PSA Newsletter 07: Privacy, Security, Automation!
Photo Hygiene, Zoom Dishonesty, a macOS Photos tip, and more...
Privacy
Metadata such as where and with what hardware a photo was taken with can tell a lot about your daily routine and convey unintended information. You can remove this information from your photos with ExifCleaner. [1]
If you'd like to remove the Exif data from a photo and don't have access to a computer, you can simply send it to "Note to Self" in the Signal App. Getting set up with Signal for secure encrypted messaging is outside the scope of this article, but it's infinitely handy!
Security
Zoom has reversed course on a controversial policy update it put out months ago. That policy stated (paraphrased) that Zoom reserved the right to train to train AI models on customer data (read: anything happening in a zoom call) without customer consent. To quote the great Douglas Adams: This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Zoom has a long history of dishonest behavior like this and only does the right thing when they're caught publicly. In my opinion, any person or company who uses Zoom for any sensitive or secretive work should seriously consider moving to another videoconferencing platform. If that's not feasible, then at the very least only run Zoom on network-isolated devices or devices with the ability to limit its permissions, such as smartphones or tablets. After your video call is over, remove Zoom from that device and depending on how critical that device is, format or otherwise erase it before continuing to use it. Zoom is that serious a threat.[2]
Automation
I've found organizing photos into albums in macOS Photos to be easier with a Smart Album that automatically holds all photos not in any other albums. Simple to create and it makes Photos behave a bit more like iPhoto (RIP). [3]
Heads Up!
There have been lots of rumors that Apple will be transitioning the iPhone 15 to USB-C from the previous connector, Lightning. I'm not in the habit of speculating on Apple's future plans, since there are hundreds of websites that do that already. However, I will say this: if Apple does move to USB-C for its mobile line, it wouldn't be a bad idea to purchase a USB-C cable before that happens in mid-September. [4]
