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This post is about a new app made by McAfee which is meant to be an extra security for people's photos on Facebook. We know that even if we put our privacy settings on "only friends" there are ways through comments, likes and mutual friends that people you do not know can come across your pictures and download, print or upload them on a different site. This app helps protect by asking users to list who will get to view their photos. Only those people on the list will get to see the photo no matter who is friends with who, or who likes or comments on it. People not on the exact list will only see the photo blurry and barely visible. In addition to that nobody will be able to grab, print or download the photos even if they are on the list of people who can see the photos. This app is only in its development or "beta" phase, but it is already free to download and use on Internet Explorer and Firefox. The company is still working on versions for Chrome and mobile devices. Before concluding they did mention that there are still ways to photograph the photo with your phone, if you have a clear picture. I believe this app is a big step to having online security. This app can help stop the spread of your photos before it starts. People may not think about their internet security very often but it is important to know that once it's on the internet it's on there forever. With internet popularity growing and growing we must also know the dangers of posting photos and protect ourselves. Facebook allows so much public information to be revealed this app can ensure you have a more private account. In my opinion this is a great app and considering that it is free while it is being developed I think people should try it out. Although it's only available on Firefox and Internet Explorer it is already a leap in the right direction. However, as it was mentioned earlier you can still have people take photos from their phones. Nevertheless, if you chose the correct people on your list

CISPA (cyber intelligence sharing and protection act) is back into congress and threatens to internet privacy if passed. The bill allows the government, private security agencies, and private companies to access about a "cyber threat". These cyber threats are defined by any attack on government systems and networks, and the "Theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information." This can mean things such as music, programs, games, etc. With this bill, the government and companies can anonymously take your information without any legal consequences. Your information can then be shared or sold. This is a direct violation of the 4th amendment, as it is similar to a search without a warrant. In summary, this bill grants the government and companies access to your information without any cost or legal risk.

       Last year american congress introduced CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). Although this act  speaks of protection it does quite the opposite. With this act almost all privacy on the internet will disappear. Despite many people opposing this bill last year a new version of this bill has been released this year. This CISPA 2.0 would grant immunity to private companies who can share your data with other companies, private agencies, and the government. This means that your private information and cybersecurity is virtually non-existent and can be shared with anyone. At the end of the article it tells people how they can fight against this bill. Although this bill is for the united states, Canada has attempted to pass a bill like it in the past and I personally do not want any bills of this sort to pass legislature.

Many of us people keep social networking as a daily part in our lives. Apparently, we can end up putting a social media footprint. This article shows us three habits to manage this footprint; to make sure that we don't put our too much of our thoughts and private lives out to the world. We know that a huge social media footprint can end up getting us judged by others. This has to do with privacy and security because we can go off on what we post on facebook and twitter and share many private things, but we need to remember that the internet has a lot of memory and can keep those posts and private things for a long time. This also relates with eLifestyle because as we have access to these different social networks we share a lot of thoughts and other things out on the internet and it can have a negative or positive effect on us.

This article is about a new phone being released by a company called FreedomPop. FreedomPop is an internet service provider that provides mobile service in the US. The phone is known as the Privacy Phone. It is the only phone currently on the market that allows for encrypted communications. It supposedly has 128 bit encryption for voice calls and text messages. Data from the internet is sent through a virtual private network, which is very secure and encrypted. Also the privacy phone allows you to change your phone number whenever you like.I think this is a great idea because many people can be hacked easily these days and finally there is a private way for people make calls, texts and access the internet. With that being said, who knows how long it will be before someone successfully hacks and bypasses the security on this phone.

...And this is why no one should use Norton. Ever. Well that's not the only reason, it's slow, it makes you pay expensive subscription fees and it tends to put pop-ups on your desktop, but this is a good reason not to use it too.

Mini Router? Fits in Purse? Only $40?!  Is this even possible? Guess so. This Mini Router which can fit into a purse is only $40. It is being released by a company called Satechi and it works as a repeater. This Mini-Router gives you a private, 300 Mbps WiFi access from any hotel's wired internet, but can produce and redistribute a wireless signal anywhere else in the room. It can also work as a router stand-alone, or even as a bridge which will let you take an exisiting WiFi network, and make it basically your own with a different name, and potentially a different security code, useful in internet cafe's, hotels, even St. Elizabeth ;).

When signing up for a social networking website or any website that involves signing up for, you must accept the terms and policies of that website. Although most of us accept and go on with our social networking, others take the time to read and understand what the website can do with their information. Although this process is lengthy and is sometimes confusing with the language used in these documents, companies can sometimes abuse this power and sometimes add in capabilities to the website which allow them to sell and use your private information.  Along came the California Assembly and proposed Assembly Bill 242. Assembly member Ed Chau proposed that websites should limit the length of their  Privacy and Terms and Conditions to about 100 words. This shall save alot of people time and allow users to fully understand what the capabilities of the website are and how their information can be used. 

The main idea of this article is that a great amount of social networking websites can view everything on your account, deleted or not. This is a major breach of privacy because when a user hits 'Delete' they expect it to erase it entirely. This is not entirely true. This also applies to private chat conversations. As a major breach of privacy, this information is easily available no matter how hard you tried to get rid of it. This is an important article because it applies to everyone, including employees. This means that your employer can view any unsavory pictures or posts that you have posted. But is this a bad thing? This technology can be used to catch any criminal activity. Does this mean you should stop using private conversations? No, this means that if you are dealing with anything of a sensitive nature, use a phone.

