Would Yoda Have Clicked on This Email? Maintaining E-Security Vigilance During a Pandemic Vigilance is the operative term these days, and we can’t stop hearing about having to wear masks, maintain social distance and keep ourselves muted on Zoom calls when not speaking. With so much of our energy put into maintaining new norms of behavior, some things are bound to slip. Changes as fast and dramatic as the ones we’ve experienced this year haven’t given us enough time to build the [...]

Iowa’s Shadowy Results (You Get What You Pay for with Tech) The ‘results’ from the Iowa caucuses provided a teachable moment for anyone who uses technology, which is to say everyone who reads this article. In case you missed it, the final tally from the Iowa caucuses came 6 days after voting began, and there are still controversies about the results. This deprived any potential winner from a momentum surge. More importantly, it undermines faith in the democratic [...]

Recent reports of the amazing eavesdropping power and home control Amazon’s Alexa has (similar to other voice-assistances) should not surprise. Its inherent in how these virtual assistants work. Alexa has to always be listening to be able to respond to a voice command that may come from you yelling across the kitchen. She has to be ready to respond to back-and-forth question-response to receive further clarifying instructions if needed, so she often may keep listening in case [...]

How will the cybersecurity landscape change in 2017? Many businesses still feel woefully behind in their response to the pervasive threat of cybercrime. Let’s review how companies in different countries and different industries are rating their own cybersecurity strategies heading into 2017. Cybersecurity Report Card – Barely a Passing Grade Researchers asked 700 security executives in nine countries how well their organization was dealing with cybersecu [...]

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, unintentionally revealed (in a photo he posted to his Facebook account) that he covers up the webcam and audio port on his laptop. He literally has a small piece of masking tape over the pea-sized camera lens and another one on the audio port where headphones plug in. The social media universe was quick to pick up on this, leading to all sorts of speculation and theory crafting about the possible implications. What d [...]

Should the US government require technology companies to provide a “master key” to unlock all encrypted files? What began as a hypothetical question in the US Presidential Primary Election debates has evolved into an interesting standoff between tech titans and the FBI around encrypted files stored on an Apple iPhone (used by one of the San Bernardino shooters). In January, while all of this was still a hypothetical question, RPost conducted a user poll for general interest [...]