steve2470
steve2470's JournalCBC: "(Donald Trump's) petty, racist speech in Alabama was beneath the dignity of the office"
https://twitter.com/OfficialCBC/status/911583075905220614Shotgun Pleading Shoots Equifax Data Breach Complaint In The Foot
https://www.bna.com/shotgun-pleading-shoots-b73014464363/However, aggrieved consumers shouldn’t hastily file suit, as courts don’t take kindly to thrown-together-kitchen-sink complaints. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida reviewed a complaint against Equifax seeking to represent all consumers in the U.S. affected by the breach concluded that it wasn’t up to its standards, and told the plaintiff he needs to replead his claims.
Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. said the 33-page, nine-count complaint “is a shotgun pleading that provides a very faulty foundation for this complex case.” The court explained that the most common type of a shotgun pleading is “a complaint containing multiple counts where each count adopts the allegation of all preceding counts, causing each successive count to carry all that came before and the last count to be a combination of the entire complaint.”
Dismissing the complaint without prejudice, the court said that the complaint’s allegations “reflect diverse legal theories” but each allegation “improperly incorporates by reference all of the preceding paragraphs.” The court also found that the plaintiff sued two distinct defendants—Equifax Inc. and Equifax Information Services Inc.—but the allegations are “confusingly” directed to Equifax.
Saying that such errors must be corrected before the action can proceed, the court gave the plaintiff until Oct. 6 to file an amended complaint.
Did You Know this about Japan?
It is a tradition in Japan that all centenarians, those reaching the ripe old age of 100 years, are sent a silver sake cup by the Japanese Prime Minister.
from my How-to-Geek newsletter https://www.howtogeek.com/
Question about cybersecurity
Hi all,
I'm no expert on cybersecurity, so please be patient with me. It seems that every day, a new disclosure of a hack comes out. The SEC was hacked. We all know about the Equifax debacle. The list goes on and on.
I know *some* information must be kept online, but a simple (but maybe unworkable ?) solution is to take a lot of the super-sensitive information offline or make it even more difficult to access online somehow (2 factor authentication, etc).
You all in IT, please tell me the practical problems. It almost seems as if we need to go back to sneaker-net with a lot of sensitive information. Thank you in advance!
Steve
your happy CHaS host
Equifax data breach victim? The fight for your identity will last years
http://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/credit/equifax-data-breach-victim-the-fight-for-your-identity-will-last-yearsProtecting yourself from the Equifax data breach is not something that’s going to end tomorrow. Or next month. Or next year.
Crooks stole credit card numbers, Social Security numbers and addresses. They swiped birth dates and downloaded driver’s license numbers.
If cyber criminals have your personal information, there’s no limit — both in time and scope — to how they can use it. Avoiding identity theft and fraud is something you could be fighting for years to come.
Here’s what the bad guys can do with your data and what you should do to protect yourself.
With access to your Social Security number, address and birth date, a crook could take out a mortgage or open a credit card. Someone could even file a tax return for you, hoping to collect a refund.
more at link
Watch every video in VR with the Opera (browser) Developer 49 (aka a beta build)
https://blogs.opera.com/desktop/2017/09/watch-every-video-vr-opera-developer-49/Opera becomes the first browser to support 360-degree videos in virtual reality headsets! This new developer update comes with a built-in VR 360 player for leading headsets such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and other OpenVR compatible devices, unlocking the immersive world of 360-degree videos for Opera users.
VR will change how we experience the web forever
The rapid growth of 360 videos and soon WebVR bring an exciting revolution for VR content on the web. However, with limited software support, it has been difficult for VR headset owners to easily enjoy the fast growing library of 360-degree content on Youtube, Facebook and other video portals.
So far they had to use inconvenient workarounds: download the video first, including spending time on finding a “download” button and waiting for the download, then. Then quit the browser and launch a separate player app. It wastes time and bandwidth on blindly downloading a video. Sounds ancient.
