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The One.

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As my pal Nathan said, this might be the first award he’s gotten that he truly deserved. But give him time. A few more years of dithering until Iran has a nuclear weapon and he might earn that Nobel Peace Prize after all. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” President […]

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Cooper Fleishman / Daily Dot:
Twitter's new block function poses a major privacy problem  —  Let's say someone on Twitter is spamming you with hostile message after hostile message, then retweeting your posts to his friends, who follow suit.  What do you do?  Normally, you'd just hit the block button …

If only Toys R Us was that much fun!

Submitted by BumpStop

The post Let’s Go Shopping! appeared first on Damn You Auto Correct!.

submitted by Methodical_Clip
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has a sobering new report finding identity theft cost Americans $10 billion more last year than all other property crimes measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey.

While identity theft cost Americans $24.7 billion in 2012, losses for household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and property theft totaled just $14 billion.

The BJS report measures both direct and indirect losses tied to identity theft. Direct losses, the majority of the $24.7 billion, consisted of the money thieves got by misusing a victim's personal info or account information. Indirect losses included other costs associated with identity theft — like legal fees and bounced checks.

The BJS's last report on identity theft, for the year 2010, measured just direct losses and put them at $13.1 billion. While that report didn't measure indirect losses, a separate research firm called Javelin Strategy and Research found this year that identity thefts are indeed on the rise.

Here are some key points from the BJS report:

• 85% of theft incidents involved the fraudulent use of existing accounts, rather than the use of somebody's name to open a new account.
• People whose names were used to open new accounts were more likely to experience financial hardship, emotional distress, and even problems with their relationships, than people whose existing accounts were manipulated.
• Half of identity theft victims lost $100 or more.
• Americans who were in households making $75,000 or more were more likely to experience identity theft than lower-income households. 

While the majority of victims spent a day or less resolving the issue, identity theft can also be a drawn-out nightmare. A dramatic instance of ID theft occurred after a man named David B. Dahlstrom lost his wallet in Utah back in 1985. For the next 17 years, a German immigrant named Yorck A. Rogge masqueraded as Dahlstrom, The New York Times in 2007.

The real Dahlstrom was denied a credit card and even received an insurance claim for an accident he had nothing to do with.

In more recent years, identity thieves have begun targeting smartphone users and people who use social media and aren't cautious about that use, experts told Reuters in 2012.

Javelin Strategy & Research found that year that someone whose information is revealed as part of an online data breach becomes 9.5 times more likely to have their identity stolen.

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Changes to Gmail Image Handling Enables Tracking of User Activity with Emails

Google has just modified Gmail so images automatically load within emails.

An important privacy element was omitted from discussion with this change. The change to image handling in gmail creates a reliable method for companies and advertisers to track if a user opens any email sent by the company/advertiser.

This is accomplished since the image within the email can be accompanied with a unique URL parameter that acts as a tracking beacon. If a user opens the email then the image will be automatically loaded and the beacon will be sent back to a web server controlled by the sender. This provides an alert that the specific user opened the email.

Previously Gmail blocked images by default and required users to take a specific action to display the images. So while this beacon based email tracking has always been possible, the default handling in gmail previously made it an unreliable tracking method that wasn't worth the effort.


How Does The Tracking Work?
In this example the company sending the email would own site.com

1. Company crafts an email and includes an image with a tracking beacon number within a url parameter
   http://site.com/picture.jpg?beacon=0001234
2. User opens the email within gmail and the browser automatically requests the image included in the email
3. Google has modified the email so the image new resolves through the new proxy service. This means the url from step #1 now looks like this in the source
   https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/wLmL7aeWQ5zwvPCbo5nG=s0-d-e1-ft#http://site.com/picture.jpg?beacon=0001234
4. The browser automatically requests the image
5. The google proxy service at ci4.googleusercontent.com receives this request and makes an outbound request to http://site.com/picture.jpg?beacon=0001234
6. The sender of the email returns picture.jpg and records that user 0001234 has opened the email

Here's a screenshot of my webserver showing the request which includes the URL parameter and also a mention to google's domain ggpht.com


[12/Dec/2013:23:48:10 +0000] "GET /Turkish_Van_Cat.jpg?id=01234 HTTP/1.1" 200 1718186 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (via ggpht.com)"



In practice companies wishing to track email activity will simply add a hidden 1 pixel by 1 pixel image that will perform this tracking unbeknownst to the end user.

