Showing posts with label hacking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hacking. Show all posts

Saturday, August 6, 2022

Great. Can't wait for the False Flags sending cities and people into panic and madness.

The U.S. government's Emergency Alert System is vulnerable to flaws and hacking.

The Register: Warning! Critical flaws found in US Emergency Alert System.

DEF CON may be about to blow lid off security hole.

The US government is warning of critical vulnerabilities in its Emergency Alert System (EAS) systems that, if exploited, could enable intruders to send fake alerts out over television, radio, and cable networks.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an advisory it was recently informed about the flaws in EAS encoder and decoder devices, adding that they were successfully exploited by Ken Pyle, a security researcher at cybersecurity firm CYBIR. There is a sense of urgency to the advisory because the exploit "may" be presented, with proof of concept code, at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas next week.

"In short, the vulnerability is public knowledge and will be demonstrated to a large audience in the coming weeks," the agency wrote in the advisory, which was issued this week by DHS' Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The DHS is urging organizations that operate the EAS to ensure that their devices and supporting systems are updated with the most recent software versions and security patches, are protected by a firewall, and are monitored, with audit logs being regularly reviewed to ensure there is no unauthorized access.

The exact nature of the security flaws was not disclosed by Homeland Security. However, it's reported that the holes are present in the Monroe Electronics R189 One-Net DASDEC EAS device, and this can be remotely compromised to send out fake alerts, lock out legit users, and cause other damage.

Hit the link, read the full story. Panic, fearp0rn and False Flags...here we go!

Who would hack and manipulate the EAS other that the MIC or, maybe...China? Thanks Biden and your globalist puppeteers. Keep up the great job.

The Register story Archived

Saturday, June 15, 2019

David Hogg Survives #TargetApocalypse

C|NET: Target down (then back up) as cash registers fail and leave long lines.
Target's payment systems appeared to be missing the mark the day before Father's Day, as terminals went AWOL for a couple of hours in a number of the company's US retail outlets. The outage caused long lines but prompted an encouraging show of sympathy for Target employees from people on Twitter. And there were some jokes too, of course.

"We're aware that guests are currently unable to make purchases at Target stores," the company said in its own tweet Saturday morning. "Our teams are troubleshooting now and we apologize for the inconvenience. We will provide an update as soon as possible."

Then on Saturday afternoon, a Target spokeswoman said registers were "fully back online" and that the outage was caused by an "internal technology issue."

"After an initial but thorough review, we can confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue, and no guest information was compromised at any time," the spokeswoman said in a statement.
 "I was home watching reruns of 'Saved By The Bell' when I heard the news Target cash registers crashed. I got on my bike, rode to the nearest Target store and immediately rendered aid to traumatized shoppers. They were standing in long lines. They couldn't check-out. It was chaos. Madness! We need  more common-sense cash register laws!"
- David Hogg

In a matter of a few hours, Target determined it was not a data-breach or security-related issue. In a few hours?

We know who did this...

 "Soon, Americans will shop only at Glávnyj Universáľnyj Magazín."

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Hillary: "China, if you're listening, why don't you get Trump's tax returns?"

The Week: Hillary Clinton asks China to hack Trump's tax returns.
Hillary Clinton said on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Wednesday night...
[.]
"China, if you're listening, why don't you get Trump's tax returns?"
No one sold out to China like the Clinton Crime Family.


Find LawWhen is computer hacking a crime?
Under federal law, the unauthorized access of another person's computer or device can be grounds for criminal charges.
[.]
Penalties for violating federal hacking laws can be extraordinarily harsh and frequently includes jail time.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Tech News

Technocracy: GMO Food Will Stock Grocery Shelves Within 5 Years.

While ethicists [sic] debate the applications of blockbuster gene-editing tool Crispr in human healthcare, an inventor of the tool believes it has a more immediate application: improving our food.
I have one, essential question for those in the pro-GMO industry. If GMO food is as safe as Big GMO says, why then do they fight so diligently against their food being labeled as such? They'll reply with, "doing so presents a negative perception of our products, thus negatively affecting our sales." And? That's our problem?

Asbestos? Nah. Perfectly fine and safe, we were told for decades. Thalidomide? Perfectly safe, especially for pregnant mothers. Tobacco? Recommended by Doctors and dentists alike.

Now, here comes the GMO Train. We're just human guinea pigs for tech and science, aren't we?
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TechNewsWorld: Samsung suspends launch of Galaxy Fold.
Samsung pumped the brakes on release of the US$1,980 phone after several reviewers reported problems with their units.
[.]
Reviewers for Bloomberg and YouTube reported their units began malfunctioning after they removed an integral part of the display, mistakenly thinking it was a plastic screen protector.

CNBC reviewer Todd Haselton wrote that he left the plastic film intact, but the display still started acting buggy. The left side of the flexible screen began to flicker consistently.
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TechSpot: Screen time not recommended for infants, says World Health Organization.
Infants under the age of one shouldn’t be exposed to electronic screens of any type according to guidelines recently published by the World Health Organization.

The United Nations agency further notes that sedentary screen time (watching TV / videos or playing computer games) is not recommended for infants.
Was anyone aware of this? Who knew?
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TechCrunch: Tesla reports $702 million loss in first quarter.
Tesla reported April 9 that it delivered 63,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter of the year, nearly a one-third drop from the previous quarter.
[.]
“Everyone expected a first quarter loss for Tesla, but nobody expected it to be this big,” Karl Brauer, executive publisher at Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader said in an emailed statement.
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Ars TechniaWindpower-Turbines come to Massachusetts.


