#Email hacking tools online

[sunny-day-jack-official]

URGENT! Stop KOSA!

Hey all, this is BáiYù and Sauce here with something that isn't necessarily SnaccPop related, but it's important nonetheless. For those of you who follow US politics, The Kids Online Safety Act passed the Senate yesterday and is moving forward.

This is bad news for everyone on the internet, even outside of the USA.

What is KOSA?

While it's officially known as "The Kids Online Safety Act," KOSA is an internet censorship masquerading as another "protect the children" bill, much in the same way SESTA/FOSTA claimed that it would stop illegal sex trafficking but instead hurt sex workers and their safety. KOSA was originally introduced by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. and Bill Cassidy, R-La. as a way to update the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Act, raising the age of consent for data collection to 16 among other things. You can read the original press release of KOSA here, while you can read the full updated text of the bill on the official USA Congress website.

You can read the following articles about KOSA here:

EFF: The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

CyberScoop: Children’s online safety bills clear Senate hurdle despite strong civil liberties pushback

TeenVogue: The Kids Online Safety Act Would Harm LGBTQ+ Youth, Restrict Access to Information and Community

The quick TL;DR:

KOSA authorizes an individual state attorneys general to decide what might harm minors

Websites will likely preemptively remove and ban content to avoid upsetting state attorneys generals (this will likely be topics such as abortion, queerness, feminism, sexual content, and others)

In order for a platform to know which users are minors, they'll require a more invasive age and personal data verification method

Parents will be granted more surveillance tools to see what their children are doing on the web

KOSA is supported by Christofascists and those seeking to harm the LGBTQ+ community

If a website holding personally identifying information and government documents is hacked, that's a major cybersecurity breach waiting to happen

What Does This Mean?

You don't have to look far to see or hear about the violence being done to the neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities worldwide, who are oftentimes one and the same. Social media sites censoring discussion of these topics would stand to do even further harm to folks who lack access to local resources to understand themselves and the hardships they face; in addition, the fact that websites would likely store personally identifying information and government documents means the death of any notion of privacy.

Sex workers and those living in certain countries already are at risk of losing their ways of life, living in a reality where their online activities are closely surveilled; if KOSA officially becomes law, this will become a reality for many more people and endanger those at the fringes of society even worse than it already is.

Why This Matters Outside of The USA

I previously mentioned SESTA/FOSTA, which passed and became US law in 2018. This bill enabled many of the anti-adult content attitudes that many popular websites are taking these days as well as the tightening of restrictions laid down by payment processors. Companies and sites hosted in the USA have to follow US laws even if they're accessible worldwide, meaning that folks overseas suffer as well.

What Can You Do?

If you're a US citizen, contact your Senators and tell them that you oppose KOSA. This can be as an email, letter, or phone call that you make to your state Senator.

For resources on how to do so, view the following links:

https://www.badinternetbills.com/#kosa

https://www.stopkosa.com/

https://linktr.ee/stopkosa

If you live outside of the US or cannot vote, the best thing you can do is sign the petition at the Stop KOSA website, alert your US friends about what's happening, and raise some noise.

Above all else, don’t panic. By staying informed by what’s going on, you can prepare for the legal battles ahead.

[lichtgrau]

─────────── ⌇ thoughts on Minh's Security Hacking

Minh doesn't really have a problem doing illegal acts, but there are certainly limitations. For example, he'd not use it for private matters to help anyone take revenge or some shit like that.

He also would not attempt to do any hacking of military or law enforcement security machines. The group he was in always focused on private persons or companies. He usually also moves in that realm now, but smaller.

Good examples of what he does probably be:

Surveillance Systems: e.g., CCTV, motion sensors

Access Control: e.g., keycard locks, biometric scanners (turning off warnings)

Banking Systems: e.g., ATMs, online banking platforms

Corporate Networks: e.g., firewalls, VPNs, email servers

Minh also avoids those where he knows their system is designed so that he would have the risk of leaving a trace.

He is not a hacker in the traditional sense that just gets into whatever device you hand him, he requires certain tools, programs and prepared devices.

[justforbooks]

Internet users advised to change passwords after 16bn logins exposed

Hacked credentials could give cybercriminals access to Facebook, Meta and Google accounts among others

Internet users have been told to change their passwords and upgrade their digital security after researchers claimed to have revealed the scale of sensitive information – 16bn login records – potentially available to cybercriminals.

Researchers at Cybernews, an online tech publication, said they had found 30 datasets stuffed with credentials harvested from malicious software known as “infostealers” and leaks.

The researchers said the datasets were exposed “only briefly” but amounted to 16bn login records, with an unspecified number of overlapping records – meaning it is difficult to say definitively how many accounts or people have been exposed.

Cybernews said the credentials could open access to services including Facebook, Apple and Google – although there had been no “centralised data breach” at those companies.

Bob Diachenko, the Ukrainian cybersecurity specialist behind the research, said the datasets had become temporarily available after being poorly stored on remote servers – before being removed again. Diachenko said he was able to download the files and would aim to contact individuals and companies that had been exposed.

“It will take some time of course because it is an enormous amount of data,” he said.

Diachenko said the information he had seen in infostealer logs included login URLs to Apple, Facebook and Google login pages. Apple and Facebook’s parent, Meta, have been contacted for comment.

A Google spokesperson said the data reported by Cybernews did not stem from a Google data breach – and recommended people use tools like Google’s password manager to protect their accounts.

Internet users are also able to check if their email has been compromised in a data breach by using the website haveibeenpwned.com. Cybernews said the information seen in the datasets followed a “clear structure: URL, followed by login details and a password”.

Diachenko said the data appeared to be “85% infostealers” and about 15% from historical data breaches such as a leak suffered by LinkedIn.

Experts said the research underlined the need to update passwords regularly and adopt tough security measures such as multifactor authentication – or combining a password with another form of verification such as a code texted from a phone. Other recommended measures include passkeys, a password-free method championed by Google and Facebook’s owner, Meta.

“While you’d be right to be startled at the huge volume of data exposed in this leak it’s important to note that there is no new threat here: this data will have already likely have been in circulation,” said Peter Mackenzie, the director of incident response and readiness at the cybersecurity firm Sophos.

Mackenzie said the research underlined the scale of data that can be accessed by online criminals.

“What we are understanding is the depth of information available to cybercriminals.” He added: “It is an important reminder to everyone to take proactive steps to update passwords, use a password manager and employ multifactor authentication to avoid credential issues in the future.”

Toby Lewis, the global head of threat analysis at the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, said the data flagged in the research is hard to verify but infostealers – the malware reportedly behind the data theft – are “very much real and in use by bad actors”.

He said: “They don’t access a user’s account but instead scrape information from their browser cookies and metadata. If you’re following good practice of using password managers, turning on two-factor authentication and checking suspicious logins, this isn’t something you should be greatly worried about.”

Cybernews said none of the datasets have been reported previously barring one revealed in May with 184m records. It described the datasets as a “blueprint for mass exploitation” including “account takeover, identity theft, and highly targeted phishing”.

The researchers added: “The only silver lining here is that all of the datasets were exposed only briefly: long enough for researchers to uncover them, but not long enough to find who was controlling vast amounts of data.”

Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said the news was a reminder to carry out “password spring cleaning”. He added: “The fact that everything seems to be breached eventually is why there is such a big push for zero trust security measures.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[mariacallous]

The flood of text messages started arriving early this year. They carried a similar thrust: The United States Postal Service is trying to deliver a parcel but needs more details, including your credit card number. All the messages pointed to websites where the information could be entered.

Like thousands of others, security researcher Grant Smith got a USPS package message. Many of his friends had received similar texts. A couple of days earlier, he says, his wife called him and said she’d inadvertently entered her credit card details. With little going on after the holidays, Smith began a mission: Hunt down the scammers.

Over the course of a few weeks, Smith tracked down the Chinese-language group behind the mass-smishing campaign, hacked into their systems, collected evidence of their activities, and started a months-long process of gathering victim data and handing it to USPS investigators and a US bank, allowing people’s cards to be protected from fraudulent activity.

In total, people entered 438,669 unique credit cards into 1,133 domains used by the scammers, says Smith, a red team engineer and the founder of offensive cybersecurity firm Phantom Security. Many people entered multiple cards each, he says. More than 50,000 email addresses were logged, including hundreds of university email addresses and 20 military or government email domains. The victims were spread across the United States—California, the state with the most, had 141,000 entries—with more than 1.2 million pieces of information being entered in total.

“This shows the mass scale of the problem,” says Smith, who is presenting his findings at the Defcon security conference this weekend and previously published some details of the work. But the scale of the scamming is likely to be much larger, Smith says, as he didn't manage to track down all of the fraudulent USPS websites, and the group behind the efforts have been linked to similar scams in at least half a dozen other countries.

Gone Phishing

Chasing down the group didn’t take long. Smith started investigating the smishing text message he received by the dodgy domain and intercepting traffic from the website. A path traversal vulnerability, coupled with a SQL injection, he says, allowed him to grab files from the website’s server and read data from the database being used.

“I thought there was just one standard site that they all were using,” Smith says. Diving into the data from that initial website, he found the name of a Chinese-language Telegram account and channel, which appeared to be selling a smishing kit scammers could use to easily create the fake websites.

Details of the Telegram username were previously published by cybersecurity company Resecurity, which calls the scammers the “Smishing Triad.” The company had previously found a separate SQL injection in the group’s smishing kits and provided Smith with a copy of the tool. (The Smishing Triad had fixed the previous flaw and started encrypting data, Smith says.)

“I started reverse engineering it, figured out how everything was being encrypted, how I could decrypt it, and figured out a more efficient way of grabbing the data,” Smith says. From there, he says, he was able to break administrator passwords on the websites—many had not been changed from the default “admin” username and “123456” password—and began pulling victim data from the network of smishing websites in a faster, automated way.

Smith trawled Reddit and other online sources to find people reporting the scam and the URLs being used, which he subsequently published. Some of the websites running the Smishing Triad’s tools were collecting thousands of people’s personal information per day, Smith says. Among other details, the websites would request people’s names, addresses, payment card numbers and security codes, phone numbers, dates of birth, and bank websites. This level of information can allow a scammer to make purchases online with the credit cards. Smith says his wife quickly canceled her card, but noticed that the scammers still tried to use it, for instance, with Uber. The researcher says he would collect data from a website and return to it a few hours later, only to find hundreds of new records.

The researcher provided the details to a bank that had contacted him after seeing his initial blog posts. Smith declined to name the bank. He also reported the incidents to the FBI and later provided information to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).

Michael Martel, a national public information officer at USPIS, says the information provided by Smith is being used as part of an ongoing USPIS investigation and that the agency cannot comment on specific details. “USPIS is already actively pursuing this type of information to protect the American people, identify victims, and serve justice to the malicious actors behind it all,” Martel says, pointing to advice on spotting and reporting USPS package delivery scams.

Initially, Smith says, he was wary about going public with his research, as this kind of “hacking back” falls into a “gray area”: It may be breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a sweeping US computer-crimes law, but he’s doing it against foreign-based criminals. Something he is definitely not the first, or last, to do.

Multiple Prongs

The Smishing Triad is prolific. In addition to using postal services as lures for their scams, the Chinese-speaking group has targeted online banking, ecommerce, and payment systems in the US, Europe, India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, according to Shawn Loveland, the chief operating officer of Resecurity, which has consistently tracked the group.

The Smishing Triad sends between 50,000 and 100,000 messages daily, according to Resecurity’s research. Its scam messages are sent using SMS or Apple’s iMessage, the latter being encrypted. Loveland says the Triad is made up of two distinct groups—a small team led by one Chinese hacker that creates, sells, and maintains the smishing kit, and a second group of people who buy the scamming tool. (A backdoor in the kit allows the creator to access details of administrators using the kit, Smith says in a blog post.)

“It’s very mature,” Loveland says of the operation. The group sells the scamming kit on Telegram for a $200-per month subscription, and this can be customized to show the organization the scammers are trying to impersonate. “The main actor is Chinese communicating in the Chinese language,” Loveland says. “They do not appear to be hacking Chinese language websites or users.” (In communications with the main contact on Telegram, the individual claimed to Smith that they were a computer science student.)

The relatively low monthly subscription cost for the smishing kit means it’s highly likely, with the number of credit card details scammers are collecting, that those using it are making significant profits. Loveland says using text messages that immediately send people a notification is a more direct and more successful way of phishing, compared to sending emails with malicious links included.

As a result, smishing has been on the rise in recent years. But there are some tell-tale signs: If you receive a message from a number or email you don't recognize, if it contains a link to click on, or if it wants you to do something urgently, you should be suspicious.

[feminist-space]

"Just weeks before the implosion of AllHere, an education technology company that had been showered with cash from venture capitalists and featured in glowing profiles by the business press, America’s second-largest school district was warned about problems with AllHere’s product.

As the eight-year-old startup rolled out Los Angeles Unified School District’s flashy new AI-driven chatbot — an animated sun named “Ed” that AllHere was hired to build for $6 million — a former company executive was sending emails to the district and others that Ed’s workings violated bedrock student data privacy principles.

Those emails were sent shortly before The 74 first reported last week that AllHere, with $12 million in investor capital, was in serious straits. A June 14 statement on the company’s website revealed a majority of its employees had been furloughed due to its “current financial position.” Company founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles district said, was no longer on the job.

Smith-Griffin and L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went on the road together this spring to unveil Ed at a series of high-profile ed tech conferences, with the schools chief dubbing it the nation’s first “personal assistant” for students and leaning hard into LAUSD’s place in the K-12 AI vanguard. He called Ed’s ability to know students “unprecedented in American public education” at the ASU+GSV conference in April.

Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math?” The tool relies on vast amounts of students’ data, including their academic performance and special education accommodations, to function.

Meanwhile, Chris Whiteley, a former senior director of software engineering at AllHere who was laid off in April, had become a whistleblower. He told district officials, its independent inspector general’s office and state education officials that the tool processed student records in ways that likely ran afoul of L.A. Unified’s own data privacy rules and put sensitive information at risk of getting hacked. None of the agencies ever responded, Whiteley told The 74.

...

