Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Is Wikipedia the ‘Last Best Place on the Internet’?

"Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship." -Denzel Washington


Bluesky now lets you spotlight links on your profile


MULTITASKING:  Your Brain May Be Switching Between Two Versions of Reality 15 Times a Second


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NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Is It Safe to Eat Unwashed Produce? Here’s What Experts Say


Is Wikipedia the ‘Last Best Place on the Internet’?

The New York Times, no paywall: “A jaunty new history recounts how the online encyclopedia turned the promise of collective creation into a global juggernaut. Remember when Wikipedia was seen as a lark, and maybe even a bit of a joke? 

An online encyclopedia that could be written and edited by anyone? Wouldn’t it degenerate into a war of all against all, overrun by P.R. flacks and trolls? Now, 25 years after its founding, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia ever to have existed. 

The site has more than seven million articles in English and receives an average of 508 million views a day. The old-school utility of its pages makes it look like an earnest rejoinder to today’s poisoned chalices of sleek branding and gaudy A.I. slop. While social media platforms fuel engagement by egging on users’ baser instincts, Wikipedia still revolves around the quaint pleasures of human curiosity. 

Instead of enriching a tech billionaire, it is run as a nonprofit. This isn’t to say that it’s been all sunshine and rainbows. As Wikipedia has grown, its rules have proliferated, making it more bureaucratic; it has also become a target in the accelerating culture wars, derided by Elon Musk as “Wokepedia.” 

But until recently, Wikipedia seemed to occupy the noncombatant’s sweet spot — what the journalist Richard Cooke terms the “no man’s land between ‘trust the experts’ and ‘do your own research.’”


Your Boss May Soon Want to Scan Your Eyes Before Your Next Zoom Call

Gizmodo: “World, the iris-scanning identity project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, now offers a way for people on Zoom calls to prove they are humans rather than deepfakes. To sign workers up, World is offering to place its Orbs inside client offices, and some of the first financial firms lined up to try it, or their crypto arms, have also bought World’s WLD token. World ID for Zoom became generally available to Zoom’s enterprise customers on Sunday. 

World lists Bain Capital, OpenExchange, Outtake, Pantera Capital, and VanEck Funds as initial design partners. Previously, Bain Capital Crypto, the crypto arm of Bain Capital, bought WLD in a May 2025 $135 million token sale, and Pantera led a $52.5 million WLD sale in July that Bain Capital Crypto also joined. World’s parent company, Tools for Humanity, built the project around the Orb, a sphere that photographs a person’s face and irises to confirm they are a unique human before issuing a World ID. 

The project launched as Worldcoin, with a pitch centered on a new cryptocurrency handed out to anyone willing to get their eyes scanned. I argued back in 2021 that the token was a bad idea for some obvious reasons, and WLD is currently down around 95% from its all-time high, according to data from CoinGecko. Tools for Humanity also told staff about layoffs in June, on the same day that Altman’s other company, OpenAI, announced it had confidentially filed for an initial public offering…”




WSJ: How Romanian gangs are using ATM skimming techniques to rip off US welfare benefit cards
 
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center reissues warning of government impersonation scams with data from January 2026 through July

  • Some impersonate IC3 itself
  • 61,000 complaints of law enforcement or government impersonation scams, with losses totaling more than $1.6 billion
  • Jury duty frauds had 6,833 IC3 complaints involving this kind of scam, with losses totaling nearly $36 million.
  • Claims that passports, drivers licenses or other items are expiring 496 IC3 complaints involving this kind of scam, with losses totaling more than $348,000


Fraud Studies: Here are links to the studies I’ve written for the Better Business Bureau: puppy fraud, romance fraud; BEC fraud, sweepstakes/lottery fraud,  tech support fraud, romance fraud money mules, crooked movers, government imposters, online vehicle sale scams, rental fraud, gift cards,  free trial offer frauds,  job scams,  online shopping fraud,  fake check fraud and crypto scams
 
Fraud News Around the world

Humor

BEC Fraud

Benefit Theft

Scam Compounds

Ransomware and data breaches

Romance Fraud and Sextortion 

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Why Trump suing the BBC could become the biggest TACO of all

Why Trump suing the BBC could become the biggest TACO of all 

By Stuart Littlemore Barrister and former ABC journalist

A $US10 billion (AU$14.2 billion) defamation case brought by Donald Trump against the BBC over a program broadcast after the January 6, 2021 riots reached a make-or-break point this week when the judge ordered the US president to turn up and be examined before December 11.


