Privacy Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Scam alert: Are you being spied on via your own webcam?

Posted on May 12, 2025

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The ingenuity of hackers, thieves and other miscreants is unlimited it seems.

Every day they come up with new ways to scam, hack and break into computers in order to steal bank account and credit card numbers, photos, addresses, phone numbers and other pieces of sensitive information.

One of their most devious tricks is hacking into people’s computers and spying on them via their own webcams. [Read more…]

This Windows service is spying on you (but you can stop it)

Posted on April 12, 2025

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By default, a sneaky Windows service that’s constantly running on your PC watches your every move and sends the data it collects about your computer usage back to Microsoft.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of serious issues with this… [Read more…]

Why your smart (IoT) devices need their own dedicated user accounts

Posted on March 18, 2025

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Do you own (or plan to acquire) one or more ‘smart devices’ such as a smart speaker, an IP camera, a video doorbell, etc.? If so, here’s a little tip for you…

Virtually all smart IoT devices that connect to the Internet collect various types of data about you, your home and/or your family’s activities and send that info back to the company that made the device.

Of course some data collection and transfer activities are essential in order for the device to serve its intended purpose (an IP camera capturing video and sending it to your remote smartphone, for example), but depending on the device and how it is used some of the data that’s collected can be quite intrusive. [Read more…]