Turbines? What turbines? They blend in so well! And appear to be well-protected from vandalism or other acts of sabotage
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Beta News: Samsung Galaxy View2 Android 2 tablet: It's "Colossal."
What we don't know at the moment is just when the Galaxy View2 will be released, or how much it will cost.
But at least we know it's Colossal.
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BGRSpoiler-free review of "Avengers: Endgame."
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C|Net: Facebook facing fine that could exceed $5 Billion Dollars.
The FTC is looking into Facebook's privacy practices and determining if the company violated a legal agreement to keep user data private.
[.]
Still, Facebook's scandals didn't scare away advertisers or users. The company posted a better-than-expected $15.08 billion in sales in the first quarter and reported the number of users who logged on every month increased by 8%, to 2.38 billion.
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TechTalksWhat is ethical AI?
Human oversight means that no AI system should be able to perform its functions without some level of control by humans. This means that humans should either be directly involved in the decision-making process or have the option to review and override decisions made by an AI model.

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Computer World: Where are the April Windows patches?

Answer: Due sometime in June. Maybe July.
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Extreme Tech: Sony's 98-inch, 8K OLED TV.
The cutting edge of television technology will cost you[.]
[.]
This will be the 2019 flagship of the Sony television line and it ships in June. The Z9G measures 86.75 inches wide by 55.0 inches tall by 4.38 inches deep. For a cleaner look, it can be bracket-mounted to any wall that can support 208 pounds.
The price? $69,999.99.

- - -
Increasing numbers of implantable medical devices are now gaining internet connectivity, giving doctors the ability to monitor patients health remotely, and even update the devices to tweak a treatment plan. Unfortunately, that flexibility offers a way for hackers to hijack that hardware, and even potentially make changes to the way the devices work. While so far no attacks have been successful, proof-of-concept attacks have been available for years.

And while it might be tempting to hope that cybercriminals might see corrupting life-sustaining devices as a step too far, they haven't historically shown much of a conscience, cheerfully extorting money away from hospitals, for example, and putting patients at risk.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Tech News

AI:

TechTalks: In which direction is AI headed?
...we’ve reached a point where artificial intelligence algorithms can solve very complicated problems, and in many cases with speed and accuracy that is far superior to those of humans. But whether contemporary AI works likes the human mind is up for debate.
TechSpotAI coming soon to a McDonald's drive thru near you.
McDonald’s will put its newfound technology to work in the drive thru. Working in conjunction with the company’s digital menus, Dynamic Yield technology will account for factors like weather, time of day, current restaurant traffic and trending menu items to display items that customers are more likely to purchase.
[.]
McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said they have a really straightforward business. “People only come to us if they want something to eat, or something to drink. We’re not in the business of using technology to try to change people’s lives.”
McDonald's predictive menu ordering=here. Change people's lives? They'll get there sooner rather than later.

- - -
EU Articles 11 and 13 Copyright Reform:

Beta News: EU approves copyright reform despite massive opposition.
Known respectively as the "link tax" and the "upload filter", these two clauses have generated a great deal of interest from internet users and the technology industry alike. In particular, article 13 has proved especially controversial, holding websites responsible for material uploaded without a licence [sic] [.]
ZD NetSocial media platforms affected by new EU copyright regulations.
The European Parliament said the directive aims to ensure that copyright law also applies to the internet. It added that YouTube, Facebook and Google News are some of the internet household names that will be "most directly affected" by this legislation.
TechDirtMEP's say mistaken in their vote on Articles 11 and 13. EU replies, "pound sand.".
...the key vote was whether to allow amendments that could have deleted those two articles. That vote failed by just five votes, 317 to 312. Unfortunately, soon after the vote was finalized, a few of the MEPs who voted against the plan for amendments -- Peter Lundgren and Kristina Winberg -- said they voted incorrectly and meant to vote for the amendments in order to get rid of Articles 11 and 13. Apparently, someone changed the vote order which threw them off[.]
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Dark Reading: Russia regularly spoofs regional GPS.
A large-scale analysis of global positioning data has discovered widespread Russian spoofing over the past three years of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) used by ships and autonomous vehicle systems to find their positions and safely chart courses, according to a new report.

The report — published by the Center for Advanced Defense (C4ADS), a nonprofit intelligence firm focused on worldwide security issues — found that at least 9,883 instances of spoofing occurred near sensitive areas in Russia and Crimea and during times when high-ranking officials, such as President Vladamir Putin, were present.
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Ars TechniaMicrosoft discover Huawei driver that opened systems to attacks.
...it wasn't malware that was injecting and running code in a user process; it was a Huawei-written driver. Huawei's driver was supposed to act as a kind of watchdog: it monitored a regular user mode service that's part of the PCManager software, and if that service should crash or stop running, the driver would restart it. To perform that restart, the driver injected code into a privileged Windows process and then ran that code using an APC—a technique lifted straight from malware.
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TechnocracySweden expected to force banks to handle cash transactions.
Technocrats pushing for a cashless society are seriously conflicted as its flagship experiment in Sweden is coming unravelled. The people in Sweden have spoken, and cash stays. ⁃ TN Editor

Sweden will likely push through a proposal to force banks to keep offering cash to customers who require it as the Nordic nation grapples with how to balance the rapid transformation into a cashless society.
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Security WeekRansomware hits aluminum giant Norsk Hydro.
Norwegian metals and energy giant Norsk Hydro, one of the world’s biggest aluminum producers, has been hit by a ransomware attack that has impacted operations, forcing the company to resort to manual processes.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Norsk Hydro representatives revealed that the attack, which they described as extensive, started on Monday at around midnight, Norway time, when the company’s security team noticed some unusual activity on its global network. They said the ransomware is designed to encrypt files, but they have yet to determine exactly which malware family it belongs to.
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C|NetTwitter birthday prank will lockout your account.
The hoax, which appears to have begun making the rounds on Monday, promises to make users' feeds more "colourful" if they change the birth year in their profile to 2007. An early tweet on the trick has been retweeted more than 13,000 times[.]

