If you’ve ever joined a public wi-fi network and noticed the Finder sidebar is suddenly filled with other unfamiliar computers and network shares, and then curiously clicked on one of them, you’ve probably discovered that most of these computers have a user ‘Public Folder’ accessible to you and everyone else. This folder is included with … Read More
Virtually all iPhone and iPad users should set an iOS passcode for their individual devices. This forces anyone attempting to use the device to enter a password before being able to unlock it or gain access to anything on the device, and it also requires the same passcode before any user is able to make … Read More
The Safari web browser for iOS provides for tremendous user control over how web cookies are handled on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, allowing users to choose to block all cookies, allow all cookies, or selectively block only third party tracking and advertiser cookies.
Mac users in higher security risk situations may wish to enable an optional firmware password on their machines,which offers an advanced level of protection. In short, a firmware password is a lower level layer of security that is set on the actual Mac logicboards firmware, rather than at the software layer like FileVault encryption or … Read More
Assistive Devices and Assistive Apps are applications and accessories which can control parts of the Mac and MacOS beyond the normal scope of app limits. While it’s primarily thought of as an Accessibility feature, it’s also commonly uses for general apps too, ranging from screen sharing functions, to apps that require microphone access, to even … Read More
Do you want to control which apps can use your location on Mac? Want to see exactly what apps are using your location data on the Mac? Mac OS X now has the ability to easily view and manage which applications can access a users location data. This article will review first how to determine … Read More
Wondering what apps have access to your iPhone or iPad microphone? Want to control and manage which apps can use the microphone on your device? Apple has added an additional security feature to iOS that allows users to control exactly which apps can have access to the microphone. Yes, the microphone that you speak into … Read More
It’s easy to create a password protected text file by using the command line text editor ‘vi’. This is infinitely useful for privacy purposes, whether the protected file is for containing login details, various passwords, personal information, a private journal, or just about anything else that you want stored securely in a single password protected … Read More
Don’t want to see Notifications and alerts on the login screens and locked screens of Mac OS X? Me neither, and because Notifications can be fairly personal items from calendars, reminders, messages, or apps, they aren’t necessarily something you want on the lock screen of a Mac that is visible in public, like at an … Read More
Private Browsing is an optional Safari browsing mode that causes no data from the browsing session to be saved, this means no cache files, cookies, or browsing history will be stored or collected in iOS, making for a fairly anonymous session on the client side. Using Safari Private Browsing is a popular browsing choice for … Read More
If you suspect someone is snooping through your iPhone call log, messages, email, or through other apps, you can set a simple trap of sorts to potentially catch such intrusions on privacy. The idea behind this is pretty simple: quit out of all apps to leave the task bar empty, then check on the multitask … Read More
The Mac OS X Firewall provides an optional ability to block all incoming network connections , offering a significant security boost to Macs that are located in untrusted networks or hostile network environments.
New email arrivals display a small preview of the message itself on the lock screen of iOS devices, which shows the sender, the subject, and part of the actual email message body. Because emails can contain some very private and/or personal details, you may wish to hide those email message previews from showing up on … Read More
The Mac OS X Disk Utility app provides an ability to erase free space on traditional hard drives, which overwrites vacant disk space on the drive to prevent any potential recovery of deleted files (that is, files that have been removed traditionally, rather than through secure methods). For most users this is an unnecessary procedure, … Read More
Tor is a free anonymity network that aims to conceal a users location and browser usage from snoopers, in addition to allowing access to websites that are otherwise blocked or filtered out through firewalls. The official description of the Tor browser and network is described as follows: The Tor software protects you by bouncing your … Read More
Lavabit is a secure and encrypted email platform that has been getting a lot of attention lately in light of recent news events. Lavabit aims to prevent reductions of privacy, and so not only does Lavabit have excellent antispam and antivirus features along with your standard email niceties like autoresponders, its most relevant feature at … Read More
Cellular carriers in the USA are looking to start selling customer usage data to third parties and marketers, according to TechCrunch. This is being done in an effort labeled as ‘personalization’ and using some other boring and friendly sounding descriptions. Though the information is supposedly aggregate and anonymous, it still may include fairly personal details … Read More
Standby mode is a power saving feature that automatically hibernates a Mac after it has been in sleep mode for a while, which it does to further decrease drain on battery. When a Mac using FileVault encryption is placed into standby mode, a FileVault key (yes, this key is encrypted) is stored in EFI (firmware) … Read More
