New 'Firefox Monitor' will alert you if your data or passwords are stolen →

Mozilla unveils the email security tool it has been testing since last fall.

If you've ever wondered whether your email has been compromised in one of the many data breaches in the last decade, Mozilla now has an answer for you. Yesterday, it unveiled Firefox Monitor, a website that can give you detailed information about any of your accounts that may have been hacked.

"It can be hard to keep track of when your information has been stolen, so we're going to help by launching Firefox Monitor, a free service that notifies people when they've been part of a data breach," Nick Nguyen wrote in a blog post for Mozilla."After testing this summer, the results and positive attention gave us the confidence we needed to know this was a feature we wanted to give to all of our users."

The effort represents the culmination of a partnership between Mozilla and renowned Australian digital security expert Troy Hunt, the brainchild behind HaveIBeenPwned.com. There is little difference between Firefox Monitor and HaveIBeenPwned.com, but when Hunt announced the partnership in June, he said Mozilla's massive user base would help popularize the tool.

"Over the coming weeks, Mozilla will begin trialling integration between HIBP and Firefox to make breach data searchable via a new tool called 'Firefox Monitor'," Hunt wrote in a June blog post about the partnership, adding that they were "baking" HIBP into Firefox.

"This is major because Firefox has an install base of hundreds of millions of people which significantly expands the audience that can be reached once this feature rolls out to the mainstream."

HaveIBeenPwned.com currently has a secure database of 5.1 billion records, with 3.1 billion unique email addresses, yet only a bit more than 2 million subscribers. The more people who take advantage of the pwned website, the more people will be able to secure their accounts and make it safer for everyone, including the websites involved in the original hack.

When I put my own email address in, Firefox notified me of 4 data breaches that may have included my email address and account information. My email was found in a Ticketfly data breach in May, a 2013 breach of Adobe, and two 2012 hacks of Dropbox and LinkedIn. The information released in these hacks included email addresses, names, phone numbers, physical addresses, password hints, passwords, and usernames.

Despite the name, the website can be accessed from any browser, and both Mozilla and Hunt have painstakingly described the complex process that they use to search for email addresses while protecting your privacy and encrypting any information about you.

They use a technique known as hashing to mathematically encode data, making it impossible for HIBP to actually read any of the email addresses sent to it by Firefox. A Mozilla spokesperson told The Register UK that its goal was to protect their users by bringing HIBP to a wider pool.

"One difference for now is that sensitive sites will only be sent to you after you've verified your email to help keep you safe. There are future plans to integrate it more deeply into the Firefox and future products that are underway," they told the Register.

Mozilla and HaveIBeenPwned.com initially announced a partnership last fall that saw the web browser add an alert that would notify users when they were visiting a website that had recently been involved in a data breach. In June, 250,000 mostly U.S.-based users were invited to join a trial period for the website.

Hunt also secured a deal with 1Password, a password management app, in February that allows users to search if their email or password had been released in a data breach.

*this article was featured on Download.com on September 26, 2018: https://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/new-firefox-monitor-will-alert-you-if-your-data-or-passwords-are-stolen/

Uber in Australia and New Zealand will start banning riders with low ratings

Starting September 19, Uber users in Australia and New Zealand will need to stay above a minimum star rating or face account deactivation.

Uber has been trying to clean up its act after a rough year, and now they want their riders to do the same, passing new guidelines in Australia and New Zealand that will force riders to stay above a four star rating or face losing access to the app entirely.

In a blog post from Uber Australia and New Zealand, the ride service said the new rules, which will come in to effect on September 19, aim to protect drivers and promote mutual respect during the entire taxi experience.

"Treat people as you would like to be treated yourself. It's a universal truth - and something that's important here at Uber," they wrote.

"This is important because when driver-partners use Uber they do more than simply drive: they're sharing their own car, their space, their time and a slice of who they are with passengers."

The company goes on to say that the new community guidelines set basic standards for conduct and that anyone who falls under a certain minimum rating will receive multiple warnings before being kicked off the app.

Susan Anderson, Uber's regional general manager for Australia and New Zealand, told the Sydney Morning Herald that minimum ratings varied by country and region but that across Australia, it would be four stars.

She reminded readers that nine out of ten Australians on Uber have a 4.5 rating or higher and that multiple warnings or tips will be sent to a user before they are removed.

"To get to a number as low as four there really needs to have been multiple instances of one star ratings, and complaints from a number of different drivers. But there are a small proportion of riders who aren't behaving in the right way, and we have no place for that on our platform," she told the newspaper.

