5 tips to protect yourself after the LivingSocial password breach

April 29th, 2013 by Sarah Downey

LivingSocial password breachThe social deals site LivingSocial was just hacked to the tune of 50 million compromised accounts. If you’ve ever signed up for LivingSocial, your name, email, date of birth, and password are at risk (luckily, the databases containing credit card and financial info weren’t affected).

LivingSocial is yet another example of a giant data breach affecting millions of people’s personal information. There have been dozens of major data breaches so far in 2013, including Evernote, Zendesk, Twitter, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. No company can claim that your information is 100% safe. Data breaches are the rule, not the exception, and you can bet on there being more of them in the future.

It’s tough for consumers in this big data world: everywhere you go, companies are collecting your data, selling it, and–as current trends show–losing it by the millions through data breaches and hacks. It doesn’t just put your identity and your finances at risk, but it’s inconvenient and stressful to have to continually change your login info any time it’s hacked.

Below are 5 tips to help protect your information before or after a data breach. And wouldn’t it be great if there was a privacy tool that did most of these tips for you? Well–wink, wink–one is coming soon. Click here to sign up to be notified when it’s ready.

1. Change your information on the compromised account

It seems obvious, but if you only do one thing, this should be it.  Was your password compromised?  Make a new one.  Was your credit card stolen?  Cancel it. Don’t risk your identity being stolen.   Read More


Abine fans, want to talk to the press?

April 24th, 2013 by Sarah Downey

talking to the pressHello, blog readers and privacy tool users. Journalists often come to us to ask our expert opinion on privacy news, and one of the most common requests they have is whether they can talk to our customers. Hearing from real people about why privacy matters to them can take a news article from just okay to personalized and great.

We’re pretty sure that some of you out there would be willing to talk to the press about why you care about privacy, why you use Abine tools, etc., but we don’t know who you are! Because we’re a privacy company and we take your privacy very seriously, we don’t have your contact information. And if we do (for instance, if you’re a subscriber to one of our paid services like DeleteMe), we feel weird contacting you for things other than your order.   Read More


6 steps to getting hired at a tech startup without any engineering skills

April 11th, 2013 by Sarah Downey

no jobs for non-engineersEveryone’s hiring engineers (shameless plug: so are we at Abine), and I’m not one. Odds are, neither are you. Nor was I about 2 years ago when I was perusing Craigslist Boston’s legal services section for an alternative way to use my law degree. It’s pretty dejecting to spend your entire life getting straight A’s in honors classes, doing everything you’re supposed to be doing, going to good schools, getting a freaking law degree in my case, and then finding out that no one’s hiring…unless you’re an engineer. Well, I have 6 tips for you to get hired at a tech startup anyway.

Despite having a J.D. and sitting on an academic lifetime of great grades and extracurricular activities like track and field, the jobs that were supposed to be raining out of the sky just didn’t exist. I wanted to do something that mattered, something that used my skills—which I’d always thought were more than decent—and not endure a soul-crushing work/life balance in the process (I’m looking at you, first year law firm associates).  And there was that small matter of the $90,000 debt I’d acquired from law school.

That’s how I ended up scrolling through Craigslist in a Barnes & Noble café in December 2010. I needed a change, and Boston seemed like it had more opportunity than the suburbs of Connecticut. I found a posting for a “legal technology type” who was passionate about online privacy rights, and it sounded perfect. I wrote the best cover letter of my life, got an interview, and got the job. It was Abine. Read More


Review DoNotTrackMe and enter to win $250 to Amazon.com!

April 11th, 2013 by Sarah Downey

If you’ve had a good experience with DoNotTrackMe, help us spread the word by leaving a review. Just by doing that, you’ll have a chance to win a $250 digital gift card to Amazon.com.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Click the icon below of the browser you use. You’ll be taken to the review site for that browser.

2. Leave a review! You may have to create an account before leaving your review. Details about why you love DNTMe are optional, but we love reading them.

3. Email cont...@getabine.com with where you left your review and an email address to reply to. We’ll email the winner with their prize on April 22nd, so keep an eye on your inbox. And this probably goes without saying because we’re a privacy company, but we’ll never sell or share your email address. Also, these Terms & Conditions apply.

Thanks for using DNTMe and taking the time to tell us–and the world–what you think. Stay private!


5 Privacy Tips for Tinder

April 4th, 2013 by Olivia Campbell

Tinder homepageEver heard of Tinder? It’s a new iPhone dating app that lets users select or skip other Tinder users, based solely on looks, with the swipe of a finger.

When you sign up for Tindr, you login through Facebook, select your sexual orientation and five Facebook profile pictures you’d like to associate with your account, and allow it to access your current location.

Then the fun begins. The app allows you to swipe through profiles of potential matches within your geographic area. If you see someone who catches your eye, you tap the green heart and hope they tap back when they reach your picture. When there’s a match, you’re given the opportunity to chat directly with the other person. If a picture pops that doesn’t interest you, you simply tap a giant red “X” and the image spirals off into the abyss.

It’s a pretty simple premise that has become wildly successful and addictive among the college crowd. Whereas online dating profiles can be stressful to write and time-consuming to wade through, Tinder makes dating simple: is someone hot or not?  Read More


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