In order to provide individualized prompts on details like student attendance and demographics, the tool connects to several data sources, according to the contract, including Welligent, an online tool used to track students’ special education services. The document notes that Ed also interfaces with the Whole Child Integrated Data stored on Snowflake, a cloud storage company. Launched in 2019, the Whole Child platform serves as a central repository for LAUSD student data designed to streamline data analysis to help educators monitor students’ progress and personalize instruction.

Whiteley told officials the app included students’ personally identifiable information in all chatbot prompts, even in those where the data weren’t relevant. Prompts containing students’ personal information were also shared with other third-party companies unnecessarily, Whiteley alleges, and were processed on offshore servers. Seven out of eight Ed chatbot requests, he said, are sent to places like Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada.

Taken together, he argued the company’s practices ran afoul of data minimization principles, a standard cybersecurity practice that maintains that apps should collect and process the least amount of personal information necessary to accomplish a specific task. Playing fast and loose with the data, he said, unnecessarily exposed students’ information to potential cyberattacks and data breaches and, in cases where the data were processed overseas, could subject it to foreign governments’ data access and surveillance rules.

Chatbot source code that Whiteley shared with The 74 outlines how prompts are processed on foreign servers by a Microsoft AI service that integrates with ChatGPT. The LAUSD chatbot is directed to serve as a “friendly, concise customer support agent” that replies “using simple language a third grader could understand.” When querying the simple prompt “Hello,” the chatbot provided the student’s grades, progress toward graduation and other personal information.

AllHere’s critical flaw, Whiteley said, is that senior executives “didn’t understand how to protect data.”

...

Earlier in the month, a second threat actor known as Satanic Cloud claimed it had access to tens of thousands of L.A. students’ sensitive information and had posted it for sale on Breach Forums for $1,000. In 2022, the district was victim to a massive ransomware attack that exposed reams of sensitive data, including thousands of students’ psychological evaluations, to the dark web.

With AllHere’s fate uncertain, Whiteley blasted the company’s leadership and protocols.

“Personally identifiable information should be considered acid in a company and you should only touch it if you have to because acid is dangerous,” he told The 74. “The errors that were made were so egregious around PII, you should not be in education if you don’t think PII is acid.”

Read the full article here:

https://www.the74million.org/article/whistleblower-l-a-schools-chatbot-misused-student-data-as-tech-co-crumbled/

[abivanceconnect]

Social Media and Privacy Concerns!!! What You Need to Know???

In a world that is becoming more digital by the day, social media has also become part of our day-to-day lives. From the beginning of sharing personal updates to networking with professionals, social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have changed the way we communicate. However, concerns over privacy have also grown, where users are wondering what happens to their personal information. If you use social media often, it is important to be aware of these privacy risks. In this article, we will outline the main issues and the steps you need to take to protect your online data privacy. (Related: Top 10 Pros and Cons of Social media)

1. How Social Media Platforms Scrape Your Data The majority of social media platforms scrape plenty of user information, including your: ✅ Name, email address, and phone number ✅ Location and web browsing history ✅ Likes, comments, and search history-derived interests. Although this enhances the user experience as well as advertising, it has serious privacy issues. (Read more about social media pros and cons here) 2. Risks of Excessive Sharing Personal Information Many users unknowingly expose themselves to security risks through excessive sharing of personal information. Posting details of your daily routine, location, or personal life can lead to: ⚠️ Identity theft ⚠️Stalking and harassment ⚠️ Cyber fraud

This is why you need to alter your privacy settings and be careful about what you post on the internet. (Read this article to understand how social media affects users.) 3. The Role of Third-Party Apps in Data Breaches Did you register for a site with Google or Facebook? Handy, maybe, but in doing so, you're granting apps access to look at your data, normally more than is necessary. Some high profile privacy scandals, the Cambridge Analytica one being an example, have shown how social media information can be leveraged for in politics and advertising. To minimize danger: 👍Regularly check app permissions 👍Don't sign up multiple accounts where you don't need to 👍Strong passwords and two-factor authentication To get an in-depth overview of social media's impact on security, read this detailed guide. 4. How Social Media Algorithms Follow You You may not realize this, but social media algorithms are tracking you everywhere. From the likes you share to the amount of time you watch a video, sites monitor it all through AI-driven algorithms that learn from behavior and build personalized feeds. Though it can drive user engagement, it also: ⚠️ Forms filter bubbles that limit different perspectives ⚠️ Increases data exposure in case of hacks ⚠️ Increases ethical concerns around online surveillance Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of social media will help you make an informed decision. (Find out more about it here) 5. Maintaining Your Privacy: Real-Life Tips

To protect your personal data on social media: ✅ Update privacy settings to limit sharing of data ✅ Be cautious when accepting friend requests from unknown people ✅ Think before you post—consider anything shared online can be seen by others ✅ Use encrypted messaging apps for sensitive conversations These small habits can take you a long way in protecting your online existence. (For more detailed information, read this article) Final Thoughts Social media is a powerful tool that connects people, companies, and communities. There are privacy concerns, though, and you need to be clever about how your data is being utilized. Being careful about what you share, adjusting privacy settings, and using security best practices can enable you to enjoy the benefits of social media while being safe online. Interested in learning more about how social media influences us? Check out our detailed article on the advantages and disadvantages of social media and the measures to be taken to stay safe on social media.

[theviolenttomboy]

Turns out Gary Bowser was a cocky idiot and I can't say I feel all that bad for what happened to him.

Yes, both legality and morality should be considered when sentencing someone fairly for their crimes, but I firmly believe so should stupidity. As in, "oh my god you were LITERALLY asking for it."

As for what I'm talking about, if you do some minor crime that doesn't really hurt anyone, I'm gonna look the other way. If you film yourself doing so for TikTok with your legal name and face fully visible, I'm getting out the lawn chair and popcorn when the cops come around. And generally, the people dumb enough to do the second rarely ever stop at the 'minor' part.

So for now I'm gonna disregard the fact that Bowser spent almost three decades of his life making a living off of scamming people (mostly via never delivering on the computer parts that people paid him for) and pirating (remember, you can pirate, but you can't PROFIT off of it), and being arrested multiple times for other crimes at that point. Nintendo was coming after him for selling hacked Switches with ransomware in them (so if you didn't keep paying, the Switch would eventually brick, also wouldn't be surprised if he majorly contributed to early Covid scalping considering how much he was making for Team Xecuter) as well as piracy tools (again, you CAN'T PROFIT off of piracy, and his emails made it clear that his stuff was meant for piracy first and foremost. Other online emulator/piracy groups hated Team Xecuter for good reason). He got caught, plead guilty, and got slapped on the wrist. Then he turned around and immediately continued doing the thing he plead guilty for, while also openly bragging online how he was gonna move out of the country so that the feds wouldn't be able to do anything to him.

Moron should've waited until he was actually out of the country before doing all that. That was when he got hit with the 14 million because obviously wrist-slapping wasn't doing anything and he was a flight risk. Sure, he's never gonna pay it off in his life, but they only take a cut of his wages after he pays for his bills and necessities. He'll live, he just can't save enough capital to start scamming people again.

So yeah, Nintendo isn't perfect, but holy hell Gary Bowser doesn't deserve much sympathy because he couldn't keep his mouth shut and head down for five goddamn minutes.

