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Daily Archives: March 20, 2019

It’s Scary How Much Personal Data People Leave on Used Laptops and Phones

Gizmodo: “A recent experiment by Josh Frantz, a senior security consultant at Rapid7, suggests that users are taking few if any steps to protect their private information before releasing their used devices back out into the wild. For around six months, he collected used desktop, hard disks, cellphones and more from pawn shops near his home in Wisconsin. It turned out they contain a wealth of private data belonging to their former owners, including a ton of personally identifiable information (PII)—the bread and butter of identity theft.

Frantz amassed a respectable stockpile of refurbished, donated, and used hardware: 41 desktops and laptops, 27 pieces of removable media (memory cards and flash drives), 11 hard disks, and six cellphones. The total cost of the experiment was a lot less than you’d imagine. “I visited a total of 31 businesses and bought whatever I could get my hands on for a grand total of around $600,” he said.

Frantz used a Python-based optical character recognition (OCR) tool to scan for Social Security numbers, dates of birth, credit card information, and other sensitive data. And the result was, as you might expect, not good.

The pile of junk turned out to contain 41 Social Security numbers, 50 dates of birth, 611 email accounts, 19 credit card numbers, two passport numbers, and six driver’s license numbers. Additionally, more than 200,000 images were contained on the devices and over 3,400 documents. He also extracted nearly 150,000 emails…”

Experts, authors and Guardian readers who illegally download books assess the damage

The Guardian – The UK Intellectual Property Office estimates that 17% of ebooks are consumed illegally. “…The UK government’s Intellectual Property Office estimates that 17% of ebooks are consumed illegally. Generally, pirates tend to be from better-off socioeconomic groups, and aged between 30 and 60. Many use social media to ask for tips when their… Continue Reading

Politico – The Federal Courts Are Running An Online Scam

The website everyone uses to follow the Mueller probe is a hopeless, costly disaster. By Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. He also runs a company providing services on navigating the federal court records system. “Every day, dozens of hungry reporters lurk inside something called PACER, the online records system… Continue Reading

Database leaks 250K legal documents, some marked ‘not designated for publication’

ZDNet: “A database containing 257,287 legal documents, with some marked as “not designated for publication,” was left exposed on the public internet without a password, allowing anyone to access and download a treasure trove of sensitive legal materials. The database, which was left online for roughly two weeks, contained unpublished legal documents relating to US… Continue Reading

7 communication skills every leader, manager, and employee needs to know

EAB: “Whether you’re a president, department head, or academic advisor, you need strong communication skills to be a successful campus leader. Communication is an integral part of every professional’s daily life. “In 2019, we Slack, ping, text, Zoom, email, call, and meet face-to-face,” career expert Jill Jacinto tells Jillian Kramer at Glassdoor. “No matter which… Continue Reading

More than 26,500 species are threatened with extinction

“Established in 1964, The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi and plant species. The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. Far more than a… Continue Reading

OECD survey of 21 counties – many people unhappy with public services and benefits

“Many people in OECD countries believe public services and social benefits are inadequate and hard to reach. More than half say they do not receive their fair share of benefits given the taxes they pay, and two-thirds believe others get more than they deserve. Nearly three out of four people say they want their government… Continue Reading

Brookings – Robots kill jobs. But they create jobs, too.

“Much of the current discussion on automation is of the “robots-killing-jobs” variety. This alarmism is unsurprising. After all, most research to this point has focused on the introduction of robots into manufacturing, or on computer algorithms that automate routine tasks. These are changes that have replaced, and will continue to replace, jobs that many workers,… Continue Reading

Newly Arriving Families Not Main Source for Immigration Court’s Growing Backlog

“Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “”The Immigration Court backlog continues to rise. As of February 28, 2019, the number of pending cases on the court’s active docket topped eight hundred and fifty-five thousand (855,807) cases. This is an increase of over three hundred thousand (313,396) pending cases over the backlog at the end of January 2017… Continue Reading

Social Media Addiction Is a Real Disease, U.K. Lawmakers Say

And Facebook and Google Must Be Taxed for It – Fortune: “For the last few years, some psychologists have been warning of the dangers of social media addiction—a phenomenon that whistleblowers from within tech industry say has been deliberately fostered by companies such as Facebook and Google. Now, lawmakers in the U.K. say social media… Continue Reading