Opt-Out Argument
The argument that you can opt-out of this new setting is a red-herring. If only those that read this post take actions to opt-out then the vast majority of people can still be tracked using this technique.

Security Win and Privacy Loss?
Perhaps there are security merits to this change. However, the collateral damage should not be ignored and overlooked in this change that impacts all gmail users.



-Michael Coates - @_mwc

submitted by BolognaPwny [link] [84 comments]

While Grand Theft Auto Online's creator tools are still fresh out of the package, players like rechyyy—the YouTuber behind one of the best GTA V chase videos—are already filling up their custom maps with ramps, police vehicles and rockets.

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Lee Jeong Lok


Lee Jeong Lok


Lee Jeong Lok


Lee Jeong Lok

nevver:

The tree is up

Talk about your mind blowing architecture! This impossible looking structure was constructed in the imagination of photographer Victor Enrich, who saw much more than a simple skyscraper when he looked at the NH Munchen Deutscher Kaiser hotel in Munich, Germany.

In fact, he saw 88 different versions of the hotel, each more impossible than the last, and his photo manipulation skills have improved quite a bit since we last featured his works on Neatorama (Link). Victor’s visionary buildings would make a great addition to cityscapes across the globe if we didn’t have that pesky thing called gravity keeping our architecture in check.

Via Laughing Squid

This 1961 Chevy Biscayne is said to be rust-free with original paint. A factory radio/clock delete stripper, it runs a 348 CI V8 and4-speed Muncie with Hurst competition linkage. A Posi rear spins cheater slicks on vintage ET-III wheels, and the great looking interior benefits from a recent upholstery job. The dual exhaust is all new and we love the drag style side exit cutouts. As a clean, period style lightweight hot rod this one checks all the right boxes. Find it here on Craigslist in Spanaway, Washington for $25k OBO.

j4ya:

MY FRIEND DIANE MADE A ZIPLOC BAG JACKET

Comedian Randy Liedtke thought it would be a fun idea to troll cops with iPhone cookies. He'd get pulled over, eat the cookie and laughs would be plentiful, right? Unfortunately, that's not what happened.

Writes our submitter from Portland, Oregon: “People steal out of the fridge all the time, so I’m not sure why someone thought money would be safe taped to barbecue sauce.”

related: I hope you…

submitted by MaxxedMan
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Via NASA's Terra satellite comes a staggering view of China's pollution problem.

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The Hat Rack

In the spirit of colder weather, this particular Etsy store specializes in crochet patterns! These look as cute as they do warm, and if you know how to crochet or know someone who does this is the perfect shop for you!

CORRECTION:  These are crochet patterns! My bad!

Make your holidays hassle free and more magical with these 10 easy hacks!

10 Life Hacks You Need To Know For Christmas! [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr News

submitted by rauls4 [link] [176 comments]

Reddit users are claiming that a viral Christmas video that appears to show passers-by interacting with a remote controlled piano is fake — in that the passers-by are played by actors.

The YouTube account RobBlissCreative uploaded a video called "Chicago's Magical Piano" earlier Thursday, earning more than 200,000 views. The video, supposedly sponsored by Amtrak, captures travelers in Chicago's Union Station playing with a remote-controlled piano, dancing and performing duets.

About two hours after it was shared on Reddit, a user named schwagro claimed in the comments that the video was fake. Schwagro posted a link to a notice about an Amtrak casting call for a video in Chicago's Union Station with a "magical piano around Christmastime that seems to be truly alive." Read more...

More about Viral Videos, Christmas, Chicago, Amtrak, and Piano