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Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Privacy Sandbox is a set of security features that will phase out cookies and fingerprinting, by reducing the amount of user information sites can access in order to keep tabs on users' privacy.

Google has announced a multi-year initiative to setup Privacy Sandbox on Android, with more private advertising solutions. These solutions will limit the sharing of users data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, like advertising ID.

According to the company, Mobile apps as core part of everyday lives, with over 90% of the apps on Google Play being free, offering access to valuable content and services to billions of users and digital advertising plays a key role in making this possible.

A different Approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies



The goal of the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective privacy and enhancing advertising solutions, whereby users can know that their information is protected, and developers have the tools to succeed on mobile.



Google plans to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes. This initiative needs input from across the industry to succeed. The company already heard from many partners on their interest in working to improve ads privacy on Android, and more organizations are invited to participate.

Developers can review the initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer website. There is plan to release developer previews over the course of the year, with a beta release by the end of the year. With regular updates provided on designs and timelines, so you can also sign up to receive updates.

Privacy Sandbox coming to Android for User Data protection

Apple recently announced a new set of child safety features coming to its devices, including the iPhone, to help limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

According to Apple, the next iOS and iPadOS update will bring new capabilities for devices to use new apps of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, with user privacy in focus.

However, privacy advocates perceives the CSAM detection as rather Apple rolling out a "mass surveillance" features, by surveillance of every image sent on the platform.

How Apple intends to detect CSAM on its platform?



Apple is harping on what it calls "NeuralHash", a system powered by a cryptographic technology known as private set intersection, which scans iCloud photos automatically, when a user turns on iCloud photo sharing.



The CSAM detection involves on-device matching of images using a database of known CSAM image hashes provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and perhaps, other child safety organizations before uploading to the cloud.

Also, the Messages app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content, while keeping communications unreadable by Apple.


Additionally, the virtual assistant, Siri will get an update to enable it provide parents and children expanded information and Search will intervene when users search for CSAM-related topics.

Apple, finally will use another cryptographic technology called threshold secret sharing to "interpret" the contents when an iCloud Photos account passes a threshold of known child abuse mark, after which the content will be manually reviewed to confirm there is actually a match, and if so, Apple will disable the user's account, with the material reported to NCMEC, and passed to law enforcement.

Why Privacy furore over Apple's plan to scan devices for CSAM?



As noble as the intention may be, privacy advocates are of the fear that it could be manipulated to detect other kinds of content for political and personal safety implications, or even employed to frame innocent individuals by sending inappropriate images designed to appear as matches for child sexual content.

Albeit, Apple users who feels that their account has been mistakenly flagged can file an appeal to have the issue resolved and their account reinstated.

Privacy furore over Apple's plan to scan devices for Child Abuse Content

DuckDuckGo’s email protection feature allow users to create an alias email that helps to block creepy email trackers that come with email messaging.

While DuckDuckGo emphasizes on protecting web searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results, it distinguishes itself from other search engines by not profiling users and displaying the same search results to all users for a given search query.

Now, its foray into email protection means that the same privacy standard is coming to the email system and it affords users addresses belonging to the unique domain, duck.com, owned by DuckDuckGo itself, for instance you can get an address like xyz@duck.com.

How DuckDuckGo Email Protection works?



DuckDuckGo Email Protection is launching into beta, as a new feature in its apps that will protect users' email privacy without having them switch email services.



They can generate unique private email addresses in the DuckDuckGo app, and extension which can’t be tracked, with such addresses as name@duck.com email address. And emails sent to it is automatically forwarded to your regular inbox, with no creepy email trackers to worry about. Even DuckDuckGo will never save your email.

If perhaps you use email services like Gmail or Yahoo, the emails sent to your private Duck Address will arrive as usual to your normal inbox so that you can read your email as you normally do, be it in app or on the web.

How to Join the private beta waitlist?



DuckDuckGo Email Protection feature has been released into beta while access to the beta requires that you join the private waitlist.

And the process is simple and straightforward, just Download DuckDuckGo for iOS or Android; Open Settings > Beta Features > Email Protection and Click “Join the Private Waitlist." Once you've got a Personal Duck Address, you can expect DuckDuckGo to support it long-term so you can confidently share it.

DuckDuckGo Email Protection helps to Block Email Trackers

Mozilla has been a staunch advocate of the browser-side protection that block sites from tracking users online activities, with its Firefox browser, pushing hard on privacy with pro-privacy features.

Now, the company has introduced a Tracking Protection tool for Firefox Private Browsing and Strict Traction Protection Modes known as SmartBlock that automatically blocks third-party scripts, images, and other media content from being loaded on the browser. Thus the blocking of those scripts will protect users from being tracked across sites.