[archaj]

The Future of Digital Marketing: Trends to Watch in 2025

Stay ahead of the competition by exploring the top digital marketing trends shaping 2025. From AI-powered campaigns to the rise of voice search and immersive AR experiences, this blog dives into the innovations redefining how brands connect with their audiences.

2. How to Build a Winning Social Media Strategy

Description: A strong social media presence can transform your brand. Learn how to craft a results-driven social media strategy, including tips on content planning, audience engagement, and leveraging analytics to refine your approach.

3. The Role of AI in Digital Marketing: Opportunities and Challenges

Description: Discover how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing digital marketing. This blog explores AI tools for content creation, audience targeting, and customer service, while addressing the challenges marketers face in adopting these technologies.

4. SEO in 2025: What You Need to Know

Description: Search engine optimization is constantly evolving. Find out the latest SEO techniques, including voice search optimization, mobile-first indexing, and the growing importance of user experience (UX) in search rankings.

5. Content Marketing Hacks: How to Write Blogs That Convert

Description: Great content isn’t just informative—it’s persuasive. Learn how to write blogs that attract readers and drive conversions, with insights on storytelling, SEO integration, and crafting compelling CTAs.

6. Digital Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Description: Small businesses can compete with larger brands by using the right digital marketing tactics. This blog outlines cost-effective strategies like local SEO, email marketing, and PPC ads that deliver measurable results.

7. How to Leverage Google Ads for Maximum ROI

Description: Google Ads can deliver incredible ROI when done right. This guide breaks down the essentials of running successful campaigns, including keyword research, ad copywriting, and performance tracking.

8. Why Your Brand Needs a Strong Online Presence in 2025

Description: In an increasingly digital world, a strong online presence is critical for success. Explore how your brand can boost visibility, build trust, and engage with customers through effective digital marketing strategies.

9. Email Marketing Tips: From Beginner to Pro

Description: Email marketing is still one of the most effective channels for businesses. Learn how to build your subscriber list, design attention-grabbing emails, and measure campaign success like a pro.

10. Boosting Conversions with Landing Page Optimization

Description: A well-designed landing page can make or break your campaigns. Discover actionable tips for optimizing your landing pages to increase conversions, including layout, copywriting, and CTA placement.

[techit-rp]

Deep Dive into Wi-Fi Hacking: How Ethical Hackers Secure Your Wireless Networks

With our hyper-connected world, Wi-Fi is the unseen lifeline keeping us online today. From streaming your favorite shows to managing your smart home devices, Wi-Fi is everywhere. But have you ever stopped to think about just how secure your wireless network really is? What if someone could sneak into your network, steal your data, or even hijack your devices? Scary, right? That’s where ethical hackers come in—the unsung heroes of the digital age who use their skills to protect, not exploit. If you’ve ever been curious about how they do it, or if you’re considering a cybersecurity and ethical hacking course, this blog is for you.

The Dark Side of Wi-Fi: Why It’s a Hacker’s Playground

Well, face it: Wi-Fi networks are a goldmine for cybercriminals. Why? Because they are usually the easiest weakness in our digital defense. It has weak passwords, outdated encryption, and misconfigured routers. That's not to mention stealing your Netflix login. Hackers can use it as an open gateway to access more of your digital life.

Here's your scenario: You're having your favorite coffee at a quaint little café while making use of their free Wi-Fi. Well, a hacker within some tables from you is running Aircrack-ng or Wireshark for quite a bit on your data that's going by. Before you realize it, they have gotten your login credentials, credit card information, or even obtained access to your corporate emails. How scary does that sound?

Enter Ethical Hackers: The Good Guys of Wi-Fi Security

That is when the ethical hackers come in. Cybersecurity professionals use the same hacking tools and techniques as evil hackers, with one difference though: they work for you. Their job is to find a hole before a hacker does so that they may fix it before hackers can gain entry into your network.

How do they go about it? Let's dissect this:

Reconnaissance: Ethical hackers first gather information about the target network. They use tools such as Kismet or NetStumbler to identify the network's SSID, encryption type, and connected devices.

Exploitation: Once they have identified potential weaknesses, they try to exploit them. For example, if the network uses outdated WEP encryption (which is notoriously weak), they might use tools like Aircrack-ng to crack the password.

Post-Exploitation: Having obtained access, the ethical hacker calculates the potential damage that can be done. Could they have accessed sensitive files? Could they have launched a man-in-the-middle attack? This step will give them a sense of real-world impact from the vulnerability.

Reporting and Patching: They finally document their findings and collaborate with the owner of the network to fix the issues. It may involve updating firmware, changing passwords, or enabling stronger encryption like WPA3.

Why You Should Care About Wi-Fi Security

You may be thinking: "I am an average user, so why would somebody even bother with me?" The thing is, hackers don't discriminate. Whether you are just an individual, a small business owner, or part of a large corporation, your Wi-Fi network is a potential target. And with the emergence of IoT devices, such as smart thermostats, security cameras, and voice assistants, the risk is much bigger than ever.

Here's the good news: You don't need to be a tech genius to protect yourself. By learning the basics of Wi-Fi security or even enrolling in a cybersecurity and ethical hacking course, you can take control of your digital safety.

How to Secure Your Wi-Fi Network: Tips from the Pros

Want to make your Wi-Fi network hacker-proof? Here are some practical tips inspired by ethical hackers:

Use Strong Passwords: Avoid using common passwords, such as "admin" or "password123." Instead, use long complex phrase with letters, numbers, and symbols.

Enable WPA3 Encryption: The latest Wi-Fi encryption protocol is WPA3; if your router supports it, switch to WPA3.

Update Your Router's Firmware: Manufacturers in their official websites may have coming updates that address security vulnerabilities. Check and update the firmware on your router to a newer edition.

WPS: Wi-Fi Protected Setup is convenient but highly insecure. Just turn it off to minimize brute-force attacks.

Check Connected Devices: You would be surprised to know which device is connected to your network if you don't check it periodically. If something looks suspicious, investigate immediately.

Ready to Be a Wi-Fi Warrior?

If this deep dive into Wi-Fi hacking has piqued your interest, why not take it further? A cybersecurity and ethical hacking course can teach you the skills you need to protect yourself—and maybe even turn your passion for tech into a rewarding career. Imagine being the person who uncovers vulnerabilities, thwarts cyberattacks, and keeps the digital world safe. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Ethical hacking is not the art of hacking into systems, but understanding how they work so that such knowledge can be applied to strengthen their defenses. In a world that is ever changing with threats through cyber, it has never been a better time to learn.

Final Thoughts

It sounds like something out of a spy movie, but the truth is that Wi-Fi hacking is an everyday threat in your life. The good news is that with the right information and tools you can protect yourself and your loved ones from becoming cybercrime victims. However, whether you are a tech enthusiast or a complete beginner, a course in cybersecurity and ethical hacking will empower you to take the lead in digital security.

Remember the next time you connect to a Wi-Fi network: those invisible waves keeping you online can be the doors for hackers. Stay informed and vigilant, and maybe you will end up being that ethical hacker who saves the day.

So, stay safe and happy ethical hacking!

[ozowebhosting]

How to Protect Your WordPress Site from Malware or Hackers?

