Sunday, May 5

Tag: expert

A Cybersecurity Expert Explains The Latest Internet Vulnerability (Log4j) How Bad It Is And What’s At Stake
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TECHNOLOGY

A Cybersecurity Expert Explains The Latest Internet Vulnerability (Log4j) How Bad It Is And What’s At Stake

Log4Shell, an internet vulnerability that affects millions of computers, involves an obscure but nearly ubiquitous piece of software, Log4j. The software is used to record all manner of activities that go on under the hood in a wide range of computer systems. Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, called Log4Shell the most serious vulnerability she’s seen in her career. There have already been hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of attempts to exploit the vulnerability. So what is this humble piece of internet infrastructure, how can hackers exploit it and what kind of mayhem could ensue? What does Log4j do? Log4j records events – errors and routine system operations – and communicates diagnostic messages about them to system administr...
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An Expert Explains Wicca The Modern Witchcraft
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IMPACT

An Expert Explains Wicca The Modern Witchcraft

RELIGION Helen A. Berger, Brandeis University Wicca and witchcraft are popping up in pop culture these days, from teenage witches on TikTok to a Marvel comic superhero called Wiccan. It has even led The New York Times to ask: “When did everyone become a witch?” Wicca, an alternative minority religion whose adherents, regardless of gender, call themselves witches, began in the U.K. in the 1940s. Wicca and Witchcraft are part of the larger contemporary pagan movement, which includes druids and heathens among others. All these spiritual paths, as pagans refer to them, base their practices on pre-Christian religions and cultures. Ever since Wicca arrived in the United States in the 1960s, it has been growing – sometimes by leaps and bounds, and other times more slowly. It is estimated that...
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A Cybersecurity Expert Explains What Pegasus Is , And How The Spyware Invades Phones And What It Does When It Gets In
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TECHNOLOGY

A Cybersecurity Expert Explains What Pegasus Is , And How The Spyware Invades Phones And What It Does When It Gets In

Bhanukiran Gurijala, West Virginia University End-to-end encryption is technology that scrambles messages on your phone and unscrambles them only on the recipients’ phones, which means anyone who intercepts the messages in between can’t read them. Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo are among the companies whose apps and services use end-to-end encryption. This kind of encryption is good for protecting your privacy, but governments don’t like it because it makes it difficult for them to spy on people, whether tracking criminals and terrorists or, as some governments have been known to do, snooping on dissidents, protesters and journalists. Enter an Israeli technology firm, NSO Group. The company’s flagship product is Pegasus, spyware that can stealthily enter a smart...
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A Food Industry Expert Explains – What’s A Ghost Kitchen?
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LIFESTYLE

A Food Industry Expert Explains – What’s A Ghost Kitchen?

Jeffrey Miller, Colorado State University While the phrase “ghost kitchen” may conjure up images of haunted houses, the reality is a bit more mundane. Ghost kitchens are food prep operations with no waiters, no dining room and no parking lot – really, no public presence whatsoever. But on food delivery apps, they’re alive and well. In short, ghost kitchens are physical spaces for operators to create food for off-premises consumption. And on apps like Grubhub and DoorDash, listings for restaurants operating out of ghost kitchens usually don’t look any different than those for brick-and-mortar operations. For example, where I live in northern Colorado, there’s a restaurant called Rocco’s Ravioli that appears on the apps. But Rocco’s doesn’t have a storefront. It’s a food delivery service...
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How To Reset Hair For Summer: A Celebrity Hair Stylist Shares Her Expert Tips And Tricks
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FASHION

How To Reset Hair For Summer: A Celebrity Hair Stylist Shares Her Expert Tips And Tricks

(BPT) - Life at home has been harder on your hair than you might realize. If you have found yourself stretching the time between hair washes, wearing a perpetual ponytail in a hair elastic, or twisting and twirling strands with your fingertips on virtual office calls, your hair is ready for a reset. Plus, with more opportunities to safely get out and socialize, there has never been a better time for gorgeous, healthy-looking hair to take center stage. Luckily, getting hair back in tip-top shape does not need to require a salon visit. Justine Marjan is the Global Stylist for TRESemmé and shares her six tips on how to help hair start a fresh chapter this summer. 1. Swap in a sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner Something as simple as extended exposure to indoor heating systems can zap hai...
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7 Questions Answered By A Pediatric Infectious Disease Expert – Should My Child Get The COVID-19 Vaccine?
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HEALTH & WELLNESS, LIFESTYLE

7 Questions Answered By A Pediatric Infectious Disease Expert – Should My Child Get The COVID-19 Vaccine?

The Food and Drug Administration expanded emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to include adolescents 12 to 15 years of age on May 10, 2021. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed with recommendations endorsing use in this age group after their advisory group meeting on May 12. The American Academy of Pediatrics also supports this decision. Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia specializing in pediatric infectious diseases. Here she addresses some of the concerns parents may have about their teen or preteen getting the COVID-19 vaccine. 1. Does the vaccine work in adolescents? Yes, recently released data from Pfizer-BioNTech shows that the COVID-19 vaccine seems to work really well in ...
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A Cryptocurrency Expert Explains NFTs – How Nonfungible Tokens Work And Where They Get Their Value
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BUSINESS, CRYPTOMARKET, TECHNOLOGY

A Cryptocurrency Expert Explains NFTs – How Nonfungible Tokens Work And Where They Get Their Value

Nonfungible tokens prove ownership of a digital item – image, sound file or text – in the same way that people own crypto coins. · Unlike crypto coins, which are identical and worth the same, NFTs are unique. · An NFT is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, which can be a lot if the NFT is made by a famous artist and the buyer is a wealthy collector. An attorney friend recently asked me out of the blue about nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. What prompted his interest was the sale of a collage composed of 5,000 digital pieces, auctioned by Christie’s on March 11, 2021, for a remarkable US$69 million. Mike Winkelmann, an artist known as Beeple, created this piece of digital art, made an NFT of it and offered it for sale. The bidding started at $100, and the rest of the auctioning pr...
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An Expert Says Yes Biden Can Fix The Vaccine Mess
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HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

An Expert Says Yes Biden Can Fix The Vaccine Mess

When President Joe Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, he inherited the raging COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most difficult crises any incoming president has ever faced. More than 400,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus, and tens of thousands more will likely die before the virus is brought under control. Vaccines are the ultimate solution for the COVID-19 crisis. If enough people are vaccinated, and the virus remains sufficiently stable, the country can hope to achieve control over the virus and people can hope to get back to something like normal life. We’re still a long way from that, however. While estimates vary, scientists believe that we will need to vaccinate about 240 million people, which represents about 70% of the U.S. population, to achieve that kind of control. As an ex...
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Observations From A Cybersecurity Expert – The Sunburst Hack Was Massive And Devastating
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CYBERCRIME

Observations From A Cybersecurity Expert – The Sunburst Hack Was Massive And Devastating

So much remains unknown about what is now being called the Sunburst hack, the cyberattack against U.S. government agencies and corporations. U.S. officials widely believe that Russian state-sponsored hackers are responsible. The attack gave the perpetrators access to numerous key American business and government organizations. The immediate effects will be difficult to judge, and a complete accounting of the damage is unlikely. However, the nature of the affected organizations alone makes it clear that this is perhaps the most consequential cyberattack against the U.S. to date. An act of cyberwar is usually not like a bomb, which causes immediate, well-understood damage. Rather, it is more like a cancer – it’s slow to detect, difficult to eradicate, and it causes ongoing and significant ...
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