Author archives

Pete Weiss, formerly a Systems Engineer in Teleprocessing at The Pennsylvania State University

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 8, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: 89% of enterprise AI usage is invisible to the organization; The Digital Packrat Manifesto; Cellebrite Is Using AI to Summarize Chat Logs and Audio from Seized Mobile Phones; and Flock Threatens Open Source Developer Mapping Its Surveillance Cameras.

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Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 1, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Trump has purged government websites; The Wayback Machine is trying to preserve the record; Turn off your read receipts. They’re a security risk; You can now easily remove personal info from Google Search results; Google plans to end SMS verification in favor of QR codes; and Verizon isn’t doing enough to protect customers from robocall scams.

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Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Email Security, Encryption, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 22, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Musk Ally Demands Admin Access to System That Lets Government Text the Public; How Phished Data Turns into Apple & Google Wallets; Identity is the Breaking Point—Get It Right or Zero Trust Fails; Chase Says Making Payments Over Social Media Is Too Messy, Will Block Zelle Transactions; and FTC Launches Inquiry into Big Tech Censorship Practices.

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Subjects: AI, Communications, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Email Security, Encryption, Financial System, Legal Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 15, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: How to Clear Your Personal Data From a Car; Federal workers say they increasingly distrust platforms like Facebook; Pairwise Authentication of Humans; Attacks on password managers increased drastically in 2024; and Judge blocks Musk’s DOGE from accessing Treasury materials.

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Subjects: AI, Copyright, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Encryption, Legal Research, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 8, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Federal workers: Here’s how to lock down your communications; Why rebooting your phone daily is your best defense against zero-click hackers; EFF – Basics | Surveillance Self-Defense; Even the US government can fall victim to cryptojacking; and Federal immigration officials have extensive technology at their disposal.

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Subjects: Communications, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 1, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: UnitedHealth now says 190 million impacted by 2024 data breach; A Tumultuous Week for Federal Cybersecurity Efforts; TikTok took a huge scoop of American users’ data and stored it in China – DeepSeek makes TikTok’s security issues look like child’s play; CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App; and Backdoor found in two healthcare patient monitors, linked to IP in China.

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Subjects: AI, Big Data, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Email Security, Healthcare, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 26, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: The double-edged sword of AI and cybersecurity; Trump Seeks to Paralyze Independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Watchdog; Cybersecurity Alert: Users Deceived By Fake Google CAPTCHA Pages; Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal: See the Thousands of Apps Hijacked to Spy on Your Location; and Your phone is listening. Do you care?.

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Subjects: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Economy, Financial System, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 18, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Apps That Are Spying on Your Location; AI-supported spear phishing fools more than 50% of targets; Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), once celebrated as an unbreakable defense, is crumbling under the weight of its outdated technology; NSA Warns iPhone And Android Users – Disable Location Tracking; and Chinese Innovations Spawn Wave of Toll Phishing Via SMS.

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Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Email Security, Financial System, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 11, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: A Day in the Life of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew; 33 Chrome extensions that have been found to have malware; Experian Conducted ‘Sham Investigations’ Into Errors in Its Credit Reports; and Lie About Your Birthday.

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Subjects: AI, Cybersecurity, Economy, Financial System, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 4, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: The biggest cybersecurity and cyberattack stories of 2024; It’s a Risk of Driverless Taxis That May Come as a Surprise; Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit; iOS 18’s Photos app sends data to Apple without your consent; and Modern cars have sensors, cameras, GPS for location tracking, and more, all collecting data.

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Subjects: AI, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Privacy, Travel
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