WordPress is used by millions of websites for blogs, businesses, and online stores. However, because it’s so popular, it’s often a target for hackers and malware. If you have a WordPress site, it’s important to take steps to keep it secure. Here’s a simple guide to help you protect your site from hackers and malware.

How to Protect WordPress Site from Malware or Hackers?

Follow this step list given below to protect WordPress site from malware or hackers

1. Always Keep WordPress Updated

WordPress regularly releases updates to fix bugs and improve security. Hackers often look for websites running old versions of WordPress or outdated plugins, so keeping everything updated helps keep them out.

How to Update:

Check for updates in your WordPress dashboard regularly.

Go to the Dashboard > Updates section and install any available updates for WordPress core, themes, or plugins.

By staying updated, you’re less likely to have security holes in your site that hackers can use.

2. Use Strong Passwords and Change Them Often

Hackers can easily guess weak passwords like "123456" or "admin." To keep your site safe, use strong, unique passwords and change them every few months.

Tips for Strong Passwords:

Use a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

Don’t use simple information like your name or "admin."

Consider using a password manager to create and store complex passwords securely.

Strong passwords are one of the simplest ways to add security to your website.

3. Limit Login Attempts

Hackers often try to break into websites by guessing the login password over and over. You can protect your site by limiting the number of login attempts a person (or bot) can make.

How to Limit Login Attempts:

Use plugins like Limit Login Attempts Reloaded or WP Limit Login Attempts.

These plugins lock out users after a certain number of failed login attempts.

This makes it much harder for hackers to keep guessing passwords.

4. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication adds another layer of security. In addition to entering your password, you’ll also need to input a code sent to your phone or email. Even if someone knows your password, they won’t be able to log in without this extra code.

How to Set Up 2FA:

Install a plugin like Google Authenticator or Two-Factor.

Set it up by scanning a QR code and linking your account to an app like Google Authenticator or Authy.

This ensures that only you can access your site, even if someone steals your password.

5. Use a Security Plugin

A security plugin can protect your WordPress site from different types of attacks, like malware or brute force attempts. These plugins act as your site’s security guard, offering tools like firewalls and malware scanning.

Recommended Security Plugins:

Wordfence Security: Includes a firewall and real-time monitoring.

Sucuri Security: Provides malware removal and a website firewall.

iThemes Security: Offers brute force protection, backups, and two-factor authentication.

Using a security plugin adds strong layers of protection against hackers.

Also Read - What Is Domain Status? What does this mean, & Why should I know?

6. Back Up Your Website Regularly

Even with good security, things can sometimes go wrong. That’s why it’s important to back up your site regularly. If your site gets hacked, a backup will let you restore everything quickly without losing important data.

How to Back Up Your Website:

Use backup plugins like UpdraftPlus or BackupBuddy.

Store your backups in safe places like Google Drive, Dropbox, or a remote server.

Schedule backups daily or weekly, depending on how often you update your site.

Regular backups help ensure you won’t lose everything if something goes wrong.

7. Choose a Secure Hosting Provider

Your web hosting service plays an important role in your website’s security. Some hosts offer strong security features that help protect your site. Make sure to choose a hosting provider that values security.

What to Look for in a Hosting Provider:

Regular backups

Malware scanning and removal

Firewalls

SSL certificates

DDoS protection

Popular and secure WordPress hosting services include SiteGround, Bluehost, and WP Engine.

8. Use HTTPS and SSL Certificates

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encrypts the data between your website and your visitors. This protects sensitive information, like passwords or credit card numbers. Websites with SSL certificates also have a secure URL that starts with "https://."

How to Install an SSL Certificate:

Most hosting providers offer free SSL certificates with Let’s Encrypt.

You can use plugins like Really Simple SSL to set it up quickly.

SSL certificates keep sensitive data safe and make your site more trustworthy.

9. Remove Unused Themes and Plugins

Unused plugins and themes can create security risks, especially if they aren’t updated. Even if they’re deactivated, they can still be a weak point. It’s best to delete any plugins or themes you don’t use.

How to Delete Unused Themes/Plugins:

Go to your Dashboard > Plugins or Appearance > Themes.

Deactivate and delete anything you no longer need.

This reduces the number of places where hackers might try to get in.

10. Monitor Your Site for Suspicious Activity

It’s important to keep an eye on your site for any unusual behavior. This could include sudden spikes in traffic, unknown files appearing on your server, or unauthorized users trying to log in.

How to Monitor Your Site:

Use a security plugin to track things like failed login attempts and changes to important files.

Regularly check your hosting account for unusual activity.

Review your website users to make sure no unauthorized accounts have been added.

By staying alert, you can catch potential threats before they do any serious damage.

Conclusion

Protecting your WordPress site doesn’t have to be difficult. By following these simple steps—keeping WordPress updated, using strong passwords, installing security plugins, and making regular backups—you can greatly reduce the risk of your site being hacked or infected with malware.

[zeeshan999]

Cyber Crime

Introduction

Crime and wrongdoing have been connected to people since ancient times. Even as societies develop, crime tries to hide itself. Different countries deal with crime in various ways, depending on their situation. It’s clear that a country with a lot of crime can’t grow or progress because crime goes against development. It has bad effects on society and the economy.

Cybercrime is when people commit crimes on the internet using computers. It’s hard to put crimes into specific groups since new ones come up often. In the real world, crimes like rape, murder, or theft can sometimes overlap. Cybercrimes involve both the computer and the person using it as victims. For example, hacking attacks a computer’s information and resources.

Computer as a Tool

When cybercriminals target individuals, the computer becomes a tool rather than the main goal. These crimes exploit human weaknesses and often cause psychological harm. Legal action against these crimes is challenging due to their intangible nature. Similar crimes have existed offline for centuries, but technology has given criminals new tools to reach more victims and evade capture.

Computer as a Target

Only a particular group of individuals carry out these actions. Unlike crimes where computers are merely tools, these activities demand the technical expertise of those involved. These kinds of crimes are relatively recent, coming into existence as long as computers have been around. This explains the lack of readiness in society and the world at large to combat these offenses. Such occurrences take place on the internet frequently. However, it’s worth noting that Africans and Nigerians, in particular, have not yet developed the technical knowledge required to engage in this type of activity.

Conventional Crime

Crime has been a part of human society for a long time and affects both society and the economy. It’s a term defined by the law and is subject to legal punishment. Crime is essentially a legal wrongdoing that can lead to criminal proceedings and penalties. The key aspect of a crime is that it breaks the criminal law. According to Lord Atkin, the determining factor for whether an act is criminal is whether it’s prohibited with penalties attached. A crime can be seen as any action or lack of action that goes against the law and results in legal penalties.

Cyber Crime

Cybercrime is the newest and most complex issue in the digital world. It can be understood as a type of crime where computers are either used as tools or are the focus of the criminal activity. Any illegal action that involves a computer as a means, target, or tool to commit further crimes falls under the category of cybercrime. A simple definition of cybercrime is “illegal activities where computers are involved as tools, targets, or both.” Computers can be tools in various activities like financial crimes, selling illegal items, pornography, online gambling, intellectual property theft, email deception, forgery, cyberbullying, and cyber harassment. On the other hand, computers can also be the target in cases like unauthorized access, stealing electronic information, email attacks, data manipulation, fraudulent actions, and physical harm to computer systems.

