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Norton has an interesting feature tucked inside its Norton 360 antivirus subscription—a cryptocurrency miner. It’s not turned on by default, but it is installed as part of your antivirus package whether you want it or not. The crypto-miner actually rolled out in July 2021 to some users, but the company has started a wider rollout recently. Some users are upset because the mining software is installed automatically as part of Norton 360, and the software pushes mining on users through a prompt that says, “Turn your PC’s idle time into cash,” as shown in the image above.Thankfully, you have to...

Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), the vice-chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot, said Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that blaming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the security breach during the riot is the same as blaming store owners who suffered damage as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd killing.

Lenovo unveiled two new laptops made out of materials including recycled aluminum and “recycled black vegan leather,” delivered in packaging made from compostable bamboo and sugarcane. But beneath the environmentally friendly hardware there’s another innovation: Microsoft’s Pluton security processor. The new Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 and Z16, announced Tuesday at the International CES tech show in Las Vegas, are the first PCs to be unveiled with Pluton since Microsoft announced the security architecture in November 2020. Pluton takes security technologies that otherwise exist in a separate hardware component in Windows PCs and integrates them directly into the central processing unit. In...

The Public Health Agency admits it tracked 33 million mobile devices to monitor the population’s movement during lockdowns, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. The agency says cell tower locators were used to “understand the public’s responsiveness during lockdown measures.” “Due to the urgency of the pandemic the Agency collected and used mobility data such as cell tower location data throughout the COVID-19 response,” said agency spokesperson Mark Johnson. “It was to help understand possible links between the movement of populations within Canada and COVID.” The reason the directive was disclosed was, according to Johnson, to “to be open and transparent.” However,...

CVS is reportedly in the process of tuning over medical data to Microsoft. According to reports, Microsoft Azure will help CVS “enhance its omnichannel pharmacy capabilities and deliver customized, omnichannel health recommendations,” which is likely only possible if patients’ medical histories are laid bare for Microsoft, and possibly Gates, to view and analyze. H/T Godzilla - Threat Matrix

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In a genius move to deter looters, a local Target store has disguised itself as a JCPenney. "We got tired of getting completely ransacked every time something happened in the news, so we decided to do something about it," said Store Manager Andy Boreschnoz. "To our knowledge, no one has ever shown interest in looting anything from a JCPenney, so we put up this very convincing banner." Executives from JCPenney disputed the claim, insisting that everyone loves their products. "Looters come from all around the world to loot our quality merchandise," said JCPenney's CEO Marc Rosen. "Please looters!...

p>OTTAWA—As the Liberal government prepares to unfurl its policy on next-generation mobile networks, global security experts say all signs point to the exclusion of Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies from the long-awaited blueprint. The development of 5G, or fifth-generation, networks will give people speedier online connections and provide vast data capacity to meet ravenous demand as more and more things link to the internet and innovations such as virtual reality, immersive gaming and autonomous vehicles emerge.The opposition Conservatives have long pressed the Liberals to deny Huawei a role in building the country’s 5G infrastructure, saying it would allow Beijing to spy...

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was asked what the Biden administration plan was to increase U.S. oil production. Her response is exactly what you might believe it would be from a thoroughly incompetent ideological administration. So what can a U.S. President and administration specifically do? We have abundant U.S. energy resources. Quite literally the strongest in the entire world. * Permit the use of preexisting approved leases in ANWAR (Alaska) to put more volume into the Alaskan oil pipeline that is severely underutilized. * Finish the Dakota access pipeline. * Reapprove the preexisting energy leases in New Mexico, Arizona, NE Atlantic...

Jake Tapper inadvertently admits COVID security theater.. CNN host Jake Tapper inadvertently revealed the security theater that is ‘COVID-safe’ after he tried to reassure people “we took off our masks just for the photo.” Tapper posted an image of himself and his CNN staffers for a “bake off” event before tweeting, “for anyone concerned, we took off our masks just for the photo, but generally we all wear masks around the office. also, we’re all vaccinated.” ... Apparently, COVID has developed artificial intelligence and knows not to infect people when they’re doing a photo-op. “Did you get everyone’s permission in...

Virtually all compilers — programs that transform human-readable source code into computer-executable machine code — are vulnerable to an insidious attack in which an adversary can introduce targeted vulnerabilities into any software without being detected, new research released today warns. The vulnerability disclosure was coordinated with multiple organizations, some of whom are now releasing updates to address the security weakness.Researchers with the University of Cambridge discovered a bug that affects most computer code compilers and many software development environments. At issue is a component of the digital text encoding standard Unicode, which allows computers to exchange information regardless of the...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Two people have been detained at the Los Angeles International Airport after police responded to reports of a person with a firearm Thursday night, forcing hundreds of travelers to evacuate. According to LAX, the report was made at around 7:30 p.m. about a person with a firearm in Terminal 1... ...As of Thursday at 8:53 p.m., the south side of the airfield opened to flights, but the north side remained closed. One passenger spoke with ABC7 shortly after the incident and claims the pilot said someone believed they saw a gun and yelled, "Gun!"...

