Diving into a lesson in social engineering gave me some understanding of the way we use language to hide what’s really happening. It seems the most basic definition of social engineering is the manipulation by a hacker of a business insider to reveal data that would otherwise be safe, secure and private to that business.
A whistle blower from Facebook could be the straw that
An edited excerpt from a new book by investigative journalist Huib Modderkolk called There’s a War On But No One Can See It delves into the story of Edwin and his parents in Rotterdam. Edwin grew up introverted and came to be the kid that spent 12 hours a day in his room tinkering with a home built PC. He roamed the darkest corners of computer servers with barely a torch. The inner motivation and obsession to find the next “window open,” an exploit that would allow unlimited access to some of the most important servers and corporate digital back rooms in the world.
Phishing texts are requesting the same information from a phone user that they asked for on email. The difference is that if you click on a suspect link on your phone it can download a screening tool that extracts private information direct from your phone, including your whereabouts via GPS and other forms of identity theft. Phishing is a serious crime that often comes with financial and safety implications for the unsuspecting, fooled victim.
This certificate was my ticket out of lockdown and into bars, clubs, events and houses, whenever restrictions are lifted. A literal ticket to travel. A ticket that protects me from serious disease and admission to hospital. There have been 5.86 billion doses of vaccines administered at the time of writing, worldwide 15.4% are fully vaccinated. Lockdown fatigue and declining mental health is real and both factors are leading governments around the world to lean heavily on vaccination rates of 70 – 80% of adult populations to ease restrictions.
In the story of “How music affects your brain and body” Jessica discovered a song that unexpectedly helped her to relax, it was Justin Bieber and she said she’s not normally a fan and she was a little embarrassed. She never would have chosen it for herself but it actually gave her all the feels.
The Pegasus Project by The Guardian. An uncovering of substantial proportions by journalists about the Israeli company, NSO and their surveillance/spying software, Pegasus. The contact targets for surveillance were leaked and the list was phenomenal in size (tens of thousands) and international breadth. The targets were also wide ranging and yes, of course, there were probably some criminals on the list confirming the goals of the NSO Group, to save lives, but there were also human rights activists and journalists and PRINCESSES!
Listening to The Guardian’s special 5 part podcast series, The Pegasus Project, to get a true understanding of how it is that governments and national law enforcement agencies pay NSO Group, the Israeli spyware company, to use their Pegasus software, under the guise that they will use it ‘to save lives’. NSO says they vet all their clients but some of their clients are countries and enforcement authorities have a contestable human rights record. They may come to NSO group with well intentioned tenders but this surveillance software is sold to clients with cash.
AI technology is being used to rapidly capture all sorts of data: voice, video, photography and words. A deepfake is born from that collection and in this moment it still makes the audience look twice, but it won’t for long. The future is fake.