Distinction Between Conventional and Cyber Crime

Distinguishing between conventional and cybercrime might not seem obvious, but a closer look reveals an appreciable difference. The key distinction lies in the use of technology in cybercrime cases. The essential factor for cybercrime is the involvement of the virtual cyber medium at some point. In other words, cybercrime requires the use of digital platforms or the internet in its commission.

[govindhtech]

What is Jailbreaking : Pros and Cons

Jailbreaking lets you install non-official software on a locked device. By jailbreaking, the device owner can access the OS root and all features. It’s called jailbreaking because it removes perceived restrictions.

What is jailbreaking? Most people refer to jailbreaking the iPhone, the most “locked down” mobile device. Early iPhones had no app store and fewer iOS options. The first iPhone was only available on AT&T in the US, so users needed a jailbroken iPhone for other carriers.

Learn if iPhone jailbreaking is worth it and how to fix a jailbroken iPhone in this video:

Apple’s ‘walled garden’ software has always contrasted with Android’s customization. Many jailbreakers want Android-like iOS. Jailbreaking lets users install unapproved apps and customize the interface.

Since its inception, jailbreaking has involved adapting phone and game console codes. It can mean installing custom mobile software or removing movie DRM. It usually refers to Apple products. The iPad and iPod Touch can be jailbroken.

Jailbreaking is sometimes confused with “cracking” (software) and “rooting” (phones). Rooting removes manufacturer protections to install alternative mobile operating systems, like a jailbreak. Many people jailbreak Amazon Firesticks, Roku streaming boxes, and Nintendo Switches to run media software and emulated games instead of the built-in apps.

A jailbroken iPhone or iPad can use the App Store without affecting its core features. Jailbroken devices download apps Apple rejected or use jailbreaking features from independent app stores. After jailbreaking iOS devices, Cydia, a storefront, is most popular.

Hacking forums and sites offer free jailbreak codes to promote unrestricted device use. Although technical knowledge is helpful, most jailbreaks include full instructions and desktop tools to apply the new code.

Sometimes jailbreaking is “tethered” or “untethered”:

Tethered jailbreaks require an on iOS device and computer. Jailbreaking the iPhone requires a computer and software. Untethered jailbreaks : Jailbreaks without computers. Everything needed to jailbreak iPhone is on it. Booting off a computer doesn’t jailbreak it. Since iPhone apps have OS access, jailbreaking is less popular. Apple publicly opposes jailbreaking, so it has fixed jailbreak vulnerabilities in hardware and software, making many iOS versions hard to jailbreak.

Is jailbreaking safe? Phone jailbreaking is legal but risky. Online criminals can hack jailbroken phones.

Jailbreaking your phone abandons Apple security. Side-loaded apps are unsafe in Apple’s App Store because it doesn’t screen them. Jailbreaking your phone disables iOS updates, including security updates, leaving you vulnerable to new threats.

Apple prohibits jailbreaking iOS and warns users of risks, including:

Security holes Stability issues Possible freezes, crashes Shorter battery life Apple discourages iPhone and iOS device jailbreaking. iPhone viruses are rare and usually caused by jailbreaking. Jailbreaking voids your warranty, so fix phone issues.

You should also consider phone ownership and content. Does your boss own the phone? Your work email linked? Your data and company are at risk from malware. Your company is vulnerable to cyberattacks from jailbroken phones.

Companies that give employees mobile devices usually protect company data. Locking down phones to allow certain features, updating devices and apps, and installing a mobile device agent to detect jailbroken phones are examples.

Pros and cons of jailbreaking Jailbreak benefits Increased device control Apple aims for a unified design. If that’s too restrictive, jailbreak your phone to add icons, wallpapers, and menus. Instead of Apple or anyone else, you become full device administrator. Install screensavers or icons on your iPhone home screen. Jailbreaking allows you to connect your iPad to your PC and control what you see and do by allowing file system access and device communication.

Install and use unauthorized apps Apple removes App Store apps for security. Jailbreaking installs non-App Store apps. The most popular jailbroken phone storefront, Cydia, lets you install games and networking apps. Also banned from Apple’s app store are retro gaming emulators, which let you play older computer games for free. However, Cydia provides them free.

Remove pre-installed apps You can’t change or delete iOS’s default apps like Apple Watch, Weather, Games Center, etc. Non-users dislike these apps’ memory usage. Replace Apple’s default apps with third-party ones with jailbreaking. Siri can use Google Maps instead of Apple Maps for directions.

Extra anti-theft features Some jailbreakers say it boosts anti-theft. Find My iPhone doesn’t work in airplane mode, off, or offline. The jailbreak app iCaughtU claims to outperform Find My iPhone. The front-facing camera emails the owner a photo of a thief who enters the wrong passcode.

Cons of jailbreaking Stop auto-updates Apple will stop automatic updates. Each iOS version requires the jailbreaking community’s hack. Since jailbreaking each iOS version takes time, you can’t update your jailbroken phone until the latest update is jailbroken. Major updates may make jailbreaking difficult.

Problem updating software Several unauthorized modifications have rendered iPhones inoperable after iOS updates.

Voiding phone warranty The iOS end-user software license agreement prohibits unauthorized iOS modifications. Unauthorized software may prevent Apple from servicing an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. If your jailbroken device breaks, Apple may deny repairs.

Shorter battery life Hacked software drains iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch batteries faster.

Your phone could brick Bricked phones cannot boot, respond to input, or make calls. Jailbreaking does not brick the phone, but it poses risks.

Content or services may disappear Due to the loss of iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, Apple Pay, Weather, and Stocks, jailbreaking a phone for more content can backfire. Third-party apps using Apple Push Notification Service have had trouble receiving notifications or received notifications from hacked devices. Push services like iCloud and Exchange have server synchronization issues. Third-party providers may block jailbroken devices.

Your phone may crash more Your jailbroken iPhone or iPad may crash more. Jailbroken apps can access features and APIs Apple-approved apps cannot, so they may not be tested. The device may crash frequently, freeze built-in and third-party apps, and lose data.

Unreliable voice and data Jailbreaking can cause dropped calls, unreliable data, and inaccurate location data.

Data breaches Hackers accessed 225,000 jailbreakers’ iCloud accounts. Security vulnerabilities in jailbreaking allowed hackers to hack devices.

Security can be compromised iOS is one of the most secure mobile operating systems because it’s closed to protect your data and system. Jailbreaking your phone increases hackers’ chances of stealing data, damaging it, attacking your network, or installing malware, spyware, or viruses.

Security risks of jailbreaking Security risks arise from jailbreaking phones. Jailbreak gives you more device control, but apps get more control. These apps requesting root access pose the greatest security risks. Malware can gain root access to all data.

Jailbreaking bypasses Apple’s “walled garden”. Because jailbroken phones bypass Apple’s app vetting, viruses and malware are more likely. Jailbreaking allows free app and game piracy. This means you trust app developers over Apple.

Jailbroken iPhones can compromise bank account, password, and social media data. This risk was highlighted by KeyRaider, which stole 225,000 Apple IDs and thousands of certificates, private keys, and purchasing receipts. The victims reported abnormal app purchases and ransomware-locked phones.

