August 2016 Monthly Round-Up
Welcome to the August 2016 news bulletin.
August is nearly done, so here are our featured and popular articles, all in one place.
UPDATE YOUR IPHONE NOW
We’ll waste no time diving into the really, really important stuff here, and that’s a massive (seriously, epic) incident that every iPhone user across the globe needs to be aware of. It’s not often that security research firms dub a vulnerability as “the most sophisticated piece of spyware ever” but that’s exactly what’s been discovered just before the bank holiday weekend.
Dubbed Pegasus, this piece of software is called a one-click remote jailbreaking zero-day vulnerability.
Say what?
Well, zero day means it’s already being exploited, without Apple’s knowledge. One-click means it only requires one click from a victim to infect themselves. Jailbreak means it’s going to bypass the security restrictions on the phone, giving the bad guys full access to the phone.
To be clear, this is a HUGE vulnerability, but luckily Apple have already issued a patch that you REALLY need to install, ASAP.
Read the full story on our site here. Not something to be ignored.
WHATSAPP REVERSE PRIVACY STANCE
When Facebook acquired WhatsApp back in 2014, many speculated it was only a matter of time before the instant messenger reversed their privacy stance on protecting their user information. Back then they reassured their users that nothing would change, and WhatsApp would remain an independent entity from Facebook.
Well now things have changed, and yes, WhatsApp will be sharing your information with Facebook, and yes, it will be for targeted adverts.
WhatsApp will be sharing your device information and phone number with Facebook, allowing Facebook to locate you on their site, giving them more information about you and your phone.
That’s a real big shame. The only upside is that 1. There is a partial opt-out (but you’ll still see your information shared with Facebook) and 2. Your WhatsApp messages are encrypted, so Facebook (or WhatsApp) cannot see them.
Read here for more information.
LIKE FARMING STILL A MASSIVE PROBLEM
At the risk of being deemed repetitive, like-farming is still so prevalent on Facebook and we’re seeing a resurgence of fake-giveaways asking you to share links and like pages to win prizes (that don’t exist) as well as another return of the sick baby scams claiming Facebook will be donating money for each share a photo receives on Facebook.
So once again, NEITHER of these are REAL!!
You can read our article on like-farming fake giveaway prizes via this link and you can see our article on sick baby scams(which themselves are pretty sick) via this link here!
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POPULAR ARTICLES
Google to punish mobile webpages using pop-adverts
Great news for those that hate intrusive web adverts – surely all of us – search engine giant Google will now rank websites using pop-up adverts on their mobile webpages lower, meaning many spammy webpages are going to start re-thinking their web strategies, hopefully! Read here.
How to make money without getting scammed?
We’re always getting asked, since the web is flush full of opportunities promising instant wealth, yet asking for your credit card information that turn out to be get-rich-quick scams. If you were ever in any doubt, getting rich online is hard work, and there are no automated systems or push button programs, sorry. But you can still make some cash online, and here are 5 different ways.
5 Facebook posts you shouldn’t be sharing
We outline 5 popular variants of like-farming in one article for your easy reference. Definitely worth a read if you haven’t seen this already.
Facebook vs. AdBlock
Facebook updated their site to bypass ad blocking software from blocking their ads. AdBlock updated their software to bypass that bypass. The ad blocking war between the sites is on (but we’d love it if you white-listed us since we’re ad funded!)
Facebook and Clickbait
Facebook give reducing clickbait articles from their site another stab by targeting common phrases used in their headlines.
ATM PIN in reverse contact the police?
This classic came out for another run this month. Seriously, it ain’t true!
Like, Comment to win Facebook posts
We discuss those like-farming posts that claim that in order to win some freebie, you need to like a Facebook page and share a link on your timeline. Read here.
Have an awesome August Bank Holiday weekend people! We’re confident you deserved it.
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Thanks for reading! But before you go… as part of our latest series of articles on how to earn a little extra cash using the Internet (without getting scammed) we have been looking into how you can earn gift vouchers (like Amazon vouchers) using reward-per-action websites such as SwagBucks. If you are interested we even have our own sign-up code to get you started. Want to learn more? We discuss it here. (Or you can just sign-up here and use code Nonsense70SB when registering.)
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