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Huawei Conspired to steal T Mobile's trade secrets from Tappy the Robot.

Corporate espionage? This is a great Tech story.

NPR: DOJ case claims Huawei hi-jinx with Tappy the T Mobile Robot.
The Justice Department unsealed two separate indictments of Chinese telecom device maker Huawei on Monday. But only one of them reads like the script of a slapstick caper movie.

That would be the one that describes the U.S. government's case alleging that Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile, the wireless service company.

In the indictment, the government says that between June 2012 and September 2014, Huawei repeatedly made efforts to steal information about the design of a T-Mobile robot. The robot's name, adorably, is "Tappy."

We would like to include a photo here of Tappy, but photographing the robot is expressly prohibited by T-Mobile, and Tappy is kept under very tight security in a lab at T-Mobile headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.
[.]
Meanwhile, Huawei China was reportedly trying to build its own device-testing robot — named, less cutely, "xDeviceRobot" — and it was not finding much success. And Huawei's devices weren't faring well on T-Mobile's Tappy tests, failing more often than devices made by competitors.

In May 2012, Huawei USA asked if Huawei China could license the Tappy technology, and T-Mobile said no.

That's when Huawei began attempting to steal the design secrets of Tappy, according to the indictment.
"xDeviceRobot" ??

One area where China falls woefully behind the rest of the world is in naming their Tech-AI-Robo devices. Honestly...the best they could think of is "xDeviceRobot"? That's not much of a creative leap since the days of Johnny Sokko.

"Flying Robot" and not Tappy

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Tech News

Mobile Syrup: Google records Canadian customer phone calls using dummy number.
..the tech giant confirmed when a customer uses Google Local Services to call and connect with a business, the number listed is not the business’ contact but rather a dummy Google number that routes callers to the business.

Before customers are connected with business, they are informed that all calls are recorded.
You consented to this. This was likely all spelled out in your brief, clear, concise User Agreement, which of course, you read. Right?
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Mobile SyrupU.S. makes formal demand for Huawei extradition.
China demanded the U.S. drop the [extradition] request and blamed Washington for damaging its relationship with Canada.
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WIRED: The many woes of Huawei.
The UK, Canada, the Czech Republic, Norway, and Japan are all reportedly reconsidering their relationships with Huawei as well.
[.]
"These Huawei problems have been bubbling under the surface for quite a few years," telecom industry analyst Jeff Kagan says. "Now they are at a rapid boil, and there is no hiding from it. And this rapid boil is only going to get worse."
[.]
In a rare press conference Tuesday, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said the company doesn't spy on behalf of the Chinese government. "I support the Communist Party of China, but I will never do anything to harm any other nation," Ren said[.]
He added, "if you like your doctor, you can keep him." Nah, just jokin' there.
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Beta NewsMost-clicked phising lines of 2018.

2019 will probably be a bunch of variations of last years. Take a moment to read the story.
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ZD Net: Online casino dumps massive data.
An online casino group has leaked information on over 108 million bets, including details about customers' personal information, deposits, and withdrawals[.]
[.]
The data leaked from an ElasticSearch server that was left exposed online without a password[.]
Oh-oh-ooooooh...did you hear the "snap" of wedded bliss ("No honey, I told you I quit online gambling long ago."), and the New Hiring announcement for IT at ElasticSearch?
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GeekWatch the Moose chase the snowboarders.

No, not this moose...
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“Marty” is a limited-purpose robot but will still replace a number of entry-level jobs that are so important for teenagers just entering the workforce[.]
Welcome to the Avoided Mandated $15/hour Liberal Technocralypse.
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Tech CrunchPD's license plate readers still exposing data on internet.
Security researchers have been warning for years that ALPR devices are exposed and all too often accessible from the internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation found in 2015 dozens of exposed devices in its own investigation not long after Boston’s entire ALPR network was found exposed, thanks to a server security lapse.

But in the three years past, little has changed.
The story notes that, no big surprise here, police departments are failing to change the manufacturer's default password that comes with the product. WTF? Change the DEFAULT PASSWORD! What are the paid IT employess who work in law enforcement doing with their time?
- - -
Tech Spot: Oh....this is hot! Watch the making of a graphics card.
Most consumers are oblivious to the herculean efforts that go into hardware production. Robots and humans must work in perfect harmony to get the job done on time while minimizing mistakes. If you've never seen a production line in action, it's quite fascinating.

Sunday, January 20, 2019

Tech News

Extreme Tech: Don't Miss tonight's Super Blood Moon eclipse.

