Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Mystery masks: Unsolicited face masks from China arriving in mailboxes

ASIO enters bizarre Twitter war over national spread


In only the second Vegemite controversy to happen this week, Australia's top intelligence agency ASIO are in the midst of a Twitter war with another UK agency, all in defence of our treasured yeast spread.

Yes, really.

A tweet fired off from the GCHQ — one of the UK's three intelligence and security agencies — has ignited the old Marmite versus Vegemite debate, once again.


Alleged toxic waste dumper charged with endangering firefighters



Mystery masks: Unsolicited face masks from China arriving in mailboxes

Source: Nexstar Media Wire via WTAJ

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — First, it was mystery seeds. Now, face masks from China are showing up unsolicited in mailboxes. And they are not gifts. Shan Sharp, of Clearwater, was stunned when she went to the mailbox recently and found a package she wasn’t expecting.

“I looked at the label and it had Shanghai, China from a certain district,” she said. “All of this information, including my cell phone number, (was) on there.”

There have been reports of not only seeds and facemasks but also jewelry. Sometimes the package is a box of facemasks, while some people report receiving only a single facemask.

The good news is this scheme is not expected to cost you money, but some unknown company could be using your likeness to boost their presence and reputation online. The FTC recommends that you change all e-commerce passwords if you receive packages from China that you didn’t order.



Subject: Data Security & Privacy Gaps in Video Doorbells

Video doorbells make it easy to see who’s at your door, a convenience that provides a sense of security. But like any internet-connected security camera, they’re also susceptible to hacking. So as part of Consumer Reports’ ongoing efforts to protect consumers from hackers, we recently conducted data security and data privacy tests on the 24 video doorbells in our ratings, including five new models. “Often these cameras are pointing out into public spaces, but you still don’t want to give hackers the ready ability to see who’s coming and going from your house, and when,” says Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology policy for Consumer Reports.

Consumer Reports’ Digital Lab evaluates digital products and services for how well they protect consumers’ data privacy and security. The most critical findings from our tests of video doorbells concern security vulnerabilities we discovered in five models from four brands that can expose user data like email addresses and account passwords.



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