PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston You may think you can make easy money by betting on sports and political events in so-called prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. I’d bet that you’d lose your shirt. If bettors believe there’s a 75 percent chance that interest rates will rise, for instance, you can bet 75 […]

ISSUE 23.22 • 2026-06-01 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Waves of state-sponsored malware attacks are expected to overwhelm traditional antivirus software as early as July 2026. By then, hacker teams will surely gain access to powerful large language models (LLMs) such as Anthropic’s Mythos Preview and OpenAI’s GPT-5.4-Cyber. In April 2026, Anthropic and OpenAI announced […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER Microsoft ruined Windows’ local account — but here’s the fix By Brian Livingston Windows users have installed the operating system for decades using what’s known as a local account. But Microsoft has nibbled away at end users’ independence to the point that most people are finding it impossible to set up Windows without […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston The maker of the popular Claude large language model (LLM) — which became the number-one download from US app stores in February 2026 — recently announced a powerful service called Claude Mythos. The new LLM has reportedly discovered thousands of security holes in every major operating system and Web browser. […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston I explained in my April 6, 2026, column that USB devices are becoming one of the most common ways hackers spread malware, using modified little gizmos that stroll past firewalls and are undetectable by security suites. At the end of that column, I promised to give you new information as […]

ISSUE 23.14 • 2026-04-06 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston As if we didn’t already have enough malware to worry about, malicious hackers and state-sponsored cybercrime teams are turning ordinary-looking USB drives and cables into weapons that can infect or fry — within a single second — any computer or electronic component you plug them into. […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Most of the “smart” devices in your home or office are constantly uploading personal information about you to data brokers who sell your profile to all comers — but there are ways to prevent this leakage of your life to people who clearly don’t have your best interests at heart. […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Installing “agentic AI” such as Microsoft’s Copilot, OpenAI’s GPT Atlas, and other artificial-intelligence helpers is a big trend among businesses and individual computer users — but big problems come along with such bots. A white paper published by Kiteworks, a data-management firm, says 60 percent of companies using agentic AI […]