March 2019 – Page 64 – news.buyenne.com

How Google influences the conversation in Washington

Google lobbying has shifted into overdrive as Big Tech comes under increased scrutiny.

A few days after last year’s midterm election, a Google policy manager and lobbyist sent an email to a congressional staffer with a link to a blog post on the right-wing news site Red State, written under the name The Real DC. In the post, the author accuses Google’s competitor Yelp of prodding President Trump to tweet a “professionally designed” video about Google’s alleged bias, which The Real DC calls “fake news” because it “bears many similarities” to content produced by Yelp.

In the email, a copy of which was viewed by Wired, Ed An, the Google lobbyist, said he does not typically share articles from Red State but thought the staffer would find this one interesting.

Neither Red State, its publisher Townhall Media, nor its owner Salem Media Group responded to repeated questions about The Real DC. In a statement, An, the Google lobbyist, said he has no knowledge “of the author who goes by The Real DC.” Yelp Vice President of Public Policy Luther Lowe denied any connection to the video or tweet.

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Elektroautos: Tesla plant doch kein Werk in Deutschland

US-Autohersteller Tesla will offenbar doch kein Werk in Deutschland bauen. Im letzten Jahr gab es durch Aussagen von Elon Musk Spekulationen über entsprechende Pläne des Unternehmens. (Tesla, Technologie)

Wochenrückblick: Elon, James und die günstige Galaxie

James Bond gibt in seinem nächsten Abenteuer nicht mehr Gas. Tesla widmet sich künftig der Generation Y. Und wir entdecken die Vorzüge einer kompakten Galaxie. Sieben Tage und viele Meldungen im Überblick. (Golem-Wochenrückblick, Barrierefreiheit)

Instagram Users Beware: Phishing Scammers Using Fake Copyright Notices

Scammers are faking Instagram copyright infringement notices in order to steal user’s login details, according to a new report by security firm Kaspersky.Using an official Instagram email header complete with logo, and an unofficial email address …

Scammers are faking Instagram copyright infringement notices in order to steal user's login details, according to a new report by security firm Kaspersky.

Using an official Instagram email header complete with logo, and an unofficial email address that looks surprisingly official (for example, mail@theinstagram.team), the email informs users that they have violated copyright laws and that if they do not verify their account within 24 hours, their account will be deleted.

As is the usual tactic with scammers, the message is complete with many spelling and grammatical errors, designed to filter out the less gullible and hook in those that either isn't proficient in English or simply did not look carefully enough.

With many Instagram users relying on the social media platform as their main source of income, the threat of having their account suspended or even deleted is usually enough to make them especially pliable to the scammer's tricks.

Once users click on the Verify Account link, they're taken to an official-looking page where they are given the option to appeal the decision. They are then asked to input their real Instagram username and passwords, and in some cases, are even asked to enter their email account username and passwords for good measure.

Scammers then collect this information and either sell them on the black market or use them for identity theft and blackmail purposes.

Users should always be careful in examining links within emails and be wary of official-looking websites that use unfamiliar domain names. Kaspersky has also compiled some other tips when it comes to detecting fraudulent emails at the end of this article.

Users can also contact Instagram support directly from within the app if they wish to verify any issues.

[via TorrentFreak]

Scammers Use Fake Copyright Notices to Steal Instagram Accounts

Scammers are using fake copyright notices to obtain login credentials from Instagram users, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reveals. The recipients are told that their account will be suspended for copyright infringement within 24 hours. They can, however, “verify” their account if they believe it’s a mistake.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

There is no denying that many people spend several hours per day on their social media accounts.

Those who gain enough status on sites such as Instagram can even make a living out of it.

When this livelihood is threatened, panic and fear can ensue. This is something scammers are well aware of and some are gladly exploiting it for their benefit.

According to cybersecurity company and anti-virus provider Kaspersky, a new phishing scheme that uses fake copyright notices is “gaining momentum.” The email campaign uses an Instagram letterhead and warns recipients that their accounts will be suspended.

“We regret to inform you that your account will be suspending because you have violated the copyright laws. Your account will be deleted within 24 hours. If you think we make a mistake please verify, to secure your account,” the email reads.

Example of the email, courtesy of Kaspersky.

