News – SnowHaze

Newsletter August 2020

Yvan — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 18:21:11 +0000


SnowHaze Newsletter Hi, We were quiet for a long time. But not resting. Over the past year a lot of development went on in the background. First we want to thank all of you for your ongoing trust and support that helps us build SnowHaze. Reclaiming the control of our privacy is not something that can be done by one person or one company. It requires all of us. We also want to apologize for not interacting more with all of you on social media. As tech nerds, we prefer focusing on the technical side to convince our users instead of spamming you with posts explaining how awesome our products are. Once more we realized that quality software development is unpredictable. The development took much longer than expected and we kept adding more features than originally planned. Now it’s time to share these novelties with you. First we boosted the privacy on the VPN. The VPN is now easily available on all platforms from our website. Our Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) technology ensures the highest level of anonymity by avoiding any link between registration and usage. The registration is fully anonymous (not even an email required), the payment is fully anonymous (through crypto or cash payments), and the usage is fully anonymous (thanks to randomized tokens). SnowHaze version 3.0 comes with new features for the browser. SnowHaze on iOS comes with integrated Tor support. Optionally use Safebrowsing (also anonymously) for higher security when you browse. The new features include a download manager, HTTPS/Tracking/Fingerprinting/Blocking improvements, and a customizable start page. Along with the latest release we now offer a SnowHaze extension for Firefox and a VPN client for Windows. As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions, comments, or feature requests. Since we still have no analytics in any of our services, we are always happy to get feedback. You can reach us anytime here. Take care, Your SnowHaze-Team
Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) is our new protocol that ensures the highest level of anonymity for our VPN. Most VPN providers are not private at all because they store much information about you like your name and address, your payment information, and logs about your internet traffic. Not all VPN companies keep their promise to protect your data. With ZKA our privacy policy is no longer a promise but a proof. ZKA revolutionizes the entire process from registration up to the usage of the VPN. There is no longer the need to share personal information. When you connect to the VPN, you don’t even need an anonymized account number to log in. ZKA makes your VPN the most anonymous you can get. Read the full explanation on our blog.
iOS Browser Version 3.0 This new major update further enhances your privacy and security. Support for Zero-Knowledge Auth 2.0 is now integrated in the iOS app. It allows to import subscription bought on the web into your app or export iOS subscriptions to use them on other devices. The OpenVPN profiles are now valid for the entire duration of your subscription and do no longer need to be updated monthly. A new feature allows to connect the browser to the Tor network. The browser now comes with an integrated download manager. We added many privacy and security features and tried to improve the look a little bit. Let us know what you are missing and we’ll try to add it in a future version.
SnowHaze Extension for Firefox Since we don’t have a desktop browser yet and still want to offer some privacy for your other devices, we developed an extension for Firefox. We gathered the most powerful SnowHaze features and packed them into an add-on. Most importantly, it allows to easily create fully isolated tabs. You can get the add-on directly from the Mozilla store.
Thanks for an inspiring project that makes iOS browsing just that bit more sane. – SnowHaze user
SnowHaze Tip: Tab Shortcuts Easily switch to previous pages by long pressing on the back arrow. This opens a list of the pages you visited before in the current tab. Tap on an entry to reload the page. You no longer have to go back and forth to find pages. Close all tabs at once by long pressing on the tabs icon and selecting Close all Tabs. You can also swiftly close the current tab and open a new one in this menu.
We created an infographic explaining ZKA anonymity and all the privacy benefits that come with it. Head to our blog to find a detailed overview of how ZKA makes SnowHaze VPN truly anonymous. Read the infographic on our blog.
SnowHaze Illotros GmbH, Gladbachstrasse 59, 8044 Zürich

SnowHaze Newsletter

Hi,

We were quiet for a long time. But not resting. Over the past year a lot of development went on in the background.

First we want to thank all of you for your ongoing trust and support that helps us build SnowHaze. Reclaiming the control of our privacy is not something that can be done by one person or one company. It requires all of us.

