Update 24/01/21: WhatsApp have pushed back the deadline for accepting this privacy change (official announcement). Original article: If you run WhatsApp on your phone, it will have felt like pretty much as soon as the clock tolled midnight on December 31st 2020, we left the European Union, and the app started pestering us about a […]
Category: General
The Protect Scotland app
Protect Scotland is the name given to our nation’s new COVID-19 contact tracing application. I’ve researched this pretty thoroughly and as far as I can tell, from a data security, technical and privacy perspective the app gets a clean bill of health. I’ve downloaded the app myself and encourage everyone who can to do so. […]
Passw0rd5 are h4rd
History The history of passwords is pretty astonishing. While we think of them in terms of the internet and computers generally, the idea of the military passphrase goes back to the Roman Empire and beyond. “Halt, who goes there?” was the basis of early “Identity Management”. If you didn’t have the password, get ready for […]
Meltdown and Spectre
What is it? Meltdown and Spectre are two related vulnerabilities that were unofficially announced on January 3rd. I say “unofficially” because they were supposed to be revealed to the world on January 9th in a coordinated response agreed by all the major operating system and technology vendors. However, word of the vulnerabilities leaked early on […]
Welcome to the Library
Here are the latest slides from “Who’s Afraid of the Big Techy Wolf” presentation.
LastPass
What is it? LastPass is one of many password managers available. LastPass is a free or paid, cloud-based password manager. Need more information? Read this article I wrote about password managers (opens in a new tab). Important Stuff Disclaimer I take no responsibility for your use of a password manager. Ultimately, the only person who can evaluate the […]
Useful Keyboard Shortcuts
Here are some keyboard shortcuts that might help you in common applications. (Note that if you’re using a Mac, most of these shortcuts will be CMD, not CTRL) Chrome (and likely Firefox too) Shortcut Description F5 Refresh the page you’re on. F6 Highlight the URL, ready for you to type the name of a site, […]