For me, I like the intuitive nature of an Iphone best. I don't need an Android because mostly what I do with a phone is call and text and take photos. But, even photos I'm starting to see are a problem with Iphone Software because I'm finding outside of putting photos in texts I can't even save them to my computer most of the time lately I notice. So, why use an Iphone for taking pictures if the location and time you took the picture worldwide (lattitude and longitude or with in 3 feet worldwide) is now imprinted on each picture you take with any Iphone or Android or any other type of smartphone you can presently own?
I also don't do literallly ANYTHING to do with money at all using my Iphone for about 100 specific reasons and thousands of indirect reasons. But, this is just because I have been studying technology since High School and college between 1963 to the present including becoming a computer programmer in College and after starting around 1968 when I was 20. (I started college first in 1966).
So, the law of diminishing returns for users is setting in pretty quickly now worldwide because the world is stealing from people almost more than they appear to give them with all these devices most specifically any Iphone. For example, my daughter wanted us to go to movies while she and her sister were her visiting from Portland. Since I didn't have a printer I wouldn't put even a ticket or tickets for a movie on my phone out of principle. However, my daughters use their iphones for plane tickets and movie tickets and the like because as they say to me sometimes "You don't have any privacy at all anyway." My response is "Honey, I'm from the 1950s when EVERYONE but actors and political figures had privacy!"So, to me losing my privacy is a really big deal. It's just not ok at all with me and for anyone who actually has had privacy worldwide for the last several thousand years or more.
On top of this I discovered today that I couldn't sign off of Facebook and I couldn't sign off of my emails on my phone either. This means that my emails and Facebook have permanent access to my phone and so my phone could easily be hacked either by Comcast or Facebook or anyone who wants to.
Then on top of this tonight I was going through emails which is not something I usually do because I"ve gotten so tired of dealing with worldwide spam that I pretty much have given up on email and entirely moved over to texting for anything important I want to do that isn't instant communication. anywhere on earth.
But, tonight I was going through my emails and found one from my bank (one of them) and saw something that said and I quote:
"Your online account acess has been temporarily suspended"
My thought was "Well. That's interesting because I suspended ANY online access to any of my accounts years ago now. I wonder what person turned back on my online access because it sure wasn't me."
I showed this to my wife who is notoriously No-tech or maybe better said "She is a technophobe and I tend to be (along with my kids) a Technolphile" which just means we are intrigued by technology a lot and often want to know more about technological things. Is this good or bad?
I would have to say both being a technophobe and being a technophile are both good and bad today here on earth for various different reasons.
By the way, if bank contacts your through an email it is usually phoney and someone Phishing you for information because they want to steal the money out of one or more of your accounts . In other words "IT's attempted identity theft!"
And who caught this flaw? My technophobe wife. That's who not me! That's what I think is really funny here.
So, maybe I just need to go check my account balance in one of my accounts at the bank and htat's all I need to do likely to know if most things are still okay after Christmas and New Years and traveling and all.
Also, here is the latest news regarding Apple stuff:
begin quote from:
Meltdown, Spectre: Major chip flaws affect billions of devices
CNNMoney · 1 day ago
Major chip flaws affect billions of devices
KMOV.com · 1 day ago
Meltdown, Spectre: Major chip flaws affect billions of devices - Jan. 3 ...
money.cnn.com/2018/01/03/technology/computer-chip-flaw-security/index.html
1 day ago - Researchers say almost every computing system -- desktops, laptops, smartphones, and cloud servers -- is affected by the Spectre bug. Meltdown appears to be specific to Intel (INTC) chips. ... In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors," the researchers said.
Global microchip flaw much worse than feared and could affect billions ...
www.telegraph.co.uk › Technology
23 hours ago - A global microchip flaw that leaves computers vulnerable to hackers is much worse than first feared, affecting potentially billions of devices including mobile ... revealed the full extent of the issue after reports first emerged that computers running Intel chips could have their passwords and other data stolen.
Major chip flaws affect billions of devices - Erie News Now | WICU ...
www.erienewsnow.com/story/37186790/major-chip-flaws-affect-billions-of-devices
1 day ago - SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) -- Two major flaws in computer chips
could leave a huge number of computers and smartphones vulnerable to
security concerns, researchers revealed Wednesday. And a U.S.
government-backed body warned that the chips themselves need to be replaced to completely fix ...
