Tag Archive for: thinks

Ron DeSantis either misunderstands Social Security or thinks voters do

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In the third Republican presidential debate, Ron DeSantis said he would force Congress to stop borrowing money from Social Security. Hopefully, he has been badly briefed about Social Security finances by his staff.

If DeSantis actually understands Social Security financing, then his remark would have to be interpreted as a cynical attempt to take advantage of the fact that many voters don’t understand it. This misunderstanding is reflected in claims that Congress has stolen the money in the Social Security Trust Fund, which at the beginning of 2023 contained $2.83 trillion.

Paul F. deLespinassePaul F. deLespinasse

Paul F. deLespinasse

Nobody has stolen a dime from the Trust Fund. Instead, the U.S. Treasury, as authorized by Congress, has borrowed the money, paying the usual rate of interest paid to anybody else who buys treasury notes and bonds. So the money in the Trust Fund is in the form of U.S. bonds, not cash, stock, or other assets.

The money in the Trust Fund has come from several sources. Most was collected from employers and workers through the employment tax (FICA), which for several decades was more than the annual outgo to retirees and other Social Security beneficiaries. During this time, when the U.S. population was much younger, the surplus was used to build up the Trust Fund.

Some of it comes from income tax on Social Security benefits paid by Americans whose total income exceeds a certain amount fixed by law. The rest comes from the interest the Treasury pays for the money it has borrowed from the Trust Fund.

For a few years now the annual income into the Social Security Trust Fund has been less than the money needed to pay Social Security benefits. To make up the difference, the Trust Fund sells enough bonds back to the Treasury to provide the needed cash. Actuaries estimate that the Trust Fund will run completely out of bonds it can cash about 10 years from now.

This does not mean that Social Security beneficiaries will lose all their benefits. But It does mean that current income from FICA, if that tax is not increased, would only allow paying beneficiaries about three-fourths of their full benefits. Of course this decrease would hit retired people who have no other income very hard, in some cases even…

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Cybersecurity: What a convicted hacker thinks Australia is lacking in cybersecurity

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In 1998, Skeeve Stevens was jailed for a hack that was described at the time as Australia’s most “notorious” internet cybercrime. Today, it sounds very similar to the breach that hit Optus in September.
Under the pseudonym Optik Surfer, Stevens hacked internet provider AusNet and shared the credit card and personal details of 1200 people with journalists. His aim was to lay bare the shortcomings of AusNet’s system. For his actions, he was jailed for 18 months.
These days Stevens spends his time consulting with state and federal police, intelligence agencies, the Australian Defence Force and law firms, among others, discussing the weaponisation of technology.

Here’s what he wants you to know about the state of cybersecurity in Australia, who is drawn to hacking, and why they turn criminal.

Money aside, why do people hack?

Stevens told The Feed: you don’t “become a hacker, you kind of always are.”
It’s for people who are curious, talented, but mostly, it’s for people who like puzzles. Stevens just wanted to keep prodding to see where it would take him. Decades ago he hacked into Australian universities, vending machines, and even US agencies, just to see if he could.

“I thought ‘oh that’s cool, now if I do that, do I get that? Does this plus that equal that?” he said.

But he said hackers can veer towards criminality when their skills and talent aren’t met with enough ethical guidance during their learning process.
“I’ve seen eight-year-old girls that are coding three [computer] languages. Some of our kids are amazing,” he said.

“But are they being guided by teachers that can actually help harness and frame those skills? This is where you’re going to end up with bad actors or bad hackers.”

What is missing in Australia’s approach?

Stevens said the first thing Australia is lacking is literacy around cyber security at various levels. He said it starts with the average Australian and extends all the way to those making decisions about data collection and storage.
“There’s a lot of ‘FUD’ in the industry: fear, uncertainty, and doubt from officials,” said Stevens, noting that companies and politicians should be clearer in their communication and messaging.
While cyberattacks are commonplace and…

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Google’s Chrome Is Under Heavy Attack—This Startup Thinks It Has A Rival To Save Businesses From Disaster

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Browsers are proving to be a potential Achilles’ heel in computer and smartphone security. This year has seen a record number of so called zero-day attacks in the wild, where unpatched weaknesses in software are exploited by hackers, and Google Chrome has seen at least 12 so far this year.

In Covid and post-pandemic times, as workers use their personal devices for work, or their work ones for personal use, the danger of being hacked via Chrome or whatever browser they use has become considerably more real. Enter Talon Cyber Security, an Israeli startup that’s already claimed the largest seed round in its country’s history with $26 million in April this year. Coming out of stealth with its first product on Wednesday, it has created a browser, TalonWork, based on the same Chromium base code that Chrome uses, but with a promise to do a better job than rivals at protecting the more distributed, often home-based workforce of the post-Covid era.

The company claims its browser, which can be deployed across a customer’s organization in less than an hour, is “hardened” from zero-day attacks as Talon’s servers detect attempted attacks. It also isolates work-related browsing activity from any malware on the device. And, via a management console, businesses can apply their own policies across their employees’ browsers and get data on what workers are doing on the web, though only when it’s linked to work, Talon cofounder and CEO Ofer Ben-Noon tells Forbes. “IT can see, monitor and control everything work related.” Companies can choose how they want to split personal and work use.

Talon claims ten customers and design partners are already using the browser, though it isn’t revealing any names.

The company claims its product is a first of its kind, though others have sold secure browsers into the enterprise market before. Google, for instance, has its own enterprise-focused version of Chrome that offers many of the same support and control features Talon is…

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Even Google Thinks Sideloading Apps on Android Is Horrible

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Image for article titled Even Google Thinks Sideloading Apps on Android Is a Horrible Experience

Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)

So much is revealed when court documents are officially unsealed, and in the case of Epic Games’ antitrust complaint against Google, we now know that Google considered buying the Fortnite maker outright “squelch this threat.” Google also apparently attempted to convince Epic Games not to limit Fortnite to sideloading on Android devices, as doing so would lead to a poor user experience.

In the court filings, which you can download and peruse yourself, Epic cites an internal document where Google called Epic’s plans a “contagion” on its business. The company also alleges that “Google uses its size, influence, power, and money to push third parties into anticompetitive agreements that further entrench its monopolies.”

There is no public documentation indicating Google approached Epic with an offer to buy the gaming company, nor any clear timeline. Epic CEO Tim McSweeney tweeted in response to The Verge’s article on the matter that Google’s plan was “unbeknownst to us at the time.”

Epic also alleges that Google offered it a special deal to launch Fortnite in the Play Store. Though details remain sealed and redacted, the document then describes how senior Google Play managers approached Epic about its plans to limit Android users to sideloading the game.

One manager contacted Epic’s Vice President and Co-Founder to gauge Epic’s interest in a special deal and, among other things, discussed “the experience of getting Fortnite on Android” via direct downloading. The manager’s call notes state that she viewed direct downloading Fortnite as “frankly abysmal” and “an awful experience”, and that Epic should “worry that most will not go through the 15+ steps”.

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Elsewhere in the document, there are claims that Google had acknowledged sideloading applications “leads to a [po]or user experience,” since it takes Android users more steps than installing an app directly from an authenticated app store. A Google employee even ran through the “install friction” that makes direct downloading a “bad experience” for users.

Google’s bits to Epic reads like persuasion as to why it…

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