Starting with Firefox 87, the latest version of the browser, users can begin to experience a new privacy feature touted as intelligently fixing webpages that are broken by actively tracking protections, without compromising on user privacy.

What is Firefox SmartBlock all about?



SmartBlock is Firefox's built-in content blocking feature, necessary for both private browsing and strict tracking protection modes, which ultimately blocks third-party scripts, and other content from being loaded from cross-site tracking lists compiled by Disconnect.



It aims to fix the issues with websites not displaying properly as a result of using old blockade techniques, as SmartBlock provides local stand-ins for blocked third-party tracking scripts. The stand-in scripts behave just like the originals to make sure that all the webpages works properly.

Also, it allows broken websites that rely on the original scripts to load with their functionality intact. The SmartBlock stand-ins are bundled into Firefox, with no actual third-party content loaded at all, so there is no chance for third-party to track users and, of course, the stand-ins don't contain any code for tracking functionality.

How to Download or Upgrade to Firefox 87



Firefox 87 is now available for download and introduces the new privacy feature called SmartBlock, which intelligently fixes up web pages that are broken by other tracking protections, without compromising on the user privacy.

But as Firefox update happens in the background, the changes will be automatic, however users can manually upgrade the browser via the hamburger menu to Help —> About Firefox, and the download should begin immediately.

Firefox SmartBlock makes Private browsing less of a hassle

Web tracking has evolved over the years, with modern trackers employed to monetize behavioral user logs through intrusive data collection.

According to researchers at Cornell University, there is a new large-scale anti-tracking evasion scheme that leverages CNAME records to include tracker resources in a same-site context, otherwise known as CNAME Cloaking, which effectively helps them to bypass anti-tracking measures that use fixed hostname-based block lists.

And this tracking scheme is gaining huge traction among high-traffic websites, with several privacy and security issues inherent to the CNAME-based tracking, which the researchers detected through a combination of automated and manual analyses.

Some online trackers are already using the technique against Safari browser, which recently added strict anti-tracking systems in place.

Why Online Trackers are Switching to Evasive CNAME Cloaking Technique



The rise of cookie-killing browser barriers put in place by the major browser vendors to enhance users privacy, makes it increasingly daunting on marketers to look for new techniques to evade the anti-tracking mechanisms employed by browser vendors.



The CNAME cloaking is perhaps the latest evasive technique, whereby websites use first-party subdomains as their aliases for third-party tracking domains through the CNAME records in the DNS configuration to circumvent online tracker-blockers.

As DNS records allow for mapping a domain or subdomain to another, that is an alias, it makes them ideal means to sneak tracking code as a first-party subdomain. Thus, CNAME cloaking allows tracking code to look like first-party when it is not, with resources resolving through a CNAME that differs from the first party domain.

How the Major Browsers look to Mitigate CNAME Cloaking



Mozilla had been a major advocate of the browser-side protection that block websites from following web users online, which online tracking has been proven to benefit advertisers who target specific users, even though it invades their privacy.

Although Mozilla Firefox for now doesn't block CNAME cloaking out of the box, but users can use add-on like uBlock Origin to block any first-party tracker. But, the company has began the roll out of Firefox 86 which boasts of such privacy features as Total Cookie Protection that prevents every cross-site tracking by "confin[ing] all the cookies from each website in a separate cookie jar."

Apple on it's part has released iOS 14.4 with additional safeguards for Safari browser that build upon its ITP feature to shield third-party CNAME cloaking, albeit it does not yet offer a means to unmask and block the tracker domain.

New DNS-based Tracking Evasion employed by Advertising networks

FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) is Google's new approach to deliver and measure ads sent to Chrome users after it rests the already retired third-party cookie.

While Google announced a highly monumental change to its Chrome browser in early 2020, which over the course of next two years, will phase out support for third-party cookies. The hint on the crumbling of cookie has definitely raised a lot of arguments among advertisers and publishers, as it will impact heavily on online marketing.

The goal of phasing out third-party cookie is to make the web more private and secure for all users, as cookies track web users online, and used by advertisers to serve targeted ads based on what web users previously searched for on the web.

What is FLoC?



Google's proposal for interest-based cohorts, also known as FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) will be made available for public developer testing starting in March. And recently, Google shared the latest results of its experiments with the FLoC API.



FLoC is created by using on-device machine learning to group Chrome users into cohorts that are based on browsing behavior, and by clustering large groups of people with similar interests, with individual users being theoretically, indistinguishable from other people in the cohort.