Major chip flaws affect billions of devices
Two major flaws in computer chips could leave a huge number of computers and smartphones vulnerable to security concerns, researchers revealed Wednesday.
And a U.S. government-backed body warned that the chips themselves need to be replaced to completely fix the problems.
The flaws could allow an attacker to read sensitive data stored in the
memory, like passwords, or look at what tabs someone has open on their
computer, researchers found.
Daniel Gruss, a researcher from Graz University of Technology who
helped identify the flaw, said it may be difficult to execute an attack,
but billions of devices were impacted.
Related: Apple says all Macs and iOS devices affected by chip flaws Called Meltdown and Spectre, the flaws exist in processors, a building block of computers that acts as the brain. Modern processors are designed to perform something called "speculative execution." That means they predict what tasks they will be asked to execute and rapidly access multiple areas of memory at the same time.
That data is supposed to be protected and isolated, but researchers discovered that in some cases, the information can be exposed while the processor queues it up.
Researchers say almost every computing system -- desktops, laptops, smartphones, and cloud servers -- is affected by the Spectre bug. Meltdown appears to be specific to Intel (INTC) chips.
"More specifically, all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions in flight are potentially vulnerable. In particular, we have verified Spectre on Intel, AMD, and ARM processors," the researchers said.
Related: What to do about the Spectre and Meltdown risks
Government agencies issued statements warning users about the vulnerabilities.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team said that while the flaws "could allow an attacker to obtain access to sensitive information," it's not so far aware of anyone doing so.
The agency urged people to read a detailed statement on the vulnerabilities by the Software Engineering Institute, a U.S.-government funded body that researches cybersecurity problems.
The institute said that "fully removing the vulnerability requires replacing vulnerable [processor] hardware."
It later changed its guidance on Thursday to suggest updating software was enough. The institute didn't say why it had made the change and didn't immediately respond to a request for further information.
It said the problems affect technology giants including Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Related: The year tech took a dark turn
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommended that users read advice posted online by Microsoft and software company Mozilla.
The U.K.'s National Cyber Security Center advised organizations and individuals to "continue to protect their systems from threats by installing patches as soon as they become available."
Google (GOOGL) programmer Jann Horn of Project Zero was one of the researchers who discovered the flaws. In a blog post, he said his group alerted chipmakers to the issues in June. Since last fall, security researchers and companies have investigated and updated software systems to address the flaws.
Related: Hackers take advantage of bitcoin's wild ride
Intel chips are found in everything from personal computers to medical equipment. The company's shares were down 3% on Wednesday.
The company said in a press release that "many types of computing devices — with many different vendors' processors and operating systems — are susceptible to these exploits."
Intel said it is working with other chipmakers, including AMD and ARM Holdings, to solve the issue. ARM said in a statement a small subset of its processors are susceptible to the flaws. AMD said in a statement there is a "near zero risk of exploitation" for one of the security issues, due to architecture differences.
A fix requires both the chip manufacturers and software makers to update their products before pushing it out.
Estimates posted on Linux message boards suggested computer performance could slow down between 5% and 30% once patched, however Intel said users will not see significant performance changes.
Tech website The Register was first to report the processor flaws on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Microsoft (MSFT) told CNNMoney the company is aware of the issue and is in the process of deploying mitigations to cloud services and has released security updates to protect Windows users.
Related: The hacks that left us exposed in 2017
Google's Cloud Platform has been updated to prevent the vulnerabilities, the company said.
Amazon (AMZN) said in a statement most of its cloud computing machines affected by the flaw are already protected, but it was updating the rest on Wednesday.
Apple (AAPL) revealed Thursday that all its Mac and iOS devices were affected by the flaws, but said that "there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time." The company has already released some fixes for Meltdown, and will release others for Spectre in subsequent updates.
It's important for all users to update their devices when new updates are released.
Flaws in chips are unusual. Back in 1994, a major error in Intel's Pentium processor caused computers to incorrectly calculate results.
-- Jethro Mullen contributed to this report.
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