We also want to apologize for not interacting more with all of you on social media. As tech nerds, we prefer focusing on the technical side to convince our users instead of spamming you with posts explaining how awesome our products are.

Once more we realized that quality software development is unpredictable. The development took much longer than expected and we kept adding more features than originally planned. Now it’s time to share these novelties with you.

First we boosted the privacy on the VPN. The VPN is now easily available on all platforms from our website. Our Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) technology ensures the highest level of anonymity by avoiding any link between registration and usage. The registration is fully anonymous (not even an email required), the payment is fully anonymous (through crypto or cash payments), and the usage is fully anonymous (thanks to randomized tokens).

SnowHaze version 3.0 comes with new features for the browser. SnowHaze on iOS comes with integrated Tor support. Optionally use Safebrowsing (also anonymously) for higher security when you browse. The new features include a download manager, HTTPS/Tracking/Fingerprinting/Blocking improvements, and a customizable start page.

Along with the latest release we now offer a SnowHaze extension for Firefox and a VPN client for Windows.

As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions, comments, or feature requests. Since we still have no analytics in any of our services, we are always happy to get feedback. You can reach us anytime here.

Take care,

Your SnowHaze-Team

Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA)

Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) is our new protocol that ensures the highest level of anonymity for our VPN. Most VPN providers are not private at all because they store much information about you like your name and address, your payment information, and logs about your internet traffic. Not all VPN companies keep their promise to protect your data. With ZKA our privacy policy is no longer a promise but a proof.

ZKA revolutionizes the entire process from registration up to the usage of the VPN. There is no longer the need to share personal information. When you connect to the VPN, you don’t even need an anonymized account number to log in. ZKA makes your VPN the most anonymous you can get. Read the full explanation on our blog.

iOS Browser Version 3.0

This new major update further enhances your privacy and security. Support for Zero-Knowledge Auth 2.0 is now integrated in the iOS app. It allows to import subscription bought on the web into your app or export iOS subscriptions to use them on other devices. The OpenVPN profiles are now valid for the entire duration of your subscription and do no longer need to be updated monthly.

A new feature allows to connect the browser to the Tor network. The browser now comes with an integrated download manager. We added many privacy and security features and tried to improve the look a little bit.

Let us know what you are missing and we’ll try to add it in a future version.

SnowHaze Extension for Firefox

Since we don’t have a desktop browser yet and still want to offer some privacy for your other devices, we developed an extension for Firefox. We gathered the most powerful SnowHaze features and packed them into an add-on. Most importantly, it allows to easily create fully isolated tabs. You can get the add-on directly from the Mozilla store.

Thanks for an inspiring project that makes iOS browsing just that bit more sane.

– SnowHaze user

SnowHaze Tip: Tab Shortcuts

Easily switch to previous pages by long pressing on the back arrow. This opens a list of the pages you visited before in the current tab. Tap on an entry to reload the page. You no longer have to go back and forth to find pages.

Close all tabs at once by long pressing on the tabs icon and selecting Close all Tabs. You can also swiftly close the current tab and open a new one in this menu.

We created an infographic explaining ZKA anonymity and all the privacy benefits that come with it. Head to our blog to find a detailed overview of how ZKA makes SnowHaze VPN truly anonymous. Read the infographic on our blog.

It’s been a while

Yvan — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 21:34:00 +0000

We were quiet for a long time. But not resting. Over the past year a lot of development went on in the background.

First we want to thank all of you for your ongoing trust and support that helps us build SnowHaze. Reclaiming the control of our privacy is not something that can be done by one person or one company. It requires all of us.

We also want to apologize for not interacting more with all of you on social media. As tech nerds, we prefer focusing on the technical side to convince our users instead of spamming you with post explaining how awesome our products are.

Once more we realized that quality software development is unpredictable. The development took much longer than expected and we kept adding more features than originally planned. Now it’s time to share these novelties with you.

