In an age where misinformation and deepfakes blur the lines between fact and fiction, identifying scams has never been more challenging. Falling for a scam can have devastating social, financial, and personal consequences. Over the past year, victims of cybercrime reported losing an average of $30,700 per incident.
Sharif Abuadbba, deepfake expert in CSIRO’s Data61 team, the data and digital specialist arm of the national science agency, highlighted how technology like AI has made deception easier than ever.
“Scammers can quickly and easily create imitations of popular social media influencers. Deepfakes can manipulate a person’s voice, gaze, mouth, expressions, pauses – basically putting words in their mouth that they’ve never said,” Abuadbba says.
“On social media, attackers rely on the viewers believing fake content and sharing it widely.”
You might think you have nothing valuable for a hacker to steal. However, cybercriminals often exploit individuals as gateways to larger targets, including family members, friends or organisations. Identity fraud can also severely damage your professional relationships and reputation with financial services.
As technology becomes more integral to our daily lives, how can we protect ourselves and those we care about from these cyber threats? Here are five expert tips:
1) Have a family safe word
Scammers are increasingly using texts, calls and even video to impersonate loved ones and request money. With AI voice cloning on the rise, these schemes are becoming more and more believable.
Jamie Rossato, CSIRO Chief Information Security Officer, advises setting up a pre-agreed safe word to verify who you’re speaking to. This word should remain private and not be easily discovered through social media or other online sources.
“Use this proactively, rather than waiting until you are suspicious,” Jamie said.
“If my children asked me for money, unless they said our special safe word, I would never transfer funds to them.”
2) Don’t be afraid to hang up
With advances in voice-spoofing technology, fraudsters can convincingly mimic organisations like banks to steal money. Lauren Ferro, Human-centric Security Research Scientist with the Data61 team, recommends verifying caller identities before sharing any information.
“If something seems a bit off, hang up and call the organisation directly using their official number, or go and visit them in person,” Ferro advised.
“They would prefer you to be cautious. It’s far easier to address concerns up front that to recover stolen money or repair reputational damage later.”
3) Enable multi-factor authentication
Identity fraud is the most common self-reported cybercrime this year, making it crucial to protect your personal data online. For example, private or sensitive information stored with Medicare and government accounts.
One effective method to protect your account is enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) to log in. MFA requires a password and a one-time verification code. Often this is sent as a text message, but Ferrato suggests using authentication apps like Microsoft Authenticator for added security.
“One of the benefits of app-based authenticators is they often use biometric controls, such as face ID or thumbprints to get into the app, before you get to the actual code itself,” Rossato says.
“This creates an extra layer of protection beyond SMS codes.”
4) Turn on banking push notifications
With most people using card and online payments, staying informed about your transactions can help you detect scams. While banks monitor suspicious activity, scammers can bypass these measures by mimicking your usual spending patterns.
Enabling real-time notifications through your banking app allows you to track transactions immediately, adding another layer of security.
5) Be aware of what you are sharing online
Most of us have an online and social media presence, but the photos, videos and information we share can be exploited. These assets can train deepfakes, which, once created and shared, are difficult to detect and remove.
Liming Zhu, Research Director in Data61 stresses the importance of being mindful of what we share online and who can access it. This is especially critical for children.
6) Education is your best form of protection
Ultimately, awareness and proactive protection are key to staying safe online. Educating yourself about cybersecurity is your first line of defence against scams.
and there was quite a comments thread either here or on Jill Dennison’s place, (I think it was a little in both places, and the link to Jill’s is not that thread) about resistance and community teaching. Here’s an example, right there in Florida. All the links within are pertinent and worth clicking to read.
December 27, 1914 The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), an inter-religious peace group, was founded in Cambridge, England. “The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is an international spiritually based movement composed of people who commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of transformation – personal, social, economic and political.” “Your goal is, in my opinion, the only reasonable one and to make it prevail is of vital importance.” –Albert Einstein, in a letter to the FOR Read more
December 27, 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War staged a peace protest at historic Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia.
December 27, 2002 North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart the Yongbyon plutonium Plant to meet the fuel needs of its nuclear power reactor. The plant had been shut down and sealed by the U.N. in 1994 in exchange for shipments of fuel oil. When it was discovered that the North Korean had been pursuing a uranium-based weapons program, the U.S. and Japan, South Korea and the European Union suspended the fuel shipments.
