It’s rare to find an app where even the free version is also free of advertisement. So what’s the catch? Surely it profits from user data in some way, there’s no such thing as a free lunch in tech…

In a nutshell, Camo is an app that turns your smartphone into a webcam
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Yet according to Camo’s Founder Aidan Fitzpatrick, the app’s strict no-tracking policy is a point of principle, and there is, in fact, no need for such intrusion into user privacy. Enough of their users are happy to pay the very reasonable $4.99 a month for the “Pro version” to fund the free app as well.

In a nutshell, Camo is an app that turns your smartphone into a webcam. Like all great tech ideas, it’s a simple concept, well-executed.

Even cameras in older phones are much better than any webcam on the market, so by using that old phone sitting in your drawer doing nothing as a webcam, you can get next-level video quality.

A big part of the harm consumers face with advertising is their data, demographics, and tracking running across the web
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The app has been used by the likes of Seth Godin, Wall St Journal’s Joanna Stern plus employees from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities, who praise it for its ability to create a professional-quality webcam experience from the user’s phone and browser.

“I’ve spent years building products to help people get better access to their own data,” says Fitzpatrick, who founded his company Reincubate in 2008 after building the world’s first tool for iOS data recovery, which enabled users to securely manage their data.

Camo’s Founder Aidan Fitzpatrick is a software engineer, angel investor, entrepreneur, and author who started his first company at 14

There's a huge amount of competition by unworthy publishers, trying to rank low-quality services or information
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Working in that space for so long gave him many opportunities to see the more distasteful ways to use data, and the wide range of bad actors out there looking to get access to it, he explains as he unpacks how important the issue is to him.

“The internet has played a big role in my life and my career, and it’s in almost everyone’s interests to push it along the responsible, sustainable path of public good rather than narrow, private interests.”

Fighting Fakery

Fitzpatrick talks about the idea that consumers on the web these days are surrounded by “fakery.”

Yet while some forms of fakery — fake news, fakery in public discourse, and the use of trolls to attack viewpoints on social media – have been widely discussed, there is a lot more to it than that, he explains.

“Fakery pays off for the unethical. Amazon and other platforms have received coverage for fake product reviews on their platforms. Instagram is busy with promoted products, many of which use fake reviews and undisclosed influencer endorsements. Sometimes even the products themselves are fake.”

Even cameras in older phones are much better than any webcam on the market
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“More broadly, consumers have experience with this fakery on Google. There are some Google searches that are just hard to do. Have you ever tried searching for a plumber or medical advice on Google?  There’s a huge amount of competition by unworthy publishers, trying to rank low-quality services or information.”

Even services like Grubhub and Postmates have been criticized for allegedly faking profiles for restaurants that they don’t partner with, in an attempt to capture and redirect their leads. “A big part of the harm consumers face with advertising is their data, demographics, and tracking running across the web,” says Fitzpatrick

Making it Pay

While Fitzpatrick believes that consumer privacy and choice have been jeopardized by large web corporations and social media giants, he recognizes that they must make money.

His argument, however, is that there is no need for such companies to be so data-hungry in capturing and monetizing information about their users. It is, in fact, still possible for them to build effective first-party advertising networks with a smaller set of data.

“Paid services along the lines that Apple focuses on, or which Google have explored with YouTube Music may prove increasingly worthwhile.”

And of course, his own product manages to make money without storing and tracking consumer data:

“Our model is very simple: we offer a free version of our products, and a paid version. We’ve no need to track data for trials, or to try and monetize with ads baked into our products, so we don’t.”

Algorithm Anarchy

He breaks down this disruptive rationale into three key areas that those designing tech products must think about to enable consumers to have more authentic experiences online:

1. Product: We don’t track user data in the products. We have no need to, and no interest in doing so. People’s data belongs to them. If the app fails, we do record information on what went wrong, but that’s clearly metadata, and about the functioning of the product in order that we can improve it, rather than anything about the customer. Where we record limited metadata on how the app is used, we only do for the purpose of better understanding and developing our own product — not for marketing — and we don’t share that information with any third parties.
2. Customer Records: If you buy something from a company, what data do they collect? We ask for the UK’s statutory minimum. We need their email and country of residence in order to send them the license and to apply the correct taxes. We use a third-party for card-processing, and don’t have any card details. In the UK we have to keep financial records for at least 6 years, but where users have lifetime licenses we need to keep that data for at least that time. Fortunately, it’s a very narrow set of data.
3. Marketing: This is hard because overreach in data capture feels like the norm. Most systems that permit advertising ask customers to embed tracking tools in their mobile or desktop apps or on their sites, and this is something we push back on. We don’t embed any advertising analytics tools in our products for this reason. Then there’s visitor tracking. We do use an analytics product to count the number of visitors to our site, and we’ve more work to do as the industry evolves to get ourselves happier with how these systems work. We’ve made good progress.

