Omnipresent Personal Data Collection in the name of convenience

The flow of personal data through voice interaction is exploding via devices such as Alexa, Google Home Assistant and Apple Home Pod. While these devices provides convenience and claim privacy – do they really protect your personal data? Can we trust them with every personal interaction that we do in our homes? They are made to look cool and the wave of the future. However as long as they are connected to their servers one can never be sure how your intimate personal home interaction data will be used.

The ‘big brother is always watching’ is becoming a reality if you own such a device that is connected and controlled by their manufacturers.

May be there is a better way.

Unless we decouple the device manufacturers from the service provider and include personal privacy protection features that will completely anonymize the data that that is sent outside your home, we can never be sure.

Consumers must claim for this decoupling and complete anonymization. While Apple is making some efforts in this space we still have a long way to go. Apple who is not be in the business of selling and using personal data for their profit like Google, Facebook and Amazon; will be in a better and credible position to sell this concept.

Until the consumers are educated on the privacy implications of these devices big tech companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook who profit from personal data will continue to endanger user privacy.

So think before getting one of these devices that is always listening to you.

Free yourself from digital enslavement of your personal communication data

The desktop personal computer may be a thing of past, with so many mobile options from laptop to tablets and smart phones. The shift to small, powerful and mobile computing has made desktop computing irrelevant and unnecessary for most people. The mobile computing is also always connected to the internet and to the cloud services. Most people also use free services for their daily personal communication such as e-mail and messaging. However free services also comes with strings attached. Though we don’t realize this every personal communication data goes through the free service providers servers that siphons your important personal data and use them in ways most people will never comprehend. Personal communication such as e-mails and file (e.g. photo) sharing has become such an important part of everyday life that it is impossible to live without these services. E-mail service requires an internet domain name. Most people use @gmail.com or @yahoo.com or a host of other free services. Until now setting up a personal communication server using ones own personal domain name has generally been an endeavor that only tech geeks would undertake.

Now with Pexus LLC – getting a personal domain, personal server solution and setting up a mail server is a breeze. We at Pexus LLC provides a one stop shop where you can shop for a personal domain name : https://hosting.pexus.net and also buy an affordable personal server that is small, beautiful, quite and fan less and so easy to setup at an affordable price.

Right now we have clearance sale for $249 https://store.pexus.net/K-900-4GB-500GB-BLK that will enable you to host a mail server using your home ISP and create unlimited mail boxes for yourself and your family members ! We also enable easy installation of community edition of OwnCloud – https://owncloud.org/ a fantastic free file sharing application that you can host from your home. We even make it so easy to install a Lets Encrypt free SSL certificate that will automatically renew without any interaction from you.

We will always be here to support you in your journey to free yourself from not so free e-mail service and take control of your personal privacy and personal communication on your terms and under your control !

Password Manager in the Cloud or Ransomware forever?

Splash ID (https://splashid.com/) is password manager that I had used for years and have been very satisfied with the software. Now they are also jumping into the cloud in the hopes for continued revenue stream in the form of subscriptions. I don’t have an issue with that, but what really ticked me off was the forced update and forced subscription to continue to access my existing data on my mobile device.

I had been using this software with a desktop version that would sync with my mobile app on iOS. Then one fine day I realized the mobile app got updated without any warning or an option to prevent this automatic update. The updated software now forces the user to buy a subscription and does not let the user access the existing stored data. It was a forced update and changed the initial use policy to which I agreed when I purchased the app in the first place long time ago. Now the update doesn’t let me access my existing critical data. To me it seems like a ransomware where the user is locked out of their data, unless you pay to subscribe. I had written to the CEO of the Splash ID – Morgan Slain who has not responded to my e-mail. I think this is an unethical practice by this software company who does not provide an option to stay with the current usage policy of their software and forcing people to update and demanding a subscription to continue using the existing data stored in their application which was purchased without having to subscribe.

My personal opinion is to stay away from password managers that store data in the cloud in the name of convenience. Your data will be much safer on your desktop/laptop with local sync than putting all your password data remotely and avoid paying for the ransomware like subscription forever.

Checkout the free desktop password manager KeePaas http://keepass.info/ which I will be migrating to. It also has paid companion mobile apps that would help sync the data between the desktop version and mobile version.

Update – I tried KeepPass Touch as a the iOS mobile companion that can sync locally over Wi Fi with your Free Desktop version of KeePass database file and carry your latest KeePass DB on the go. It is worth 0.99 to remove the ad for usage. Finally got rid of the Splash ID ransomware.