WIRED: What IS a "Super Blood Wolf Moon"?
- - -
Ars Technia: Facebook facing record-setting financial penalty by FTC.
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Ars Technia: Dr. Richard Sackler family blamed for Oxy addiction?
Members of the Sackler family, particularly Richard Sackler, aggressively pushed for extreme sales figures—and profits—which they accomplished in part by bullying their sales representatives; targeting vulnerable patients, such as the elderly and veterans; suggesting that the addictive opioid was an alternative to safe medications like Tylenol; and encouraging doctors to write longer and higher dose prescriptions, according to the lawsuit.
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UberGizmo: World's first 5G remote surgery conducted in China.
The test involved a doctor in the southeastern province of Fujian removing the liver of a laboratory test animal at a remote location. The doctor performed the surgery by controlling robotic surgical arms over a 5G connection.
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Tech News World: Cops can't compel unlocking of phone with body or physical parts.
"The Government may not compel or otherwise utilize fingers, thumbs, facial recognition, optical/iris, or any other biometric feature to unlock electronic devices," Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore wrote in an opinion for the U.S. District Court for Northern California.
[.]
Passcodes used to unlock devices already are protected by the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from forcing people to testify against themselves, she explained.
[.]
"The judge rightly recognized that traditional constitutional principles must be adapted as technology changes in order to preserve privacy and other rights ensured by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments," [said Alan Butler, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center].
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Tech CrunchBuilding a Chevy Silverado out of Legos. Or watch below.

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TechSpot: Ford's F-150 electric pickup truck.
Increased customer demand and rising competition have finally pushed Ford to announce the development of an electric version of the world and America’s best-selling truck: the F-150 pickup.
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C|NetFacebook adding "Petitions" to your news feed.
The social network will start rolling "Community Actions" out to its US users on Monday.
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Beta NewsWin 10 built-in screen recorder you might not know about.
You didn't know that Windows 10 could record videos of on-screen activity? You're not alone. The screen recorder is built into the Game bar and you may well not have seen it.
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Security Week: Bulgaria extradites Russian hacker to U.S.
Alexander Zhukov had been extradited on January 18 and was being held in a jail in Brooklyn, New York.
[.]
Zhukov is one of eight people, most of them Russian, indicted in November for creating fake advertising schemes through remote data centres and malware-infected computer networks.
 Well-known Russian "bad actor." Hacker status unconfirmed.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Tech News

Beta News: Big data breach.
#1 database leak exposes 773 million email addresses and 21 million passwords[.]
Yep. Everyone should update their current password of 'password' to something like 'qwerty123' or 'aDmin_678'.

ZD Net: Oklahoma govt breached big time.
An Oklahoma Department of Securities server allowed anyone to download government files[.]
"The data was exposed via an unsecured rsync service at an IP address registered to the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES), allowing any user from any IP address to download all the files stored on the server," the researchers say. 
GizmodoHow to stop worrying about data breaches.
[A] rundown of the three most important pieces of crafting a healthy security routine and never sweating another password leak[.]
Nextgov: ID card manufacturer and service provider used by federal agencies have vulnerabilities.
...the system used by IDenticard, called PremiSys, which if exploited could allow an unauthorized person to gain access to secure buildings and disable locks, as well as exfiltrate user data or otherwise modify accounts using administrator privileges.
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TechCrunch: Coming soon via the govt shutdown - Expiring HTTPS federal web sites.
Depending on the security level, most websites will kick back browser errors. Some won’t let you in at all until the expired certificate is renewed.
[.]
Eric Mill, a security expert [said] that fears over expired certificates have been overblown.
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FanbyteOverwatch game charcter Soldier 76 gayness causing controversy.
...with the addition of Soldier: 76, the total number of queer characters is two out of a roster of 29. Making Soldier gay, more so than even Tracer[.]
[.]
But both characters suffer from the aforementioned Blizzard ethos of “experiences” over “story.”
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How to make global warming climate change Alarmist's heads explode (like in "Scanners"). Tell them that Apple may scrap plans for their self-driving cars. Ubergizmo:
Apple is working on developing technology for self-driving cars.
[.]
However it seems like those plans could be scrapped[.]
Did you hear the collective heads pop? Messy! Clean-up crews being dispatched. This may take a while, folks. Your patience is appreciated.
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New AtlasThe 2019 Detroit Auto Show. Lots of images to look at. Some nice, others, well - I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.
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New Atlas: A DIY Tiny-House for around $10 Grand.
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Tech Dirt: Irish Supermacs bitch-slaps "Big-Mac" in EU.
McDonald's Corp has lost its rights to the trademark "Big Mac" in a landmark European Union (EU) case ruling in favour of Ireland-based fast-food chain Supermac's, according to a decision by European regulators.
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The below video at Digg, so yeah, it's Tech. Go "full screen" or watch at the link. Bet ya watch it more than once. Yep, their Best Friends! So darn cute.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Tech News

9 NewsTwo Huawei employees arrested in Poland; spying allegations.
Poland has arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a Polish [Huawei] cyber business specialist on allegations of spying.
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Information Week: How to manage the Internet of Things (IOT).
Once data is collected in central storage, analytics on the entire body of data can be run to produce the most inclusive and holistic picture of the business.
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MIT Review: When China decides to really hack the rest of the world.
Many thought the internet would bring democracy to China. Instead it empowered rampant government oppression, and now the censors are turning their attention to the rest of the world.
Or North Korea. Or Russia. Or those godless Tuvaluians.
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TechDirtFacebook not helping Vietnamese government censor critics quickly enough.
...the government is going to do other vague things ("necessary economic and technical measures") to hurt Facebook and "ensure a clean and healthy network environment." One "necessary economic measure" is somehow blocking Facebook from collecting money for "hatred advertising," whatever the hell that is.
WTH is "hatred advertising"? Anyone wanna take a shot at defining it?