“The tech industry often assumes that using particular channels to market a product requires tracking. We reject that. Reincubate will continue to safeguard consumer privacy and choice with our commitment to respect privacy, refuse data monetization and intrusive tracking.”

Camo key features include:

• Film-quality video
• Easy customizing:  lighting, crop, zoom, focus, at your fingertips
• Plug and play
• Plays well with others:  use with Zoom, Meet, Teams, Skype, Slack, Google Chrome, Cisco Webex Meetings  +.
• Previews before going live
• The newly released 1.3 version offers even better functionality, including support for an additional 11 languages supported, power conservation, and screen aesthetic features.

Camo’s free edition is great for straightforward, high-quality calls, but lacks adjustments. It gives you resolutions up to and including 720p video, along with a choice of the device’s selfie lens, or it’s main back lens (the wide one). The free version of Camo also lets you access your device’s audio, and keep the screen of your device dimmed while using Camo. With free version, you can also connect multiple iOS devices and switch between them.

If you upgrade to Camo Pro, you get the following:

• Access to every lens on your phone (such as selfie, telephoto, ultra-wide & wide)
• “Portrait mode” on iPhone’s that support it, with bokeh effect and shallow depth-of-field
• Control of the device’s flash for use as a light ( turn it on and off, control the brightness)
• Access to any resolution the device provides (opening up 1080p and 1440 x 1080)
• Video mirroring
• Rotation of the feed in 90° increments (in case your phone is orientation locked)
• Zoom controls, with pan and tilt to keep you front and centre
• Focus adjustments (autofocus, focus on a particular area, manual focus control)
• Shutter speed and ISO adjustments
• Image adjustments including brightness, temperature, tint, hue, saturation, contrast, gamma, sharpness

Alice Bonasio is a technology journalist, communications consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post How Algorithm Anarchy Can Set You Free appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Daniel Markuson, Digital Privacy Expert at NordVPN.

422.49 billion spam emails are sent worldwide every day. This number also includes phishing, sextortion, advertising, and finance-related scams. Most people can already spot the traditional spam messages that claim they have won a new Lamborghini or inherited a million dollars, so spammers are finding new creative ways to trick people into giving them money or information.

There has been an increase in the numbers of SMS spamming attacks known as smishing
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With so much personal data available out there, it is much easier for criminals to customize all kinds of scamming attempts – from simple spam, to much more advanced phishing or extortion. These emails, messages, and websites often seem so real, and provide such a high level of detail, as to make even the most cautious person susceptible to falling into a trap.

A few months ago, a massive smishing attack produced tens of millions of fake SMS messages, inviting the recipients to go on fake websites
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A New Era of Smishing

Recently, there has been an increase in the numbers of SMS spamming attacks, known as “smishing” where scammers try o steal people’s personal information or credit card details. They do this by initially sending text messages designed to look like they come from a bank, an employer, or an official governmental institution.

422.49 billion spam emails are sent worldwide every day
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A few months ago, a massive smishing attack produced tens of millions of fake SMS messages, inviting the recipients to go on fake websites. The texts were generated by a spam-sending database run by a company called ApexSMS. Interestingly, the system was able to detect when people messaged back using keywords such as “report” and “FCC. These phone numbers were added to a special list of contacts that would not be used by the fraudsters again. However, you should bear in mind that responding to these kinds of texts may leave you vulnerable to identity theft because if you contact the hackers, the hacked phone transmits your sensitive data stored on it.

Responding to a text can leave your phone vulnerable to being hacked
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As investigators later discovered, the database contained around 80 million records. They included people’s names, phone numbers, carrier network names, IP addresses, and even locations. Out of the 38 million texts. that were sent during the attack, 2.1 million people clicked on a link in the fraudulent message. Luckily on this occasion, the scammers used an unprotected server, which experts discovered in time to stop the attack.

Scammers are abusing Notifications and Push APIs on Android devices
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Fake Missed Calls

Besides SMS frauds, scammers are now abusing the Notifications and Push APIs on Android devices. These two APIs are used to push notifications on mobile phones to re-engage users. An application or server can push them even if the app is not running. The problem is, the API allows scammers to make their notifications look identical to a legitimate app. For example, they can create fake alerts customized to look like a missed phone call.

Scammers aim to take advantage of well-known applications by creating false alerts using the looks of popular apps
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One of the ways scammers exploit the feature is using Google Chrome to push messages to mobile phones. To hide their origin, the Google Chrome icon is changed into a “Missed Call” notification. When this happens, one message informs the scammers that they can hack the phone. Another one shows a missed call from a medium called Esmeralda.