Google claims that its simulations demonstrate that cohorts have the capability to drive about 95% of the conversions per dollar spent compared to cookie-based advertising.

And if all goes according to plan, advertisers will start testing FLoC-based cohorts in Google Ads by Q2, 2021. With Chrome 90 release in April seeing the first controls for the Privacy Sandbox, which will be an initial on-off decision and further customisation coming later.

How Advertisers will be impacted by the replacement of third-party Cookie?



If third party cookies are wiped out in Chrome, in that programmatic ecosystem, it means online advertisers will be unable to personalize content or serve targeted ads for almost half of their audience.

Chrome browser is the most dominant of the lots, with statistics pointing to about two billion installation and one billion people using the browser each month, which means that any changes to the ecosystem will drastically affect the online advertising world.

Now, there are some skepticism in the advertising community about the viability of FLoC as a replacement for third-party cookies. But Google is convinced that FLoC and other proposals within the Privacy Sandbox represent the future of how ads and measurement products will work on the web.

What is FLoC? Google's new Replacement for third-party Cookie

Mozilla VPN


Mozilla started testing a virtual private network (VPN) service offering since 2018 to see if users will be willing to pay for better privacy.

Now, the company has formally launched the VPN service, which is known as Mozilla VPN and available for Android and Windows 10, starting from $4.99 per month. The VPN service will ensure that internet traffic from Firefox and the server is encrypted to better thwart the efforts of third party snoopers on its users online activity.

The service is currently available in the United States, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand, with plans of expansion to other countries this fall.

What differentiates Mozilla’s VPN from the rests?



Mozilla VPN is capable of protecting up to five devices using device-level encryption, albeit only for Android and Windows devices for now. It runs on a global network of servers powered by Mullvad using the WireGuard protocol, while the company boasts of over 280 servers in more than 30 countries, without bandwidth restrictions.

Mozilla VPN protocol


And the Firefox maker is a mission-driven company, which means you can trust that the money you spend for the VPN product will not only ensure you have a top-notch privacy, but also help in making the internet safer for everyone.

How to Get Started with Mozilla VPN



Mozilla VPN is available in the United States, Canada, the UK, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand, for just $4.99 USD per month.

On installation, the first thing you'll notice is how fast your browsing experience becomes. As Mozilla VPN is based on modern and lean technology, the WireGuard protocol having only 4,000 lines of code, which is a fraction of the size of legacy protocols used by other VPN service providers.

Mozilla VPN has an easy-to-use and simple interface which people who are new to VPN won't find confusing, and setting it up and getting onto the web is just as easy as a breeze. Are you still undecided? Then why not head over to weprivacy.com and check out some of their latest articles on the best VPNs and so much more!

Mozilla launches its VPN service, compatible with Android and Windows 10



Tracker Radar is DuckDuckGo's best-in-class dataset about web trackers, which list is automatically generated and maintained with continuous crawling and analysis.

While DuckDuckGo is notable for its staunch stance on privacy, with the search engine emphasizing more on protecting web searchers' privacy by avoiding the filter bubble of personalized web search results. It distinguishes itself from other search engines like Google, as it does not profile its users and shows same results to all for a given search query.

Now, the company has made public its privacy tool comprising data set of web trackers from about 5,326 internet domains employed by 1,727 advertising companies.

How the Open Source Tracker Radar can be Useful



The Internet is rife with web trackers which follow users all over the Web, which tracking is against their privacy, and more often serves for ads targeting. These creepy ads powered by hidden trackers, are lurking behind most websites.

DuckDuckGo Tracker Radar exposes the existing lists of web trackers, as previously crowd-sourced lists are often untested, stale, and could break most websites. The new tool will enable developers to build seamless tracker protection into their mobile apps and also for desktop browser extensions for browsers like Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

The company has successfully employed it for seamless search and browsing privately across all of devices, with tracker blocking, private search, and upgraded website encryption available in one package.

What the open sourcing of Tracker Radar means for Marketers?



These Web trackers are responsible for showing targeted ads on a website; and the trackers also build digital profiles for every web user by analyzing their actions, and the information is sold to third-party advertising companies.

So if all web projects are built from the ground up to block all these web trackers, with Tracker Radar providing a reliable list of all the trackers, it will negatively impact on ads conversion.

As the impediment to adding tracker protection is that existing lists of trackers are often manually curated, which means they are not comprehensive. Or even worse, the lists may break websites, which hinders the mainstream adoption.

The search giant aims for every privacy-focused company to benefit from its knowledge on online data trackers collected over the years.

DuckDuckGo Open Sources its dataset for Analysis and Building of Tracker blacklist

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