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO/Censor.
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Following an anonymous tip, TechCrunch commissioned a report from online safety startup AntiToxin to investigate. The results were alarming.
Alarming is an understatement. Stop using Bing. Over on the far-right sidebar, scroll down and look for "Search Engine Alternatives To Google." Start using any of them and make Google and Bing history.
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Tech CrunchSpaceX to lay off hundreds
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US cable providers still do not even support live 4K broadcasts, but CBS Sports is going to try out its 8K cameras at the Super Bowl anyways.
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The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown [...] Consequently, government websites are dropping like flies, with no one being on hand to renew TLS certificates.
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Earlier this week, AT&T said it "only permit[s] sharing of location when a customer gives permission for cases like fraud prevention or emergency roadside assistance or when required by law." But the Motherboard investigation showed that the data was being re-sold on the black market, allowing pretty much anyone to get the location of other people's phones.
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It looks like "It's" here. TechnocracyIBM launches Quantum-Computer-In-A-Box.
The 20-qubit IBM Q System One represents the first major leap for quantum computers of 2019[.]
Quantum in a Box

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Dark Over Lord Hackers release more 9/11 documents.

As part of the recent hack relating to Germany, a second drop of info was released regarding September 11. RT:
The Dark Overlord hacker group has released decryption keys for a second batch of 9/11 documents, totalling [sic] over 7,500 files. Additional document leaks containing “more secrets” and “more truth” have been promised, for a price.
[.]
...the documents build up a picture of insurance litigators brainstorming to see who they could sue for damages in the wake of the attacks. In emails, the lawyers discuss targeting the airlines, airplane manufacturers, the Federal Aviation Authority, the terrorists themselves, and foreign entities.
[.]
Along the way, the litigators discuss whether then-President George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the attacks, or whether the Saudi Royal family was responsible, but this discussion is speculative and no damning new information is revealed.

While the encryption key for the first batch of documents has been scrubbed from Reddit, Pastebin and Twitter, it remained available for several days on Steemit. Dark Overlord’s account was banned from the platform on Wednesday, however, but the documents can be accessed on Busy.org, a website that runs on the same blockchain as Steemit.
CyberscoopDark Over Lord was seeking new hires.
“Do YOU want to get Rich? Come work for us!,” The Dark Overlord wrote in a Nov. 14, 2018, thread on KickAss Forum, a cybercriminal marketplace on the dark web that charges for entry.
See. The economy under President Trump is even good for hiring, hacking and extortion!

Monday, January 7, 2019

German Data Hack

Hacked info on German politicians and celebrities has been published on the web. Presumably, the German pols and celebs refused to pay the ransom.

The hacking group behind this is The Dark Over Lord. (DOL). DOL has been posting on Steemit.

This is an interesting event, if there is substance in the data that has been allegedly hacked. Germany's Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, seeks answers on the success of the hack. DW:
The interior minister said he would share everything he finds out with the public by the middle of the next week at the latest.
But it gets more complicated than that. Same link:
German political parties have criticized the country's cyber defense agency, the Federal Office for IT Safety (BSI), for its handling of the data breach.

The BSI clarified that it only became aware  of the full extent of the breach earlier this week on Saturday, a day after BSI chief Arne Schönbohm said the agency had known about isolated breaches in early December.

The Green party's parliamentary leader, Anton Hofreiter, demanded Schönbohm explain himself urgently to an extraordinary parliamentary committee meeting.

The deputy leader of the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), Wolfgang Kubicki, suggested that Schönbohm should quit.

"A president who first says he's known about the breach since the beginning of December and then backtracks to say he's only known about it since January 3 must ask himself if he's the right man for the job," he said.
Something is amiss here with BSI. What, I don't know. Or has yet to be discovered and reported.

While the DOL was a Big Hack, the Island Packet states, it doesn't appear to have revealed any major political scandals. (Not even one, lost Hillary email?)


WIRED writes: 
The trove of leaked documents is massive but early assessments indicate that it seems focused less on exposing state secrets than it does on revealing deeply personal information about its targets. The exposed data includes internal political communications, like emails and scans of faxes, along with credit card information, home addresses, phone numbers, personal identification card details, private chat logs, and even voicemails from relatives and children.
Not so fast on the "no scandals/no secrets". At Computer Business Review, the second link of this post, the story states the hack revealed a lot of information that is mirrored (duplicated) at numerous sites and there's a lot of data to comb through.
The leak was made with strenuous effort to ensure that the leaked documents can’t easily be taken down. There there over 70 mirrors of the initial download link alone, while each of the 40 download links has another 3-5 mirrors each.

Each of the tens of thousands of files uploaded appears to have its own or indeed multiple mirrors; something that would have taken a huge amount of manpower.
[.]
“3 percent” of the data had already revealed “cases of corruption and bad political scandals”. 4chan users were already revelling [sic] in some of the scandals today, from sexual proclivities to Wikipedia edits by politicians.
Tru News reports the DOL has begun releasing 9/11 documents.
By themselves, the new documents don’t set off too many alarms, but they do establish that The Dark Overlord certainly had access to sensitive materials.
[.]
[The DOL states], “The United States of America & All Involved Parties,” also added:

“This is a message for the nation-state of the United States of America and the greater deep-state.

“We're going to continue to bend you over a barrel and [expletive] you if our demands are not met. You know the score. Your censorship and fakenews coverups won't silence this organisation or its public support. You were warned. To all the other parties involved (airlines, litigation firms, investigation firms, FBI, TSA, FAA, banks, security companies and more), we're going to burn you down unless you begin to 'play ball'. This entire situation will soon become far more tragick to your survival. Make the right choise.