Once users press the fake push notification, their phones get hacked
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Scammers aim to take advantage of well-known applications. They create false alerts using the looks of popular apps. This confuses mobile phone users. Once they press the push notification, their phones get hacked. Thus, before pressing the notification, it is important to pay attention to the message that it contains and think if it is actually related to the nature of the app.

While fraudsters are becoming more creative, it is still possible to save ourselves from their attacks by becoming more aware of the latest scamming techniques
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Phishing with legal threats

Another new strategy that creative spammers are now using is lawsuit emails. They send fake emails, which claim that the recipient is being sued and request to open and read the attached fraudulent documents and respond within seven days.The scammers use the names of existing law firms and falsify their email addresses. Most of the time, they target the employees of big companies. Around 100,000 businesses have been attacked to date — mostly in Canada.

Around 100,000 businesses have been attacked to date with legal threat phishing scams — mostly in Canada
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Steps anyone can take to protect themselves

While fraudsters are becoming more creative, it is still possible to save ourselves from their attacks by becoming more aware of the latest scamming techniques. Then, it is crucial to check the messages, phone calls, and emails you receive before opening them. These are the basic but important steps in protecting ourselves handing our personal data to scammers.

The post Expert View: Spam and Phishing Trends appeared first on Tech Trends.

“Mozilla has taken advantage of the Quest’s higher performance capabilities to deliver the best VR web browsing experience to date,” says Janice Von Itter, Staff Program Manager at Mozilla.

This follows from the release of the Firefox Reality browser for other 6DoF (Six Degrees of Freedom) headsets including the HTC Vive Focus Plus and Lenovo Mirage.

Firefox Reality is available in 10 different languages, including Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, with more on the way
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Firefox Reality is available in 10 different languages, including Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, with more on the way. Voice search is also enabled to make browsing faster and easier.

Voice search is also enabled to make browsing faster and easier
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Whether you’re watching immersive video or meeting up with friends in Mozilla Hubs, Firefox Reality takes advantage of the Oculus Quest’s boost in performance and capabilities to deliver the best VR web browsing experience.

You can now try the new featured content on the FxR home page or build your own to see what you can do in the next generation of standalone virtual reality headsets.

Firefox Reality takes advantage of the Oculus Quest’s boost in performance to deliver the best VR web browsing experience
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Like all Firefox browser products, Firefox Reality is available for free and users can get it now from the Oculus Quest store. In the coming months Firefox will also be rolling out support for the nearly VR-ready WebXR specification, multi-window browsing, bookmarks sync, additional language support and other exciting new features.

Like all Firefox browser products, Firefox Reality is available for free
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Privacy Please

Enhanced Tracking Protection on the Firefox Reality browser automatically blocks sites from tracking you, and the icing on the cake is that all these protections work unobtrusively in the background and actually make the browsing experience faster.

“To protect our users from the pervasive tracking and collection of personal data by ad networks and tech companies, Firefox Reality has Enhanced Tracking Protection enabled by default. We strongly believe privacy shouldn’t be relegated to optional settings,” says Von Itter.

This is part of a broader move by the company to make all of its browser versions much more privacy (and user) friendly and set a new standard for the industry where it come to protecting our data
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“What if I told you that on nearly every single website you visit, data about you was transmitted to dozens or even hundreds of companies, all so that the website could earn an additional $0.00008 per ad!” asks Peter Dolanjski. Product Lead, Privacy & Security at Firefox, who says their research has shown that Firefox users are seeking out privacy protection, particularly through the use of Firefox’s Private Browsing mode. In fact, nearly 25% of web page loads in Firefox take place in a Private Browsing window. The good news for these users is that Firefox’s Private Browsing mode has long put users first by blocking tracking. Yet privacy features such as Chrome’s Incognito mode do not actually prevent third-party tracking, and a recent study found that users don’t understand this and think their data is being protected, when it is, in fact, anything but.

The hope is that by setting a new standard they will force the tech industry at large to also change and put the user’s interest first
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This approach will not come as a surprise to anybody familiar with Mozilla. A while back Tech Trends covered a story about The Glass Room – Mozilla’s Black Mirror-like installation in London – which used a range of creative installations to force users to confront their complex relationship wth data, privacy and identity, and to open their eyes to how closely the companies they interact with are monitoring their every move.

The burden of due diligence, according to the Mozilla ethos, needs to shift from the consumers to the companies
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The burden of due diligence, according to the Mozilla ethos, needs to shift from the consumers to the companies whereby the complexity of privacy settings shouldn’t be placed on users to figure out. The approach taken by Firefox is beautifully simple: align your product with customer expectations rather than the other way around. They are now rolling out enhanced tracking protection on the browser, so that new and existing Firefox users will have much stronger privacy protection on their default settings from the moment they install. The hope is that by setting a new standard they will force the tech industry at large to also change and put the user’s interest first, because, as they put it, “consumers deserve better.”

