Research by Internet Privacy Company DuckDuckGo is reported to have produced evidence that could show that even in Incognito mode, users of Google Chrome can still be tracked, and searches are still personalised accordingly. Incognito Mode Going incognito (private browsing mode) in Google Chrome means launching a separate ‘Incognito’ browser window by going to top right (the 3 stacked vertical dots icon), > New Incognito Window.  According to Google, by using this browser window Chrome won't save your browsing history, cookies and site data, or information entered in forms, any files you download and bookmarks you create will be kept, [...]

Cashless businesses that only take contactless card payments, such as cafes and bars may be growing in number in major cities but despite their apparent convenience for their target market, they are also attracting accusations that they are discriminatory. Cashless Bar The BBC, for example, recently featured a story about the Crown and Anchor pub in South London which, in October, switched to fully cashless with customers only able to use debit cards, credit cards and contactless payments including Android Pay and Apple Pay. In the case of the Crown and Anchor pub, it was reported that the decision by [...]

After last week’s major O2 4G mobile network outage which left millions of customers with no network data access has been blamed on an expired software certificate that 3rd party supplier Ericsson had installed for some customers at business-critical part of the network. What Happened? On Thursday last week, O2 smartphone users were unable to use their mobile phone data for 24 hours.  O2, which is owned Spanish communications company Telefonica, has the UK's second-largest mobile network, which is part of BT, and as well as having 25 million users, it provides services for the Sky, Tesco, Giffgaff and Lycamobile [...]

Whereas most carriers use low-band spectrum or LTE, which offers great coverage area and penetration, it is getting very crowded, and peak data speeds only top out at around 100Mbps. 5G, on the other hand, offers 3 different Spectrum bands, which are: Low-band spectrum or LTE. Mid-band spectrum.  This gives faster coverage and better latency than low-band but isn’t as good at penetrating buildings. Mid-band spectrum will offer peak speeds up to 1Gbps. High-band spectrum /  mmWave .  This spectrum can offer peak speeds up to 10 Gbps and has very low latency, although it has a low coverage area [...]

After Ofcom announced back in November 2017 that broadband and landline customers will automatically be able to get compensation from their providers when things go wrong without the need for a claim, it appears that an £8-per-day deal agreement has finally been reached between Openreach and five of the UK's internet service providers. Agreement The voluntary agreement, which will only apply only if a fault takes longer than two days to fix, is between BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, and Zen. Plusnet and EE had indicated previously that they would be prepared to sign up. This should now mean that [...]

If you’re planning a trip to an exciting destination you can now create your own travel itinerary in the Bing search engine. Here’s how: Sign up to (Microsoft Outlook) and into Bing Maps – see https://www.bing.com/maps Click on ‘My Places’. Select the ‘Itineraries’ tab. Open ‘New Itinerary’. Select the places you want to go, add the times you had in mind, and click ‘Get Started’. You can then go through your route and add key sites and attractions with a click, get suggestions, move additions between days, get directions, and add descriptions to the attractions.

A recent investigation by BBC TV’s Watchdog Live revealed evidence that some mobile phone shop staff are not conducting proper ID checks for replacement SIM requests, thereby enabling some customers to become victims of SIM swap scams. What is a SIM Swap Scam? SIM swap scams are believed to have been in existence for the last four years in one form or another.  In its current form, the SIM swap scan happens when a fraudster goes into a mobile operator’s shop and claims a false identity i.e. the identity of one of that operator’s customers.  The fraudster knows that the person [...]

Cyber security experts are warning companies with online shops to have adequate protection against DDoS attacks in place after a 70% increase in that kind of cyber-attack was recorded on Black Friday. What Is A DDoS Attack? A denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack on that is intended to make a computer or network unavailable to users, and a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) is one that uses multiple compromised systems, sometimes thousands, that are often infected with a Trojan virus to launch a single attack on one system. The sheer number of requests that the target receives (called a ‘flood’) typically [...]

ICO head Elizabeth Dunham is reported to have launched a formal investigation into how police forces use facial recognition technology (FRT) after high failure rates, misidentifications and worries about legality, bias, and privacy. Concerns Expressed In Blog Post In May In a blog post on the ICO website back in May, Elizabeth Dunham expressed several concerns about how FRT was being operated and managed. For example, although she acknowledged that there may be significant public safety benefits from using FRT, Elizabeth Dunham highlighted concerns about: A possible lack of transparency in FRT’s use by police and how there is a real [...]

The fact that Human rights group Liberty has won the right for a judicial review into the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 could mean a legal challenge in the high court as soon as next year. The Investigatory Powers Act The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (also known as the ‘Snooper’s Charter’) became law in the UK November 2016. It was designed to extend the reach of state surveillance and requires web and phone companies (by law) to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and to give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to that data. The [...]