SafePic Review - PCMag
SafePic Review - PCMag |
- SafePic Review - PCMag
- SafePic - Review 2021 - PCMag India
- KeePass vs. LastPass vs. 1Password: Which Password Manager Should You Choose? - MUO - MakeUseOf
- Is Microsoft 365 Actually a Security Risk? - MUO - MakeUseOf
| Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:19 AM PDT Smartphones can do almost anything these days. Why painstakingly submit physical receipts for a Travel & Expenses report when you can just snap the details with your phone? Need to share your passport number with your partner? Sending a photo of your passport may seem more secure (and is definitely more convenient) than putting the number itself in a machine-readable text. But those images stay on your phone, and probably in the cloud, as well. That's a security liability. The free SafePic app from NortonLifeLock Labs aims to identify photos that might compromise your privacy and either delete them or hide them from prying eyes. The idea is clever, and it's not something we've seen before. This is a new iPhone app, and given that it relies on AI to identify those sensitive images, we can expect it to gain skill in discrimination over time. An Android app is in the works, but my Norton contact couldn't tell me when that release might happen. Getting Started With SafePicNaturally, you start by installing SafePic from the App Store. Unlike many apps, it just needs a few permissions, including the ability to access your photos, of course. If SafePic detects sensitive data in a new photo, it needs to send you a notification. And for convenience, it offers to unlock using Touch ID or Face ID.  The next step is a scan of your photos, which can take a while. SafePic points out that it keeps your phone from going to sleep until it finishes the scan. When the scan finishes, it's time to review the pictures that may endanger your privacy.
Similar ProductsReviewing Scan ResultsSafePic summarizes its findings by listing the types of possible exposure it found, along with the number of pics in each category. These categories include Credit/Debit Card; Receipt; Private; Potentially Sensitive Document; and Social Security. There may be more categories, but those are the ones that appeared in my report. Now comes the slightly tedious part. You need to review the app's findings, photo by photo, and choose a disposition for each. If you don't need the item anymore, you tap Delete Permanently to get rid of it. If SafePic accidentally tagged an image that isn't a privacy threat, tap Mark Not Sensitive.  For those sensitive images that you need to keep, you tap Add to Local Vault. This puts the image into an encrypted storage area inside of SafePic. As for the original, you have three choices. You can leave it in place (bad idea), delete it, or replace it with a placeholder. That last item is where the magic happens. If you choose a placeholder, SafePic deletes the original image and leaves a highly pixelated copy in your photo gallery, with an SafePic icon in the middle. As you touch and hold that icon, the image visibly de-pixelates back to its original for your viewing. As soon as you lift your finger, it goes back to being illegible. I confess, I've opened pixelated images without any real need to do so, just to see them magically come into focus. I did find some limitations to this technique. You can't pinch-zoom the clarified image—it goes right back to the pixelated version. If you need to see detail, you can zoom to what you think is the right location before holding the SafePic icon. Really, though, the blurred image is just a convenience. For full access, go to the copy of the image that's stored in the Local Vault. Some False PositivesI found that SafePic flagged quite a few non-sensitive images. It nabbed a picture I took of a rare pay telephone and a picture of my original 3.5" DOOM diskettes. A photo of moving boxes (without visible addresses) showed up as potentially sensitive, as did photos of a Windows Blue Screen of Death. Pictures of a creased pink pillow and of bratwurst from a local sausage company got flagged as potentially private. Practically speaking, I could picture reasons for the AI-based analysis to flag any of these. As Sigmund Freud didn't actually say, sometimes a sausage is just a sausage, but the AI can't be sure. Anything with a QR-code could be problematic. It's easy enough to mark these as non-sensitive, and once you've gone through that initial review, you don't have to do it again. And, as noted, this is a new app. There's every chance the AI will grow in skill over time.  PhotoBlur Me!It is, of course, possible that SafePic might miss a sensitive image, or not understand why a particular image is personally important to you. In that case, you can tap Add Photo and either add from your library or snap a new photo. Either way, you can add the photo to your Local Vault or choose Create PhotoBlur. When you actively choose to create a PhotoBlur, you get just a bit more control than when you create a placeholder. Specifically, you can choose three levels of blurring. The act of creating the PhotoBlur doesn't do anything to the original, and SafePic displays a warning if you create one without putting the photo in the Local Vault.  