We want to bring the best web experience to our users. That’s why Opera has begun to focus on creating and embedding direct VR playback into the browser. This functionality enables users to watch virtual reality videos, and standard 2D videos, instantly through their VR headsets.
more at link
Equifax's disastrous Struts patching blunder: THOUSANDS of other orgs did it too
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/20/equifax_vulnerability_could_be_widespread/Thousands of companies may be susceptible to the same type of hack that recently struck Equifax.
The Equifax breach was the result of a vulnerable Apache Struts component. Software automation vendor Sonatype warns that 3,054 organisations downloaded the same Struts2 component exploited in the Equifax hack in the last 12 months. The affected version of Struts2 was publicly disclosed as vulnerable (CVE-2017-5638) on March 10, and was subsequently exploited at Equifax between May and late July, when the attack was finally detected.
Additionally, more than 46,000 organisations downloaded versions of Struts and/or its sub-projects with known vulnerabilities despite perfectly safe versions being available. Altogether, upwards of 50,000 organisations might be vulnerable to attack.
Why are developers still using vulnerable software packages when newer versions are available?
Your next worry after the Equifax breach: Fake tax returns
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/your-next-worry-after-the-equifax-breach-fake-tax-returns.htmlAfter the Equifax data breach, year-end tax planning may be even more important.
Social Security numbers were among the data exposed in the Equifax hack, which affects up to 143 million people. Immediate to-dos have focused on fraud alerts, credit freezes and monitoring to curtail thieves' ability to open new accounts in victims' names. But experts say consumers should also start thinking ahead to tax season — when criminals could potentially use those stolen Social Security numbers to file fraudulent tax returns and snare refunds.
"This is going to be an ongoing problem," said Tim Gagnon, an associate teaching professor of accounting at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business.
Having a credit freeze or other monitoring in place doesn't prevent tax-related identity theft, which is among the top scams on the IRS "Dirty Dozen" list. The agency estimates that during the first nine months of 2016, beefed up safeguards helped it stop 787,000 fraudulent returns totaling more than $4 billion — but it still paid out $239 million in "suspect" refunds.
MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUP: thoughts
In case you missed the subject line (sarcasm), this is the Mental Health Support Group. Nasty comments are not appreciated here.
Most of us have never been and/or never will be mental health professionals or even health professionals of any kind. Not everyone wants to be, and not everyone is cut out to be one. That's cool, I'd rather have a mental health/health professional who actually wants to be one and is suited for it. Happy providers make for good providers.
However, there is one thing you can do to improve/maintain the mental health of anyone you come into contact with, whether it be in person, email, Skype, Snapchat, Instagram, telephone, etc etc etc (too lazy to devote five minutes to listing every way I know of).
Be kind. If you can't be kind, be quiet. Yes, sometimes you have to say something "unkind", to your own children, grandchildren, a relative, etc in order to help him/her and/or protect your own well-being. I've had to do it myself, and not proud of it, but there it is.
You see it on this board all the time. Granted, a high proportion of the abrasive people are trolls. Someone says something they would not dare say in real life, or maybe they just are that nasty. A fight breaks out here. Things go south. A lot of the time an opinion can be expressed in a non-abrasive way. Yes, text conveys very little.
We all have our struggles, whether they be mental health, financial, physical, etc etc etc. Even rich ******* like Trump have theirs UGH. I have no sympathy for the *******, but.... even rich people have theirs. Famous people have theirs.
Kindness makes the world a better place. Even if you just refrain from saying something that is 100% true. Does it really need to be said or typed ? Sometimes, yes it does. Other times, it's debatable.
At any rate... I think all of we regulars in here agree with this. The non-regulars ? Perhaps not.
If you disagree, that's cool. We can agree to disagree.
Best wishes to everyone. I'm trying to be kind, and God knows I fail.
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Sat Oct 16, 2004, 01:04 PM
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