1,000% increase in online searches for Airbnbs

ScamU: Scammers are targeting parents with fake SAT/ACT prep offers. They know your kid’s name and school, and they’re promising “free” materials for a “refundable” deposit. Spoiler: You’re out $249.95 and get zilch. Don’t get duped: Places like the College Board never call to ask for a credit card over the phone.

Turning up the beets: Watch out for an Indian content farm behind over 60 domains impersonating huge sites like the BBC, Forbes, The Guardian, Washington Post and CNN. They copy articles word-for-word, sell ads and boost SEO links to gambling sites. They even run phony Facebook pages and sneak into Google News. Why are there no checks in place for this junk?

On the Edge: Microsoft yanked away Edge version 122.0.2365.63 faster than a toupee in a hurricane. (Sorry.) Why? An “out-of-memory” error left users’ browsers crashing all over the place. The culprit? Enhanced Web Protection defaulting to Strict mode.

22 million views … and it’s fake: I’m talking about a viral photo of a guy smoking a cigarette in a McDonald’s in what appears to be the ‘80s. I knew right away it was AI-generated — look at his hands! The guy in the background is warped, too. FYI, X added a disclaimer to the photo, finally.

Start saving: GoDaddy and 101domain say their new tool, GlobalBlock, is the best thing for your company’s site since sliced bread. It’s built to stop homograph attacks — aka when someone creates a URL that’s very close to yours (often a typo). Hold on to your wallet; prices for GlobalBlock range from $5,999 to $8,999 a year.

DocuSign is using customer data — you know, confidential contracts — to train AI bots. They say the data is anonymized, and there’s no way to opt out. Not cool. DocuSign has always been a top pick (I use it and have recommended it to you in the past), but this stinks. 

No one is surprised: A new study found AI is spreading phony election information more than half the time. Answers range from incomplete to straight-up wrong. Meta’s Llama 2, for instance, said California voters can vote by text message. Folks, look elsewhere for election info.

So much for security: Big, bad news from a tech company that routes millions of two-factor authentication SMS texts every day. A database was exposed and spilled 2FA codes for sites like Facebook, Google and TikTok. If you’ve requested a 2FA code recently, change your password for that site.