Last week, my friends Steve Sande and Megan Lavey joined me for an erudite discussion over drinks about the White House's tech woes, the iWork trojan making its rounds, and our favorite Mac memories. Feel absolutely free to download the show from Talkshoe or subscribe in iTunes.

This week, hopefully, the Super Bowl will be done and dusted before 10 Eastern, so we can recap the news of the week and take your calls! We plan on covering more tips for keeping your data safe, and talking about the pros and cons of renewing your MobileMe subscription. Come prepared with your questions, comments and ideas, and we'll put them on the air!

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, or you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Today is Data Privacy Day, a global initiative to highlight information security rights and practices, especially among teens, professionals, corporations, and the government.

As part of the celebration, TUAW (along with our sister blog Download Squad) has seven good ideas for you about how to keep your data safe and away from prying eyes with Mac OS X Leopard. Also, be sure to browse TUAW articles filed under Security for other tips and alerts about keeping your data safe.

1: Turn on your firewall

Leopard, as we all know, comes with a built in firewall to prevent other computers from connecting to internet-facing ports on your computer. But: Did you know it's turned off by default?

To turn on your firewall, open System Preferences, and click the Security icon. Then, click the Firewall tab. Make sure either "Allow only essential services" is selected, or you can choose to "set access for specific services and applications" yourself.

You can also use "Stealth Mode": when enabled, computers that send data to blocked ports won't even get acknowledgement that the data was received. To enable Stealth Mode, click the Advanced button on the Firewall tab of the Security preference pane, and click the check box next to "Enable Stealth Mode."

2: Set a screen saver password

A feature popular with Windows users, Mac OS X can also lock your screen when your computer sleeps or when the screen saver comes on. Simply open System Preferences, select Security, and choose the General tab. Click the check box next to "require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver," and you're all set.

If you have automatic login enabled and click the "require password" check box, Mac OS X will recommend that you disable automatic login. This means you'll have to enter your password to turn your computer on, too; nefarious nogoodniks won't be able to restart your Mac while the screen saver is on to circumvent the need for a password. Good thinking.

On your iPhone or your iPod touch, when you press the Home button, there's a nice little animation that takes you back to the home screen.

To create that animation, your iPhone takes a screenshot of whatever it is you're doing, and uses it for the transition. Sounds innocent, right?

Not so much, says data forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski (thank you, clipboard). The screenshot is presumably erased from the iPhone after the application closes, but is any digital file really gone after you delete it? Survey says no.

Forensics experts have mined for these screenshots, successfully recovering evidence against criminals accused of rape, murder, and drug deals. They can also recover data from the iPhone's keyboard and web caches, too.

In his presentation, Zdziarski also demonstrated how to bypass an iPhone's passcode in order to own the device and access personal data. Time-consuming? Sure (it took JZ about an hour and involved a custom firmware build). Impossible? No.

As with all things digital (and networked), your privacy is largely illusory. Time to go Don Draper on this one and just use Field Notes books, my stack of business cards, and the rotary dial.

[Via Wired.]

Thanks, Kenny!

Marko Karppinen, an ADC Premier member, iPhone developer, and user like the rest of us, had his personal information released by Apple to an unknown third party, simply because of this one-line email:

am forget my password of mac,did you give me password on new email marko.[redacted]@yahoo.com

Apple -- apparently with no additional research -- reset Karppinen's password, and changed the email address on the account to the perp's. As a result of the login change, the perp had access to Karppinen's credit card details, developer software seed key, and the contents of his iDisk.

Karppinen, understandably, was livid, and sent ADC an email about what happened. A team lead from ADC's European support organization contacted Karppinen, apologizing for the mix-up. The rep promised to find out (from Apple's own logs) what information was compromised.

Apple has so far not commented on the incident, outside of what Karppinen says the ADC rep told him. It's unclear what Apple will do in the future to prevent this from happening again.

[Via Daring Fireball and The Consumerist.]

On a tip from a reader I started up a packet sniffer before I ran a search for "Nintendo" in Dave Watanabe's Inquisitor plugin for Safari. Sure enough, the first link presented was an Amazon link, with an affiliate redirect (associate tag: exoscience).

I'm not shouting anything about the sky falling. I actually think it's great when software developers find ways to provide amazing products to users for free. This case simply raises a question of transparency. Most of us who spend any time on the 'net already know that if we click a link to a retailer from a blog or reviewer's website, there's a good chance they'll be getting a cut of any conversions. It's when those links are directly promoted by the owner and the affiliate urls are masked that it becomes a question of ethics for some.

It's certainly not required of Amazon associates that they reveal their affiliate links. But when you're providing a search service, especially when it's touted as using Google results, sticking an affiliate link in as the highest ranked result does raise some questions. Sure, we use Inquisitor of our own free will (and for free), but transparency on the part of the author would make the choice to do so a more legitimate one.

Thanks Allan!

SciFi.com has posted about a new privacy screen that provides directional viewing for your iPod. It makes it harder for people to the right and left of you to watch your iPod's LCD (although, presumably, the guy right behind you on the plane can still see your pr0n or notice that you're listening to Barry Manilow).

Available from iStyles, the screen overlay will set you back all of ten bucks while saving you from prying eyes.