Jailbroken Malware and bugs can crash iPhones and disable important features. Smartphones raise mobile crime risk. You must monitor new threats and scams and install comprehensive mobile security.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[mariacallous]

As Donald Trump’s administration continues its relentless reorganization of the United States federal government, documents obtained by WIRED showed this week that the Department of Defense is looking at cutting as much as three-quarters of its workforce that’s specifically focused on stopping proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the US Army is using its “CamoGPT” AI tool to “review” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies per Trump administration orders. The military originally developed the AI service to improve productivity and operational readiness.

US civil liberties organizations are pushing the director of national intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard, to declassify details about Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—a central overseas wiretap authority that is notorious for also capturing a large number of calls, texts, and emails made or sent by Americans. And the US Justice Department on Wednesday charged 10 alleged hackers and two Chinese government officials over digital crimes spanning more than a decade as part of China’s extensive hack-for-hire ecosystem.

Ongoing analysis from a consortium of researchers led by Human Security found that at least a million low-price Android devices, like TV streaming boxes and tablets, have been compromised as part of a scamming and ad fraud campaign known as Badbox 2.0. The activity, which the researchers say comes out of China, is an evolution of a previous effort to backdoor similar devices.

And there's more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Cybercriminals Allegedly Used a Backdoor to Steal Taylor Swift Tickets

Two people who allegedly worked as part of a group to access nearly 1,000 tickets to concerts and other events—many for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour—before selling them on for more than $600,000 profit were arrested and charged with the potential crimes in Queens this week. Tyrone Rose, 20, and Shamara P. Simmons, 31, of Jamaica, Queens, were arrested and arraigned in connection to the theft and sales, according to Queens district attorney Melinda Katz.

Between June 2022 and July 2023, it is alleged that 350 orders—totaling 993 tickets—on ticketing platform StubHub were accessed at a third-party contractor called Sutherland. “The Sutherland employees, defendant Tyrone Rose and an unapprehended accomplice, allegedly used their access to StubHub’s computer system to find a backdoor into a secure area of the network where already sold tickets were given a URL and queued to be emailed to the purchaser to download,” the district attorney’s office wrote in a statement.

They then emailed URLs to another accomplice who has since died, the office says, before posting the tickets to StubHub for resale. While the investigations are ongoing, the District Attorney’s office claimed the proceeds of the cybercrime totaled around $635,000 and also involved tickets for Ed Sheeran concerts, NBA games, and the US Open Tennis Championships.

Payment Provider Linked to ‘Largest Illicit Online Marketplace’ Loses Banking License

Every year, criminals make billions from the operations of highly organized scam compounds in Southeast Asia. As these operations have grown in sophistication, so has the wider ecosystem that supplies them with the technology and services needed to run the scams. And experts say there’s no bigger marketplace than Huione Guarantee—a Cambodian gray market selling scam services that researchers claim has facilitated more than $24 billion in transactions.

This week, according to a report by Radio Free Asia, the banking arm of Huione Guarantee’s parent company, Huione Group, had its financial license suspended by officials in Cambodia. According to the report, the Huione Pay service had its license withdrawn for failing to comply with “existing regulations.” The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and crypto tracing firm Elliptic previously had linked money moving through Huione Pay to cyberscamming. “They are willing facilitators of pig butchering and other fraud, so any regulatory action against them should be welcomed,” Elliptic founder Tom Robinson claimed to Radio Free Asia.

Russian Cryptocurrency Exchange Garantex Taken Down in Law Enforcement Action

The US Department of Justice announced an operation this week with Germany and Finland to disrupt the digital infrastructure behind notorious Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. For years, the platform has allegedly been used for money laundering and other criminal transactions, including sanctions evasion. The DOJ claimed in its announcement that “transnational criminal organizations—including terrorist organizations” have utilized the exchange. Law enforcement said that the platform has processed at least $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since April 2019. US authorities said they froze over $26 million in funds used to facilitate money laundering as part of the Garantex takedown.

Scammers Are Impersonating Notorious Ransomware Attackers to Extort Targets

The FBI warned this week that scammers pretending to be attackers from the BianLian ransomware gang are demanding ransoms from corporate executives in the US. The demands include claims that the group has breached a company’s network and threaten to publish sensitive information unless a target pays up. Such criminal digital extortion is common enough that scammers apparently feel that they can plausibly make the claims and intimidate targets without even attacking them. The FBI says that the scammers’ ransom demands say that they come from BianLian and range from $250,000 to $500,000 payable via a QR code that links to a Bitcoin wallet. The real BianLian group has links to Russia and has targeted US critical infrastructure since June 2022, according to a November alert from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

[fireangel]

And fuck Chris Evans//

Period!! his career is over.

Hello anon,

Time will tell if he can recover, and it does still make me somewhat sad

Considering how his fans are treated by his PR team as a disposable source of blame when he makes a misstep and are a useful tool to help cover them up, after the stepping away of some of the biggest fan accounts who have since left the fandom not to return I would say it's going to be an uphill battle should he choose to accept it, even his brother Scott may find it more difficult due to his siblings struggles

He is at the point where he is potentially already aging out of contention for some roles, and with no longer having a strong fan base there to support him after this "PR shitshow" and the drop in follower numbers and support online, he will definitely struggle without having organised his own publicity blogs there to push him into the limelight on his behalf as many of the original fans simply won't be willing to return

I'm not sure whoever is running all of that has a true grasp of what has happened inside the fandom over the last year and a half, the infiltration, the trolls, the rumours, the hackings (I'm not the only one)

When I was running that group on LSA at its peak it had 80 members from all over the world and for the most part was fun

We had a main thread, an astro thread for both him and the FS, a fishstick thread so she wouldn't infiltrate the main one, one for Scott who got tarot readings too, a movie with spoilers discussion thread, hell there was a book recommendations one at some point

And it all turned to shit the second he stepped out with fishstick, fans that had spent months defending him saying he would never do that and its against his character were angry and felt betrayed, and most of us turned on him once fishstick and friends past proclivities were exposed

Other people started coming out of the woodwork to "expose secrets" in these fan areas further fueling the fire on both Team Real and Team PR

Who knows if any of this information is true or not, I had intended on exposing people he apparently shouldn't trust but I've gotten a bit off the rails due to my own rather scary circumstances and have been reacting out of very genuine fear

It's not like I can reliably send the man an email, Tumblr is all I have and maybe Josh is reading the tags, I don't know for sure

Whatever deal he signed with People Magazine that required this "PR girlfriend" that was somehow linked to Netflix? and their need to try and promote Warrior Nun has resulted in decimating his fansbase and his reputation

It's a shame really, he had so much potential left to explore as an actor, as mad as I am at what's happened lately both personally, on here, and elsewhere, I do genuinely mean that

We saw hints of his capability for different emotional depths in Defending Jacob, The Gray Man, and despite the odd choices they made for the trailer he did do well in Ghosted also

The whole thing just honestly makes me sad.....

💜🪽🌟

[beardedmrbean]

Russia is already spreading disinformation in advance of the 2024 election, using fake online accounts and bots to damage President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, according to former U.S. officials and cyber experts.

The dissemination of attacks on Biden is part of a continuing effort by Moscow to undercut American military aid to Ukraine and U.S. support for and solidarity with NATO, experts said.

