Friday, April 19

Tag: security

Widows Of COVID-19 Struggle To Get Benefits As Social Security Offices Remain Closed
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COVID-19

Widows Of COVID-19 Struggle To Get Benefits As Social Security Offices Remain Closed

The day after her husband’s funeral, Rondell Gulick called Social Security. Now alone with their nine children, the stay-at-home mom faced what would become a months-long process of claiming the benefits she was counting on to keep her family afloat. Gulick, like many people trying to access benefits, is at the mercy of phone calls. Across the country, Social Security Administration offices have been closed since the start of the pandemic and with nearly 900,000 additional deaths caused by coronavirus, there are thousands of people seeking Social Security survivors benefits, some who know little about the process. The majority of people seeking survivors benefits, by far, are women. In December 2021, the most recent month of data, about 92 percent of those seeking young survivors benef...
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Women In Congress Still Fear For Their Security A Year After January 6
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IN OTHER NEWS, POLITICS

Women In Congress Still Fear For Their Security A Year After January 6

Rep. Nikema Williams does not like to talk about that day — she’s still dealing with the emotion and fear. What should have marked a celebratory first week in Congress will be remembered for an attack on democracy, and elected officials, as hundreds of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop certification of the election. On January 6, 2021, the new Georgia representative hid in her office as the building went on lockdown. Since then, Williams has hired personal security and made safety changes that she won’t discuss in detail in order to protect her family. But even with that — plus a year of public outcry, internal investigations and congressional hearings to examine the security failures during the Capitol attack — Williams still feels...
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Facebook’s Smart Glasses – Are They Smart About Security And Privacy?
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TECHNOLOGY

Facebook’s Smart Glasses – Are They Smart About Security And Privacy?

Apu Kapadia, Indiana University Facebook’s recently announced Ray-Ban Stories glasses, which have two cameras and three microphones built in, are in the news again. Facebook has kicked off a worldwide project dubbed Ego4D to research new uses for smart glasses. Ray-Ban Stories glasses capture audio and video so wearers can record their experiences and interactions. The research project aims to add augmented reality features to the glasses, potentially including facial recognition and other artificial intelligence technologies that could provide wearers with a wealth of information, including the ability to get answers to questions like “Where did I leave my keys?” Several other technology companies like Google, Microsoft, Snap, Vuzix and Lenovo have also been experimenting with version...
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Is Fake News A Security Risk?
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LIFESTYLE

Is Fake News A Security Risk?

Fake News and Security So, is fake news a security concern? Lets have a look at a recent news item that is quite revealing. Facebook held a news conference to explain what it is doing to remove fake news from its pages and therefore from our feeds. Oliver Darcy from CNN was waiting to ask a pointed question about one of the most prolific sources of conspiracy based fake news, InfoWars.   When asked by Darcy about how the company could claim it was serious about tackling the problem of misinformation online while simultaneously allowing InfoWars to maintain a page with nearly one million followers on its website, John Hegeman said that the company does not "take down false news."  "I guess just for being false that doesn't violate the community standards," Hegeman said, expl...
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Food Security For College Students Threaten By Pandemic
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COVID-19

Food Security For College Students Threaten By Pandemic

When university presidents were surveyed in spring of 2020 about what they felt were the most pressing concerns of COVID-19, college students going hungry didn’t rank very high. Just 14% of the presidents listed food or housing insecurity among their top five concerns. Granted, these academic leaders had plenty of other things to worry about. Some 86% said they were worried about fall enrollment – a concern that has shown itself to be a legitimate one, especially in light of the fact that low-income students have been dropping out of college at what one headline described as “alarming rates.” As researchers who specialize in the study of food insecurity, we see the dropout rate as being related to a host of underlying issues. And not having enough to eat is one of them. Data support th...
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Google fires protesting workers, cites ‘data security’
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TECHNOLOGY

Google fires protesting workers, cites ‘data security’

The internet giant dismisses four staffers, including some active in protests against Google's military work. Google fired four employees for what the technology giant said were violations of its data-security policies, escalating tension between management and activist workers at a company once revered for its open corporate culture. Alphabet Inc's Google sent an email describing the decision, titled "Securing our data", to all employees on Monday, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. The company confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further. Some Google staff have been protesting and organising in the past two years over issues including the company's work with the military, a censored search serv...
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Black Economic Security
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Journalism

Black Economic Security

The state of the African-American family is now at a crossroads in terms of where we are headed. Through poverty, violence and lack of opportunity, we are failing to develop the next generation of leadership in ways that will assure a net gain for us as a people and for America in general. Now comes the report from the Black AIDS Institute that if black America was a country, we'd rank 16th in the world in AIDS cases, with nearly 600,000 people currently living with HIV. With HIV, hypertension and diabetes all prevalent in our community, we would place 105th in national life expectancy as an individual country. We are all aware of people who eat too much salt, drink too much pop or are always "on the prowl". The problem with these behaviors is that far too often the consequences of th...
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