One of the worst things about taking business trips is the airplane WiFi. It’s a lesson in patience. More often than not, owing to the slow speeds and anemic bandwidth available, you’re better off not even trying to get anything productive done in-flight.

File this one away under things not to do. Not that you’d ever have a need to do this, but whatever you do, do not set your iPhone’s date to January 1, 1970. If you do, you stand a good chance of turning your cherished smartphone into a very expensive paperweight.

The short answer to the question posed by this article’s title is yes. Yes, your smart TV is listening to your personal conversations. It’s simply a part of the way the technology works. If you spend the money to buy a smart TV, then you’re going to want to use its voice activation features.

Is nothing safe from the hacking community? It seems as though everything is under assault these days. Antivirus and malware blocking software is struggling to keep pace. When those security holes get plugged, the hackers simply shift gears and switch tactics, going after SSL or other core components of the internet itself.

MasterCard has been experimenting with a new facial biometrics app, and is poised to roll it out in force later this year. The basic idea behind the technology is that it will employ facial recognition in the place of traditional passwords, on the thinking that while it’s possible to guess at your password, a hacker’s going to have a really hard time faking your face.

The magnetic stripes on the backs of credit and debit cards are problematic. The root of the problem is that they contain absolutely nothing in the way of security. The information they contain is completely unprotected and vulnerable to a type of attack known as “skimming,” where someone with a bit of technical savvy can simply walk up close to you, and make a copy of the contents of your magnetic stripe.

Have you secured your Wi-Fi connection yet? If not, your neighbors may be “borrowing” your internet connection. That poses some potential dangers to you, and could even set you up for some legal trouble, but how can you tell?

There are a number of indirect indicators that someone may be borrowing your connection.

Remember last year’s “Heartbleed” scare? If you don’t, or if you need a refresher, Heartbleed was a flaw in the security of SSL, which is the technology employed by just about everyone on the web to make financial transactions secure. It is essentially the technology that makes people feel comfortable about conducting business on the web.

There are few things that strike terror into small business owners like having someone smear them, their company, or their brand online. Is it any wonder? We’ve all seen and heard horror stories about businesses being brought down by a hailstorm of criticism on the internet, and it can leave business owners feeling powerless to do anything about it.

The US Department of Health and Human Services is having a tough time of it. They are the latest government agency to report a significant data breach, but this time, with a twist. In this instance, it wasn’t a nefarious plot by a group of hackers, but simple human carelessness and error.