A similar effort is underway in Europe. France, Germany and Poland said this month that Russia has launched a barrage of propaganda to try to influence European parliamentary elections in June.

With Donald Trump opposing U.S. aid to Ukraine and claiming that he once warned a NATO leader that he would "encourage" Russia to attack a NATO ally if it didn't pay its share in defense spending, the potential rewards for Russian President Vladimir Putin are high, according to Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund.

“Not that they didn’t have an incentive to interfere in the last two presidential elections,” said Schafer, who tracks disinformation efforts by Russia and other regimes. “But I would say that the incentive to interfere is heightened right now.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that there’s “plenty of reason to be concerned” about Russia’s trying to interfere in the 2024 election but that he couldn’t discuss evidence related to it. He added: “We’re going to be vigilant about that.”

U.S. officials and experts are most concerned that Russia could try to interfere in the election through a “deepfake” audio or video using artificial intelligence tools or through a “hack and leak,” such as the politically damaging theft of internal Democratic Party emails by Russian military intelligence operatives in 2016.

The type of pro-Russia online propaganda campaigns that thrived on Twitter and Facebook ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now routine on every major social media platform, though it’s rare for individual accounts to go as viral now as they once did.

Those influence operations often create matching accounts on multiple sites, which vary drastically in their moderation policies. Accounts from one pro-Russia campaign that Meta, the owner of Facebook, cracked down on late last year, an English-language news influencer persona called “People Say,” are still live on other platforms, though some are dormant.

A “People Say” account on X is still visible, but it has only 51 followers and hasn’t posted in almost a year. Its counterpart on Telegram, which has become a home for some Americans on the far right, is still actively posting divisive content and has almost 5,000 subscribers.

A perfect storm

Moscow and its proxies have long sought to exploit divisions in American society. But experts and former U.S. officials said Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the country's deepening political polarization and sharp cuts in disinformation and election integrity teams at X and other platforms provide fertile ground to spread confusion, division and chaos.

“In many ways it’s a perfect storm of opportunity for them,” said Paul Kolbe, who worked for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and is now a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think, for a lot of reasons, we will see the same approach, but amplified and, I think, with some of the constraints that you might have seen taken off."

In the 2022 midterm elections, Russia primarily targeted the Democratic Party to weaken U.S. support for Ukraine, as it most likely blames Biden for forging a unified Western alliance backing Kyiv, according to a recently released U.S. intelligence assessment.

In what appears to be an effort to deepen divisions, Russia has amplified the political dispute between the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over security at the Texas border over the past month. Russian politicians, bloggers, state media and bots have promoted the idea that America is headed to a new “civil war.”

It was a quintessential move by a Russian regime with a long tradition of trying to manipulate existing political rifts, like immigration, to its advantage, experts said.

But there’s so far no sign that Russia’s disinformation operation in Texas has had any significant impact, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council.

“So far, Russian operations targeting the U.S. have been opportunistic. They see whatever narrative is rising to the top, and they try to push it,” Brooking said. “Disinformation isn’t created in a vacuum. The more polarized a country is, the easier it is for foreign actors to infiltrate and hijack its political processes.”

The artificial intelligence threat

The bigger Russian threat to the 2024 election, Brooking and other experts said, could prove to be artificial intelligence-created fake audio.

An orchestrated deepfake or leak may not unfold on the national stage; instead, it could target a particularly crucial swing state or district, experts said. It might aim to discourage some voters from going to the polls or sow distrust about the accuracy of ballot counting.

The most likely disinformation scenario will be “hyper-personalized, localized attacks,” said Miles Taylor, a senior Trump administration homeland security official who has warned of the risks of another Trump presidency.

Deepfake audio, which is easy to create and difficult to detect, has been used in recent elections in multiple countries. In the U.S. last month, a fake Joe Biden robocall told New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state's primary. In the United Kingdom in November, a fake audio of London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for pro-Palestinian marches.

And two days before Slovakia’s parliamentary elections in September, a fake audio clip purported to show the leader of a pro-Western political party discussing how to rig the election. The audio was eventually debunked, and it’s unclear what effect it had on the election. But a pro-Russia party opposing aid to Ukraine won the most votes.

While an emerging cottage industry claims that software can identify whether audio or video is authentic or a deepfake, such programs are often wrong.

Past Russian efforts

Alleged Russian information operations against Ukraine over the past two years open a window into some of the Kremlin’s tactics.

A study published Wednesday by the Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET found that a pro-Russia campaign has been spamming Ukrainians with false and dispiriting emails about the war with claims of heating and food shortages.

In a coordinated effort near the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, cyberattacks temporarily knocked key Ukrainian websites offline, while residents received spam texts telling them that ATMs in the country were down.

Other apparent Russian efforts to sow division are much simpler.

Last year, celebrities who sell personalized videos on the website Cameo, including Priscilla Presley, Mike Tyson and Elijah Wood, were tricked into inadvertently recording messages that denigrated two major enemies of the Kremlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

The messages were overlaid with text falsely claiming that the celebrities were calling for those leaders to step down. Representatives for Wood and Presley said the celebrities recorded the videos thinking they were helping a fan with addiction. A representative for Tyson said the videos of him were fake.

In the American mainstream

In the U.S., though, Russia’s propaganda themes are now often echoed in comments from some Republican lawmakers and pro-Trump commentators, including the portrayal of Ukraine’s government as deeply corrupt.

The adoption of Russian state rhetoric in America’s political debate is a victory for Moscow, experts said. Putin’s goal is to spread doubt and division among Americans.

“An equally nice outcome for them is just what we had last time, where a third of the country doesn’t believe the vote,” Schafer said. “Democracy is questioned; the system gets questioned. So they don’t necessarily need to see their guy win to have it be a good outcome for them.”

It remains extraordinarily difficult for a remote cyberattack to take over voting systems in the U.S. and change vote counts. The American intelligence assessment of the 2022 midterms found no indication that Russia had tried to hack into election systems or ballot counting that year.

But Kolbe, the former CIA directorate of operations official, said the Kremlin would most likely see trying to penetrate U.S. voting systems as a low-risk undertaking.

“I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d be hard-pressed to find where they would see the risk part of the equation. It gets close to zero.”

Such interference could come with plausible deniability. On the day of the 2022 midterm elections, the Mississippi secretary of state’s website, which hosts the official polling place finder for voters in Mississippi, was knocked offline most of the day after pro-Kremlin hacktivists on Telegram called for supporters to join in a low-level cyberattack against it.

Still, U.S. officials and disinformation analysts say Russia’s ability to manipulate voters shouldn’t be overstated. When it comes to spreading disinformation and fueling distrust in election authorities and election results, the biggest threat comes from within America’s fractured, polarized society, not from the outside.

“I am very skeptical, whether it’s 2016 or 2024, that the United States political and media culture needs any push from Russia,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who specializes in Russia and information warfare.

“The Kremlin has every interest in seeing an American public, or American leadership, that’s less inclined to support Ukraine, that’s less inclined to punish Russia. Those incentives are certainly there,” he said. “But we’re already doing a pretty good job of that at home. I don’t know how much of a nudge the Kremlin thinks it needs to lend it.”

[sophiataylor221]

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