversations from your device. Since Telegram allows you to sign in using a number and the Telegram app for your platform of choice (including Windows, Mac, and Linux), there’s no need to purge your smartphone. Learn how to delete apps on your iPhone, or how to delete apps on Android.
If you’re a Signal user, you’ll need to repeat the process to get back to your “main” Signal or Telegram account after authorizing your secondary number.
Even if you sign up for a secondary phone number, your real identity may still be traced. In some countries, you need to provide identification to get a SIM card, so your phone provider may know exactly who you are even if this information isn’t available to the general public. The same is true for VoIP services such as Google Voice. While Google and Skype aren’t going to make information like your email address and IP address available to anyone, they still hold it on file and could be forced to hand it over in court.
[mai mult...]Many TVs have “automated content recognition” technology that detects what you’re watching—even if you’re watching OTA TV or an old VHS tape—and informs marketers.
When this feature is enabled—and it’s probably enabled by default, or after a prompt that really encourages you to enable it without explaining it properly—your smart TV will monitor your watching habits and home phone. To do so, your smart TV will capture sections of video, snippets of audio, still images, or some combination of the three, and upload the data to a “listening post,” as AdExchanger’s guide for marketers explains it.
Even if you never touch your smart TV’s software and you just play video games from a console, stream with an Apple TV, or connect a PC via HDMI, your smart TV is likely watching and phoning home. What do the marketers do with this data? As AdExchanger puts it: “Once the data has been collected, TV analytics companies ingest ACR data and combine it with other data sets to make it more accurate and usable.”
In other words, data about what you’re doing on your TV is combined with other sources of data. These could include your web browsing history, search history, product purchases, and credit card transaction data. That data can then be used to build a more complete profile on you and your TV habits to better serve you targeted ads.
Of course, this monitoring isn’t happening against anyone’s will! That would be unethical. All the people who have this feature enabled on their TVs are surely informed consumers making an informed decision to share their data with marketers. For example, on a Roku smart TV, you have to head to Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience and disable “From TV Inputs” to deactivate ACR features.
We’re sure that all those Roku TV users out there understand exactly what this option does, right? The majority of Roku TV users all really want marketers to know exactly what they’re watching at all times.
That’s one perspective. Here’s another one:
TV manufacturers are only getting away with this by making ACR-related options confusing and buried, counting on TV customers not knowing that their televisions are even capable of this. Case in point: Vizio paid out a $17 million settlement after it was sued for making these options confusing and misleading. Of course, Vizio never admitted that it did anything wrong.
Finally, let’s face it: Smart TVs are cheaper than dumb TVs because of this data collection. Roku makes its money from ads and paid video content, not from selling hardware.
Consumer Reports has a good guide to turning off ACR and other snooping features on smart TVs from a wide variety of brands.
We could go on about other “features” you might not like, like the interactive advertisements Roku sometimes slips into cable TV programs. But honestly, what’s the point? Why not just prevent the smart TV software from phoning home in the first place?
To do so, just cut off your smart TV’s internet connection. If the TV is plugged into your network via an Ethernet cable, unplug it. If it’s connected to Wi-Fi, have your TV forget the Wi-Fi network. If your TV can’t connect to the network, it can’t phone home. When you get a new smart TV, consider not even connecting it to the network. You probably can’t avoid buying a smart TV, so this at least lets you treat a smart TV as if it were a traditional “dumb TV.” Problem solved!
Of course, this isn’t an ideal solution. If you love your smart TV’s software, you’re making a sacrifice. However, if you only use your smart TV as a “dumb” display for other devices, it’s a great solution. If you do really like your smart TV’s software, be sure to look up a guide for turning off as many privacy-invasive features as you can.
But remember: Other devices often have their own tracking features. Even if you have a streaming platform that doesn’t track your watching habits (like an Apple TV), apps that you run on that platform (like Netflix, for example) will keep track of your watching habits in those individual apps. Still, even if your streaming box is monitoring your watching habits, at least your smart TV won’t be. That’s a win if you want to keep marketers from knowing everything about your life.
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