First we boosted the privacy on the VPN. The VPN is now easily available on all platforms from our website. Our Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) technology ensures the highest level of anonymity by avoiding any link between registration and usage. The registration is fully anonymous (not even an email required), the payment is fully anonymous (through crypto or cash payments), and the usage is fully anonymous (thanks to randomized tokens). Read more on ZKA anonymity in this article or the infographic.

SnowHaze version 3.0 comes with new features for the browser. SnowHaze on iOS comes with integrated Tor support. Optionally use Safebrowsing (also anonymously) for higher security when you browse. The new features include a download manager, HTTPS/Tracking/Fingerprinting/Blocking improvements, and a customizable start page.

Along with the latest release we now offer a SnowHaze extension for Firefox and a VPN client for Windows.

As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions, comments, or feature requests. Since we still have no analytics in any of our services, we are always happy to get feedback. You can contact us anytime

Take care,
Your SnowHaze-Team

VPN Anonymity with Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA)

Yvan — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 08:41:00 +0000

Our infographic visualizes the technology behind ZKA.

Zero-Knowledge Auth (ZKA) is our new protocol that ensures the highest level of anonymity for our VPN. Most VPN providers are not private at all because they store a lot of information about you, like your name and address, your payment information, and logs about your internet traffic.
There are trustworthy VPN companies who promise not to log your usage of their services. They mostly live up to their promise and do not collect data about you. However, we still put the trust into their hands. If they are subject to a data breach, personal information might still be leaked. And the company itself technically has the power to find out what sites you visit.

ZKA Registration

The first step in using SnowHaze VPN anonymously is to generate a cryptograaphic key pair (Read more about cryptography here). First a secret code is generated by performing random calculation on your device. This ensures that this code is strong. We call it Master Secret and it is the basis for all the following operation.
A key pair (private key and public key) is then derived from your Master Secret. The Master Secret acts as starting point such that the keys derived from it are always the same. Since you are the only one knowing your Master Secret, only you can derive your key pair. The public key is sent to the server, where it is stored as a new database entry. The server only knows the public key and will associate all information like payments and validity to your public key.
The server does not know about your Master Secret, which is why it has to be safely stored. If you loose your Master Secret, it’s impossible to recover your subscription.
Users not wanting to loose the Master Secret have the possibility to register with email and password, like most of us are used to from other accounts. In this case, your Master Secret is encrypted with your password and safely stored on the server. The server cannot see it, since it is stored in an encrypted form. Your email is also not visible for the server because it was hashed (Read more about hashing here). The server never sees neither your Master Secret nor your email nor your password. When logging in, you request the encrypted version of your Master Secret from the server, and decrypt it on your device. Now the Master Secret can be used to derive the key pair and sign in.
Note that at any point you can add email and password to your registration or unlink your email and password from your registration.

ZKA Payment

The next step is to activate your registration by adding a payment. You choose a subscription option and pay either by credit card, or anonymously using cryptocurrencies or cash. Your successful payment is sent to the server along with your public key. The server can then credit your public key. From now on, you are allowed to connect to the VPN server. In order to connect with a VPN server, you must prove that you have the right to access it. This happens using tokens.

ZKA Token Generation

The server regularly (e.g. once a week) generates login tokens. All the newly generated tokens are randomly grouped into boxes and every box is assigned to a user. The server doesn’t know which user gets which tokens, neither which tokens are together in a box. When you want to use the VPN for the first time, your device first requests the box containing the tokens and stores it on your device. After that the new box containing new tokens is regularly updated (e.g. once a week).

ZKA VPN Connection

Before connecting to a VPN server, your device randomly picks a token out of the box and sends it to the server. The server let’s you connect if the token is valid. The only information that is exchanged with the server is the token. Remember that the tokens were randomly put into the boxes, which were randomly distributed among the users. The server only knows the public key of a user, and simply sends the box of tokens to the user that requests it using the corresponding private key. There is nothing tracing back to the public key when you connect to the server.

