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How much privacy do you have left? - Discover how much data you are really leaking
More and more functionality on our devices and browsers depends on services on servers running ‘somewhere’ on the Internet. Of course we already know that a lot of the stuff we do on the Internet gets collected by all manner of well known and not so well known parties. These parties use that data to build profiles of us and our behavior and is used to offer us ‘personalized content’ – in other words: targeted advertisements.
At the same time our devices contain an increasing number of ‘services’ that send our data to internet servers with or without our permission. According to the terms of service they not only use our data to deliver the ‘service’ but also to improve the ‘service’ . Whether or not that dat can also be viewed by humans and if they’re actually doing that remains vague at best.
And it doesn’t end there. A lot of this stealthy spyware comes preinstalled on your device or gets installed at a later date without your consent. Removing or disabling these unwanted onlookers is made so difficult that it’s practically not feasible for an ‘ordinary’ user, and sometimes getting rid of it is made totally impossible.
Windows Copilot, de unsolicited eavesdropper on your PC
If you’re using Windows 11, then at a certain moment Windows Copilot gets installed on your machine without asking you if you want it first. The next time you start your PC, Copilot is automatically running. And judging by the network traffic Copilot is generating Copilot is happily sending as much of your information as possible to Microsoft as soon as it starts. Because, if you’re looking for something in your own information, Microsoft needs to be able to find that for you, right? Well, not as far as I’m concerned. It’s none of Microsoft’s business what’s on my PC and what I do on it.
Ther is no button to turn Copilot off in your Windows settings. At least not one I’ve been able to find. The Microsoft site explains how to turn it off using the registry. Of course Microsoft, any non technical user knows exactly how to change the registry. 🧐 And this needs to be re-done for every user on that PC, you can’t turn Copilot off for the entire PC with one setting.
Removing Copilot from your PC once it’s been installed is not possible at all. It’s an ‘essential Windows component’. But before Copilot was installed,my PC was working fine, wasn’t it? Essential? Seriously?
Siri, Copilot, Google Assistant, Bixby: handy or spyware?
As handy as the online assistants are, their leaking massive amounts of your data. It starts with listening in on your microphone. Officially they don’t start listening until you say ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Hey Google’, but is that really true? How many of your conversations you’re not consciously directing at such an assistant are being used to better train the ‘Hey Siri’ and the like? And what else are they doing with it?
If if they’re not tapping your conversations, Apple, Google en de rest know which restaurant you’re visiting and when. They know where your travel takes you. And of course all the search requests you issue. When you ask Siri to look for certain shoes you ‘suddenly’ get ads for those shoes. Such a coincidence …
These assistants are much to heavy to run on even a high end phone so they have to send the data to an Internet server to be processed.
Samsung made it’s own variety for it’s Android phones: Bixby. Not for any lack of functionality in Android, the Google Assistant was readily available on Android. But Samsung wanted to collect your data themselves instead of Google. You can’t de-install Bixby Voice from your phone or even disable it. Even when you set the app to ‘disabled’ it still runs. You can only configure that Bixby won’t react to ‘Hey Bixby’. But … that means it’s apparently still listening in on you.
The combobar, the invisible risk in your browser
Way back when browser had an address bar that allowed you to type the address of the website you wanted to visit. Later a search bar was added to directly enter a search query for your favorite search engine. That actually worked quite well.
These days there’s jus a combobar. If you type something there that’s recognized as a website, you’re sent to that website. Anything else you type is sent to your favorite search engine. If you make a typo the address you typed is sent to that search site. And that’s both a privacy and a security risk. Information is being sent to the search site that you don’t want them to have.
But that’s not the end of it. As soon as you start typing your typed text is being used to show you ‘suggestions’. And part of those suggestions come from, you’ve guessed it, web servers owned by the browser supplier or your search engine.
For example: if you type the address of the website of a certain patient association, Google or some other party will know – even if you type in the correct URL immediately – right away that you – or someone in your family or circle of friends – probably has that disease. You really don’t want that.
You can contain the damage somewhat with some configuration settings, but turning it off completely is not possible. And for a non technical user it’s just a hassle. It should be off by default, or the browser installer should ask you your preference.
Your best choice is Brave, that’s a version of Chrome with much fewer privacy violations.
Backups and your privacy: not an option
Backups of devices can only be sent to the cloud service of the device supplier lately. On a Samsung Android phone you can choose between the Samsung cloud or Google Drive. On an Apple device iCloud is your only option. And on Windows it’s becoming increasingly difficult to put a backup on a different destination than OneDrive. Some already make cloud backups before you give permission. Handy, isn’t it?
You used to be able to make a backup to an SD-card for a phone or tablet or a USB drive for a PC. The latter is still possible, but is not easy to find if you’re looking for it.
In a previous blog I’ve already told you about what can happen if big tech is spying on your data(/blog/data-you-put-cloud-mostly-not-yours-anymore). What you put in cloud storage gets analyzed by it’s supplier, that’s been proven. And so ends your privacy. And if you put something on it they don’t like, you’ve got big problems, as you can read in that blog.
So how can you still protect your privacy?
The only real way to have privacy is canceling your Internet connection and ordering an old fashioned Nokia brick – they’re still available for purchase, new ones – as a phone. It’ll work, but it’s not very practical.
That our privacy is slowly dying is a fact. But it’s good to know where your data is leaking. So you can still take some countermeasures and limit the damage a bit. There’s a bunch of YouTube clips on the subject ...
And what can you do for me Hugo?
On this subject I’ve done for you what I can with this blog. Sciante has no services that help you with this.
But I do have something new for you: Enter our State of the Cloud research. Curious how your organization is doing when it comes to cloud usage? Do you want to know how your cloud strategy compares to the rest of the market? Then participate in our State of the Cloud research!
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