Take control of home network and personal data…

For all those IOT fans out there, here is an interesting reading:

More IoT insecurity: the routers that take instructions from anyone

Free is never free. Your free e-mail, free router that your cable company provides or even a paid Google NEST home temperature control device. Sure it does provide you convenience and save you a few bucks.. But what are you losing? A lot; come to think of it.. What you communicate and plan – everything is available to companies that benefit from selling you a service, big data now can analyze vast amounts of data and once they have it; you as a consumer don’t have any leverage.. the companies that have your data that you willingly provided (may be unknowingly) have all the edge.. an internet bargain you intend to get will never be there, because you don’t have the leverage any more once you have already provided your intentions may be in an innocent looking e-mail to your family or a Facebook post about your vacation plans 🙂

Start taking control of your data using a Patriot PS Personal Server (http://www.pexus.com/patriotps) and even replace your cable company provided free router with your own and put a freely available firewall IP COP (http://www.ipcop.org/) and shut off the cable company control of your home network.

Consult with Pexus LLC (sales@pexus.com) how we can help you set up a secure personal server solution in your own home and start taking control of your personal data.

Why would you want to put your passwords in the cloud?

Read about the vulnerability in LastPass password manager. If you really want to use a password manager use a local password manger such as free KeePass. The idea of trusting software that would sync your passwords via cloud is really not a good one. With convenience comes the risk of breach.

Patriot PS Personal Server–VPS Edition (coming soon..)

Pexus LLC

Patriot PS Personal Server – Stake your claim on the internet your way, on your terms.. now in the cloud via our Virtual Private Server (VPS) edition (coming soon!) or via our popular in Home Edition (https://store.pexus.net). Do your email, share files and more using your own personal server. Questions: contact us at sales@pexus.com

Personal Email on your terms!

Start the new year with personal email on your terms. Amy can do it, so can you – It is easy – Get this general purpose personal server, get yourself a domain name, host your domain free at http://www.dnsexit.com/ and configure your mail server on your personal server in the privacy of your own home in just 4 clicks:

Stop the flight of personal data to the cloud

The cloud is everywhere. While it has its benefits and will be here to stay. It is a boon for small startups as they can get their products and services to market faster without investing and building in house infrastructure to run their business and services. Internet of Things (IOT) is creating a lot of buzz these days. IOT also seems to following the mad rush to the cloud. While certain kinds of IOT services has it’s place in the cloud and will continue to be a popular destination. But when it comes to personal devices – does it makes sense to host services in the cloud? Do you really want to make a round trip from your home over your ISP to the Internet and to the cloud server and back to just turn on a light bulb? May be not. People are concerned about privacy and the flight of every conceivable personal data beyond their control.

I would rather have my little server in my home to control the things that I care about. My bulb, my security, my sprinkler system can work perfectly fine without making a round trip outside my home. Why do I need to carry tens of apps and log into as many web sites to register and manage my devices? Open standards for discovery and device control will make it easier to manage these devices easily with a single application running on your own little server in your own home. This is another example where a personal server will go a long way to help manage personal lives and homes better. I know we will get there soon. Today you can start this journey of taking care of your personal data and get ready for Intranet of Things with Patriot PS Personal Server.

Order one today at a discounted clearance sale price of $249

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You know you are a cool techie, but..

You know you are a cool techie, but you still use that free e-mail and that free drop box like services even when you know there is nothing free in life. You worry about losing control of your personal conversations in the e-mail which can surface one day and may haunt you or worry about the security breaches targeted at file storage services that may expose your confidential documents. You know you can leverage your intimate IT knowledge to take control of your data better but don’t have the time to. Now there is a solution. Check out how easy it is to get a personal server up and running. You can start with a free evaluation using the Patriot PS Personal Server Virtual Appliance and just check things out. You may decide to bring life back to your old abandoned desktop PC that you no longer use and turn it into a personal server with single click installable Patriot PS Personal Server ISO image or even go with the all in one Patriot PS Personal Server System – that is not only small, compact, but fan less too for that quite 24×7 operation that you need from a personal server.

Show off your techie instincts without sweating it out, play the internet on your terms knowing a personal server is there to serve you when you need it at home or away from home. Get ready for Internet of Things (IOT) without sending your thing data out to remote servers for those prying marketers.