ZKA VPN Usage

Since you have a valid token, the server let’s you connect. Your internet traffic is now encrypted and rerouted over the VPN server. The IP address that websites see is the one from the VPN server. This hides your true IP address protects your location. The server records nothing about your traffic and cannot tie two separate connections to a user. Enjoy the first truly anonymous VPN service.

ZKA Verification

If you are still reading this, we obviously got you interested. As a clever mind your might ask yourself “Sounds good, but how do I know that what you describe is the same as what runs on the server?”. Good question, we thought you might wonder. You can actually verify this yourself.

There is a dedicated process in an enclave of the server, which is in charge of generating and distributing the tokens. This technology by Intel called Software Guard Extensions (SGX) provides a guarantee that the code running in this enclave was not altered. Since all the code is open source, you can check that the fingerprint of the enclave is the same as the one for the code. This gives you the proof that we are running the very same code on our production servers.

Visit our Github page for the verification script and more details https://github.com/snowhaze/zka-sgx

Infographic: Zero-Knowledge Auth Explained

Yvan — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 17:34:40 +0000

Read the text explanation here.

Newsletter December 2018

Yvan — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 20:35:51 +0000


SnowHaze Newsletter Hi, This year slowly comes to an end. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and to look back at a very moving year. Without your continuous interest and support, SnowHaze would have never made it that far. The entire SnowHaze team wants to thank you very much. 2019 holds many significant steps for the future of SnowHaze, like the release of SnowHaze on Android and the VPN on all platforms! Next year too we are counting on you to make the next step toward a more secure internet where you have full control over your data. In this newsletter, we’ll also look deeper into a SnowHaze feature and give you tips on how to make your PC more secure. Please take a few minutes to share SnowHaze with your friends and let us know what you like or what needs improvement. You can contact us anytime via email or Wire. Take care and see you next year, Jan, Yvan, Dominique, Andris and Pascal
Highlight 2018: SnowHaze @ Web Summit Web Summit started with an overwhelming opening. On-site we were pitching, we were part of a panel discussion, and of course, we had hundreds of interesting talks with other attendees. Each night the event was extended during Night Summit and at the Swiss gatherings where we met other Swiss startups and chatted with the Swiss ambassador in Portugal. Many existing and future user’s found the way to our stand, where we had the opportunity to talk about a more private internet. See you next year
SnowHaze in 2019 The development of SnowHaze on Android proved to be harder as we first imagined. Because of several more significant compatibility bugs, we were forced to delay the release of our Android version. The first goal next year is to finish and release this version in the first quarter. At the same time, we will launch SnowHaze VPN on all platforms. You will be able to use our Zero-Knowledge VPN on all your devices. We developed a new Zero-Knowledge protocol to guarantee that you can‘t be tracked, not even by us. We are really excited to be the only VPN service offering complete anonymity. We continue to improve our browser and need your feedback for doing so. Unlike most services, we don‘t track your every move with analytics tools. When we promise data protection, we really mean it. That‘s why we want to know what you like, which new features you want and where we can improve.
Thank you for your great browser. I am impressed by the speed of the VPN. – SnowHaze user
SnowHaze Tip: Allow Ads Some websites recognize your Adblocker and refuse to display content unless you turn it off. That’s when SnowHaze’s page settings come very handy. Instead of turning off your Adblocker globally, you can turn it off just for that site. Tap on the color shield on the top left next to the search bar. You will see a menu on which you can alter settings for that site only without affecting other pages. Make all the changes you wish. You will see the shield on the bottom change color depending on how your privacy level is affected by the changes. When you are done, you can either perform the changes temporarily (tap on Try out) or permanently (tap on Apply). Next time you visit the same page, this change will still be active if you chose to apply it permanently.
We created a short guide for privacy and security on Firefox. You can get similar privacy as with SnowHaze on your PC. There exist different add-ons to protect from annoying ads, invasive scripts and unique fingerprinting. We guide you through the various extensions and give you recommendations on how to configure it. It’s a bit more effort than with SnowHaze, but your data definitely deserves this protection. Read the guide on our blog.
Share SnowHaze The best support is to spread SnowHaze with your friends. Let your loved ones know that it is easier than ever to protect their data.
SnowHaze Illotros GmbH, Gladbachstrasse 59, 8044 Zürich

SnowHaze Newsletter

Hi,

This year slowly comes to an end. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and to look back at a very moving year. Without your continuous interest and support, SnowHaze would have never made it that far. The entire SnowHaze team wants to thank you very much.

