Security & Privacy

What Are the Security Risks Associated with Face-Altering App Voilà AI Artist?

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Are there data security risks associated with the face-altering app Voilà AI Artist that turns selfies into Pixar-style animated characters? Yes, but they do not appear to be as severe as the last wave of discussions on the internet claims them to be.

Security risks associated with data collection are inherent in many applications. Though the company that operates Voilà AI Artist Cartoon Photo collects data from individual users, it is not yet known to what extent these pose security risks that are unique from other data-collecting applications.

~ Madison Dapcevich

However, it is still important to follow best practices when it comes to online sharing: don’t share personal information that can lead to identity theft, like answers to questions often used to change passwords for bank accounts; always check privacy settings of your social media accounts, keep all your devices secure; and always take half a second to think whether what you are about to share could cause problems in the long run.

Facebook Users Still Don’t Know How Facebook Works

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Pew researchers called up almost a thousand Americans and asked them if they knew about the list of “traits and interests” that Facebook keeps for almost all active users. The company provides users easy access to it – you can see your own list here – yet 74 percent of respondents to the survey said they did not know about the list’s existence.

Furthermore, 51 percent of those surveyed said they were “not comfortable with Facebook compiling this information.”

Facebook Didn’t Sell Your Data; It Gave It Away

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More accurately, they shared your personal data with Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Microsoft, and other companies in exchange for even more data about you.

The New York Times has once again gotten its hands on a cache of documents from inside Facebook, this time detailing data-sharing arrangements between the company and other corporations, which had “more intrusive access to users’ personal data than [Facebook] has disclosed” for most of the past decade, the article revealed.

Face your GDPR fears with this enlightening infographics

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GDPR is a bit of an annoyance if you’re an ordinary individual, but it’ll at least mean more control over the data that companies hold on you. If you’re running a business, though, even if it’s just a small operation, you need to be GDPR-compliant.

So if you want to sleep better tonight, you’ll need some easy to digest information about GDPR and what you need to do about it. Thankfully the European Commission has produced the excellent infographics that covers everything you need to know, and Creative Bloq added some helpful thoughts too.

Twitter admits to password storage blunder – change your password now!

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Today Twitter admitted that the company had made a serious security blunder: it had been storing unencrypted copies of passwords.

Twitter claims that it has now “fixed the bug” and that its investigation “shows no indication of breach or misuse by anyone”.

Twitter therefore suggests merely that you “consider changing your password”.

Please do change your password(s) as soon as possible. There is no information about how long passwords have been out there in plain text or whether hackers managed to harvest any of them.

With 4 months to switch on HTTPS, are web hosting companies ready?

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Like it or not, if your website isn’t using HTTPS (the encrypted version of the web’s HTTP protocol) by July then you’re likely to lose traffic.

That’s because in July 2018 Google Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, will start warning users that web pages served over HTTP are not secure (they aren’t).

This isn’t an empty threat, Chrome has been turning the screw on HTTP for a number of years and Google Search already gives sites with HTTPS a boost in its search rankings. You should expect other browsers to follow Chrome’s lead.

As Mark Stockley explains, if you’re buying web hosting you’re going to want HTTPS.

Cloudflare now offers unmetered DDoS attack mitigation

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Cloudflare turns seven this week and it wants to give your network a present. Should your website come under Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, it will never charge you additional fees, or (and this is important) kick you off the network.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince has pledged unmetered DDoS mitigation, regardless of the size of the attack and no matter what level of service you have from the free tier all the way up to the enterprise level.

This is wonderful news for small business owners. Take advantage of it if you haven’t done so yet.

Next steps toward more connection security

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Google has sent out a warning that HTTP sites that contain forms and other input fields will be marked Not Secure staring this October.

The search giant gave a notice of this a few months ago but has now takes the next step to formally notify those who will be affected with the upcoming change.

The notification states: “Beginning in October 2017, Chrome will show the ‘Not secure’ warning in two additional situations: when users enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode.”

The original Google Chrome post can be found here: https://blog.chromium.org/2017/04/next-steps-toward-more-connection.html

This Site Will Show You All Nearby Cafes with WiFi Hotspots

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Available as both an iOS app and a web-based service, with an Android app currently in the works, Cafe Wi-Fi is a map that shows off any available Wi-Fi hotspots at any given area.

Much like the Airport Wi-Fi map, Cafe Wi-Fi relies on a combination of user contributions and third-party sources like FourSquare to populate its map with Wi-Fi hotspots.