Trump is suing the UK broadcaster over an episode of current affairs program Panorama that edited together two different sections of a speech he gave before the riot at the US Capitol. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “deceptively doctoring” the speech. The broadcaster has already apologised for the error, admitting that it gave “the mistaken impression that Trump made a direct call for violent action”.

Supporters of Donald Trump, including Jake Angeli, aka Yellowstone Wolf (centre), enter the Capitol on January 6, 2021. AFP
In commencing this action, perhaps Trump was misled by the $US86.5 million ($123 million) paid to him by Paramount Global and other media and tech companies, including ABC, CBS and Facebook, pretending the vast amounts were genuine defamation settlements, and believed the BBC would fall into line.

So far as I know, Australia has had only one such case, in 1986 – when businessman Alan Bond, having acquired Kerry Packer’s Channel 9, paid then-Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen a $400,000 bribe, successfully passing it off as an out-of-court defamation case settlement from the Packer days. Even the barristers’ chambers cat knew the case was worth $50,000 tops, and it was no more or less than a bribe for Joh’s protection of his business operations in Queensland.

The judge here – Enjolique Lett – ruled that Trump’s persistent failure to meet her case management orders will no longer be tolerated, and that he must give sworn evidence even before the trial starts, in a deposition by the BBC’s legal team. It appears, then, that Trump must either attend and answer their questions, or drop the matter.

Which might just be the biggest TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) of them all. Defamation lawyers in London and New York were nonplussed from the very beginning of the litigation, seeing it as always doomed to fail. And it was. A man whose name is mud takes on a revered titan of British journalism that courteously said “Sorry!” for a bit of a blunder – one that cost the CEO his job. It has loomed as the biggest such case ever litigated, despite it looking unwinnable, and why did he even start it? Does he really need damages from the court? Getting the edit wrong on his calls for the insurrectionists to “fight” surely pales against his insouciant embrace of obscenity and his defiant boasting of sexual assaults. He didn’t sue over those.

Why didn’t Trump sue in London? This was a foreign television show never broadcast in the US, making it seem impossible for his lawyers to gather evidence making the BBC liable for any extraterritorial publication of the single Panorama program. And as to vindication: in the UK, damages for defamation causing reputational injury would not exceed a piddling £300,000, although they are not capped. Hence it has to be a Florida judge and jury. The choice of venue most inconveniently leaves the plaintiff with the apparently insurmountable onus of proving not just that the BBC published the show in Florida (when it didn’t), but also persuading the judge not to apply the UK libel law to a publication made in Britain for a British audience, by a British corporation.

At its strongest, the gist of the Trump case is that the editing of the speech he made on January 6 was actionable because it carried the charge that he called on the MAGA crowd to take violent action at the Capitol. Further, if that imputation is established on the balance of probabilities, he’ll have to defeat the defence that he is so notoriously a person of bad character (courts have judged him a fraud and a sexual offender to a civil standard) that the imputed words didn’t further damage his standing in the estimation of right-thinking people. In other words, the president of the US of A would be wasting his time trying to prove that his good name needs vindication. Defamation encompasses slander and libel, although libel is published in permanent form.

Back to Florida, and a judge he didn’t appoint. If Trump meets all his pre-trial obligations, and the case proceeds on February 15 next year as set down, he will have to overcome a full suite of defences, perhaps under British law, perhaps American, rebutting everything from the “public figure” test created in NY Times v Sullivan(certainly not British law, and requires actual malice motivating the libel, not sloppy journalism), substantial truth, and very complex free speech arguments of the “fair comment” kind. And triviality. He may well be advised to retain two teams of specialist counsel. Talk about a lawyers’ picnic.

