Jesse Mueller Homoglyphs and homographs are linguistic terms, used also in IT to describe certain types of internet deception. Basic Linguistics Homoglyphs are different letters that look similar or almost identical to each other. For example, English letters c, y, p (See, Why, Pee) appear the same as Russian (Cyrillic) letters с, ү and р (Ess, Oo … Read more
In the past, I’ve recommended using the Bitdefender Trafficlight extension. That freebie would help as you search the web and visit new websites, warning of dangers and risks along the way. Recently, Bitdefender overhauled that tool, and it is now called Bitdefender Web Sage. If you were already using Trafficlight, it has probably transformed into … Read more
You can Google a phone number or use a directory search-style website, but the results are often hit-or-miss. The same goes for Number lookup websites. There’s no one reliable directory for looking up a phone number. But sometimes, I’ll research a phone number, not to find its owner, but to know what kind of number … Read more
If you use Facebook casually, as an individual, Facebook’s new “link limits” won’t impact you. This recent change affects Business Pages and Professional Mode accounts. Meta is rolling out a change to Facebook, such that a business may only post (or comment) two URL links per month. More than that requires a paid subscription to … Read more
Amazon has made it easy to review what they know about you. You should check it out. If you’re in the Amazon mobile app, tap the “Person” icon at the bottom, tap your name at the top, and then go to the section called “About You beta“. On a computer, visit Amazon’s website in your … Read more
I commonly block ads for people as I service their computer. Advertisements are a common vector for scams and malware to enter your life! And it is easy for me to quickly install a free browser extension on any given computer to help with that. But more and more, people ask me: What about my … Read more
Apple has settled another big lawsuit, to the tune of $250M, and if you recently bought an iPhone, you might be able to get some money back from the Siri AI Settlement. First, only a select group of people can file a claim for this. You can only get in on this settlement if you … Read more
It used to be that cellphones would allow you to send an email to a person’s phone number, and it would be received as a text message. And the reverse also worked: someone could send a text to an email address, and that message would arrive in the recipient’s inbox. But no longer. Please know: … Read more
This year, the most prevalent phishing tactic I’m seeing in my customer inboxes uses “invitation” ruses. Please become familiar with Invitation phishing, so that you can dodge this when you receive some. Here are a boatload of samples: Invitation phishing has a lot going for it. Scammers love this attack vector, because it: These fake … Read more
Microsoft supplies stunning photography to their Windows PCs, for use on the lock screen. And then they slap a bunch of busy distractions on top of it. Please know that you can unclutter the Windows Lock Screen, if you know where to look in the Settings Panel. You’ll want to go to Start -> Settings … Read more