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data privacy

Good Idea / Bad Idea: Protecting Yourself Online Edition

I have always loved to think of my life decisions in the simplistic black and white terms of the classic Animaniacs Good Idea / Bad Idea segments.

Here’s a great example:

Good idea: taking a deep breath before jumping into a swimming pool.

Bad idea: taking a deep breath after jumping into a swimming pool.

Animaniacs is a classic, and I love how good idea / bad idea makes it seem so easy to do the right thing. Of course, over the years I’ve found that life is rarely as neatly broken up into good and bad as the show made it seem. However, keeping your data and yourself safe online is one area in which the good and the bad are fairly self-evident, and it’s also an area that becomes more and more important each day. So let’s do it. Also, watch Animaniacs if you haven’t seen it — it’s a damn classic.

Good idea: Make sure you don’t share information about your location. Do not geotag!!
Bad idea: Posting your address, followed by a long story about how you’re home alone with the doors unlocked.

Good idea: Review your privacy settings on each of your platforms regularly.
Bad idea: Just making everything public, because you “don’t have any information worth stealing anyway.”

Good idea: Dying without ever knowing which Spice Girl you are most like based on your posts.
Bad idea: Authorizing any third party application you’re not familiar with (e.g. Perzonality Testz R Us LOLZ) to access your Facebook data for any purpose at all. It’s not worth it to find out which vegetable most closely matches your face. Though good lord I know it’s tempting. You should also prevent your data from being shared with apps that your Facebook friends are using – find more tips here.

Good idea: Regularly Google yourself in order to find out what potential employers would see if they checked up on you.
Bad idea: Avoid Googling yourself in order to never find out what potential employers would see if they checked up on you. I mean, I get it, but sticking your head in the sand to ensure that no problem ever reaches you at all is no way to….oh forget it, it’s a great way to live and I cannot hear you from way down here in the sand.

Good idea: Limiting the number of digital platforms you give your personal data to.
Bad idea: Setting up a profile on every new platform you encounter, using it for a few months, and then abandoning it. If a potential employer finds your 2003 MySpace blog, they’re the ones who will be sorry.

Good idea: Two factor authentication.
Bad idea: Giggling because “two factor authentication” sounds like something a robot would say. It does, but someone who uses the same password for everything and it’s “password1” really shouldn’t be laughing.

Good idea: Sharing pictures of your cat on Reddit or Imgur.
Bad idea: Sharing pictures of your child on Reddit or Imgur. This is at every parent’s discretion, and far be it for me to tell you how to parent your kid, but also why are you broadcasting the most vulnerable member of your family on the platforms with the most terrifying creeps.

Good idea: Not sharing your password with friends.
Bad idea: Using your most trusted barista at Starbucks as some sort of human password manager. I guarantee that barista will turn on you the moment your drink order becomes too idiotic. Don’t ask me how I know. *Sips Venti Iced Skinny Hazelnut Macchiato, Sugar-Free Syrup, Extra Shot, Light Ice, No Whip.*

Good idea: Taking everything you see online with a grain of salt
Bad idea: Kicking yourself for not realizing that Elvis was homeless in San Diego this whole time. This has nothing to do with privacy, but it’s important for your safety that you always verify what you read online. And also it’s important that I mention this story about Elvis because I was deeply upset when I found out this wasn’t true.

Good idea: Never revealing too much about yourself to strangers online.
Bad idea: Striking up a friendship with a nine-year-old painting prodigy, her mom, and her teenaged sister, only to later discover that it was actually just a middle aged woman playing three different characters. On an unrelated note, I just watched the original Catfish documentary, and boy is it good!!

Good idea: Familiarizing yourself with different kinds of phishing attacks.
Bad idea: Entering your online banking information into a random site so you can receive your tax refund that is being emailed to you and you haven’t submitted your taxes in six years, but this should turn out pretty good.

Good idea: Declining to engage with trolls and bullies online.
Bad idea: Becoming an infamous internet troll and getting enough people angry at you that you eventually get doxxed.

Good idea: Only posting things online that you’re comfortable with everyone seeing, even if your privacy settings are airtight.
Bad idea: Posting specific, detailed rants about your boss on Facebook that would both allow your boss to finally get the leverage to fire you and also enable any enterprising stalker to easily find you at your workplace.