After Cambridge Analytica and other debacles over recent months and years, I don’t think many people can disagree with that.

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Firefox Reality Launches on the Oculus Quest appeared first on Tech Trends.

The past months have seen scandals emerge that have demonstrated to Brits the value their data holds, and the risks that come with giving it away so freely.

By Gary McKay, Co-founder of APPII

With privacy becoming an increasing concern, but users reluctant to sacrifice the ease of use that Internet freedom allows them, blockchain offers a solution to reconcile data protection with simplicity without the need for regulation.

Until recently, we gave our data away because we either didn’t realise we were doing so, or because we perceive it to be a small price to pay
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Cambridge Analytica demonstrated not only how efficacious harnessing seemingly useless data can be in producing real world results, but also how easily data can be collected unknowingly from online users. Another UK company Carphone Warehouse was fined in January of this year for having historically stored customer data using insufficient security measures, as was discovered when the data was stolen by hackers. This shows that even data that was collected legally and for the direct purpose of buying a phone contract can be used later for nefarious purposes such as identity theft.

Until recently, we have given our data away because we either didn’t realise we were doing so, or because we perceive it to be a small price to pay for an easy transaction. Data that holds value for all sorts of companies can be collected from any manner of online interactions; from a baking video you liked on Facebook, to the tube stop that you tap in at every morning with your contactless card.

We want to have more control over our data and how it is used without sacrificing the ease that sharing it allows us to operate with
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We want to have more control over our data and how it is used, but we don’t want to sacrifice the ease and simplicity that sharing it allows us to operate with. The problem is that actively controlling where your data does and does not exist is a laborious and time-consuming process. It could mean always entering your details manually on a new platform every time you log in rather than just using your Facebook credentials. Alternatively, it could mean exercising your GDPR-given right to manually ask every company you suspect might be storing your data to ‘forget’ you.

Blockchain relies on sophisticated cryptography to ensure that all the data it stores is safely encrypted
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It is clearly time for a shift in the way we view our data, and crucially, the way we secure it. Blockchain technology provides a solution that safeguards data without sacrificing any of the functionality that a free and open Internet provides. Blockchain is essentially a vast, distributed, ledger where data is stored across a web of different devices, rather than in one centralised place that makes it vulnerable to hacking. Most essentially, blockchain relies on sophisticated cryptography to ensure that all the data it stores is safely encrypted.

It is clearly time for a shift in the way we view and secure our data
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As has been well-documented over the last year or so, the real-life applications of blockchain are myriad and diverse and will therefore replace the methods by which we currently share our data in many, many cases. Rather than sharing our information with every online shop or platform, we can store our data on a blockchain. This combats the problem in several ways. Firstly, distributed across many different devices (the data on each of which is futile in itself,) the information is not stored in one centralised place where it is at risk of an external security breach. Secondly, the information is encrypted and can easily be secured by biometric identification, meaning that only you would ever be able to access and share it.

Cambridge Analytica demonstrated not only how efficacious harnessing seemingly useless data can be in producing real world results, but also how easily data can be collected unknowingly from online users
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To put this into context, take the recruitment industry. Candidates share reams of confidential data with recruiters and potential employers during the job-hunting process. This sort of data is extremely valuable in many different ways and, as such, is a target for hackers. Blockchain CVs already exist – candidates can enter their qualification and employment history on to the blockchain. Once it is verified by the institutions where that person enrolled or qualified, the CV is secured immutably.

Candidates share reams of confidential data with recruiters and potential employers during the job-hunting process
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Candidates can then apply for jobs with a CV that is trusted and credible but; moreover, they are safe in the knowledge that their data is securely held. They can use their own biometric data to share the data they want, when they want, and they can employ smart contracts to dictate how long their data is accessible to the people they’ve shared it with, such as recruiters or potential employers.

Blockchain CVs already exist
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This is just one example of the endless possibilities blockchain has in revolutionising the way we view security and data sharing, without compromising on the ease and openness that the Internet is synonymous with. By encrypting data and allowing the owner full control over when and how it is shared, blockchain offers the solution to an increasingly pressing issue.

The post Expert View: Reconciling Privacy and Internet Freedom with Blockchain appeared first on Tech Trends.

January 28^th was national data privacy day, and with Valentines’s day fast approaching we take the opportunity to match up – see what I did there – the two themes in this handy infographic, which looks at Data Privacy (or the lack thereof) in the thorny world of online dating.

Online Dating and Data Privacy don't seem to be happy bedfellows
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Date privacy in online dating, courtesy of Saucydates.com

The post Infographic: Data Privacy and Online Dating appeared first on Tech Trends.