December 27, 2002 1500 people gathered in Tel Aviv, Israel, the protest the Israeli military occupation of land beyond the 1948 borders of the country. With the slogans “End the Occupation” and “No to Racism,” and dressed mostly in black, they used a variety of means – drumming, singing, art installations, giving away olives and olive oil – to express their frustration and anger over the ongoing occupation. Alternative Ten commandments at demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel The Coalition of Women for Peace also showed a movie, Jenin, Jenin, which had been banned for public showing, in defiance of police orders to stop the projector. Shown on a large outdoor screen, it was a narrative about the actions of the Israeli army the previous Spring in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin.
It’s bipartisan and it’s good and nobody fought over it. So the answer is ‘no.’ Read on Substack
Here to warm your heart a little bit is a fable about a magical land called the US Congress, where in the midst of last week’s huge stupid fight about whether to actually have a government anymore, and about whether unelected weirdo billionaires should be able to destroy said government, the Senate passed a little-noticed bill that will update American child welfare laws for the first time in 15 years and help out kids in foster care.
As Gabe Fleisher at Wake Up To Politics points out, there weren’t any big culture war provisions in the bill, and somehow the flaky billionaire with an online propaganda factory didn’t catch wind of it, so the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act passed and was signed into law without getting much attention at all. In fact, when Fleischer wrote about it over the weekend, he noted that “as far as I can tell, not a single other article has been written about this legislation by any news outlet, anywhere.”
Fleischer included a google link so people could check, and I did. Even after his post, nope, nothing much, apart from several social media posts linking to Fleisher, plus the expected press releases from members of Congress who helped pass the bill. The only exception we found was a Yahoo reprint of a brief story from Native News Online, based on a press release from the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), which advocated for the law because it
increases funding for tribal child welfare programs and courts, reduces administrative burdens, closes a gap in data collection for Native children and families who are in state child welfare systems, and requires the Department of Health and Human Services with the assistance of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide needed technical assistance to states and tribal nations to improve implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
So there’s a second article, and now Yr Wonkette makes three. Maybe some bigger outlets should cover this, although that might run the risk of bringing it to the attention of some jerk who thinks kids in the system have it too easy and need to be working overnight shifts.
As Fleisher — who staunchly refuses to have a c in his name no matter how often I misspell it — points out, there are some excellent things in the bill beyond the increase of $75 million a year into the budget for “the federal program tasked with combatting child abuse/neglect and protecting children in the foster care system.”
Among other things, the bill allows states to pass on federal child welfare funds directly to families that have hit an economic rough patch, to “prevent children from being separated from parents solely on the basis of poverty-related circumstances” — instead of declaring the parents “neglectful” and taking their kids away.
Other measures in the law will
expand mental health services for children in foster care; ease the transition out of foster care by offering assistance to former foster children until they reach the age of 26; increase funding for the 2.5 million grandparents and relatives raising children who would otherwise go into foster care; create a new requirement that states consult with affected children and parents when crafting their child welfare policies; seek to improve the relationships between incarcerated parents and their children in foster care; and reduce the administrative burden of child welfare caseworkers by 15%, so they can focus more on children and less on paperwork.
That’s a hell of a lot of good that literally got zero mention in the mainstream press, mostly because the bill was written and passed without any drama or denunciations that it would promote witchcraft, turn children into communists, or force Americans to live under the tyranny of the Metric System. And that, Fleisher says, is a damn shame, because “coverage of the country’s legislative output should not be dictated by how much squabbling went into the passage of the bill.” A media focus on dysfunction might be entertaining, but leads to cynicism and to people never hearing about genuinely worthwhile, honest-to-Crom “bipartisan achievements like the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act.”
We think Fleisher is right, though we’d also add that it would sure help a hell of a lot if our politicians, especially those on one side of the aisle, would actually try to legislate instead of trying to get their scowling faces on Fox News. Oh dear, that wasn’t bipartisan of me at all.
A group of KKK members parades down the streets of Grants Pass, Ore., in the 1920s. The KKK had a strong presence across the state in the early 1900s, with Oregon Klan leaders claiming 35,000 active members in 1923.
Lloyd Smith Collection
These conversations are happening here in Oregon, too, a state that — no matter which way you cut it — has deep roots in racism.
Walidah Imarishais a writer, educator, public scholar and spoken word artist.
Pete Shaw
“[These] laws point to the fact that Oregon was founded as a racist white utopia,” said Walidah Imarisha, a Black studies educator and writer based in Oregon. “The idea was that white folks would come here and build the perfect white society.”