To lawyers, the riveting denouement of the litigation will be its eventual disposal by Trump’s Supreme Court lickspittles, although – to be fair – some seem to be working to assuage their shame, now that his character is unquestionably indefensible. Because the US Supreme Court is where this will end if it is ever started. To this lawyer, the hard thing to understand is how the BBC’s American lawyers are fighting the matter. US lawyers are the ones who take 45 per cent of the verdict moneys as their fee.

But the parties’ strategy and legal tactics? The BBC’s early application to strike the case out for lack of jurisdiction failed when the judge ordered that it should continue at least through its discovery stages, including Trump’s deposition. Puzzling, when it can’t have been in genuine dispute that no BBC publication took place within any American jurisdiction. The BBC’s smartest tactic resulted in Trump dropping his economic loss claims – his own and his companies’ – rather than open the books. So he’s left seeking damages for only his reputational injuries. And obviously, the defendant will call evidence not so much as to Trump’s character, but of what people think of him. His reputation. And the only people whose evidence on reputation can be received are those proved to have watched the program. It gets sillier.

Stuart Littlemore, KC, is a barrister and former ABC journalist. He was the founding host of Media Watch.
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Centrelink 'hounding' Australians - Tax complaints almost triple in just two years

The consultation on tackling fraud and financial abuse was released by the federal government on 14 October in response to the parliamentary joint committee on corporations and financial services inquiry into financial abuse, with one accountant stressing the importance of the frontline being considered.

 

Centrelink 'hounding' Australians to pay back billions in debt calculated by 'unlawful' method



 Tax complaints almost triple in just two years by Shane Wright

Complaints to the tax office watchdog have soared by 74 per cent over the past year as ordinary workers and small businesses struggle with the ATO’s crackdown on outstanding tax bills and penalties.

Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen, in a report released today, said there had been sharp increases in grievances from taxpayers over the financial hardship caused by the ATO’s calculation of debts and its actions to recover outstanding payments.

Taxation Ombudsman Ruth Owen has revealed a surge in complaints to her office.STEVEN SIEWERT

In the period between April and September, the ombudsman received 2376 complaints, compared to 1362 for the same period last year. The 2026 numbers were 180 per cent up 2024 levels.

In one case noted by Owen, a woman left with paraplegia after an accident was caught in a dispute with the ATO over an outstanding $160,000 tax debt. After an ombudsman investigation which found the tax office had failed to take into account the woman’s dire health and financial circumstances, the debt was waived.


According to Owen, it was clear many taxpayers were under pressure which was exacerbated by the tax office’s actions.

“We continue to see an unprecedented demand for our services. Our latest complaint data shows more people are struggling due to the ATO’s debt collection activity or interest charges,” she said.

“At a time when many Australians are facing financial distress, we are seeing increased complaints about how the ATO is collecting tax debt owed and how interest is applied to the debt, often making the amount due impossible to pay back.”

A ban on credit card use for tax bills has been delayed by the ATO after a small business revolt.

Of the issues raised with the ombudsman, debt collection and payments to taxpayers accounted for 19 per cent each. Another 18 per cent related to penalties including the interest penalties on outstanding tax.


Unpaid superannuation was one of the fastest growing areas of concern with an 8 per cent lift on 2025 levels. Super accounted for 56 per cent of all payment complaints, while another 37 per cent related to the status of tax refunds.

In a sign of the economic pressure on taxpayers, the number of complaints from people wanting to be released from a tax debt because of serious financial hardship climbed 5 per cent on last year.

There was also a sharp increase in the proportion of complaints about how tax debts had been calculated and in re-raising debts that had previously not been pursued by the ATO.

There was a 9 per cent drop in the number of complaints where the ombudsman confirmed the ATO’s actions were reasonable and a 6 percentage point lift in cases where concerns about the tax office’s communications had been raised.


More than 80 per cent of complaints came from individuals, which included people operating as a business. While 12 per cent of complaints were from organisations, small businesses accounted for 29 per cent of the ombudsman’s complex cases.

Last week, credit bureau CreditorWatch noted a surge in the number of businesses falling behind on their payments to the ATO.

Tax debt defaults reached more than 37,500 in September, a 20.7 per cent jump over the year.

