Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

Are you tired of being pestered to allow notifications or access to your location? Do you wonder why you have to give your credit card number in order to sign up for "free" trials? Why weren't you told about the shipping costs until the very last screen in the purchase process? Are you sure that you didn't intend to sign up for all those newsletters? You're not alone, and you're not simply being subjected to clever marketing. You've been the victim of dark patterns: specific, scientifically-proven techniques designed to favor shareholder value over user value. In part 1 of my interview with Dr. Colin Gray, we'll discuss all the ways in which we're being manipulated and why, as mere humans, we're horribly outmatched.

Colin M. Gray is an Assistant Professor at Purdue University in the Department of Computer Graphics Technology. He is program lead for an undergraduate major and graduate concentration in UX Design. He holds a PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University Bloomington, a MEd in Educational Technology from University of South Carolina, and a MA in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art & Design. He has worked as an art director, contract designer, and trainer, and his involvement in design work informs his research on design activity and how design capability is learned. His research focuses on the ways in which the pedagogy and practice of designers informs the development of design ability, particularly in relation to ethics, design knowledge, and professional identity formation.

Further Info:

Dr. Colin Gray's home page: https://colingray.me Dark Patterns: https://darkpatterns.uxp2.com Dark Patterns (Brignull): https://darkpatterns.org/ Facebook’s Social Contagion experiment: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/30/facebook-only-got-permission-to-do-research-on-users-after-emotion-manipulation-study/

Zoom went from an obscure teleconferencing company to a household word when the pandemic hit. Zoom wasn’t the best videoconferencing app by any means. But it was dead simple to use and kinda fun to say. For better or worse, it became the de facto tool for many of us to keep in touch. Over that time, Zoom has made many important improvements. This week it has finally rolled out what appears to be true end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Today I'll tell you how to enable this new feature.

In other news: Be sure to update your iPhones to iOS 14.2; also be sure to keep Google Chrome and Windows 10 up to date; Adobe Flash is finally almost gone; police in Jackson, Mississippi are trialing a program to directly tap into people's private security cameras like Ring video doorbells; the NSA and FBI have been burned by the very backdoors they added; and California's Prop 24 passes, beefing up privacy protections for its citizens (and probably for all of us).

Further Info (for podcast page)

How to enable Zoom end-to-end encryption: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/zoom-now-with-actual-privacy/ Best & Worst Gifts from last year: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/best-worst-gifts-2019/Please add a nice review on my new book!! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484261887

For better or for worse, the internet today is funded by advertising. While ads can be annoying, the real issue isn't having to watch ads - it's when then ads watch us. AdTech today is premised on invasive personal data collection. Companies like Google and Facebook amass voluminous dossiers on each of us, and sell highly-targeted ads based on our income, gender, age, location, buying habits, personal interests, sexual orientation, and much, much more. But it doesn't have to be that way. And Cloudflare is going to show us how. Today, I'll talk again with the CTO, John Graham-Cumming, about Cloudflare Radar and much more.

John Graham-Cumming is a British software engineer and writer best known for starting a successful petition to the Government of the United Kingdom asking for an apology for its persecution of Alan Turing. As of 2020, he serves as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Cloudflare.

Further Info:

Cloudflare Radar: Election 2020 https://radar.cloudflare.com/election-2020Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 DNS and Warp VPN: https://1.1.1.1/ VOTE! https://www.vote.org/

In the second half of my interview with the EFF’s Lindsay Oliver and Jason Kelley, we talk about how these draconian surveillance systems put several students at a distinct disadvantage and how the teacher themselves feel about all of this. How might all of this normalize surveillance for young people? Can the invisible hand of the market resolve some of these issues? What should the policies be around proctoring and the use of these surveillance apps? How can we push back and demand change most effectively?

Lindsay Oliver is the Project Manager for EFF’s activism team, and works on the self-help resource Surveillance Self-Defense, Security Education Companion, and student privacy.

Jason Kelley guides EFF’s social media tactics and develops EFF’s online digital advocacy, and writes about various forms of governmental and private surveillance and tracking.

Further Info:

VOTE! https://www.vote.org/ Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency tip sheets: https://www.cisa.gov/national-cybersecurity-awareness-month-resources Surveillance Self Defense for students: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/privacy-studentsElectronic Frontier Alliance: https://supporters.eff.org/join-efa This article has TONS of student privacy resources: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/students-are-pushing-back-against-proctoring-surveillance-apps

In this time of COVID19, we've all had to learn to work and learn from home. But how do our bosses know we're not screwing around instead of working? How do our teachers know we're not cheating? It turns out that they're both willing to go to extremely intrusive measures to try to figure that out. Home and mobile device surveillance technology is booming thanks to this global pandemic, as we will learn from talking to the EFF's Lindsay Oliver and Jason Kelley. They have been investigating the serious impacts these products and services are having on our privacy and overall fairness for students and employees.

Lindsay Oliver is the Project Manager for EFF's activism team, and works on the self-help resource Surveillance Self-Defense, Security Education Companion, and student privacy.

Jason Kelley guides EFF’s social media tactics and develops EFF’s online digital advocacy, and writes about various forms of governmental and private surveillance and tracking.