AUSTIN, Texas — The Biden administration rejected Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s appeal that the federal government reimburse the state for millions of dollars spent responding to the border crisis. In a letter sent Sunday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell denied the Republican governor’s request that it reconsider its denial to approve the state’s request for an emergency declaration. “After a thorough review of all the information contained in your initial request and appeal, we reaffirm our original findings that supplemental federal assistance under the Stafford Act is not warranted for this event. Therefore, I must inform you that...

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 26 voted unanimously to bar a leading Chinese state-owned telecommunication firm’s U.S. arm from operating in the country.China Telecom Americas, a subsidiary of China Telecom, now has 60 days to discontinue services after having operated in the United States for two decades.The FCC voted 4-0 to terminate China Telecom America’s license to provide domestic and international services within the United States. The regulator said the firm “is subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government” and is “highly likely” to comply with Beijing’s orders.The decision concluded more than a year of...

I very seldom post anything but this is important. I have been working in high tech for over 40 years and have branched out into network security as a hobby. This weekend me and my support team discovered by accident FB can monitor your non-phone conversations by accessing your smartphone microphone. We are also positive that they are sharing this information within the FB organization and highly likely selling the info to other parties. This affects FB, Instigram, WhatsApp and FB Marketplace so far that we know. The fix is you MUST disable microphone access on ALL of these apps...

A last Friday deadline for Los Alamos National Lab employees to get vaccinated has come and gone, with a judge on the same day denying a request by 114 employees there to block the nuclear lab’s vaccine mandate from taking effect.In the last days the employees, including top nuclear engineers and scientists, have literally taken to the streets outside the lab, protesting the mandate which orders them to get their first dose of the Covid vaccine or face termination. Concerning the lawsuit filed by the employees, The Hill wrote earlier that "Workers at the New Mexico laboratory, which created the...

We’ve seen the rampant disruption being caused by vaccine mandates such as those being pushed by Joe Biden.But, it isn’t only disruption that’s being risked here. It’s the very security of the nation: from the safety of our streets to the safety and defense of the country as a whole.The mandates are endangering the jobs of people who play vital roles in protecting Americans.Imagine the insanity of what they’re doing right now in Chicago. The deadline was yesterday for all police, fire, and other city workers to “report their vaccination status.” The police union is fighting the mandate, and officials...

Over the last six years American Internet security researchers have come to realize that much of the data stolen by Chinese hackers could be obtained, without breaking any laws, from commercial data brokers. While “data privacy” is often a major political issue few of these prominent critics seemed to realize that most of this data was available from commercial firms long before the government began building their own computerized personnel databases, which were subsequently stolen by foreign hackers. Collecting such data for commercial purposes has been going on for over a century. American firms pioneered the business of selling to...

The internet connectivity on older tech devices and smart gadgets could stop working on Thursday after a key digital certificate required to access websites safely expires. Let's Encrypt, a nonprofit organization that is the largest issuer of digital certificates — which encrypts and protects the connection between devices and websites on the internet — will be forced to expire one of its most popular digital certificates, the IdentTrust DST Root CA X3, on Sept. 30.... ...This problem has flown under the radar of many manufacturers, including Big Tech companies Apple, Google, Sony, and Microsoft — none of which have made...

I have bad news and good news. I'll save the good news for the end -- because you need to know there is hope. The bad news is that the country is on fire, thanks to the brain-dead, feeble, old man with dementia (aka resident Joe Biden). If you don't believe me, just see the 14,000 Haitian migrants hiding under a bridge in Texas, now released into America by Biden. That should help the COVID-19 pandemic. But the worst is yet to come. I'm referring to Biden's vaccine mandate. This is the most dangerous threat to our national security in...

WASHINGTON — The cost-of-living-adjustment for Social Security recipients next year remains on track to be the biggest in decades, according to the latest estimate from a non-partisan advocacy group for senior citizens. The annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is announced in October by the Social Security Administration. The Senior Citizens League said Tuesday it expects COLA for 2022 to be 6% to 6.1%, based on consumer price data through August. One more month of data will be factored into the final calculation before its announced by the Biden administration. If the 6.1% estimate holds, it would be the highest...