Author archives

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

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 6, 2024

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: Delete your digital history from dozens of companies with this app; How hackers can ‘poison’ AI; Meet ‘Link History,’ Facebook’s New Way to Track the Websites You Visit; and Google Groups is ending support for Usenet to combat spam.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 30, 2023

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: The Worst Hacks of 2023; Think Twice Before Giving Surveillance for the Holidays; How to Check If Something Online Was Written by AI; and This ‘Pig Butchering’ Scam Has Victims on Both Sides.

Subjects: AI, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Privacy, Spyware

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 23, 2023

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: Google brings privacy washing to Android; Xfinity discloses data breach after recent Citrix server hack; How to Check If Something Online Was Written by AI; and Artificial intelligence can find your location, alarming privacy experts.

Subjects: AI, Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Government Resources, Information Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Spyware

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 16, 2023

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: How QR codes work and what makes them dangerous – a computer scientist explains; Without a Trace: How to Keep Your Phone Off the Grid; Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching; and Verizon fell for fake “search warrant,” gave victim’s phone data to stalker.

Subjects: Big Data, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 9, 2023

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: Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms; A Bold New Plan for Preserving Online Privacy and Security; Automakers’ data privacy practices “are unacceptable”; and Gmail is now much better at detecting spam following major upgrade.

Subjects: Cyberlaw, Cybersecurity, Education, Email Security, Healthcare, Pornography, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 4, 2023

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: How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private; OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets; Inside the Operation to Bring Down Trump’s Truth Social; and Hamas-Linked Group Revives SysJoker Malware, Leverages OneDrive.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 25, 2023

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: Secretive White House Surveillance Program Gives Cops Access to Trillions of US Phone Records; Commercial Flights Are Experiencing ‘Unthinkable’ GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do; ChatGPT Has Been Turned Into A Social Media Surveillance Assistant; and Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new Outlook.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Email Security, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Travel

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 18, 2023

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: ChatGPT Has Been Turned Into A Social Media Surveillance Assistant; Zelle Begins Refunding Scam Victims in Major Tone Shift; New York to crack down on hospital cybersecurity; and Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new Outlook.

Subjects: AI, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Economy, Healthcare, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 11, 2023

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: Every car is a smart car, and it’s a privacy nightmare; Cybercriminals Are Using Siri and Google Voice Assistants To Scam People; NIST releases revised cyber requirements for controlled unclassified information; and DELETE Act closes ‘big loophole’ and tightens regulations on data brokers.

Subjects: Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Federal Legislative Research, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 4, 2023

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: New Law Library Report Examines Cybersecurity Laws of Several Countries; Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month Toolkit; Microsoft Exposes Octo Tempest, One of the Most Dangerous Financial Threat Actors to Date; and People Search Data Brokers, Stalking, and ‘Publicly Available Information’ Carve-Outs.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Government Resources, Libraries & Librarians, Privacy