Thank yourself later: Back up your data hourly, daily or weekly using an external hard drive with Time Machine (Mac) or File History (Windows). It protects against crashes, accidental deletes or malware.
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From the moment you book, airlines collect data on your habits, web activity, and even your complaints. Here’s how to protect your privacy in the skies.
TikTok on the clock: The latest plan to save TikTok by April 5 comes with a big catch (paywall link). Oracle is the front-runner, but it will only take a small stake to look after your data. The app’s algorithm? Surprise, surprise, China will still control it. The algorithm is what makes TikTok tick.
The amount of time Chinese hackers spent inside a small Massachusetts power utility, spying on energy grid data. They were only caught after the FBI tipped off the general manager. Frightening.
⌛ Quick privacy tip: Use Ctrl + Shift + N (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + N (Mac) to open an incognito or private browsing window in most web browsers. Incognito mode doesn’t save your browsing history, cookies or form data.
🫨 Gone phishing: If you use Gmail or Outlook, watch out for deceptive emails asking for sensitive info or trying to trick you into clicking a malicious link that takes over your computer. Make a mistake and the hackers will hold your PC or data hostage until you pay a ransom. This one’s spreading, so watch out!
Don’t use a free VPN: Many log your keystrokes, track your activity and even sell your data, making you less secure, not more. Stick with a trusted, no-log VPN instead. Get four months free from the VPN I trust.
The size of Western Digital’s new $569.99 hard drive designed for Network-Attached Storage systems, letting multiple people store and share massive amounts of data. The first hard drive, the IBM 305 RAMAC, was introduced in 1956 and cost around $50,000 (over $500,000 today adjusted for inflation). It had a whopping 5MB of storage! 😲
K-12 schools hit by cybercriminals from July 2023 to December 2024. That’s over 9,300 incidents. Most happened when staff fell for phishing scams. But they didn’t just lose data. Some attacks forced schools to close and affected meals and special education services.
Every click, purchase, and Alexa command you’ve ever made is tracked by Amazon. Want to see what else it knows? Here’s how to get your data.
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🦆 Duck off: Tell that to your AI chatbot collecting data. Duck.ai is out of beta and lets you chat anonymously, for free, with no account required. You can use GPT-4o mini, o3-mini, Meta Llama 3.3, Mistral Small 3 and Claude 3 Haiku without worrying about your data being collected. Chats are fully anonymized, meaning they’ll never be used for AI training. Try it out.
🔍 Google’s testing AI-only search results: The new AI Mode ditches the usual 10 blue links and instead lets Gemini 2.0 take over with web summaries, graphs and shopping data. Think of it as a bigger version of AI Overview, and yes, we all know how spot-on that is. It’s opt-in only for now through Google’s Search Labs, so you can ignore it … for now.
🚨 Word of the day: Info-stealer. Malware that sneaks in and grabs your personal data, especially credit and debit card details. Over 26 million devices were hit, with 2 million bank cards stolen and for sale on the Dark Web. Watch for small charges on your statements because that’s how hackers test if your card is still good.
🚨 Check your Chrome extensions: Click to the Puzzle icon at the top right and Manage extensions. Adblock for Chrome, Super Dark Mode, Blipshot, Page Refresh and 12 others (full list here) were found injecting data-stealing malware. If you have any installed, delete them ASAP and run an antivirus check. I use TotalAV.
Excel is so 2010: It’s easy to be a spreadsheet wiz in Google Sheets now that Gemini is built in. With a prompt, you can generate charts, analyze data and automate spreadsheet tasks. Open a new Sheet and click the Gemini icon (it’s a star) next to your profile picture. Love this tip? Try this on your dating app. “Are you a related data set in a separate table? Because I INDEX/MATCH you.” Yup, geek humor right there.
Wage for remote AI trainers. Can you code, research and write? Fact-checking AI data might be up your alley. Perfect for introverts, even if the repetitive tasks are “mind-numbing.” Links here if you want an AI gig.
💸 Avast sold your data: If you bought the antivirus software between Aug. 2014 and Jan. 2020, you might be entitled to a cut of a $16.5 million settlement. Watch your inbox for a claim ID, then fill out the settlement claim form by June 5. I use this antivirus.
Data a new car can produce per hour. Compare that to 3GB hourly for your smartphone. Crazy, right? The biggest data hogs are the sensors that gather biometrics like fingerprints and face scans, along with all the devices we hook up to our vehicles.
🔒 Small-biz security 101: The principle of least privilege could save you big headaches down the road. The idea is you only give employees access to the data and systems they absolutely need to do their jobs. The fewer people with admin rights, the better.
