PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston The US Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and the FBI served a search warrant on a 22-year-old man in Oregon on August 6, 2025, shutting down one of the largest malware botnets ever seen. The bot operation extorted money from websites that didn’t want to be attacked. For instance, the […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston We all think we can tell malicious “phishing” messages from the real thing. But studies show that even receiving formal anti-phishing training doesn’t prevent people from clicking on links or opening attachments that let hackers infect their devices, steal their credit-card numbers, or worse. Like a tsunami, electronic communications flood […]

ISSUE 22.36 • 2025-09-08 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston The Intel Corporation, long the world’s largest manufacturer of processors for personal computers, fried investors’ money with a catastrophic loss of $20 billion in the 12 months ending June 2025. Intel’s manufacturing (foundry) division alone lost $8 billion in the same period. Meanwhile, CPUs by Advanced […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston For many years, security software has run in Windows’ so-called kernel mode. This privileged execution level gives Windows — and any other software running in that mode — total control over your computer. But apps having this much power can be disastrous for your system and for you. Catastrophes have […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming service, charges fees to artists for more airplay than they would otherwise get. Worse, Spotify randomly turns off its Shuffle mode to give 20 or so fee-paying songs “heavy rotation” in your playlists. Unfortunately, other major streaming services also take money to give certain […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Suddenly, cryptocurrency has become legitimized in the United States and elsewhere. It is fast becoming a threat to legacy credit-card issuers — potentially changing consumers’ preferred means of payment. Only four years ago, the US government treated crypto like a pariah. Back in November 2021, the Office of the Comptroller […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston • Comment about this article You may have great difficulty changing away from a Microsoft Windows application that automatically opens images, documents, and websites and toward an independent, third-party app that you like better. It’s not that you’re technically inept. The reason for the headache is that Windows 10 and […]

ISSUE 22.26 • 2025-06-30 Look for our BONUS issue on July 7, 2025!! PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Millions of Android smartphone users worldwide received an unpleasant surprise last month. The text-messaging app they’d long been using had been unceremoniously replaced during a seemingly routine update. Their usual texting vehicle was deep-sixed by Google Messages, […]