More happy news for your Friday

(I hope you didn’t eat at a Wendy’s recently..)

Absolutely none of this should surprise you.

First up:
* Hackers Can Steal Your ATM PIN from Your Smartwatch Or Fitness Tracker

“As your day-to-day apparel and accessories are turning into networked mobile electronic devices that attach to your body like smartwatch or fitness band, the threat to our personal data these devices collect has risen exponentially.” Read more..

(There are Privacy concerns with those dang things too, BTW.)

And..
* Flaw Allows Attackers to Remotely Tamper with BMW’s In-Car Infotainment System

“The Internet of things or connected devices are the next big concerns, as more Internet connectivity means more access points which mean more opportunities for hackers. When it comes to the threat to Internet of Things, Car Hacking is a hot topic. Since many automobiles companies are offering..” Read more..

* This Android Hacking Group is making $500,000 per day

“The bad news for affected Android users is that Hummer is extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of, because the Trojan takes control of the phone at admin level, making it impossible for traditional antivirus tools to uninstall Hummer.

The dangerous part: It is impossible to delete the Trojan through a factory reset due to the fact Hummer comes equipped with up to 18 different separate rooting exploits that allow it to root itself on a phone..” Read more..

( Infecting a million phones each day…!!! )

And last but not least..
* Over 1000 Wendy’s Restaurants Hit by Credit Card Hackers

“The Popular fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s on Thursday admitted that a massive cyber attack had hit more than 1,000 of its restaurants across the country. The burger chain did not speculate how many people may have been affected, though it did confirm that the hackers were able to steal its …” Read more..

So.. let’s see if I can come up with a good quote after all that news..

Today’s quote: “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” ~ Ernest Holmes

(And I’m thinkin’ it’s time to Just Say No to our current tech… All of us.)

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

The More You Know, the Less You Want to Know

(aka “The News Keeps Getting Brighter and Brighter.”)

sigh.. okay folks. Be aware:

* Traveling to US? Agencies want to Spy on your Social Media activities right from Airport

“Hey! Welcome to the United States. May we have your Twitter handle, please? That’s exactly what you’ll likely be asked by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the airport prior to entering U.S. soil. Yes, your Twitter handle may soon be part of the US Visa process as U.S. Customs and Border … ” Read More..

Of course, that’s just par for our course. And so is this:

* Dozens of Malicious Apps on Play Store can Root & Hack 90% of Android Devices

“It’s not at all surprising that the Google Play Store is surrounded by a large number of malicious apps that has the ability to gain users’ attention into falling victim for one, but this time, it is even worse than most people realize. Researchers at Trend Micro have detected a family of … ” Read more..

* * *

Today’s quote: “I’m not advocating we should all be back in the kitchen and cooking all the time, because life’s too short and we’ve got more interesting things to do. But to rediscover the intense pleasure of making a cake and putting it down on the table is ridiculously satisfying, out of all proportion to the work.” ~ Jane Asher

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Today’s ‘Must Read’

Folks, here’s an article I recommend everybody reads.. even those who are ‘not techies’. (Especially those..)

* How one hacker exposed thousands of insecure desktops that anyone can remotely view

“Imagine being given the keys to the internet. One minute you could be looking at a building’s air conditioning panel, a pharmacist’s inventory, and a Windows programmer’s console, and the next minute it’s a school administrator’s email inbox, and a touch-screen toilet customer satisfaction monitor (which, sadly isn’t a joke).” Read more..

[ read it and find out why the weakest link in the chain is us.. ]

*     *     *

Today’s quote: “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

How to disappear from the Internet

And other Items of Interest

Folks, a few things for your Friday.

* Podcast: How to disappear from the internet

“On this week’s episode of the TechRepublic podcast, Frank Ahern reveals the secrets of skip tracing and social engineering. Frank also explains how to disappear completely and never be found.” Cick here.

* Why Microsoft’s ‘Tay’ AI bot went wrong

“She was supposed to come off as a normal teenage girl. But less than a day after her debut on Twitter, Microsoft’s chatbot—an AI system called “Tay.ai”—unexpectedly turned into a Hitler-loving, feminist-bashing troll. So what went wrong? TechRepublic turns to the AI experts for insight into what happened and how we can learn from it..” Read more..

