News

Although not a new story the recent revelations around the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) data breach are very important. This incident is one of those times when you can either learn an important lesson, or you can ignore it and walk into a much bigger shitshow. The outcome of this one is something that only time will tell, but it is not something that anyone should just ignore.

It seems that PC makers are not happy with the Intel’s Management Engine (IME) and the flaws that keep being found in it. The original flaw allowed attackers a clean way to compromise a system including uploading malware and exfiltrating data. This could be done in a way that bypassed most security systems and even allowed for tampering with the UEFI BIOS if the attacker was sophisticated enough. To their credit, Intel did warn people and manufacturers about this and patched it fairly quickly. The problem is, now that the cat is out of the bag about one flaw; there are sure to be more.

You have probably seen a message, or email, or even a recent Facebook post claiming that a dangerous Facebook Hacker by the name of Jayden K Smith working his way through the Facebook community and hacking user accounts with ease. In fact, this "hacker" is so good that you are at risk if even one of your friends has him in their friends list. This is quite scary and also not real at all. Yup, that message, email, or post is just like every other chain message out there, completely full of crap.

Hate is a powerful item and when it spills out it can be violent, rude and many other things. Because of the power of hate found in images, media, mems, etc., many have wondered why there are not more efforts to prevent the posting or sharing of such information. After all why would a media (social or other) want to allow hate speech or images posted on their pages. Facebook took this thought process and turned it into a policy that is designed to help stop hate speech from showing up. Now the system has inadvertently started censoring the wrong people.