Few OptionsWith an app this simple, it's no surprise that the Settings section only has a few options. You can toggle the user interface between its standard look and a more colorful appearance. You can control whether it looks at iTunes synced folders (enabled by default) and at iCloud shared albums (disabled by default). And you can set three levels of scanning NSFW images. There are a few other options, but most users should leave those alone. The one possible exception is the option to cache classification results. If you want a full re-scan of your phone, just clear the cache and scan again. Other Approaches to PrivacyAs far as I can tell, SafePic is unique. I don't know of another app that does what it does. That said, there are plenty of programs and services that take various approaches to protecting your privacy. If you value your privacy, you can use any of these in conjunction with SafePic. For privacy in communication, consider encrypting your email conversations. Some services in this realm let you keep your existing email address, while others require that you start with a fresh, new email address hosted by the encryption service. You'll also find services that let you make online orders without ever giving away your actual email address. You use a different disposable email address (DEA) for each merchant. If one of those DEAs starts getting spam, you know which merchant to blame, and you can just trash that address. Abine Blur Premium is our favorite in this realm, as it lets you mask your email addresses, credit cards, and even phone numbers. Other privacy-focused apps and services actively prevent advertisers and others from tracking your browsing activity; warn if your personal data turns on the dark web; detect social media impersonators; and more. Give SafePic a TryI was impressed (and alarmed) by the collection of receipts and other sensitive documents that SafePic turned up among the 3,000-odd images on my phone. Clearing those out felt good, no question. The fact that it may flag non-sensitive images is no big deal, since you can tell it to ignore those. I don't know that I'll keep it running to check all my new photos; my phone is busy enough already. But after a few months, I'll probably load it up again for a new scan. Do note that SafePic was originally released under the name Xposure. As of this writing, the App Store still calls it Xposure. Until Apple reflects the name change, look for Xposure. Android users could definitely benefit from this app's approach to protecting sensitive images. It just happens that the developers at NortonLifeLock Labs created the app for iOS first. Android support is coming, but there's no firm release date. Patience!  |
| SafePic - Review 2021 - PCMag India Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:18 AM PDT Smartphones can do almost anything these days. Why painstakingly submit physical receipts for a Travel & Expenses report when you can just snap the details with your phone? Need to share your passport number with your partner? Sending a photo of your passport may seem more secure (and is definitely more convenient) than putting the number itself in a machine-readable text. But those images stay on your phone, and probably in the cloud, as well. That's a security liability. The free SafePic app from NortonLifeLock Labs aims to identify photos that might compromise your privacy and either delete them or hide them from prying eyes. The idea is clever, and it's not something we've seen before. This is a new iPhone app, and given that it relies on AI to identify those sensitive images, we can expect it to gain skill in discrimination over time. An Android app is in the works, but my Norton contact couldn't tell me when that release might happen. Getting Started With SafePicNaturally, you start by installing SafePic from the App Store. Unlike many apps, it just needs a few permissions, including the ability to access your photos, of course. If SafePic detects sensitive data in a new photo, it needs to send you a notification. And for convenience, it offers to unlock using Touch ID or Face ID. The next step is a scan of your photos, which can take a while. SafePic points out that it keeps your phone from going to sleep until it finishes the scan. When the scan finishes, it's time to review the pictures that may endanger your privacy. Reviewing Scan ResultsSafePic summarizes its findings by listing the types of possible exposure it found, along with the number of pics in each category. These categories include Credit/Debit Card; Receipt; Private; Potentially Sensitive Document; and Social Security. There may be more categories, but those are the ones that appeared in my report. Now comes the slightly tedious part. You need to review the app's findings, photo by photo, and choose a disposition for each. If you don't need the item anymore, you tap Delete Permanently to get rid of it. If SafePic accidentally tagged an image that isn't a privacy threat, tap Mark Not Sensitive. For those sensitive images that you need to keep, you tap Add to Local Vault. This puts the image into an encrypted storage area inside of SafePic. As for the original, you have three choices. You can leave it in place (bad idea), delete it, or replace it with a placeholder. That last item is where the magic happens. If you choose a placeholder, SafePic deletes the original image and leaves a highly pixelated copy in your photo gallery, with an SafePic icon in the middle. As you touch and hold that icon, the image visibly de-pixelates