Black Friday is just around the corner, and many people will be out trying to get their hands on the latest gadgets for their loved ones. I will not be apart of that, I've stuck my head out on Black Friday once or twice in my life and regretted it every time. Something as simple as getting a replacement USB cable for a device turned into a 4 hour excursion, where 3 1/2 of those hours were waiting in line to check out. However if you are one the brave souls that, I shudder to say, like to shop on Black Friday, something to keep in mind is the electronic security of the gifts you plan to give.
WIRED recently reported that Mozilla, yes the same one that gave us the Firefox browser, has released their 2nd annual privacy report entitled "Privacy Not Included." The list is far from comprehensive, given that they only reviewed 70 products, but it gives consumers a general idea of what to look for when doing their holiday shopping. Mozilla's criteria for making the grade were elements such as use of encryption, automatic update pushes, strong password requirements, ways to deal with vulnerabilities and an easy to read privacy policy. 33 of the 70 products did successfully pass the muster, with the other products failing one or more of the criteria.
The report details products across a wide array of categories, from popular video game consoles all the way to a sous vide. The list is not intended to be a buying guide either, as reasons for why the products that didn't get the seal of approval from Mozilla differ in severity. Each consumer will want to read why they didn't get the seal, and decide if they want to avoid someone hacking into their WiFi network and raising the heat on that new sous vide and maliciously overcooking their steak.
You can read the full WIRED article and the Mozilla report in the links below.