Most native speakers will spot the grammatical errors, which should sound the alarms bells. On the other hand, people who are less fluent in English, or don’t read closely, might easily be drawn to the “verify account” button which leads to a heap of trouble.

“If you click it, you end up on a convincing phishing page, where fraudsters put an image saying they care very much about copyright protection and offer you a link to ‘Appeal’,” Kaspersky writes.

People who click the appeal link will be asked to enter their Instagram credentials, which will obviously be stolen. And while the scammers are at it, victims are also asked to verify their email addresses.

“We need to verify your feedback and check if your e-mail account matches the Instagram account,” the fake notice reads. Those who proceed will be asked to choose their email provider and submit their address and password, which undoubtedly be stolen as well.

None of these phishing tricks are new and it appears that this scam has been running for a few months already. What’s interesting, however, is that copyright infringement is used as a threat to spur people into action.

With all the recent talk about upload filters and disappearing memes, people are likely to be more susceptible to fall for this scheme than an ordinary “verify your account” email. Especially if their precious social media accounts are supposedly at risk.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Lilbits 354: What do you call these foldable smartphone designs?

The first foldable smartphones with flexible displays should begin shipping in the next few months. But they won’t all fold the same way. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold closes up like a book, with the screen on the inside, which means the company ha…

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Lilbits 354: What do you call these foldable smartphone designs?

The post Lilbits 354: What do you call these foldable smartphone designs? appeared first on Liliputing.

Study finds people in Ireland and Scotland made “bog butter” for millennia

Nearly all Irish bog butters sampled were made from dairy rather than animal fats.

Modern-day bog butter, made by Benjamin Reade of the Nordic Food Lab and sampled by participants at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery in 2012. It's something of an acquired taste.

Ancient denizens of what is now Ireland and Scotland buried stashes of so-called "bog butter" in peat bogs, presumably to stave off spoilage. Thanks to the unique chemistry of those bogs, the stashes have survived for thousands of years. Now, scientists at University College Dublin have conducted chemical analysis and radiocarbon dating of several bog butters recovered from archaeological sites in Ireland. They found that the practice was a remarkably long-lived tradition, spanning at least 3,500 years, according to their new paper in Nature: Scientific Reports.

The researchers also uncovered the first conclusive evidence that Irish bog butters are derived from dairy fat as opposed to being meat-based. According to bioarchaeologist Kristina Killgrove, writing in Forbes, "Previous attempts at analyzing bog butter have come up short, because even though the butter is known to have an animal origin, techniques were unable to distinguish between adipose tissue where lipids or fats are stored and milk fats from ruminants like cows and sheep, particularly on an archaeological time-depth."

There are some 430 recorded stashes of bog butter, according to Benjamin Reade of the Nordic Food Lab, 274 of which were found in Scotland and Ireland. It's usually found wrapped in some kind of wooden container—buckets, kegs, barrels, etc.—or animal bladders. The bog butter may have been buried as a means of meat preservation, based on a 1995 study demonstrating that meat buried in peat bogs for up to two years had roughly the same levels of bacteria and pathogens as meat stored in a modern freezer. Alternatively, it may have been a kind of primitive food processing.

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Walmart to launch its own line of low-cost Android tablets

Big box retailer Walmart already sells everything from produce to furniture, as well as electronic devices. Some of its is even Walmart-exclusive hardware, like the relatively new OverPowered line of gaming PCs and gadgets and accessories sold under th…

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Report: James Gunn has been un-fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

After Disney firing in July over tweets, Gunn defected to DC Studios, Suicide Squad.

Peter Quill/Starlord, Groot, Draxx, and Gamora: dusted Guardians of the Galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is back in production after an unofficial hiatus, according to reports from Deadline and Hollywood Reporter. If you're for any reason fatigued by Marvel Studios sequelitis, you may be more intrigued by why it's back on: because its original director, James Gunn, has been rehired.

Gunn's departure from Marvel Studios and Disney became an airing of dirty laundry in July of last year, after tweets and blog posts from as far back as 2009 were resurfaced by an alt-right proponent of Pizzagate conspiracy theories. The "joking" tweets in question were, on their face, well on the side of bad taste, although because they appeared in an earlier version of Twitter, they lacked the site's newer, reply-linked metadata that might have offered more context.

Gunn's last comment on the matter was an apology posted on Twitter that same month:

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