In 1844, when Oregon was still a territory, it passed its first Black exclusionary law. It banned slavery, but it also prohibited Black people from living in the territory for more than three years. If a Black person broke this law, the consequence was 39 lashes, every six months, until they left.
The final exclusion measure made it into the Oregon Constitution as a clause when the territory became a state 10 years later in 1859. This clause went further than the territory’s second law by also prohibiting Black people from owning property and making contracts.
“It speaks very clearly to the ways that this place was founded to center whiteness, not only at the exclusion of folks of color but at the brutalization of folks of color,” said Imarisha.
These laws were rarely enforced but they did the job they were created to do: establish Oregon as a majority white state. And it’s why Portland, the state’s most populous city, is still known as the whitest big city in the United States.
Sign in the window of a Portland restaurant circa 1943
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, CN 0034
In 1859, Oregon was the only state admitted to the Union with an Exclusion Clause in its constitution.
Oregon State Archives
Peter Burnett was the author of the first exclusion law banning blacks in Oregon Territory.
Shew, W. M., photographer. Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, Orhi 13424
Oregon’s First Territorial Governor, Joseph Lane, supported slavery. In 1860, he was a candidate for vice president against Abraham Lincoln
Photo Courtesy of Library of Congress
The Portland Telegram published this images of the KKK meeting with Portland leaders in 1921. Included are the city Chief of Police, Captain of Police, the District Attorney and a sheriff
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society, ba021814
“This is an ideology that is not only alive, it’s serving as the foundation for the institutions of Oregon,” said Imarisha. “Oregon is a useful case study for the rest of the nation because the only thing unique about Oregon is [it] was bold enough to write it down. The same policies, practices and ideologies that shaped Oregon, shaped the nation as a whole.”
“This movement, which is led by Black youth, is incredibly inspiring,” said Imarisha. “I just really want to say thank you to the leadership who have created this movement.”
Ultimately, Imarisha believes this movement and the conversations we’re all experiencing now can bring about profound societal changes for Black people and other people of color.
“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in liberation — now is the time to act,” said Imarisha.
Hear the full conversation with Walidah Imarisha in the audio player above.
(I wasn’t going to post any news today, but in my interest of world peace, and everyone’s interest in things that are happening, this story is important, and it’s not likely to be in the commercial breaks of the game or whatever. If it comes up again, and/or where regular people see it in regular fashion, something will have already happened. Right now, it strikes me as something of which to be aware. Save reading it till tomorrow, if you like. I just want it here for the record. -A)
The former head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has been named the new co-chair of the influential Bilderberg Group, which convenes a yearly transatlantic policy conference and has long been the subject of conspiracy theories around the extent of its power to shape global events.and/or
After a turbulent decade at the helm of the alliance’s military, Stoltenberg now takes over at its pre-eminent discussion forum: a fiercely private four-day event frequented by prime minsters, EU commissioners, bank bosses, corporate CEOs and intelligence chiefs.
Stoltenberg’s first Bilderberg was back in 2002, a few years before his second tenure as Norway’s prime minister. His decade as secretary general of Nato saw further visits, and he even gave the keynote speech at the group’s Saturday night banquet in Turin in 2018. His appointment as Bilderberg’s co-chair cements the group’s role at the heart of transatlantic strategy.
In February, Stoltenberg will also take over as chair of the Munich Security Conference, another important defence and diplomacy symposium. With a fellow Bilderberg veteran, the former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, replacing Stoltenberg at Nato, it marks a concentration of control at the top of the Atlantic alliance at a critical time.
Stoltenberg’s tenure at Nato was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which had begun in earnest not long before he took office in 2014. Stoltenberg oversaw what he recently described as “the largest reinforcement of our collective defence in a generation”, noting proudly that “defence spending is on an upward trajectory across the alliance”.
A number of his new colleagues at Bilderberg have been benefiting from this uptick.
Several of the group’s 31-member steering committee have senior roles in the defence industry. The billionaire former Google boss, Eric Schmidt, chaired the recent National Security Commission on AI, and is now busy launching a kamikaze drone company aimed at the lucrative Ukraine market. Meanwhile, the hugely wealthy Swedish industrialist Marcus Wallenberg is chair of defense manufacturer Saab, which enjoyed a 71% boost in orders in the first nine months of 2024, largely due to the war with Russia.