Further Info:

Surveillance Self Defense for students: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/privacy-studentsElectronic Frontier Alliance: https://supporters.eff.org/join-efa This article has TONS of student privacy resources: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/09/students-are-pushing-back-against-proctoring-surveillance-apps National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: https://www.cisa.gov/national-cybersecurity-awareness-month-resources

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month! The theme this year is: if you connect it, protect it! And given how popular IoT devices are these days, and also how horrid their security usually is, this advice has never been more important. In today's show, I'll walk through some top cyber tips for protecting your devices and your home network.

And there's a TON of news, as well: I'll update you on the "App Fairness" campaign from Epic, Protonmail, Spotify and others; watch out for fake Android messaging apps made to look like Threema or Telegram; Google's Chrome browser gets slammed for its poor privacy protections; Google is now giving out lists of people who searched on particular terms to law enforcement; Amazon is adding some new privacy options to their Alexa products, while also introducing a super-creepy home spy drone; should you let your insurance company track you? (spoiler: no); and Apple's T2 chip is found to have a severe, unfixable security flaw.

Further Info:

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tip sheets: https://www.cisa.gov/publication/national-cybersecurity-awareness-month-publications Get 20% off my new book at Apress using code Dragons2020. https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484261880 Google Chrome: the Anti-Privacy Browser: https://theprivacy.com/2020/09/14/google-chrome-the-anti-privacy-browser/?hss_channel=tw-976856456740864004 Coalition for App Fairness’s 10 principles examined: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/05/breaking-down-the-coalition-for-app-fairness-issues-with-apple

What do Apple, Tyson Foods and Worldwide Wrestling (WWE) all have in common? And what is "chickenization"? In part 2 of my interview with Cory Doctorow, he explains how some markets in the US economy are completely distorted by dominant sellers as well as dominant buyers. Seeing all of these specific markets as facets of a single economic problem, we can find common cause and perhaps a common solution.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE, the nonfiction business book INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE, and young adult novels like HOMELAND, PIRATE CINEMA and LITTLE BROTHER. His latest book is POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER, a picture book for young readers. His next book is ATTACK SURFACE, an adult sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.

Further Info:

Buy Attack Surface: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531 Back Attack Surface audio book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/attack-surface-audiobook-for-the-third-little-brother-bookBuy Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484261887 Watch The Social Dilemma!: https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224 Donate to EFF: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-4 Be very wary of disinformation right now: https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/fake-news-be-highly-wary-right-now/VOTE!! https://www.vote.org/

Apple and Epic Games are locked in an epic legal (and PR) battle that may determine the future of the App Store, the Google Play Store, and several other game distribution networks. At the heart of this debate is the disproportionate influence the app store owner has over the apps in their store, including demanding a hefty cut of the app maker's profits. How did we get to this place? How does this distort the market for software? When did "contempt of business model" become a felony? Today I'll discuss this and more with EFF's Cory Doctorow.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE, the nonfiction business book INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE, and young adult novels like HOMELAND, PIRATE CINEMA and LITTLE BROTHER. His latest book is POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER, a picture book for young readers. His next book is ATTACK SURFACE, an adult sequel to LITTLE BROTHER. He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.

Further Info:

Buy Attack Surface: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531 Back Attack Surface audio book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/attack-surface-audiobook-for-the-third-little-brother-bookEnter to win a free copy of my book: https://bit.ly/firewalls4 Buy Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484261887 Watch The Social Dilemma!: https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224 Donate to EFF: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-4 VOTE!! https://www.vote.org/

If you're a Windows PC user, you know the term "bloatware", or maybe "crapware". Every consumer PC comes chock full of it. Free trials of games, cloud storage services and antivirus software. Half a dozen "helper" apps from the PC manufacturer. Pre-installed calling, chat, and shopping services. It's a mess. But they're not just annoying. They can slow down your computer's startup and shutdown, and waste precious battery life on laptops. Today I'll share two ways to take out this trash.

In other news: Android 11 and iOS 14 are out, and have neat new security and privacy features; Google is blocking W3C efforts to improve your privacy while also blocking resource-hogging ads in Chrome and blocking stalkerware apps in the Google Play Store; the FBI is now worried that video doorbells may actually let people spy on them; Facebook will try to ban deepfake political videos; and the US House unanimously passes a much-needed IoT security bill.

Enterprising scammers have found some very clever ways to trick you into believing your computer needs fixing, when in reality it's just fine. Using various techniques, fake web pop-up alerts can cause your browser or computer to seem sluggish or malfunctioning. And then you get a helpful pop-up alerting you of a serious problem and offering to help you fix it - for a fee. I'll tell you how to spot these fakes and how to recover from the issues they've inflicted.

In other news: there's a new and nasty Bluetooth bug, Emotet malware infections are spiking, Apple accidentally notarized malware in its App Store, Apple chooses to delay it's key privacy feature on iOS 14 due to push back from marketing companies like Facebook, the Epic/Apple battle ratchets up yet again, a US circuit court rules that warrantless wiretapping is illegal, Portland enacts the country's strictest ban on facial recognition technology, and the secure messaging app Threema has decided to go open source.

Further Info:

Order the 4th edition of my book: https://www.apress.com/us/book/9781484261880Enter my book giveaway! http://bit.ly/firewalls4