Good idea: Logging off once in a while to read a book.
Bad idea: Seriously, read books, or this is what will happen:

Facial Recognition Technology and What It Means for Data Privacy and Protection

Imagine walking into a store, picking up a pint of milk, heading to the cash desk, shooting the cashier a smile, and going on your merry way.

No card, no cash, no phone; just your face as a tool.

This might not be a far cry from what the future holds thanks to facial recognition.

Today, cameras are no longer just vessels to take pictures and record videos with. Instead, they are being fitted with biometric technology which can identify humans and perform key activities, like unlocking a smartphone or, more amazingly, making payments.

Take the recent news story of a man who was caught at a music festival via facial recognition. Technology picked the suspect out of thousands of revelers – crazy, right?

In other news, Europeans have blasted Facebook for providing them the chance to “turn on” the app’s facial recognition feature, only to find out later on that the message was sent in error.

It’s safe to say that facial recognition is causing a stir in a lot of different industries.

What Is Facial Recognition?

Typically used as a security system, facial recognition uses technology to verify a person’s features via a digital image stored in a database. The technology essentially examines the elements on someone’s face and matches it against images already stored to identify said person.

Though it has been around since 2009, the technology has only recently made waves in the retail world and for smartphone developers.

Take Alibaba, the Chinese version of Amazon, that lets people pay with a smile using facial recognition in its stores.

That scenario at the start of the post doesn’t seem so far off now, does it?

But perhaps the most popular place we’re seeing facial recognition pop up is in the world of smartphones. We just have to look at the latest iPhone X with its built-in Face ID capability to see where things might be headed.

This particular feature uses biometric authentication to let iPhone users unlock their devices simply by looking at the screen. It’s kind of like the finger-print Touch ID system that was used on previous iPhones, but the Face ID element now also lets users access Apple Pay, the App Store, iTunes, and other third-party apps by just showing their face.

When the new iPhone was released, Apple itself put forward a hefty claim. They said there was a 1 in 1,000,000 chance that someone could open up another person’s phone using Face ID – a pretty vast improvement from the 1 in 50,000 chance of someone having the same fingerprints as you.

It’s not just used for access rights either.

Let’s head to the city of Shenzhen in China for a moment. Here, facial recognition is used to identify jaywalkers in CCTV footage before showcasing their faces on a big screen in an attempt to shame them.

Compared to simply using your face to unlock a phone, this seems a little more dramatic, right? Kind of like it’s been taken straight from the pages of 1984.

Basically, facial recognition is being used in many different ways because it’s more convenient. I mean, just looking at your phone is a much easier way to unlock it than having to hold your finger down on a button or type in a password.

But, while we’re constantly told we’re all unique and no two faces are the same, how secure is facial recognition really? It may well be more convenient, but does convenient mean secure?

In an attempt to trick Face ID, Wired Magazine bought hundreds of expensive masks and brought biometric hackers on board to see just how secure this new technology was on the iPhone X.

Guess what? They failed to beat the system, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other security and privacy issues.

You Can’t Hide Your Face Away

While our passwords are predominantly kept a secret (unless you’re careless enough to leave them lying around or make them so easy even a 3-year-old could guess them), our faces are on show for everyone to see all the time.

Tech aside, we use our faces to verify ourselves to friends, family, and colleagues every single day.

But here’s the difference: when we’re verifying ourselves in real life, our faces are also combined with our traits, like our voice or our personality, which adds an extra dimension to the party.

With tech-based facial recognition, this isn’t the case – yet.

Say, for example, you’ve been captured by criminals and they want to hack into your smartphone to get some really juicy information you’ve got stored there. If you’ve got a password, they might have to work a little harder than normal to get into it, but with facial recognition they just need to hold the phone in front of your face.

Disappointingly easy, right?

There are steps being made to eliminate the chance of this happening (though hopefully you’ll never be taken captive by criminals in the first place). Face ID now uses machine learning to analyze expressions to figure out whether you really want to unlock your phone.

If that sounds crazy, it’s probably because it kind of is. What it basically means is that Face ID won’t work if you’re not awake or conscious, or simply not facing your phone.

But apart from the probably very minimal chance of someone getting captured by criminals who want to gather intel from their smartphone, there are other very real worries that come with facial recognition, like:

  • Where is the face data stored?
  • Who can access the data?
  • What else will the data be used for?

This just shows that, despite the advances in tech bringing weird and wonderful benefits, there are also significant concerns surrounding it, particularly because the data being used and held is biometric (or extremely sensitive) data.

