In January 2016 the European Court of Human Rights acknowledged the legality of the firing of a Romanian engineer for actively corresponding on Facebook from his work computer during work hours. The court confirmed that an employer has the full legal right to control what its employees do and what they use company computers for during work hours – whether for work or for personal ends.

The European Court of Human Rights is an international legal body whose jurisdiction expands to all the member states of the Council of Europe that have ratified the European Convention on the Defense of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms. It encompasses all issues relating to the interpretation of the application of the convention, including inter-governmental affairs and complaints by individuals.

36-year-old engineer Mikhai Barbalescu was fired in 2007, after which he went through all the Romanian legal authorities and, after receiving a refusal, turned to the ECHR.

Checking a social networking page can, under certain circumstances, constitute interference in an employee’s personal life. It was to this theoretical violation of his rights that the engineer was appealing in court.

However, the court quite logically considered otherwise, since correspondence on a public “wall” on Facebook is essentially public. And the employment contract between the company and the employee states quite clearly that employees are prohibited from using company equipment for personal ends.

Since the ECHR is essentially the highest legal authority for the countries of the Council of Europe, its decision has set a precedent, and we can state will full confidence that not just using programs to monitor employees (legal memorandum), but also using information collected in this manner for staffing solutions is entirely legal.

French college student Tony Beltramelli has e-published his scientific research on the use of so-called “smart watches” and special algorithms to track the users of these watches.

The topic of the paper (and this fundamentally new approach to hacking attacks) involves the interception and deep analysis of data from the accelerometer of a worn device. In this case the device in question is a smart watch (the Samsung Gear Live, for example) or fitness bracelet. These devices are worn on the wrist, which makes it possible to intercept data the user has typed in with this wrist on any physical or touch keyboard.

This specific study is dedicated to a method for intercepting keypresses on a standard 12-key numerical keypad such as those used at ATMs or for entering PIN codes in mobile applications.

The data from the accelormeter is collected by the worn device, then transmitted via Bluetooth to a nearby smartphone, and then from the phone to a server via GPRS/LTE. On the server the data is processed using a special algorithm in Java, Python, and Lua that imitates a neural network.

The algorithm cancels out noise, looks for signs of a PIN code being entered, and decodes it with a reliability of 59-73%. After processing by a neural net the reliability of the decoding process is significantly increased (up to 92%).

The developer has posted outgoing codes from this process on GitHub and video demonstrations of the process on YouTube.

The only thing that remains unclear is why anyone would enter a PIN code with the same they use for their watch. Watches are usually worn on the left hand, but most right-handed people enter their codes with their right hand.

Track cell phone location (GPS, Wi-Fi)

Hoverwatch is our new app that can be enabled for cell phone location tracking using GPS and Wi-Fi. This software collects information about a phone’s location data and transmitts the necessary data to where its use may be of significance.

Wi-Fi hotspot signals as well as GPS systems which are close to the target device can be used to collect information regarding the phone location, but GPS signals are usually considered the most accurate. The advantage of using signals received from Wi-Fi hotspots is that less battery power is used and the method is also highly reliable in instances when the user of the targeted device switches the GPS feature off.

Apart from the pinpoint tracking accuracy Hoverwatch offers many other advantages. As many as 5 devices can be tracked at one account and signing up for this service is simple.

Users create a free account online by entering their email and a password of their choice. After having done this, the next process will involve downloading and installing the phone tracker installer that is available from the Hoverwatch account.

From the online account all the recorded data as well as phone geolocation can all be monitored with ease.

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For the third time this year, Lenovo has been caught spying on the buyers of its devices.

Initial concerns were caused by the pre-installed Superfish tool that violated users’ privacy. After that, users found non-removable loaders of unknown software in the system BIOS of these laptops.

The newest discovery is a “Lenovo Customer Feedback Program 64” process found in the task manager of a refurbished Thinkpad laptop with Windows 7 OEM installed. Once a day, is sends comprehensive information about the use of the system to a certain address.

Information about this software is provided in the user agreement, but it’s very well hidden.

Another curious fact is that the information is not sent to Lenovo directly, but to a company called Omniture, which specializes in marketing and web analytics. It means that the results of this
monitoring are likely to convert into additional revenue for Lenovo.
Users of Thinkpad laptops are seriously concerned by the fact that the company tries to make money even on the buyers of expensive premium equipment.

Ever since the preliminary version of Windows 10 for developers was released our programmers have been working to make sure all our programs are 100% compatible with it.

The architecture of the latest version has turned out to be significantly different from that of previous versions.

The keyboard interaction in this version has been completely redone, and the way programs work has been changed. The built-in browser has been updated, and there are many other changes as well. Worst of all, judging from the way all these components function, they will almost definitely be updated in upcoming updates to the operating system.

Nevertheless, as of today our programs completely support the latest Windows 10 OS.

Intercepting websites visited through the new browser Microsoft Edge has already been implemented.

If you recall, our programs did not intercept Skype in its Windows 8 “tiled” version. In Windows 10 Microsoft has gotten rid of this version of Skype, so Skype can now be intercepted in any case. This includes voice calls and text chat.

And now the big news: our programs will offer Windows 10 support without requiring any additional payment for the update. We’re releasing version 8.5 instead of 9, so all users of version 8 will get a free upgrade.

The program will continue to be updated and improved along with Windows 10.

Nowadays, everywhere we look, we can see children with smartphones, tablets, laptops and other devices with the Internet access. What exactly are they doing online and what kinds of problems they encounter is something no more than 15 percent of parents are aware of.

Some of them watch carton, others play harmless games, but there are also those who might have serious problems, while their parents remain in the dark.

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The means of communication between people have changed significantly in recent years. This trend primarily affects the children. A 4-year old kid using a computer with Internet access is not a big surprise these days.

By the age of ten, children already have accounts on various social media web-sites and services, while a personal smartphone is practically their only link to the outside world.

A mere five years ago children, whose education was neglected by their parents, were receiving most of the information from TV, which was quite a problem to begin with. Now, however, things have drastically changed and it is the Internet that shapes the minds of our children, while parents bear full responsibility for controlling this process.

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In our eighth product line we have added a periodic snapshot creation function. Snapshots are created using a connected webcam, and according to the reviews, our users find it quite helpful.

There are three major questions in relation to this function, and below we will try to address them.

1. How do you disable webcam activity indicator?
2. How do you increase snapshot creation frequency?
3. How to take a video instead of a snapshot?

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We are happy to announce that we have finally launched an update of our Refog Personal Monitor software, which, once again, has a function of user social networks activity interception.

Based on the requests to our technical support, this function has been anticipated and demanded by the majority of users.

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Yet another story of a criminal case against someone using keyloggers has caused quite a storm; thus, we would like to discuss whether this program is actually legal or not.

Also, we want to inform you about a new very important update to our program’s interface that is supposed to help our users avoid innocent infringement.

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