All posts tagged: Evergreens

How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

Published by skeptic

More and more hackers are targeting regular people with the goal of stealing their crypto, perhaps getting into their bank accounts or simply stalking them. These types of attacks are still relatively rare, so there’s no need for alarm. But it’s important to know what you can do to protect yourself if you suspect someone got into your email or social media account. A few years ago, I wrote a guide to help people protect themselves, and understand that most of the companies you have an account with already offer you tools to take control of your accounts’ security, even before you contact them for help, which in some cases you still should do.  Here we break down what you can do on several different online services.  Just like in the previous guide, there’s an important caveat. You should know that these methods don’t guarantee that you haven’t been compromised. If you still aren’t sure, you should contact a professional, especially if you are a journalist, a dissident or activist, or otherwise someone who has …

The biggest data breaches in 2024: 1 billion stolen records and rising

Published by skeptic

We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you think that some of these hacks can’t get any worse, they do. From huge stores of customers’ personal information getting scraped, stolen and posted online, to reams of medical data covering most people in the United States getting stolen, the worst data breaches of 2024 to date have already surpassed at least 1 billion stolen records and rising. These breaches not only affect the individuals whose data was irretrievably exposed, but also embolden the criminals who profit from their malicious cyberattacks. Travel with us to the not-so-distant past to look at how some of the biggest security incidents of 2024 went down, their impact and. in some cases, how they could have been stopped.  AT&T’s data breaches affect “nearly all” of its customers, and many more non-customers For AT&T, 2024 has been a very bad year for data security. The telecoms giant confirmed not one, but two separate …

TikTok ban: How Congress could force ByteDance to sell or push the app out of the US

TikTok ban: How Congress could force ByteDance to sell or push the app out of the US

Published by skeptic

TikTok faces an uncertain fate in the U.S. once again. In a 352 to 65 vote Wednesday, the House voted to pass a bill that could lead to a national TikTok ban. After a surprise flurry of bipartisan activity in the House, the legislation advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and made its way to the full floor vote in the chamber. Now, the bill’s fate lies in the Senate, but that chamber of Congress is decidedly more mixed on the prospect of a forced sale of the app — or a full-fledged TikTok ban in the U.S. TikTok is based in Los Angeles and Singapore but is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. That relationship has raised eyebrows among U.S. officials, who warn that the app could be leveraged to further the interests of an adversary. The bill’s critics argue that the U.S. is unfairly targeting a well-loved social network when the government could be dealing with household issues that directly benefit Americans. What happens now? The new bill, which would …

How crowdfunding actually works in 2024, and whether you should use it to raise money

How crowdfunding actually works in 2024, and whether you should use it to raise money

Published by skeptic

Crowdfunding is to financing what Uber is to taxis or what Airbnb is to hotels: Using the wisdom and resources of the crowd to raise money. Usually, crowdfunding brings many smaller investors or donors together to fund a business, startup or personal initiative. The concept is based on the collective effort of a large number of individuals investing small amounts and leveraging the internet as a platform to present their campaigns and reach potential investors worldwide. To put it in simple terms, crowdfunding is the modern-day equivalent of tossing coins in a hat to help create funds for a cause or idea. Essentially, it is when an individual, startup or organization pitches their idea to a large pool of potential investors with the hopes of raising a specific amount of money. Types of crowdfunding Broadly, there are four types of crowdfunding: Reward-based crowdfunding: Backers give money to a project and receive a tangible item or service in return. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are popular platforms for this type. Equity crowdfunding: Investors receive a stake in the …

How Emily Dickinson’s Family Objects Were Almost Lost

How Emily Dickinson’s Family Objects Were Almost Lost

Published by skeptic

Few American writers are more intimately connected to a single house than Emily Dickinson was. Apart from brief trips to Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., the reclusive Dickinson did not stray far from her comfortable two-story residence in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she wrote nearly 2,000 poems. Only a handful were published in her lifetime, and all anonymously. The house, known as the Dickinson Homestead, and its contents—every sherry glass, quilt, and doll’s slipper—were the locus of her imagination. For Dickinson, the domestic and the literary form one seamless line. Last week, a public database cataloging all those family objects—more than 8,000 of them—went live. The unparalleled collection has been assembled by the Amherst-based Emily Dickinson Museum and stored in an undisclosed warehouse in Western Massachusetts. For the past year, museum staffers have unpacked, identified, stabilized, and photographed the items for future researchers. What this major offering won’t reveal is the circuitous, acrimonious story of who guarded the trove, and how it nearly disappeared. The Evergreens in Amherst, Massachusetts (Courtesy of the Emily Dickinson Museum). Upon …