[ “AI” is “Artificial Intelligence” ] [ And the whole idea of AI gives me the creeps.. Remember Hal in Space Odyssey? ]

* Cloud plus artificial intelligence is creating The Matrix (and that’s a good thing)

“A study by advisory firm Leading Edge Forum titled Embracing ‘the Matrix’ and the Machine Intelligence Era, suggests that the combination of cloud computing and artificial and machine intelligence (MI) “will increasingly be able to perform just about everything that companies and individuals do, and many things that we cannot“.” Read more..

[ .. a good thing? Replaced by a machine a “good thing”?? ]

* Just look at these crazy-spendy luxury gadgets

“The luxury tech market is full of gadgets that you did not even know you wanted … until now” VIEW THE GALLERY

… well, I think that’s enough for now. It’s Good Friday. Be well.

Today’s quote: “My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.” ~ A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

While I was away…

Let’s take a look at some of the recent headlines in Tech. (In no particular order..)

* FCC privacy rules can’t stop ‘gold rush’ in personal data

“The flourishing ‘surveillance capitalism’ that profits from selling consumers’ personal data will be little affected by the new rules.” Read More..

* Malvertising Campaign Hits Top Websites to Spread Ransomware

“Hackers are always in search for an elite method to create loopholes in the cyberspace to implement the dark rules in the form of vulnerability exploitation. Top Trustworthy sites such as The New York Times, BBC, MSN, AOL and many more are on the verge of losing their face value as a …” Read more..

* Warning — Hackers can Silently Install Malware to Non-Jailbroken iOS Devices

“Hard time for mobile phone users! Just recently, two severe vulnerabilities in Qualcomm Snapdragon chip and Stagefright were spotted on the Android platform, affecting more than a Billion and Millions of devices respectively. And now: Hackers have discovered a new way to install malicious apps ..” Read more..

* Apple users, beware: First live ransomware targeting Macs …

“Security researchers have discovered what they believe to be the first-ever ransomware attack targeted at Apple users that actually made it out …” Read more..

* Android Trojan infiltrates mobile firmware, Trend Micro apps

“An Android Trojan which displays unwanted ads and installs nuisance software on mobile devices has been discovered in the firmware of smartphones and in popular Android applications, according to researchers.” Read more..

[ “firmware” is chip-level coding, which comes into play when you first power up, but before the operating system (and therefore, any ‘anti-virus’) launches. ]

* The 18 scariest computer viruses of all time (slideshow)

And, there’s also Apple vs the F.B.I., and other delightful stories… But.. none of them are happy.

Today’s quote: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Items to be aware of

Folks,
I do have some reading reco’s for you.

* Windows 10 bumps up support-call traffic

“.. the volume of calls has been about double that of previous Windows releases. Most of the support questions “focused on problems with usability and a desire to revert [to Windows 7 or 8], instead of how to use the new OS,” Read more..

* NSA whistleblower: No software is ‘safe from surveillance’

“A former NSA official said the agency has “more resources” for surveillance than the average user can ever hope to defend against.” Read more..
[I like the final sentence.]

Best for last: How Microsoft’s data case could unravel the US tech industry

“The case, if lost, could see a mass exodus of international customers from the US cloud.” Read more..

[Regardless of surveillance, or “data ownership” legalities. IMHO you should not trust the “cloud”. Period. Businesses? Forget it. Yet.. it keeps snow-balling..]

*    *     *

Today’s quote: “My favorite parable for living a positive and influential life is the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.‘” ~ Tony Oller

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

More news about drones…

After the recent security conference, the scary/bad headlines are actually too numerous to list. But here’s an item of particular interest.

* How Drones Can Find and Hack Internet-of-Things Devices From the Sky

“Security researchers have developed a Flying Drone with a custom-made tracking tool capable of sniffing out data from the devices connected to the Internet – better known as the Internet-of-things. Under its Internet of Things Map Project, a team of security researchers at the Texas-based firm Praetorian wanted to create a searchable database that will be the Shodan search engine for SCADA … ” Read more..

On the brighter side: This protest/warning against Big Data/Facebook/Data Mining/NSA/etc. is much more pleasant.

Today’s quote: “There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.” ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.