The tech luminary and Donald Trump insider Peter Thiel founded the fast-growing robotics company Anduril and the booming surveillance and AI giant Palantir. His loyal lieutenant Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, was voted on to the board of Bilderberg a few years ago. Karp, who claims his company is “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine”, recently told the New York Times that the US will “very likely” soon be fighting a three-front war with China, Russia and Iran.
In some respects, the geopolitical mood today is not so different from how it was in the 1950s, when Bilderberg was born. (snip-MORE)
The innocent question that changed Ryan Metzger’s life came the summer his son turned six. That’s when Owen asked about the ever-expanding bag of old batteries in the junk drawer.
“What’s going to happen to them, Dad?” he asked. “What are we supposed to do with them? We’re learning about recycling in school. Where do these get recycled?”
“Um,” Metzger said. “I don’t know.”
He knew where to get batteries, of course. And there were always instructions on correctly using them. But instructions on what to do when they died? Not so much. That’s why he fell into the habit of stuffing dead batteries into a drawer filled with all the other small, disused stuff that the family wasn’t sure what to do with.
“It’s heavy, Dad.” Owen waved the bag of batteries around.
It was pretty full, Metzger had to admit. Detritus from flashlights and old toys, smoke alarms and remote controls, with a crusty one that came out of an old toothbrush, these batteries were one of many types of problematic garbage. They had no obvious final resting place, much like garden chemicals, old phones, light bulbs, car parts, cooking grease … a ton of stuff, really, now that Metzger thought about it. You weren’t supposed to put any of that in the recycling bin. But you couldn’t put it with the landfill-bound trash, either, although that’s what many people ended up doing out of desperation or not caring or habit — or assuming (incorrectly) it would all somehow get properly sorted out by this impenetrable, mysterious entity called the waste management system.
“There’s got to be a place for old batteries,” Metzger assured his son. “Let’s find out.”
It took three phone calls to find a business near their Seattle home that would take their old batteries and ensure that they were actually recycled instead of just dumped somewhere.
Father and son decided to drive to this battery recycler so that Owen could make the delivery. On impulse, they asked a few neighbors if they had stashes of old batteries, too. Several did, so Ryan and Owen took those as well.
Owen was so delighted by this accomplishment that he and his father decided to make a regular project out of hauling one different type of problem trash every weekend to the right recycler, offering to do the same for neighbors in their Queen Anne section of Seattle. So they started gathering bent clothes hangers one weekend, burned-out light bulbs the next, and then plastic bags, wraps, pouches, bubble wrap, and Styrofoam, none of which plays well with community recycling programs. Demand kept expanding block by block as word got around about his little father-and-son project. Soon he had to create a subscriber email group to track it all, with a message going out each week on what sort of trash would be picked up next and when to leave it outside for pickup. They dubbed this “Owen’s List.”
Around this time, grateful subscribers to Owen’s List who had long felt guilty about their secret trashiness started offering the duo money. A few suggested they charge for the service. “I’d gladly give up a couple lattes a month in exchange for you taking care of this,” one neighbor said. “I bet a lot of people would.”
Could that be true? Could their father-and-son hobby become a business that would let him leave his tech job behind and do something to help save the world? Seattle residents took pride in living in one of America’s greenest cities, but would they really pay extra every month to change their trashy habits and help Owen’s List patch a gaping hole in the waste and recycling system?
Metzger renamed the service Ridwell, to better explain its mission at a glance, and then set out to find out. (snip-MORE)
…to the same legacy media institutions that have fucked us over so badly?
Well, perhaps it’s because outfits like The Bulwark are sponsored by outfits like Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post.
Yeah, that Washington Post. From NPR:
Over 200,000 subscribers flee ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement
The Washington Post has been rocked by a tidal wave of cancellations from digital subscribers and a series of resignations from columnists, as the paper grapples with the fallout of owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president…
From the transcript of live ad read in the middle of the above-referenced podcast.
Tim Miller: Hey guys, if you listen to this podcast you care about what’s going on in the world. And you know we’re doing our best here at the Bulwark as we grow, to expand out, reporting, reported commentary no bullshit insight. But, like all of this stuff is based on people doing shoe leather reporting. People going out there and gathering sources and going around the world an… and educating us about what’s happening in the world. And… and one of the places that’s out there still doing that is the Washington Post. Uh, and this podcast is sp… sponsored by The Washington Post. When you go to Washington Post.com slash The Bulwark, our listeners can get an exclusive deal to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. Uh…if you listen to us you know the great work the Washington Post does on a bunch of topics…
It goes on. And on. And on. Bezos is definitely getting his money’s worth.
Scottie's Playtime 