Your own personalised stalker
It always seemed slightly creepy that your computer shows advertising that is strangely accurately targeted at things you might have been interested in. On the surface, that seems quite useful. If you have to tolerate ads on your screen, at least having them show things you were interested in seems helpful.
Instead, we wonder how the system knows. It feels like a breach of our privacy.
It all starts when you install an app, and it pops up a question asking for permission to use your location, and/or your camera and/or your microphone.
This is useful for advertisers. For example, they can use your location. If the app reports this back to the content provider, they can match up your location and compare you to other people nearby. If you tend to go to the same places as other people, you are probably interested in the same things, so an advertiser might use that assumption to present advertising to you, or other people that you spend time with.
That does sound a bit overreaching, but we reluctantly agree to the presented terms simply because we want to use the app. If that is a condition of use, and we want to use the app, then we agree.
So, now we are seeing consumers getting the choice to push back.
Apple
Now, with iOS15, Apple are saying that you will get to see what apps are accessing your data. You will be able to see when an app used that permission, and there it was sent to. Whether that list of third party sites is any use or not is meaningful is unclear.
Not quite as advanced but following quickly behind is Google Android. With Android 12, you will have the option to de-personalise your data. They will still track usage, but won’t link it back to you.
Is there any truth to the rumour that your phone or TV is listening to you, and presented content based on private conversations it overhears?
Given how poor the voice recognition is on phones , cars, or tools like Alexa or Siri, its pretty evident this can’t be reality. If it, is, then heaven only knows what it thinks it’s hearing. The voice recognition tools are getting better all the time, but there is a long way to go.
KRACK Wireless Access Vulnerability
[header2 text="KRACK - Wireless Access Vulnerability" align="left" color="#336A40" margintop=""] It’s been all over the news that the dastardly hackers have struck again, this time hitting your favourite wireless. According to some reports, the world will end...
Another Scammer example
[header2 text="Not the worst we've seen, but equally effective" align="left" color="#336A40" margintop=""] The scammers never stop. This latest attempt is extremely poorly written. But when you follow the link it's a passable representation of the Office 365...
Giving clients better response times
Speeding up our service To speed up our service, we’ve introduced a new ‘ticket’ (job) logging system. This is in additional option to ringing us or emailing our ‘support’ email team. Each of these systems works but are relatively manual. We know that phone calls...
New cool stuff in your Office 365
[header2 text="New stuff, all the time" align="left" color="#336A40" margintop=""] Microsoft are continually updating Office 365 with awesome new tools and more efficient ways of working. Keeping up with these and learning how to use them is a big challenge, which is...
Macs are the latest victims of ransomware
According to Veeam the number of ransomware attacks has jumped 6000% since 2015-16. There is an interesting correlation between the increase in ransom attacks and the increase in value of bitcoins! Bitcoin value in NZ dollars. Source Google Finance Now we...
Seamless migration to cloud file storage
"We've been very fortunate to have them on board. Our transition went very smoothly. There was a great sense of comfort about them and they are very professional in what they do." - Jeremy Sole, CEO SharePoint migration Making the change from local file storage to...
Member training for the EMA
"For anyone thinking of using Kinetics for training : you're going to get value for money, on topic training. Definitely thumbs up." - David Foley, EMA Learning Manager Member IT training The EMA turned to Kinetics when they wanted to provide members...
No excuses for ugly PowerPoint slides
Add a design eye to give some pizzazz to your PowerPoint Not everyone has an eye for design – particularly when it comes to PowerPoint. Now you can get PowerPoint to design your slides for you. 1. Add the text and content you wish to display on your slide. The...
Sensing your office Vibe
As Kinetics had grown, our ability to understand what everyone in the team is feeling or thinking has diminished. The distance that growth brings between staff and managers creates doubts and misunderstandings that can be hard to see. More and more we have...
BEWARE THE FAKE LOGIN
Most people will be familiar with the concept of linking something to your Facebook login. Many sites offer you the opportunity to login using your Facebook account. Scammers use this concept to farm credentials for other sites. One we have started seeing more...