“We're peeling these layers back like an onion. No one can save you except for us. Pay the [expletive] up.”

The use of English grammar and punctuation, particularly in the ransom demands, strongly suggests the author of both statements is not from the U.S.
Or, grammatically incorrect on purpose? Or, so the Germans would have us believe? I'm not making light of anything here with that last link, who knows what information could have been hacked? We won't know until, or if, it's leaked. The DOL story is not unlike Q, or QAnon, which Phil explained so well.

For me, at times I find it difficult making sense out of the time-lines, and determining what's important and what to disregard, on issues like this at the threads at the Chan sites. This global hack, and issues like it, will reveal themselves over time. I'd imagine any explosive revelation in any forthcoming release from the hack would be headlined everywhere. We'll see. Your thoughts?

Saturday, December 29, 2018

Newspapers under Cyberattack

No lulls as we close-out the last few days of 2018.

ABC 7, Chicago: Cyberattack from outside U.S. hit major newspapers.
Tribune Publishing -- which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers impacted -- reported the attack to the FBI on Friday, the Chicago Tribune reported Saturday.
Global NewsCyberattack responsible for delays in newspaper distribution.
The cyberattack appeared to originate outside the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a source with knowledge of the situation.
[...]
“There is no evidence that customer credit card information or personally identifiable information has been compromised,” [said Tribune Publishing spokeswoman Marisa Kollias, explaining] the virus hurt back-office systems used to publish and produce “newspapers across our properties.”
SBS NewsSophisticated cyberattack hits U.S. newspapers.
The computer problem shut down a number of crucial software systems that store news stories, photographs and administrative information, and made it difficult to create the plates used to print the papers at The Times' downtown plant.
This attack on U.S. newspapers must be the work of Trump and Russia/Putin or Trump and North Korea/Kimmy Junior. Good for him/them.

Monday, December 17, 2018

World News

Former Apprentice staffer claims Trump "abused Adderall." NZ Herald:
Noel Casler allegedly worked in talent logistics [and claims], [President Trump], "... gets nervous and he crushes up these pills. That's why he's sniffing when you see him in debates, and when you see him reading."
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The GuardianU.S. Gov Shutdown Looms:
Monday brought few signs of progress in solving a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over keeping the government open. A partial shutdown that could occur at midnight Friday[.]
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Twitter observed a large amount of traffic to the customer support site coming from individual internet IP addresses in China and Saudi Arabia.

"While we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors," the blog said.
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TRT WorldRussia meddled in social media in U.S. politics:
Russia’s sweeping political disinformation campaign on US social media was more far-reaching than originally thought, with troll farms working to discourage black voters and “blur the lines between reality and fiction”[.]
This story will never make sense to me. How is the above any different from me (or any other blogger or writer, or group of,) writing a factual, fictional, or embellished blog entry on Hillary Clinton, or Theresa May or any other public figure seeking office? Unless people have more faith in social media than I ever thought possible and they really believe that "it must be true, I read it on the internets."
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Daily MailGoldman Sachs hit by Malaysia fraud scandal:
Goldman Sachs has been hit with fraud charges in Malaysia after allegedly helping to pillage £2.1 billion from a sovereign wealth fund.
[.]
It is the latest twist in a saga which has been catastrophic for Goldman's reputation, with shares down over a third this year. The stock was hit again yesterday, dropping nearly 3 per cent in New York.
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CSM: No-deal Brexit brings risk of traffic gridlock:
In the event of a major backlog at the Port of Dover, 50 miles away, this stretch of highway would become a temporary truck park.

What kind of calamity might cause such a monstrous snarl-up?

In a word, Brexit.
The Herald-ScotlandCorbyn increases pressure on Theresa May with no-confidence vote:
Jeremy Corbyn has sought to pile the pressure on Theresa May by tabling a no-confidence vote in her[.]
The ScotsmanMay dares Labour to topple government:
Theresa May has dared Labour to try and topple her government after she announced the Commons would not vote on her proposed Brexit deal until the middle of January[.]
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Protesters converge on Hungary public broadcaster. AFP:
Anti-government protests in Hungary hit the country's public broadcaster on Monday, with the opposition galvanised by the furious reaction to a controversial new labour law.
[.]
MPs had demanded access to the studios to read out a petition against the government and what they call its "slave" labour law.

MTVA security guards forcibly ejected independent MPs Akos Hadhazy and Bernadett Szel, sparking criticism online.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Tech News

Data breach at Amazon - ITPro Portal:
Amazon may have suffered a data breach that saw customer names and email addresses leaked.
[.]
...users confirmed on Twitter that they had gotten an email from Amazon, which the retailer later confirmed to be genuine, notifying them that the data has been shared, accidentally.

We don't know how it happened, exactly when it happened, or who the information was shared with / to. 
Who knew? No one saw this coming.
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No one saw this coming either: Is your CPAP machine spying on you? ArsTechnia:
Tony Schmidt discovered something unsettling about the machine that helps him breathe at night. Without his knowledge, it was spying on him.
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A multimillionaire businessman from South Sudan’s capital city reportedly won the auction after offering a record “price” — of 530 cows, three Land Cruiser V8 cars and $10,000 — to marry the child, Nyalong Ngong Deng Jalang.
Disgusting. FB needs to be held accountable.
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C|NetLeather clad, luxury laptop:
Instead of taking a slim laptop and sticking it in a leather sleeve, as one might do with any other similar system, the leather case here is built right in. No, it's not Corinthian leather, but it's still pretty nice.