Good Luck

New "surveillance--proof" app, Silent Circle has been released providing an easy way for people to text and call people without anyone else ever knowing what has been said, including ISPs and governments. This app makes sure no one can eave drop on your personal business by using what's called encryption. Encryption is the process of changing data into a secret code, the secret code can then only be read by the device you are trying to communicate with. The encryption codes are randomly generated each time the app is used so it is almost impossible to crack the code. This app is can be used on iOS and is currently in development for other devices and platforms as well. Some feel that free communication should be a right, but governments must be feeling a little bit nervous about this app. I chose the tag "privacy and security" because this article is about how Silent Circle has given people an easy way to speak in a secure and private environment without any intervention from anyone else other than the communicators. In my opinion I feel that free communication is important, but people will abuse this through using this app to possibly deal drugs, plan terrorist attacks, or other illegal activities. Who knows, maybe even the government controls this network to monitor people who use it, but that is just a theory.

On the internet, it,s our responsibility to keep our personal lives private. This article is about how 3 celebrities got hacked, and how we can learn from it. The celebrities include Paris Hilton, who's phone got hacked and her personal information was posted. Scarlett Johansson had nude pictures of her, and lastly, Brett Favre who also had nude pictures of himself. We need to be aware of the fact that our personal information may be falling into the wrong hands. Celebrities have different lives than us, particularly those who have paparazzi who follow them around all day which means the information a celebrity chooses to keep on a digital device is in jeopardy. Imagine if someone was constantly trying to hack into your e-mail or social accounts to post embarrassing things about you? This is why we have to be careful about what we post online.

In the movie Iron Man 3, Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., loses his entire life to a man named Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley.  Iron Man loses all his suits and his entire private life and starts hunting for who was responsible for doing all this to him.  When he goes on this quest he needs everything at his disposal to help him and keep him from losing his cool.  This movie is going to continue where the Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2 Movies left off.  Mandarin is a classic Iron Man enemy so to have him in Iron Man 3 is just mind blowing.  Iron Man 3 comes out May 3, 2013.

This article tells the readers about 7 apps that were released this week. The seven apps are Pair, Bump Pay, Fuze HD, Babbel forAndroid, MTA or Merifian, Paper, and Wonders of the Universe.   Pair is an app for many of those who are in a long distance relationship. They allow couples to create a private timeline, swap photos, share videos, and their location. The app also has "thumb kiss" feature that vibrates the phone when they both touch the same part of the phone. This app is available for iPhones. Bump Pay is an app that allows you to pay others by simply "bumping" your phones together. You would pay them using PayPal. Fuze HD is an video conference app that allows others to have a video chat with up to ten people on at once. You could  also send text, images, and other media during the presentation. Babble for Android is a language app. It has over 3000 vocabulary words, sounds, images, speech recognition and a personalized review manager for multiple languages. MTA on Meridian is a app that you can use to browse art of particular line or plan your own transit system art tour. Paper is a new app that allows people to draw diagrams and sketches and shared them with others on the web. Wonders of the universe is an app that lets you explore space with graphics and visuals.  I think that this article is interesting because it tells me many of the apps that I didn't know about.

This article is about the iPhone app "Black SMS."This app will enable you to send private messages to your recipient without having to worry about someone else being able to see it.  When you download the Black SMS app, you attach a password to your message and then type whatever you'd like into the app. Once the message is complete, hit Send and the app will automatically open your SMS app. Paste the message and the recipient (and everyone else) will only see a black text bubble. secret and encrypted black text bubble, that is. The person on the receiving end then copies the black bubble and unlocks the message by pasting it into Black SMS with the password. The only downside of this app is you can't encrypt pictures with it.

In this article we learn about a new site where it will destruct your email once the recipient has read it. This is used for safety purposes. However I would not use this. I find it isn't very useful when you have to refer back to the email for information. This is a good idea for people who are concerned about others reading their private emails and might not have enough space in their inboxes.  

This article is about iOS exposing the private data on your phone to third party apps. These include your photos, contact numbers and even your present geographical location. And a week later, Android was also discovered having the same security flaw. Both companies promised that they are working on fixing it. They should do it fast because soon, we are going to run out of personal data to expose. 

IPhone users should be aware of the fact that some apps automatically take everything from your photo Library. When you download an app it will ask you for your current location, you do not want to hit yes because it will take all your photos. This is the third Security Flaw that Apple Developers have to deal with. To keep away from having your entire photo library copied be careful as to what app you download and refrain from hitting "use current location" and messages asking for "access to location information in photos and videos" by avoiding this your privacy will remain private. 

Google is improving the security of their email application. Gmail is switching to https, and is looking at a more private future for its users. Sending messages over a secure https connection ensures no one can come in contact with a message. This now has become the default in all gmail practices. It is no longer an option like in 2010. In addition, emails sent will be encrypted, along with communication. This is the news that I actually liked hearing from google, most of the time it's them trying to steal our identities through google search and targeting ads towards us w/out permission.

AdBlock is tool that many of us know of, and would totally never use because it can take revenue from content creators *shifty eyes*. All of us hate annoying ads, whether they be prerolls on videos or pop ups, or less than appropriate advertisements on streaming and torrenting websites. Adblock is a wonderful creation that hides most of those, and is thusly loved by many. Recently Adblock has done another thing which will undoubtedly make its user base happy, the web application now also blocks trackers, malicious cookies and scripts. This can be extremely important to people who value their privacy as it helps to ensure that as little of your private data is being sold as possible. The issue of online privacy has been gaining traction over the past few years and especially sine the Snowden revelations. I personally commend Adblock for their goal to protect their users, I and many others care about privacy and make active decisions to stay anonymous (I, for instance, use encrypted search engines and web browsers that encrypt data). This decision by Adblock isn't a huge step forward in online protection and privacy, but it is a step, and that's important.

Turns out storing private information with no encryption is a bad idea. In other news, researchers today have discovered that the sky is in fact, blue.