Because of this, data privacy is one of the biggest worries.

Think about it: no data is completely safe, so your very unique and sensitive face data could potentially be accessed and used by third parties without your consent if the system is hacked.

But perhaps the creepiest part of it all is the fact that Face ID and other facial recognition technologies operate in an “always on” manner. This means the technology is automatically activated as soon as it sees your face.

No buttons. No confirmations. Just your face.

Which means, in a weird and even more 1984-style way, it is always watching you through your front facing camera.

It’s constantly collecting live data that needs to be stored somewhere, which raises the ultimate privacy question: are we constantly being watched and who is watching us?

Is There an Answer to It All?

With data as sensitive as this, there’s always going to be growing pains. Over the next two years, the technology we know now might be completely extinct and something else entirely might have become a front runner in the facial recognition world.

But for now, all we know is that businesses that use facial recognition need to acknowledge how they capture data and what they use it for. At the moment, the best way for them to do this is to combine strong knowledge (which is something like a password; something you know) and inherence (which is something like facial recognition or an iris scan; something you are).

This two-factor security method will minimize the chance of hackers getting access to devices, but this starts right at the very beginning. For facial recognition to be completely effective as a security measure, it needs to be embedded from the development stage and a built-in part of the technology.

So, next time you see a camera, smile. You never know who might be watching.

Looking Ahead: You Own Your Vehicle, But Who Owns Your Vehicle-Generated Data?

If we pause for a moment and think to the future of smart cars, half of us probably start daydreaming of zipping around in sleek flying machines while the other half starts eyeing their plastic model of the Batmobile hanging from the rearview mirror.

But have you ever stopped to think about what’s actually happening with the technological developments of cars? Already we have vehicles with cameras to help you back out of the driveway, touch screens installed into the dash, and the capability of calling your husband to start cooking that pizza before you get home.

We also have connected cars, which have embedded mobile broadband chips and the ability to communicate with other cars in a way that drastically reduces the number of roadside accidents.

And beyond that, we have cars that drive themselves.

As our vehicles are getting smarter, they’re also producing more data. This means your data privacy concerns are not only limited to your personal computer and the apps that your teenage daughter is using—your data privacy concerns now have to do with the car sitting in your driveway that has the capability of generating, recording, and sharing data.

It is projected that there will be over 380 million connected vehicles by 2021.

Your Valuable Data

Cars have evolved beyond basic machinery and are now becoming vehicles of data, capable of sharing where you’re going, how fast you got there, how many people went with you, and what kind of music you listened to.

With sensors and cameras being incorporated into the makeup of vehicles, they can now collect more data than ever before, and this data can be used and analyzed to make more money.

So your vehicle-generated data is the type of information that companies will want to know in order to learn how to better market their products to you, and it’s information that you want to be aware and in charge of.

As the number of data-gathering cars increases, consumers will want to become more aware of what kind of data their car is generating, as well as who keeps that type of private information.

Who Has That Information Now And Who Wants It?

Currently, data-generating vehicles are still in their early years, and it will be a number of years until most vehicles are as up-to-date, so the tug between data ownership is most heavily on the side of the car manufacturers.

But for how long? Who knows.

Without regulation, companies have access to everything within a very large sphere of people’s lives. Think of the amount of data!

And who might be eyeing your vehicle-generated data like a burger fresh off the grill?

Well, really any industry that would gain from learning about a consumer’s driving habits such as speed and regular routes, phone calls, radio or phone usage…even your personal conversations.

For example, this could include radio stations that want to better know what everyone’s listening to. It could include companies who develop car stereo systems and want to know how to cater to their technological-advancing drivers, or insurance companies tracking how many times you use your phone while driving so they can adjust your rates accordingly. It could even include car seat manufacturers who want to do a study on how fast or how carefully most parents drive, and then use that information to design their car seats and market them in a specific way.

Companies like these will want to know things like how you drive, your age, your income, what you buy, or if you have kids. This is the type of information that is pure gold for businesses because it enables them to “know” you and improve the way they market their products to you.

These days, private information is currency, and industries want it for their own gain.

Industries want to make money, and so they want your information.

Suddenly there is yet another massive data mine that consumers need to be aware of as they go about their lives. Just as you would protect your information as you use your phone or computer, now it’s incredibly important to begin thinking about where your vehicle-generated data is going and how you need to protect it.