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ZD Net - Everything you need to know about the cannabis industry:
...marijuana is one of the most exciting growth industries in the US as it becomes legal in some states, attracts investment, and becomes a vertical that can utilize multiple technologies ranging from the internet of things to cloud to analytics.
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When to hire a cyber security expert? Tech News World:
[Cyber security] itself is increasing in importance, it remains a truism that many smaller organizations (and in fact, some mid-sized ones) don't have specialized security expertise on staff.
Is is too late for Amazon?
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Time-travel into the past. 13 years ago, Microsoft trashes Linux. BetaNews:
Linux bashing is nothing new for Microsoft, which has set up a dedicated Web site to detail why customers should choose Windows Server over the open source operating system. This week at the IT Forum, Microsoft announced the results of a new study that shows Windows as more reliable and easier to manage than Linux.
What a joke. Keep releasing "patches", MS, for your wonderful OS.
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'Smart Watch' tracker of children easy to hack. TechDirt
A location-tracking smartwatch worn by thousands of children has proven... you guessed it... rather trivial to hack. The MiSafes Kid's Watcher Plus is a "smart watch for kids" that embeds a 2G cellular radio and GPS technology, purportedly to let concerned helicopter parents track their kids' location at all times. But security researchers at UK's Pen Test Partners have issued a report calling the devices comically unsecure.
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Technology.Org64 SpaceX satellites ready to launch:
...the U.S. kicked around the idea of putting large reflectors in orbit during the Vietnam war, effectively abolishing night over southeast Asia. There have also been ideas to put advertising in space… though for now, you won’t have to worry about Pepsi or McDonald’s logos drifting through your astrophotos.
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Five songs that could make you a dangerous driver. The Drive:
British car loan financier Moneybarn recently released a study outlining how our choice in music can affect our driving. It found that songs with tempos that exceed 120 beats per minute (bpm) can make people subconsciously drive faster, which makes them more liable to draw negative attention from law enforcement.
[.]
...the 12th most common song on driving (or riding) playlists, AC/DC's "Back In Black" has the misfortune of being the cliche soundtrack for Baby Boomers on Harley Davidsons. Again, it doesn't tip the scales for high-energy lyrical content, but its tempo of 188 bpm is eclipsed by just one song on the chart.
Make it so loud that my ears bleed! 
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Bleeping Computer - Firefox 65 improvements in Content Blocking settings:
Firefox 65, Mozilla is overhauling how users can configure the Content Blocking settings. With this version, the previously confusing configuration is replaced by three different modes that a user can select that offer varying degrees of blocking and customization.
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Technocracy - Are Smart-Meters spying on you?
“What limits have been placed on data collection and permissions for data collection beyond monthly billing cycle totals?” [asks Smithfield Township supervisors in a] letter dated Nov. 14, to FirstEnergy’s president, regional president, state president, the state Office of Consumer Advocates and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. “The notice sent to our residents makes no mention of this, yet is it is of prime concern to us in order to protect and secure data of our residential households.”
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UbergizmoFuture Apple watches may monitor UV exposure.
Apple has filed for a patent that describes how future Apple Watches could come with a built-in UV sensors that are embedded around the frame of the Apple Watch. These sensors will alert the wearer when they’ve been exposed for too long.
Because...everything is dangerous and we need Apple to save us.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Tech News

Non-high-tech voting; circa 1994...

One vulnerability they discovered—in a high-speed vote-tabulating system used to count votes for entire counties in 23 states—could allow an attacker to remotely hijack the system over a network and alter the vote count, changing results for large blocks of voters. "Hacking just one of these machines could enable an attacker to flip the Electoral College and determine the outcome of a presidential election," the authors of the report warned.
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SEC Sues Elon MuskFrom C|Net:
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to bar Elon Musk from serving as an executive or director of any publicly traded company.
More on Elon MuskFrom Gizmodo:
[Elon Musk is]  accused of tweeting on LSD, sued for defamation by a cave diver he called “pedo guy,” given a “weepy” interview to the New York Times, and admitted that this whole going private thing just isn’t going to work out.

Among other things, the SEC wants Musk to pay civil penalties and be “prohibited from acting as an officer or director of any issuer that has a class of securities registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act.”
 I dunno...seems like the SEC is overreacting and over-reaching.
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ZD Net: New AI can identify guns in crowds and alert authorities about an active shooter.
The trick during development was to create a computer vision algorithm that continuously monitors cameras without reporting too many false positives, a weakness of past attempts at AI gun detection technology.
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And "they" say there's no way to meet new people these days. More than you care to know about fecal transplants. Geek:
The process involves collecting feces from a healthy donor, processing it, and delivering it into the colon of the recipient.

What a fun way to meet new people.
Image credit: Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay



So this is the one time in life when, if it comes to it, you can actually say to the donor person, "Hey, thanks for the shit,"...and mean it literally.
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Any gamer on top of their game already knows this, but Gamer Alert anyway. From BetaNews:
- - the new season of Fortnite has arrived! With the arrival of Fortnite Season 6: Darkness Rises and the V6.00 patch, Epic Games put its servers into maintenance mode in preparation.
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And in that good-ole, reliable, stable, high-standard, secure platform of MS Win 10 (snicker, snicker), a Fourth set of Win 10 cumulative updates patches issued in two weeks. Computer World:
In the past 15 days, we’ve had four cumulative updates for Win10 version 1803[:]
[.]
Apparently, KB 4458469 v2 is a Wednesday fix for a botched Thursday kitchen-sink cumulative update, which followed a Monday cumulative update that specifically fixed a bug introduced in the Patch Tuesday patch. Got that?
[.]
But wait. The weirdities don’t end there.
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Tech News World - Poorly designed websites no excuse for Terms of Agreement "fine print".
...legally valid sales agreements need to demonstrate clearly that both vendors and consumers are aware of -- and consent to -- the terms of the agreements. It is especially important for vendors to ward off expensive class action suits by including contract terms that prohibit such suits and instead rely on arbitration to resolve any issues with consumers.

