ISSUE 23.44 • 2026-11-02 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Although we are already deluged with information from the Internet, our content-overload problem is being made worse by “technology” newsletters and websites that knowingly publish outrageous fictions. I’m not referring to the usual breathless prose by tech writers about some new gizmo that the authors are […]

ISSUE 23.42 • 2026-10-19 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston It’s now clearer than ever that the algorithms used by social-media apps such as Facebook and Instagram are harming young people and adults. As San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge recently wrote, “five times more 10- to 14-year-old girls were admitted to the ER […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston By some accounts, computer-chip prices have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in just the past year. You can blame it on vast new data centers that require billions of dollars’ worth of servers and parts to accommodate the training of large language models, superintelligent agents, and every other demand for […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston A new study says quantum computers now in development will enable hackers to steal bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies without knowing the passwords or even the names of the rightful owners. No quantum computers exist yet. But when they do, one estimate is that 32 percent of all bitcoins and a […]

ISSUE 23.36 • 2026-09-07 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Spirit Airlines, an ultra-low-cost carrier that served nearly 90 destinations in the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean, went bankrupt and ceased all flight operations on May 2, 2026. Google, the search giant, won a competitive bidding process and will pay $10 million to buy Spirit’s […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Public water utilities in several US states were hit with coordinated hacker attacks on July 26–27, 2026. The intrusions temporarily knocked Internet-connected control devices offline, forcing some agencies to warn customers to boil tap water. No permanent poisonings occurred, but the exploits may be a hacker group’s test run or […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Realistic-looking videos that are the most-often recommended by the popular TikTok social media app regarding health care contain no real people 40 percent of the time, a new analysis of the site’s mini-movies has found. Many of TikTok’s top-rated videos on every topic are AI-generated but look exactly like actual […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Millions of people around the world have installed Internet-connected “security cameras” to monitor foot traffic around their homes and offices. Unfortunately, many of these video devices make it easy for unwanted persons to see your live feed and record whatever comes into view. It’s convenient to know who’s at your […]

ISSUE 23.28 • 2026-07-13 Look for our BONUS issue on July 20, 2026!! PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Millions of people in the US and around the world are developing “tech neck,” a medical syndrome caused by prolonged hunching over smartphones, tablets, and other electronic devices. It’s hard to state the exact number of tech-neck […]