Woodberry Down Archives | ITGUYS London

So, you’re still not prepared for the 2020 problem?

14/01/2020/in ITGUY POSTS /by Dawn Smart

Are you really still not prepared for the 2020 problem?

This promises to be an exciting decade for technology, with predictions ranging from flying cars and holidays to the moon (yeah right), to paper thin mobile phones (that sounds more like it).

It’s going to be a time of great change. Which is one of the reasons why Microsoft has been so keen to phase out its old software in favour of more up-to-date, 2020-compatible software.

It’s killing Windows 7, Office 2010 and a whole host of other important software, on January 14th. This is what’s known as the 2020 Problem.

The bad news about that is, if you’re still using this old unsupported software, you’re now running your business on borrowed time.

2020 has finally arrived and it’s time to act fast…

IT experts like us have been warning business owners about the 2020 Problem for the past year.

We’ve seen first-hand the impact that failing, unsupported software can have on an organisation.

Once software is no longer supported by the maker (in this case Microsoft), it can be a real pain trying to keep it working properly.

New bugs won’t be fixed. Hackers can exploit loopholes without anyone closing them. And you’re not compliant with GDPR if you use out-of-date software.

Essentially, if you continue to use any of the following systems this year, your business WILL suffer in one way or another:

Windows 7
Office 2010
Office 2016 for Mac
Exchange 2010
Project 2010
SharePoint 2010
Visio 2010
Visual Studio 2010
Server 2008
Windows Server 1809
Small Business Server 2011

This month’s guide takes a close look at what will happen and what you need to do not to get caught up in the 2020 problem!

So, if you’d like to discuss the issues raised in this blog further, please get in touch by giving us a call on 020 72 41 22 55 or fill out our contact form and we’ll quickly get back to you. This is definitely a case of better safe than sorry and we can help!

Surveillance capitalism and you…

24/12/2019/in ITGUY POSTS /by Dawn Smart

So, what is surveillance capitalism? In essence, surveillance capitalism describes a market-driven process where the commodity for sale is your personal data. The capture and production of this data rely on mass surveillance of the internet. It’s often carried out by companies that provide us with free online services, like search engines and social media platforms.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation published their report: “Behind the Mirror: A Deep Dive into the Technology of corporate surveillance”, earlier this month.

Jack Schofield refers to this report in his article last week.

The article, in summarising the report, describes how personal data is collated and exploited to server targeted adverts/messages/subliminal suggestions.

You can limit this to an extent by stopping tracking cookies (which follow you from site to site) but the “real world identifiers” (name, email phone number) follow you wherever you go.

The Guardian article goes through the pros and cons of browser and browser extension choices, but these will only have a limited effect.

Surveillance – how are you being tracked?

Clever tech can map you as you go to swipe your loyalty card in your favourite coffee shop or before tapping your debit card as you get on the tube. Aggregate these kinds of metrics and data: the potential of this information “bank” is alarming. Legislation such as the EU GDPR or Californian CCPA are the small/first steps in the right direction but the truth is that far more rigorous regulation is the real way to stop this growth.

Asking technology companies to handicap their apps so they can’t mine data and make enormous profits is a bit like… well, turkeys voting for Christmas!

There is a follow-up article from the same source which goes into greater detail on the well-known search engine DuckDuckGo – and explains that is not as simple as just changing search engine.

If you’d like to discuss the issues raised in this blog further, please get in touch by giving us a call on 020 72 41 22 55 or fill out our contact form and we’ll quickly get back to you.