Yet recent federal court cases indicate that poorly presented Internet contracts can result in the nullification of arbitration provisions and class action prohibitions -- thus giving consumers greater leverage in legal disputes with vendors.
Image: Damon Day
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NASA says it has now pinned down three causes for this shift. As expected, the loss of polar ice is a major contributor.
The other two "wobbly Axis" contributing factors are, oddly, the same: The Lard Lad Michael Moore's  spatial relationship at any moment and point on the earth in relation to the specific location to the rest of the world's 99% human population.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

Tech News

Future of Life Institute - The Pledge Against Lethal Autonomous Weapons:
...we the undersigned agree that the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine. There is a moral component to this position, that we should not allow machines to make life-taking decisions for which others – or nobody – will be culpable. There is also a powerful pragmatic argument: lethal autonomous weapons, selecting and engaging targets without human intervention, would be dangerously destabilizing for every country and individual.
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The Seattle Times - Your passwords have probably been hacked and what to do about it:
An Australian security guru named Troy Hunt spends his days looking in dark corners of the Internet to add hacked data to this free site. It now totals half a billion exposed passwords and 5 billion hacked accounts. Hunt can hardly keep up.
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I love her because Apple and Google hate her.  Gadgets Now:
[Apple CEO Tim] “lectured her on corporate tax”, according to the Wired. Once the decision was out, Cook allegedly in private said that it was “political crap.”
Fuck. Tim. Cook.
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Tech News WorldIs your Smart TV spying on you?
Did you know that fancy smart TV sitting in your living room, kitchen, bedroom or bathroom actually may be watching you?
[.]
If you are a marketer, you love it. You can get loads of user data for your marketing. However, if you are a consumer who cares about protecting your privacy, you feel invaded.
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...a whole lot of people unfamiliar with gaming rape culture found out earlier this month, when [an avatar] was gang-raped on a playground by two male avatars in the hugely popular, typically family-friendly game [Roblox].
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(MF'g Google. SOBs). C|NetGoogle tries to hi-jack DuckDuckGo.com:
Google owns Duck.com, which has been driving rival search engine DuckDuckGo up the wall for over six years. Because when you type "duck.com" into a web browser, you get Google.com. Doesn't make a lot of sense, yes?
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Tech DirtIndia embraces net neutrality. U.S. run in opposite direction:
...the United States walks away from the concept of net neutrality, India just passed some of the toughest net neutrality rules in the world.
[.]
Facebook engaged in some shady behavior, at one point trying to trick Indian citizens into supporting its plans and opposing meaningful net neutrality protections
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PC Authority: Game potions are classified as real drugs?
["Joy"] isn’t the first drug-related run-in with the Australian Classification Board that videogames have had. One of the last infamous interactions occurred when Fallout 3 attempted to be classified here, but needed to be altered to remove references to morphine in-game.
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To offer you writing assistance, Grammarly requires access to everything you type. From your social media posts to technical reports, everything is accessed by the extension to be able to catch the typos. However, this also means that any security flaw affecting Grammarly puts user data at risk of exposure.
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The Outline - What really scares teens?
I took to Reddit, texted my friend’s younger brother, and enlisted a handful of people under 20 to watch my “favorite” Gen Z horror movies and the trailers for those upcoming films, and then tell me about their experiences.
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The Drive - The $200,000 air-ride Hummer:
...just about everything aside from the H1's original frame saw an upgrade. Mil-Spec put a ton of focus into adding sound-deadening and making the Hummer much more livable than General Motors ever did. Now, the shop has come out with another build that ups the comfort ante by including air-ride technology.
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...WiFi security is often sacrificed by airport operators in exchange for consumer convenience, leaving networks unencrypted, unsecured or improperly configured[.]
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HackRead - LabCorp suffers massive data breach:
...cybercriminals have managed to breach the security of America’s leading clinical laboratory and medical diagnostics center LabCorp that can put health records of not thousands but millions of patients at risk.
[.]
[LabCorp] is responsible for performing routine and specialty diagnostic tests including HIV tests, bloodwork and urine analysis.
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WIRED - You can’t sue your way to a solution for global warming.
Facing billions of dollars in climate change-related damage in the coming years, New York was hoping to extract some money from the transnational companies that extract the oil that people burn for energy[.]
States, cities, municipalities - all most overspending and all desperately looking for more revenue money. There's no one else left to sue. May I suggest "drastic budget reductions"?
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Technology Review - Google looking to help speed up quantum computing:
[Google's] Cirq, is a software toolkit that lets developers create algorithms without needing a background in quantum physics.
[.]
For now, developers can use Cirq to create quantum algorithms that run on simulators. But the goal is to have it help build software that will run on a wide range of real machines in the future.
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Info World - Powering AI:
The range of innovative AI hardware-accelerator architectures continues to expand. Although you may think that graphic processing units (GPUs) are the dominant AI hardware architecture, that is far from the truth.
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WHAT are they? Tech E BlogThe coolest cabins ever.