I shouldn’t have a LinkedIn account. If you think you are contacting me there, you should know that I’m in a non-mutual relationship with LinkedIn. I “deleted” my account back around 2012 when they had their big, poorly communicated, and majorly mishandled data breach. But, I still get emails from LinkedIn telling me about new contacts for a profile that shouldn’t exist. This would be a minor annoyance except for my long history with Lynda.
I occasionally use Chrome as browser on macOS. It’s a fine browser and I use it most of the day at work. But it always bugs me that Google sees fit to run update processes constantly, even if Chrome isn’t running. Luckily, I have Little Snitch on my Mac. I’ve written about this profile before, but I’m sure it’s time for a refresher.
I create a “No Google” and a “Ok Google” profile in Little Snitch.
From Timothy Lee at Ars Technica:
The legislation comes on the heels of the contentious 2016 election. Post-election investigation hasn’t turned up any evidence that foreign governments actually altered any votes. However, we do know that Russians were probing American voting systems ahead of the 2016 election, laying groundwork for what could have become a direct attack on American democracy.
I wonder if they’ll put in a backdoor. You know, for the good guys.
iThoughts 5 just released on all available platforms (iOS, Mac, Windows) with encrypted maps. It’s a nice feature if you want to store sensitive information in idea maps that may be shared by email even Dropbox or iCloud.
John Batelle writes about data and compute concentration in the tech sector:
If anything should be defined as a public good — “a commodity or service provided without profit to all members of a society” — it should be the ability to study and understand society toward a goal of improving everyone’s lives.
But over the past decade, the most valuable data, processing power, and people have become concentrated in a handful of private companies that have demonstrated an almost genetic unwillingness to share their platform as a public good.
I always enjoy the annual FastMail advent calendar blog posts. This week the published an article detailing some of the ways that sieve extensions are exposed to FastMail users.
Follow along for the rest of the holiday season. You might find out about features you’re missing out on.
Pretty impressive work coming out of AgileBits. 1Password X isn’t for me, because I like the current arrangement of a desktop application integrating with the browser. I don’t think I’m ready for direct browser to service password management even from one of the companies I trust the most.
1Password X is a radical new way of using 1Password, but it’s not (yet) for everyone. It’s still in its early stages so some features are not yet available.
If you’re not using 1Blocker, I can highly recommend it. I use it on iOS and my Mac. While it only works with Safari, it’s a pretty good shield against website poo. The latest update adds defense against bitcoin mining scripts.
I use it for more than just filtering hot garbage ads. Here’s a simple 1Blocker rule to get rid of Secret Rune scripts. That’s used by websites that like to intercept text selection so they can monetize every movement you make, like BoingBoing.
Equifax has ruined us all. It’s not just that it’s 143 MILLION accounts it’s the nature of what Equifax holds. Because they trade in financial identity data, it’s an obvious target. I think we are approaching a point where credit and identity management needs to fundamentally change because hacking is increasingly more sophisticated and less detectable.
From Bloomberg
Ads will continue to appear inside the free version of Gmail, as promoted messages. But instead of scanning a user’s email, the ads will now be targeted with other personal information Google already pulls from sources such as search and YouTube. Ads based on scanned email messages drew lawsuits and some of the most strident criticism the company faced in its early years, but offered marketers a much more targeted way to reach consumers.