Today, self-driving cars can generate one gigabyte of data per second, which means just five minutes of driving will produce more data than your iPhone could handle. With this amount of data being gathered, all kinds of business opportunities are arising, and before long the moneymaking data vultures will begin circling above your car.

So the next time you’re driving to work, think about the data that is being generated with every mile, every Bluetooth connection, and every radio station change—those little things we all do without thinking twice. The data your car is generating is valuable and coveted and needs to be secured and protected.

Hack Attack

Worried about your computer getting a virus? Well, what if your car was at risk too?

Yet another source of concern is the safety of your vehicle-generated data from attackers. As vehicle technology continues to evolve, the security of your car desperately needs to adapt with the times. Attackers will move on from mobile phones and laptops to the car sitting in your garage or parked on the street.

Vehicles have become gold mines, and this makes them valuable targets for hackers and malware.

No one with a smart phone or computer wants their device to be targeted for private information and details to be stolen. The same goes for today’s vehicles.

The Cost Of Convenience

Imagine this: your check engine light just turned on and you take it to a mechanic for repairs. Your repairman has access to the data stored on your car and it tells him exactly what’s wrong with it. This would revolutionize the auto-mechanic industry. It expedites the mechanic’s job and therefore saves the consumer money.

But at what cost?

We need to be aware of what we are giving away in the name of convenience.  Are the small perks worth the encroachment of privacy? Are they worth the monetization of your data?

Are they worth the very real possibility of someone analyzing every word of every personal conversation and phone call you’ve ever had in your vehicle, including that one with your spouse after celebrating your anniversary, or that one you had with your daughter after picking her up from school?

A Step In The Right Direction

In a recent proposal by a California senator, the contest between vehicle data ownership was confronted and a new bill was unveiled that would allow vehicle owners to see their car’s data and decide whether or not they wanted to share it.

This is an encouraging step in the right direction. But so much more is needed.

As consumers we need to be aware of what is happening in the ever-changing world around us. We need to be realistic in terms of how the marketplace views our data and us: money.

Protecting Your Data

It is our responsibility to hold both the automobile industry and lawmakers accountable for the protection of our rights. We need to mandate transparency from our automakers and require advancements in security and privacy. Additionally, we need to stay current with the knowledge of our rights and our legal protection as new bills are put into place.

The vehicle industry has previously had practically nothing to do with technology and little-to-no need for the security of such. Having no prior experience in this field, automakers need to begin bringing in software analysts, networking engineers, and data scientists to begin shaping the security and privacy we as consumers need.

But we also need consumers to be aware of what is going on.

We need to be aware that our vehicles are becoming data-generating machines on wheels, we need to be aware of what we are sacrificing in the name of comfortable convenience, and we need to be aware of the steps we need to take in order to protect ourselves.

We’re Wearing Our Data – What Wearables and the Internet of Things Mean for Data Privacy

Dave is an average US worker.

His day starts when his smart watch buzzes gently on his wrist, and ends when it tells him he needs to get some shut eye to rack up the eight hours he needs.

Throughout the day, his smartwatch tracks his blood pressure, his heart rate, and how many steps he takes. Some days Dave doesn’t get enough sleep and he feels groggy, and other days he does more than his recommended daily amount of exercise and he feels great.

Dave likes knowing this information, just like millions of other consumers out there who have invested in wearable technology.

But while Dave and his fellow consumers might like knowing this information about themselves, they don’t want it to be captured and kept by large corporations.

Understandable, right?

However, that becomes particularly difficult when wearables rely on collecting user data in order to provide personalized programs and enhance user experience. Take Fitbit, for example, which collects data on health levels and uses that information to improve its algorithms and offer individual fitness programs.

Now, alongside the ever-increasing news about government-backed surveillance programs and data breaches, consumers are getting more and more paranoid about who has access to their data.

And, as we begin to dive into a world of wearable technology that’s with us all the time, the worry that has been simmering away is starting to bubble over.

So What Do Wearables Mean for Our Data Privacy?

Popular wearable products like the Apple Watch and the Fitbit have shifted the industry from heavily health-centered into the realms of popular culture. And, while this means that wearables can be used for a whole lot more than tracking our heart rate, it also means that the healthcare industry rules and regulations around data protection become hazy.