Owen said the increase in complaints was being partly driven by the financial pressure on individuals and businesses.


“The concentration of complaints we’re seeing around tax debt, interest, missing superannuation and delayed refunds indicates people are doing it tough at the moment. But they’re still trying to do the right thing and engage with the tax system.”



Tax office complaints surge during crack down on debts

By Derek Rose and Jacob Shteyman
October 27 2026 
The nation's tax office is ramping up its bid to extract payments of debts owed. Photo: Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS
The nation's tax office is ramping up its bid to extract payments of debts owed. Photo: Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS

The number of Australians complaining about the tax office has surged as it ramps up debt collections at the same time as taxpayers struggle with rising cost pressures.

The Tax Ombudsman fielded 2376 complaints against the Australian Taxation Office in the six months to September, up 74 per cent from the same period in 2025 and 180 per cent above the same period two years ago.

Debt collection and payment-related matters each accounted for 19 per cent of complaint investigations from April to September, the agency said.

"Our latest complaint data shows more people are struggling due to the ATO's debt collection activity or interest charges or simply need to resolve delays to payments they are due,'' Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen said.

The ATO is owed billions in outstanding tax debt, and is making moves to get it back. (April Fonti/AAP PHOTOS)
The ATO is owed billions in outstanding tax debt, and is making moves to get it back. (April Fonti/AAP PHOTOS)

"At a time when many Australians are facing financial distress, we are seeing increased complaints about how the ATO is collecting tax debt owed and how interest is applied to the debt, often making the amount due impossible to pay back."

In response, an ATO spokesperson said the tax office had only received 1358 complaints over the same period, as the ombudsman's figures included cases that were resolved without any ATO involvement or that related to the Tax Practitioners Board or state tax issues.

The ombudsman only investigated 501 complaints out of 2376 it received and found in most cases, the ATO had acted appropriately.

In 63 per cent of debt collection-related complaints, the agency found the ATO acted reasonably, down nine per cent from the same period last year.

Complaints about penalties and interest made up 18 per cent of grievances, up from 13 per cent a year ago.

Amid rising inflation and interest rates, tax liabilities were adding to mounting debts owed by taxpayers and small businesses, the ombudsman said.

Taxpayers also relied on tax refunds to maintain liquidity or pay other bills. 

"This is likely to partially explain why we have seen an increase in complaints, alongside the fact that the ATO has had to ramp up its debt collection activity to reduce the size of its collectable debt book," the report said.

The ATO was owed $54.2 billion in outstanding tax debt in 2024/25, according to the Australian National Audit Office.

Andrew McKellar says Australian businesses are struggling on a range of fronts. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)
Andrew McKellar says Australian businesses are struggling on a range of fronts. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)

Debts owed by small businesses amounted to $35.9 billion, an increase of $19.4 billion from 2018/29.

Following a backlash to proposed tax hikes for discretionary trusts, the ATO's announcement that it would ban credit card payments has further dented relations between the government and the business community.

"When we get feedback from businesses around the country, I think they are feeling under pressure," Andrew McKellar, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Politico's Canberra Playbook podcast.

"They're feeling that they're really struggling on a range of fronts, and they just see a range of decisions from government that feel disconnected from the objectives that they're trying to achieve."