2019 holds many significant steps for the future of SnowHaze, like the release of SnowHaze on Android and the VPN on all platforms! Next year too we are counting on you to make the next step toward a more secure internet where you have full control over your data.

In this newsletter, we’ll also look deeper into a SnowHaze feature and give you tips on how to make your PC more secure.

Please take a few minutes to share SnowHaze with your friends and let us know what you like or what needs improvement. You can contact us anytime via email or Wire.

Take care and see you next year,

Jan, Yvan, Dominique, Andris and Pascal

Highlight 2018: SnowHaze @ Web Summit

Web Summit started with an overwhelming opening. On-site we were pitching, we were part of a panel discussion, and of course, we had hundreds of interesting talks with other attendees. Each night the event was extended during Night Summit and at the Swiss gatherings where we met other Swiss startups and chatted with the Swiss ambassador in Portugal. Many existing and future user’s found the way to our stand, where we had the opportunity to talk about a more private internet. See you next year

SnowHaze in 2019

The development of SnowHaze on Android proved to be harder as we first imagined. Because of several more significant compatibility bugs, we were forced to delay the release of our Android version. The first goal next year is to finish and release this version in the first quarter. At the same time, we will launch SnowHaze VPN on all platforms. You will be able to use our Zero-Knowledge VPN on all your devices. We developed a new Zero-Knowledge protocol to guarantee that you can‘t be tracked, not even by us. We are really excited to be the only VPN service offering complete anonymity.

We continue to improve our browser and need your feedback for doing so. Unlike most services, we don‘t track your every move with analytics tools. When we promise data protection, we really mean it. That‘s why we want to know what you like, which new features you want and where we can improve.

Thank you for your great browser. I am impressed by the speed of the VPN.

– SnowHaze user

SnowHaze Tip: Allow Ads

Some websites recognize your Adblocker and refuse to display content unless you turn it off. That’s when SnowHaze’s page settings come very handy. Instead of turning off your Adblocker globally, you can turn it off just for that site. Tap on the color shield on the top left next to the search bar. You will see a menu on which you can alter settings for that site only without affecting other pages.

Make all the changes you wish. You will see the shield on the bottom change color depending on how your privacy level is affected by the changes. When you are done, you can either perform the changes temporarily (tap on Try out) or permanently (tap on Apply). Next time you visit the same page, this change will still be active if you chose to apply it permanently.

We created a short guide for privacy and security on Firefox. You can get similar privacy as with SnowHaze on your PC. There exist different add-ons to protect from annoying ads, invasive scripts and unique fingerprinting. We guide you through the various extensions and give you recommendations on how to configure it. It’s a bit more effort than with SnowHaze, but your data definitely deserves this protection. Read the guide on our blog.

Share SnowHaze

The best support is to spread SnowHaze with your friends. Let your loved ones know that it is easier than ever to protect their data.

Happy 1 year SnowHaze VPN!

Yvan — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 14:56:17 +0000

SnowHaze has been out here for 1 year now. It’s time to take a look back on this incredible year. SnowHaze VPN brought us a truly anonymous VPN service and a fresh wind in the VPN industry.

100 Days After GDPR

Dominique — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 20:21:01 +0000

100 days ago, the General Data Protection Regulation came into force with the goal to give control to individuals over their personal data. Around the May 25th there was an atmosphere of panic, email inboxes were jammed with messages form companies asking for opt-in and permission to use personal data. Some websites even temporarily shut down their services in Europe and some are still closed. After being a big topic in May, it has become quiet around GDPR and it is therefore time to ask, what did GDPR change?