Sure, consumers all over the world are clamoring to get their hands on fitness trackers and smartwatches, but the vast majority of them don’t know what these devices mean for their data security.

In fact, a study released by the Center for Digital Democracy and the School of Communication at American University claimed that the health privacy regulatory system in the US doesn’t give consumers the protection they might expect when it comes to wearables.

As the wearable trend expands from people’s personal lives into their working lives and other verticals, users are becoming increasingly skeptical. Now, 82% of workers that use wearables as part of their job believe that it’s invading their privacy, while 86% think it makes them more susceptible to data breaches.

Why Wearables are Challenging Consumer Views on Data Privacy

In a report put together by the University of London and Rackspace, it was discovered that wearables boost user productivity rates by 8.5% – so yes, there are many positive points surrounding the industry.

But the increased usage of them has an impact on data privacy for two reasons.

Firstly, wearable devices increase the popularity of apps – because, well, the majority of them need an app to deliver the information from wrist (or clothing) to a screen. The problem with this is that apps are more susceptible to data breaches than general web browsing because they collect data and store it all in one place.

Secondly, wearable devices are used in real-time. They don’t need to be used in a certain place at a certain time; they can be used, wherever and whenever, which is one of their biggest draws.

This means that the devices are processing greater volumes of information at every moment the user is wearing it. This is great for the user, because they get loads more data on-the-go, and it’s also great for the wearable provider, because they’re also constantly getting their hands on data to improve and refine.

But where is the line? Where is the line between being beneficial to the user and the provider having too much information?

Let’s take a look at an example.

One of the biggest benefits of wearables is that they can be used discreetly – for the most part, they double up as fashion accessories and can blend in with any outfit.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Google_Glass_detail.jpg
Credit: Antonio Zugaldia (Wikimedia) Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

A number of casinos in Las Vegas are tapping into this benefit with a system that buzzes staff member’s wearables when a high roller walks past. When they check their smartwatch, the staff members can gather information about the high roller so they can then greet them by name.

While it can be argued that this improves the customer experience and it helps the casino get more money by targeting high rollers, who is the process more beneficial for?

And Then There Are Cyberattacks…

With any new technology the risk of cyberattacks increase. And, when wearables often connect to wireless networks, it can be a struggle to keep the system safe.

Let’s look at the numbers.

At the end of 2015, there were around 200 million wearable devices on the market. By the end of 2018, there is predicted to be around 780 million – a considerable increase in just a few years.

This shows the industry is continuing to blossom regardless of whether users are concerned about their data or not, but it also gives hackers more opportunity to steal sensitive data for their own gain.

Chief consumer security evangelist at Intel Security, Gary Davis, says that “the information that’s contained on your wearable that’s stored either on your smartphone or stored downstream on a cloud is worth ten times that of a credit card on a black market.”

This is because credit card companies are well-versed at detecting and dealing with fraud, and can make it go away pretty quickly. On the other hand, data stored on wearable devices is permanent – people can’t change their Social Security Number or their date of birth.

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom

But while there are undoubtedly increased data security risks from wearables (any kind of new technology is vulnerable to this), there are plenty of ways wearables are improving certain industries, whether it’s just enhancing customer experience in a shop or going all out and improving medical treatments for serious illnesses.

In the retail sector, store employees are increasingly tapping into the power of smartglasses to find key information about products on-the-spot. This improves the customer experience, but it also optimizes employees’ time. And, in the medical industry, smartwatches are able to monitor blood pressure and even examine a baby’s heart rate in the womb.

Which begs the question: do the benefits outweigh the data risks?

But perhaps the more pressing question is whether anything is being done to quash consumer paranoia?

In most industries there are a set of accountability laws and regulations. In the health industry, there’s the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) which puts rules in place for what medical companies can and can’t do with data.

But the key problem is that this act, for example, only covers healthcare providers like doctors and hospitals, and doesn’t stretch as far as health-conscious wearables.

What’s the Future Like for Wearables and Data?

If predictions are right, the wearables market is only set to explode further in the next couple of years but, like with any fast-growing tech arena, it looks like there needs to be some serious thought put into how data is collected and used.

Like other industries, we might see a new rules and regulations act pop up that devotes itself to monitoring and laying down laws for the wearables industry, regardless of whether a smartwatch is being used for health reasons or to boost productivity in the workplace.

What we can be certain of is that consumer paranoia about wearables and data privacy is completely justified, but the next few years are vital for the industry to prove that it has its users at the front of the mind.

