📱 Will TikTok get banned? A U.S. appeals court just said Congress can force TikTok to cut ties with its parent company, Communist China’s ByteDance, or get banned. It’ll be appealed in the Supreme Court. If TikTok is banned, it won’t be illegal for you to use TikTok; the ban would only prohibit app stores from letting users download the app, among other things. Remember, TikTok sends just about everything you do on your phone to Chinese servers.
Biggest hack in US history: How to encrypt your communications
I’ve been talking about it for weeks, and now it’s all over the news: Communist Chinese hackers infiltrated telecommunications giants like AT&T and Verizon and wormed their way into government surveillance systems. The massive breach was detected over a month ago, but it’s been going on for over a year.
These hackers even intercepted live phone calls from Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Kamala Harris’s staffers.
And what’s our government doing about it? The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, just released a “how-to” for secure communications … a whole month later.
Should you panic?
No. Now, it’s not good Chinese hackers are snooping around, but their targets are typically high-profile individuals and politicians. If you’re an average person texting friends and family and not sharing espionage information, don’t worry. Spies, keep reading.
What’s the big deal?
Text messages sent using Apple iMessages are encrypted, but only between iPhones. Text from your iPhone to someone using an Android device, and that message (SMS or RCS) is unencrypted. Android-to-Android texts are generally encrypted through Google Messages, but texting on an Android phone to an iPhone? Not protected.
The same goes for email. Standard Gmail or Outlook messages are vulnerable once they leave that network. Gmail to Gmail? Safe. Gmail to Outlook? No. (More about this below.)
There are tools that fix this problem
When you’re texting about the latest Hallmark movie, privacy probably isn’t at the top of your mind. But it needs to be if you’re sharing financial info (including account numbers, Social Security numbers and PINs), login credentials or passwords, or private health info.
Use a secure messaging app
The key here is end-to-end encryption. Popular picks include Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, Session and Briar. These apps also have:
8 extra months
For pancreatic cancer patients given high doses of vitamin C. Researchers added 75 grams to late-stage patients’ IVs alongside chemo treatments, and it doubled the time the patients lived. A larger trial needs to be done, but isn’t this amazing? I wish we knew this when my mom was going through chemo for pancreatic cancer. 😢
🏠 We have Fort Knox at home: Facial recognition and 3D surveillance are just the first steps for Silicon Valley tech elites turning their homes into military-grade fortresses. The startup Sauron (named after the villain in “The Lord of the Rings”) uses drones to create a “deterrence pod” that projects a searchlight to scare off trespassers. Boy, I could’ve used that when Chilean gangs targeted my home and the Phoenix SWAT team saved the day.
🌺 Keep this news to a-lo-ha: Botanists found a new plant species on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. They flew a drone to the Waiahulu Valley, where the cliffs are too steep to climb. The drone’s robotic arm returned a sample that scientists have named Schiedea waiahuluensis. Only about 345 are hanging on for dear life in tiny pockets of soil.
⛅ Cloudy with a chance of AI: Right now, predicting the weather beyond five days is hit or miss. GenCast, a new AI weather-forecasting system from Google DeepMind, can make 15-day forecasts with up to 97% accuracy. We’re entering the age where severe weather will no longer surprise anyone.
Rich parents tickle their kids by saying, “Gucci, Gucci, Gucci!” Aris Yeager got his big break on social media with a viral video mocking his wealthy college roommate’s entitled behavior. He started an account called “The European Kid,” a parody persona of a spoiled heir. Now, 1.7 million TikTok followers later, he makes up to $30,000 per post.
404: Page not found: Health insurance companies are busy scrubbing their website leadership pages following Thompson’s death in case copycat killers get any ideas. UnitedHealthcare’s “About Us” section, for instance, now redirects to the company’s homepage. But anyone can still see these pages on Google, Crunchbase, Yahoo Finance, the Wayback Machine … You get my point.
🕵️ The internet is on the case: The shocking murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson, has every corner of the true-crime web playing detective. Amateur sleuths are investigating CCTV footage of the gunman to determine his possible motives. Warning: There are so many conspiracy theories out there, ranging from the shooter being denied gender-affirming medical care to Thompson’s wife wanting him dead before their upcoming divorce. Only believe and share credible reports.
We didn’t need this: Haliey Welch, aka the “Hawk Tuah Girl,” launched a cryptocurrency called HAWK that skyrocketed to a $490 million market cap … then plummeted by 91%. It all happened within hours. The 22-year-old says the project isn’t a cash grab. If you invested, you should talk tuah your financial advisor.
Wear your emojis on your sleeve: A new study says frequent emoji users have higher emotional intelligence — i.e., they’re better at understanding and connecting with others. On the flip side, people who avoid emojis, especially in close relationships, may struggle with emotional closeness. Great news for me! 💃
$295,000,000
List price for a mansion on the market in Naples, Florida. The most expensive property for sale in the U.S. has six bedrooms, 24 bathrooms, two guest houses, a yacht berth … and a 95% chance of flooding within the next 30 years. The nine-acre compound has Gulf waters on three sides, and the city’s been hit by five hurricanes over the last two years.
Singing like a canary: Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing life in prison for sex trafficking, racketeering and a slew of other charges. But it seems his biggest worry is not having a laptop in his cell to use whenever he wants. There’s a laptop he can use with supervision from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The judge says that’s enough time for him to do diddy-squat.
Money cannot buy happiness: The founder of HowStuffWorks.com said his career was destroyed after he filed an ethics complaint with North Carolina State University. Professor Marshall Brain sent a tragic email to 30 of his NCSU colleagues before taking his own life last month. He sold HowStuffWorks.com for $250 million in 2007. If you or someone you know is struggling, call 988 or visit this site.
9,000,000 tulips
Planted for the “Wicked” movie. The movie’s director wanted real flowers in the scene for “Over the Rainbow,” not CGI. The flowers were grown on 500 acres at Belmont Farms in Norfolk, England. Only an American could’ve written “The Wizard of Oz;” anywhere else, he’d be “The Wizard of 28g.”
23 years ago
Enron went bankrupt. After more than two decades, they’re making a comeback. This week, “Enron” launched a rebranded website and press release about their return, now featuring crypto. Unbelievable, right? Yup. It’s a parody site for “entertainment purposes only.” Talk about an En-runaround!
Reel-y impressive tech: Amazon is dropping six new AI models. Reel turns simple text prompts into short videos. Here’s a little snippet. I’m impressed! For now, three text-generation models are live for certain developers. The rest drop for everyone else to try early next year.