GDPR requires companies which collect, store or process personal data to put in place technical and organizational measures to implement the data protection principals. This means data must be anonymized or pseudonymized, the privacy settings must be the highest-possible by default and the personal data can only be processed with the owner’s consent.

Under GDPR, the management is responsible for the data protection. A company violating these regulations can be fined with up to four percent of its annual worldwide revenue or up to 20 million Euro and stockholders can sue the company and their managers if they negligently lead the company or violate internal laws.

The main concepts of the law were not new. For example, the old federal data protection law of Germany is very similar to the new GDPR. The difference was, that no one cared and followed the law. The German post, for example, helped parties with customer information during the election campaigns, the association of cities and towns considered to sell data about their citizens including their habits, and collection agencies created detailed profiles about debtors which were stolen right afterwards. So far, the penalties for violating the data protection law were so low and often very different for every country, such that most companies and website providers didn’t care at all.

After 100 days with GDPR in effect, bigger companies adapted their services, procedures and websites to be GDPR compliant but there is still a vast number of websites and companies not fulfilling the requirements. According to research by TrustArc, 27% of the EU-based organizations are GDPR compliant. In the UK, 21% fulfill the GDPR requirements, while only 12% of the US companies do.

However, most of the EU and UK based companies expect to be GDPR compliant by the end of 2018. Probably it’s going to need some more data scandals, a few CEO suspensions and huge fines until most companies and services handling personal data of European citizens apply GDPR.
Another aspect heavily discussed in advance was the effect of GDPR on the business. So far, Facebook blamed GDPR for losing half a million monthly active users across Europe and a slowdown in advertising revenue. Especially the “opt-in” requirement was the reason why many companies lost parts of their market. Companies report a decrease of 25 to 40 percent of their addressable market.

Overall GDPR was a big and necessary step to more privacy and personal data protection. Not all companies are GDPR compliant yet and some even retrieved from the European market entirely. But the major part adapted their services and therefore, also persons outside of the European Union benefit from GDPR as global companies made it to their standard.

SnowHaze will soon support anonymous payment methods

Jan — Mon, 06 Aug 2018 14:42:25 +0000

The big crypto currency hype is over – luckily. Once the gamblers and con-men are out of the crypto currency game, we can finally start using them for what they were originally designed for – decentralized and potentially anonymous payments.

Let’s start with the big news first: In a few weeks our SnowHaze VPN service will be extended to all platforms! We are excited to be able to serve all customers across different platforms and we want to use this chance to extend our supported payment methods. As the first VPN company to provide a VPN with privacy by design; we will start to offer truly anonymous payment methods, too.

Our VPN service has been thus far iOS only targeted and Apple handled all the subscriptions and payments. While payments in the App Store are not generally anonymous, with respect to SnowHaze VPN they are, as we do not receive any information about our customers. We see user data as a liability and thus want to avoid the collection of user data at all cost. The less we know about you, the better it is for you, as we cannot disclose what we don’t know and there is zero risk of any information leaks.

Starting with the extension of our VPN service to all platforms, you will be able to sign up for our VPN service without disclosing an e-mail address or any other personal information. In addition, you will be able to pay with cash and crypto currencies. You might be wondering how we handle your account, if we don’t even have an e-mail address. More details will follow soon: follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep updated. Our unique account management is essentially based on cryptography and designed to provide the best privacy possible. And what is more private than paying with cash without even disclosing an e-mail address? Moreover, our VPN will continue to offer privacy by design and not just privacy by policy. We will share about the exact specifications in the next weeks, so stay tuned!

The crypto currencies we will support include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Monero. Drop us an e-mail if there are other currencies that you would like to see supported.

Very soon we will also be starting a forum and a newsletter to keep in touch with our users. If you have any questions in the meantime, write us an e-mail or contact us through Wire. We love to get customer feedback and want to create a better world wide web, together with you!

Apple starting to block system-wide ad-blockers

Jan — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 12:59:59 +0000

In a press release, an Apple developer stated that system-wide ad-blocking is not allowed for VPN apps.