Too Many Cloud Companies…Too Few Good Ones

So. . .just how many cloud companies are there?

Since the advent of the smartphone (thanks Apple) cloud companies are popping up on every virtual corner, much like Starbucks did early on.

In my quest to see just how many cloud companies there are, I figured I’d start with a simple Google search.  Right?  I mean Google is the best for this type of thing!

So, I proceeded to type “cloud companies” in a google search bar. 133,000,000 results in just 0.47 seconds.  Yep…I’m that guy.  I broke Google  (sorry Google!).

Ok, so that didn’t really work.

So I moved on to the Google Play store and navigated to apps.  There, I typed in “cloud” and immediately got over 200 apps flooding my screen.  I’m not entirely sure how many apps over 200 because I simply stopped counting.

Ok. . .clearly this approach isn’t working.  So how do we determine just how many cloud companies there are? And moreover, does anyone really care?

Definitely more than 3

At this point, I’ve decided to take the “Owl and the Tootsie Pop” approach (if you’re my age, you’ve seen that commercial) and just saying who cares?

Because in the end, we don’t really care about the number of companies, what we care about is what they can do for us!

As consumers, we all have our “lists” of things we seek in pretty much every aspect of our digital shopping.  My cloud list is relatively short and focuses on (1) ease of use (2) availability of my stuff (3) keeping my stuff safe and (4) being able to share and stream my stuff.

While most of these things seem relatively simple, this is where the list of cloud companies starts to get smaller.  Let’s take a brief look at these four aspects.

The cloud SHOULD be easy…so why isn’t it?

Ease of use is a key for all of us.

How many times have you gone to your app store and downloaded an app that seemed to suit your needs, only to find that you simply have neither the time nor the energy to figure out exactly how to use it?

Or, how many times have you wanted to share some photos with your grandmother and you wind up being her tech-support guru because she’s literally lost as to how to access the files you shared.

You’re not alone.  This happens to all of us.

I’m pretty much a classic tech-nerd (sans the tape on my glasses) and even I get frustrated with some of the choices out there.

Where is that file again?

And what about the availability of our files and images?

This one gets a bit tricky too because it isn’t always as simple as creating a cloud account or installing an app.

Does your app require you to upload all of your files to a single point of storage in the cloud?  Do you need to put everything on an external NAS device connected to your router at home?

Availability is mandatory for all of us, yet, achieving it can sometimes be laborious.

I mean sure, at first you tell yourself “it’ll be great to put all my files in one place, so I may as well just break down and do it”.  But soon you’re back to your old ways and you’ve got files all over the place, spread across every device you own.

Once again, you’re not alone.  I’m notoriously bad at organizing my digital life.

I have some “special” pictures…if you catch my drift

So what about keeping our stuff safe?

I’m not a snapchat or Facebook sort of guy (cause I’m in the witness protection program) but If I was, I’d want to know that I can maintain ownership and control over my images.

Let’s say you’re out taking pictures and you capture some amazing photo of a sunrise or stars reflecting off a lake.  All your friends and followers are suddenly enamored with your photographic prowess and you suddenly become a bit concerned about your ownership of your content.

Again, you’re not alone.

That’s why you see companies watermark their images all the time.  So protection of our digital content is an important aspect of our personal cloud.

If sharing is caring, then I’m a very caring person

And finally, what about the ability to share and stream?

These are hallmarks of social media.  Without the ability to share your files, the very aspect of social goes right out the window.

The ability to get those pictures to grandma safely and simply is just as important as sharing your favorite song with your best friend.

And let’s not forget the frustration of being the tech-support guru for the friends and family you share with.

Quality over quantity

Ok. . .so what’s the point of all this?

It’s simple really.  We’ll never ever know how many cloud companies are out there because as soon as we count them all, more will pop up.

But what we do know is what we need.

Make your own list of priorities for your digital lives as I did above.  Pick and choose the aspects that are important to you and you’ll find that you can quickly eliminate a great deal of companies with just a few simple searches.

And don’t forget to read the user comments in the app stores.  These folks are just like you and me.  They’re seeking something that can help them solve a need, so there’s a good chance that they’ll share something you’re also interested in.

And above all, stay safe.

Make sure you take a little time to vet the companies you choose to share your precious digital lives with.  This is your stuff, not theirs.  Make certain you get to maintain your rights to it!