Nowadays, millions of people belong to Facebook and other online social networks.

And I mean that word “belong.”

Because, in a lot of ways, if you’re a Facebook member, Facebook “owns” you.

And it makes a ton of money by selling your privacy to its real customers — its paying advertisers.

Have you ever wanted to [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal know that — despite this self-named Web site, and the fact that I love to learn about all kinds of new technologies — I actually own very few pieces of technology.

No smart phone.

Not even a cell phone.

No X-Box. [more...]

There appear to be dwindling numbers of us who use desktop computers for several hourse every day — without ever using a cell phone, a smart phone or a laptop computer.

In other words, nowadays, there are fewer and fewer bulky desktop computers out there and more and more portable computing devices out there.

Which means that more and more computer users are at risk of [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal may remember that, many years ago, I earned my undergraduate degree in Technology.

And I’m a true technophile — I love to learn about and understand at least a little bit about all of the latest technologies, even though though I personally don’t need or own very many of them.

I find it exciting to [more...]

Incredible.

Unbelievable.

Yet, not surprising in the least.

Facebook has been tracking its 750 millions users as they surf to other Web sites, even when [more...]

If you’re a regular reader of this Journal, you know that, lately, there have been a whole lot of stories that have raised red flags for privacy advocates.

One of the newest is something that people are just now learning about the “Obamacare” health-care law that the U.S. Congress passed several months ago.

It turns out that the provisions of that law will violate patient confidentiality.

And will risk the [more...]

The controversy continues, over Facebook’s recently announced new features.

Those who can’t wait to participate in every new Zuckerbergian idea, will happily turn a blind eye and deaf ear to any criticisms, and will believe only what the company tells them are the new features’ advantages. (Update: Here’s one already.)

While those who value their privacy will point out that [more...]

A few days ago, Microsoft announced a new standard for booting Windows 8 computers in the future.

The UEFI standard would be built into the BIOS of new computers that run Windows 8, allowing them to boot very quickly, while protecting them from rootkits and other malware that attempts to corrupt the boot process.

In theory, that sounds like [more...]