back to its original for your viewing. As soon as you lift your finger, it goes back to being illegible. I confess, I've opened pixelated images without any real need to do so, just to see them magically come into focus. I did find some limitations to this technique. You can't pinch-zoom the clarified image—it goes right back to the pixelated version. If you need to see detail, you can zoom to what you think is the right location before holding the SafePic icon. Really, though, the blurred image is just a convenience. For full access, go to the copy of the image that's stored in the Local Vault. Some False PositivesI found that SafePic flagged quite a few non-sensitive images. It nabbed a picture I took of a rare pay telephone and a picture of my original 3.5" DOOM diskettes. A photo of moving boxes (without visible addresses) showed up as potentially sensitive, as did photos of a Windows Blue Screen of Death. Pictures of a creased pink pillow and of bratwurst from a local sausage company got flagged as potentially private. Practically speaking, I could picture reasons for the AI-based analysis to flag any of these. As Sigmund Freud didn't actually say, sometimes a sausage is just a sausage, but the AI can't be sure. Anything with a QR-code could be problematic. It's easy enough to mark these as non-sensitive, and once you've gone through that initial review, you don't have to do it again. And, as noted, this is a new app. There's every chance the AI will grow in skill over time. PhotoBlur Me!It is, of course, possible that SafePic might miss a sensitive image, or not understand why a particular image is personally important to you. In that case, you can tap Add Photo and either add from your library or snap a new photo. Either way, you can add the photo to your Local Vault or choose Create PhotoBlur. When you actively choose to create a PhotoBlur, you get just a bit more control than when you create a placeholder. Specifically, you can choose three levels of blurring. The act of creating the PhotoBlur doesn't do anything to the original, and SafePic displays a warning if you create one without putting the photo in the Local Vault. Few OptionsWith an app this simple, it's no surprise that the Settings section only has a few options. You can toggle the user interface between its standard look and a more colorful appearance. You can control whether it looks at iTunes synced folders (enabled by default) and at iCloud shared albums (disabled by default). And you can set three levels of scanning NSFW images. There are a few other options, but most users should leave those alone. The one possible exception is the option to cache classification results. If you want a full re-scan of your phone, just clear the cache and scan again. Other Approaches to PrivacyAs far as I can tell, SafePic is unique. I don't know of another app that does what it does. That said, there are plenty of programs and services that take various approaches to protecting your privacy. If you value your privacy, you can use any of these in conjunction with SafePic. For privacy in communication, consider encrypting your email conversations. Some services in this realm let you keep your existing email address, while others require that you start with a fresh, new email address hosted by the encryption service. You'll also find services that let you make online orders without ever giving away your actual email address. You use a different disposable email address (DEA) for each merchant. If one of those DEAs starts getting spam, you know which merchant to blame, and you can just trash that address. Abine Blur Premium is our favorite in this realm, as it lets you mask your email addresses, credit cards, and even phone numbers. Other privacy-focused apps and services actively prevent advertisers and others from tracking your browsing activity; warn if your personal data turns on the dark web; detect social media impersonators; and more. Give SafePic a TryI was impressed (and alarmed) by the collection of receipts and other sensitive documents that SafePic turned up among the 3,000-odd images on my phone. Clearing those out felt good, no question. The fact that it may flag non-sensitive images is no big deal, since you can tell it to ignore those. I don't know that I'll keep it running to check all my new photos; my phone is busy enough already. But after a few months, I'll probably load it up again for a new scan. Do note that SafePic was originally released under the name Xposure. As of this writing, the App Store still calls it Xposure. Until Apple reflects the name change, look for Xposure. Android users could definitely benefit from this app's approach to protecting sensitive images. It just happens that the developers at NortonLifeLock Labs created the app for iOS first. Android support is coming, but there's no firm release date. Patience!  |
| KeePass vs. LastPass vs. 1Password: Which Password Manager Should You Choose? - MUO - MakeUseOf Posted: 31 Mar 2021 08:30 AM PDT [unable to retrieve full-text content]KeePass vs. LastPass vs. 1Password: Which Password Manager Should You Choose? MUO - MakeUseOf  |
| Is Microsoft 365 Actually a Security Risk? - MUO - MakeUseOf Posted: 31 Mar 2021 11:45 AM PDT [unable to retrieve full-text content]Is Microsoft 365 Actually a Security Risk? MUO - MakeUseOf  |
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