Australian Associated Press



ATO complaints surge amid tax collection crackdown

Complaints over ATO debt collection have surged as it takes a tougher approach on collections in an attempt to claw back $115bn in outstanding debt.Thomas HenryThomas Henry
Complaints from Australians being pursued by the ATO have skyrocketed in recent months.
Complaints from Australians being pursued by the tax office have skyrocketed in recent months as the ATO takes a tougher approach on collections in an attempt to wrangle $115bn in outstanding debt, according to fresh figures from the Tax Ombudsman.
In her biannual report card for the Australian Taxation Office, the ombudsman noted a 74 per cent increase in complaints in April through to September when compared to the same period last year, and a whopping 180 per cent over two years.
The figures come after The Australian revealed the ATO is ramping up collections on trust-holdersunaware they had breached obscure tax rule from the 1990s, while bracing for billions of dollars in advice and restructuring costs thanks to Jim Chalmers’ budget tax changes.
Trust-holders that broke “family trust distribution tax” rules, many doing so unknowingly, are facing an explosion in historic debts, with examples of a historic $47,000 liability in the 1990s ballooning to a bill of $890,000 today.
“We continue to see an unprecedented demand for our services. Our latest complaint data shows more people are struggling due to the ATO’s debt collection activity or interest charges or simply need to resolve delays to payments they are due,” Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen said.
“At a time when many Australians are facing financial distress, we are seeing increased complaints about how the ATO is collecting tax debt owed and how interest is applied to the debt, often making the amount due impossible to pay back.”
Around half of debt-related complaints received by the ombudsman related to applications for release of debt due to hardship and director penalty notices, while 77 per cent of penalty related inquires related to general interest charges. 
In only 5 per cent of cases were penalties or interest reduced or remitted, down 17 per cent on the same period last year, which the ombudsman said indicated the “ATO’s tougher approach to debt collection”.
Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen.
“The concentration of complaints we’re seeing around tax debt, interest, missing superannuation, and delayed refunds indicates people are doing it tough at the moment but they’re still trying to do the right thing and engage with the tax system,” Ms Owen said“Whilst we cannot always change an ATO decision, we can provide independent assurance that the ATO acted reasonably and help people understand what happened on their particular  matter and why. The latest figures show a 9 per cent decrease in the number of complaints where the ATO was found by the ombudsman to have “acted reasonably” in relation to debt collection. With looming changes to the taxation of negative gearing, capital gains and trusts, concerns have been raised by a number of bodies over historic family trust distribution rules (FTDT) pointing to an example of a historic $47,000 liability ballooning to a $890,000 bill today.  FTDT is levied at 47 per cent of the gross amount distributed, and general interest charges start compounding 81 days later ­without any assessment ever being issued. Interest then compounds daily at seven percentage points above the bank bill rate, so at current rates an unnoticed liability roughly doubles every six to seven years.
Thomas Henry
Thomas HenryReporter
Thomas Henry is a reporter for The Australian's Canberra press gallery bureau. He joined the masthead after graduating from the 2025 cadet program and holds a Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University.

1 in 5 borrowers use AI to fake mortgage documents 

Bank statements, payslips manipulated to secure home loans…


Should the ATO share more data?

Soltani said the findings strengthened the case for secure data sharing between the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and banks, provided borrowers gave their consent.

“That would let lenders verify declared income against an independent government source, rather than relying on a PDF that can be altered in seconds with AI,” said Soltani.

Zhong cautioned, however, that making access to tax information a condition of obtaining a mortgage would undermine the idea that data sharing was voluntary.

She also raised concerns about how the information might be used beyond income verification.

“The second [question] is scope creep: data collected to verify income shouldn’t be used for marketing, pricing or other purposes,” Zhong.

“The third is security, because any new pipeline for sensitive government data becomes a target.”

Zhong said a better approach would be a 'verify, don't share' model, in which lenders could confirm whether a borrower's declared income broadly matched ATO records without receiving their full tax information.

Banks uncover major mortgage fraud

The findings come amid growing concerns about mortgage fraud in Australia and the role AI is playing in making it easier to falsify financial documents.

In February, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia alerted authorities to a possible fraud racket that obtained approximately $1 billion in illegitimate home loans, including through the use of AI.

In August, Australia’s financial crimes watchdog AUSTRAC revealed that an analysis of data from 10 major Australian banks identified potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in suspected fraudulent loans, mostly linked to properties in Sydney.

AUSTRAC said the suspected mortgage fraud involved inflated incomes, misrepresented employment, and fabricated or unverifiable business activity used to support loan applications.

AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said generative AI was now “widely used” to create or alter fraudulent documents, making them easier and potentially more convincing to produce.

“The banks see fraud regularly — the risk is not new, but advances in AI technology are making it easier to commit fraud at scale,” Thomas told Information Age.

“While AI may make it easier to generate false or misleading documentation, our focus remains on behaviours, risk indicators and vulnerabilities rather than the specific tools used to facilitate them.

“People applying for home loans must provide accurate and truthful information, whether they use AI or not.”


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