She added that drivers had complained about a number of bad passenger behaviors, including riders sexually harassing and stalking drivers after a trip, abusive language, door slamming, lack of greetings or courtesy, and riders waiting in the wrong place or in unsafe areas. Riders had also been accused of breaking laws during rides and asking drivers to speed or commit crimes with them.

The issue of Uber driver treatment has gained prominence in the US as the app's popularity has grown. Most recently, star NFL quarterback Jameis Winston was suspended and forced to apologize after he grabbed a female driver's crotch n 2016.

Uber drivers who fall under a certain number of stars can be fired from the service, so the rule has long been in place for them. Despite the guidelines, Uber still has a notoriously difficult time screening its drivers and continues to face criticism over its background check practices.

Before the new rules were passed, riders could only be denied by drivers for extremely low ratings but would not be removed.

"Australia/NZ is the second country globally to roll this out, and we think it's an important update to help ensure every Uber journey is enjoyable and comfortable for both riders and driver-partners," Uber told Mashable in an email.

As long as users keep clean, stay kind and respect drivers, Anderson said they wouldn't have to worry about the new rules.

"We all know of driver-partners who go above and beyond to create a five-star experience for their riders: from helping an elderly person get into and out of the car, to offering water for the trip or making sure that riders get home safely while listening to some fun tunes after a night out," they wrote in their release.

"Everyone can enjoy a five-star ride when people respect each other's differences and treat their travelling companions the way they'd like to be treated themselves."

*this article was featured on Download.com on September 5, 2018: https://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/uber-in-australia-and-new-zealand-will-start-banning-riders-with-low-ratings/

Facebook is creating a personal timer to curb your social app addiction →

The social media giant may show you just how much time you spend using its service.

Eagle-eyed engineer Jane Manchun Wong found code buried within Facebook's Android app showing the social media giant has created an as-yet-unreleased feature called "Your Time on Facebook," which displays how much time you've spent on the social media site.

The "Time Well Spent" movement, which was started in earnest around 2013 and has gained steam in recent years thanks to the Center for Human Technology, has sought to force tech companies to rethink how they design their apps in an effort to address user complaints and surveys that found social media users increasingly distressed about how much time they spent on social media.

The main culprit users and other tech companies point to is Facebook. Other companies are creating features on both iOS and Android that allow you to check your app usage and time spent, with Apple even mentioning Facebook specifically at its recent developer conference in reference to apps you may want to limit your time on.

The potential Facebook feature, called "Your Time On Facebook," was confirmed by Facebook to TechCrunch. "We're always working on new ways to help make sure people's time on Facebook is time well spent," Facebook told Josh Constine.

According to Manchun Wong -- a computer-science student at the University of Massachusetts -- the unreleased feature will allow you to see just how much time you have spent on Facebook per day and give you the option of setting daily or weekly time limits. She also discovered earlier this month that Facebook was planning something similar for Instagram called "Manage your time."

Limiting screen time

Apple made smartphone app usage an integral part of its keynote presentation at WWDC this year, highlighting the Screen Time feature in iOS 12 that will give users information on app usage and allow you to set time limits for every app. Google is doing similar things with the upcoming Android P update, with an even bigger focus on general phone usage, even creating a feature that would allow users to set a time when your phone automatically goes into "Do Not Disturb" mode.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has leaned into the idea of reducing time on the social media site, with all the criticism aimed squarely at his company.

"Time spent is not a goal by itself. We want the time people spend on Facebook to encourage meaningful social interactions," he said in November.

But Joe Edelman, who has been working with the Time Well Spent nonprofit organization, disagreed with Zuckerberg's assessment of the issue, writing in a Medium blog post this year that the Facebook CEO's desire to get back to "personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other" was shortsighted and did not address the core issues plaguing the site's users.

"If the simplified actions and relationships weren't designed with a users' particular values in mind, then using the software can make living by their values more difficult, which leaves them feeling like their time was not well spent," Edelman wrote.

"Designed to addict us"

"As users, we end up acting and socializing in ways we don't believe in, and later regret. We act against our values: by procrastinating from work, by avoiding our feelings, by pandering to other people's opinions, by participating in a hateful mob reacting to the news, and so on."

The Center for Human Technology says that while the amount of time spent is a concern, it's how that time is being spent that underpins the negative feelings people may have after using these websites.

"Snapchat turns conversations into streaks, redefining how our children measure friendship. Instagram glorifies the picture-perfect life, eroding our self worth. Facebook segregates us into echo chambers, fragmenting our communities. YouTube autoplays the next video within seconds, even if it eats into our sleep," the center wrote.

"These are not neutral products. They are part of a system designed to addict us."

*this article was featured on Download.com on June 25, 2018: https://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/facebook-is-creating-a-personal-timer-to-curb-your-social-app-addiction/