My son has been after me to buy an Alexa or a Google Home, after he saw one in action at a friend’s house. “They’re…
The OPLIN 4cast Posts
The news went public last week of the discovery of two major vulnerabilities with widespread impact, affecting personal computers, mobile devices, and cloud services. “Meltdown”…
It should come as no surprise that as cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have risen in value, more hackers are finding ways to acquire it. The…
OPLIN 4Cast #574: Algorithms on trial
Posted in 4cast, and Algorithms
All at once, it seems that algorithms, the means by which computers solve their problems, are themselves becoming problematic. “Algorithm” used to imply objectivity, an…
Years ago, I developed a presentation called “Four Things You Need to Do to Your Computer Today” — a baseline security presentation that talked about…
YouTube Kids has been in my newsfeeds quite a bit recently. Unfortunately, not for a great reason. I first became aware of the massive issues…
OPLIN 4Cast #571: Bitcoin levels up…but will it make my son rich? (Probably not.)
Posted in 4cast, and cryptocurrency
This past week, my 13-year-old son came home and asked me a question. “Mom, what’s a BitCoin?” I immediately became “Sherlock Holmes Mom.” “Where did…
OPLIN 4Cast #570: Shifting out of neutral: is this the end of the open web?
Posted in net neutrality
You might have heard? Net Neutrality seems doomed. The FCC is taking a lot of heat for that and related actions. Even though the OPLIN…
With the approach of Black Friday (and Cyber Monday), our thoughts likely turn to shopping. Whether we do it in a store or online, we’re…
With the data breach at Equifax, potentially 145.5 million Social Security Numbers were compromised. This on top of major reported breaches at Anthem, Department for…