It seems that system-wide VPN based ad-blockers are no longer allowed on iOS. Apple no longer endorses services that block specific site requests. This is often accomplished by changing the DNS settings or establishing a local proxy server that sorts out requests going servers known to serve ads or track people. Isn’t it our right to choose which ad-blockers we want?

Apple rejected the recent update of AdGuard Pro, a paid ad-blocker that works on the whole iOS system with a VPN connection. Koperski, the CTO from Future Mind that produced AdGuard Pro, was personally informed of the decision, citing that the reason that the app was using “a VPN profile or root certificate to block third-party content”. This apparently violates the recently updated and enforced App Store Review Guidelines 4.2. The same happened to the company Malwarebytes and their latest update, too. Both companies will change their applications accordingly to comply with Apple’s guidelines.

Third-party ad-blockers only for Safari

Apple makes it notoriously hard for alternative browsers to Safari. First of all, it is not possible to switch the default browser on iOS. Since the introduction of Safari Content Blockers in iOS 9, Apple seems intended to weed out ad-blockers that are not Safari based, limiting ad-blockers only to the ones that work in Safari. With this new guideline, Apple looks to be trying harder to make people stick to their built-in Safari.

This may seem controversial to the announcements in WWDC 2017 where Apple introduced intelligent tracking prevention and autoplay video ad blocking to fight intrusive advertisements.

SnowHaze Browser and VPN not affected

Fortunately, these recent changes in Apple’s review policy do not affect us. Since our ad- and tracking script blockers are built into SnowHaze Browser, you can still rely on SnowHaze to protect you from invasive and personalized ads and trackers. As we do not block ads through our Zero-Knowledge VPN, our VPN service is not affected, and you can continue to rely on us to protect your data.

4 Scary Facebook Patent Ideas

Yvan — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 09:15:32 +0000

Over the years Facebook has submitted thousands of patent applications for new and innovative ideas. Many of these aim to dig even deeper in our personal life in order to better know each one of us. What can be seen with all the following is that they serve in some sort to more efficiently target ads. We then see more invasive ads trying to manipulate us in buying stuff.

1. Long term predictions
Facebook is not only interested in our lives but also in what comes after, as one patent shows. By using information such as location, expenditure and interaction with others, they want to predict when you or your friends are most likely to die. Other significant life events like birth, graduation, moving or accident might also be determined. Our private lives are not private anymore.

2. Camera Tracking
Due to imperfections of your camera or scratches on the lens, Facebook wants to find unique fingerprints based on the alteration that these faults leave on the pictures you take. From the uploaded or shared pictures, it would be possible to trace back to which camera took what photograph. This is precious information about our social environment and trust we have in other persons.

3. Listening Smartphones
Facebook wants to record your environment to better know what activities you are currently doing, in what order you do them and with whom. Again, this is valuable insight in our private life to better target ads. A TV show could send a unique inaudible sound, which gets recorded by your device. Consequently, it would be possible to tell what you are watching, if you watch actively or simultaneously text your friends. Can you imagine what is being recorded the next time you “Netflix and chill” with your Tinder date?

Graph showing how different services influence people in taking actions and the path that is created

4. Emotion reading
By using your front camera, Facebook has thought of monitoring your reactions to the contents you see. Your face expression would reveal if you feel happy, bored, shocked or jealous. Depending on your reaction it will be easier to predict your reaction to different contents or ads.

These ideas are merely on the paper and Facebook claims that holding a patent doesn’t mean that they are using or will be using the technology in the future. The ideas alone are probably not of more value than what can already be done today. What makes Facebook really powerful is their potential monitoring of every single aspects of our day. Combining all the little bits of information collected here and there gives Facebook an unrivaled power. The question here is if we are ready to have all those information about our daily lives recorded and be used to feed us news and information. At SnowHaze, we believe that we should have more autonomy in deciding what we want to share. If you share our belief, you can download and use our free private browser to protect your data. Check it out at snowhaze.com/download.