Posts

Showing posts from August, 2020

FTC Seeks to Add Real Estate Investment Celebrities Dean Graziosi and Scott Yancey as Defendants in Real Estate Training Case

Image
In a proposed amended complaint, agency alleges two celebrities profited from deceptive scheme that cost consumers more than $400 million The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to name celebrity real estate investment promoters Dean Graziosi and Scott Yancey as defendants in a case  for their roles in a massive real estate training scheme that bilked consumers out of more than $400 million. Graziosi is known for his appearances in infomercials promoting his books on real estate investing and is a self-described New York Times best-selling author, entrepreneur, and investor. Yancey was the star of the reality television series “Flipping Vegas” that aired on the A&E television network between 2011 and 2014. “We believe these two TV personalities each made millions of dollars by assisting and facilitating this real estate investment rip-off,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “They were instrumental to the scheme and took a cut of the profit

The jshell tool allows you to execute Java code, getting immediate results.

|  You can enter a Java definition (variable, method, class, etc), like:  int x = 8 |  or a Java expression, like:  x + x |  or a Java statement or import. |  These little chunks of Java code are called 'snippets'. | |  There are also the jshell tool commands that allow you to understand and |  control what you are doing, like:  /list | |  For a list of commands: /help jshell> /help |  Type a Java language expression, statement, or declaration. |  Or type one of the following commands: |  /list [<name or id>|-all|-start] |       list the source you have typed |  /edit <name or id> |       edit a source entry |  /drop <name or id> |       delete a source entry |  /save [-all|-history|-start] <file> |       Save snippet source to a file |  /open <file> |       open a file as source input |  /vars [<name or id>|-all|-start] |       list the declared variables and their values |  /methods [<name or id>|-all|-start] |       list the decla

Reset the password in Ubuntu for Windows WSL

In Windows admin command prompt ( Super + X ,  A ) change the default user to root: ubuntu config --default-user root Use  passwd  command in Bash to change the user password (the user whose password you want to reset): passwd your_username Change the default user back to your normal user in Windows command prompt ubuntu config --default-user your_username

Chrome Notification settings

chrome://settings/content/notifications?search=notif

Run SSH server on more than one ports

Edit sshd configuration file with your favourite text editor. $ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config Search for Port option and set the value to the ports that you desire. Port 22 Port 2222 Restart sshd $sudo systemctl restart sshd

Check PowerShell Version

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> $PSVersionTable.PSVersion Major  Minor  Build  Revision -----  -----  -----  -------- 5      1      19041  1

Check OpenSSH version

ssh -V OpenSSH_for_Windows_7.7p1, LibreSSL 2.6.5

Install Windows 10’s SSH Client

The SSH client is a part of Windows 10, but it’s an “optional feature” that isn’t installed by default. To install it, head to Settings > Apps and click “Manage optional features” under Apps & features. Click “Add a feature” at the top of the list of installed features. If you already have the SSH client installed, it will appear in the list here. Scroll down, click the “OpenSSH Client” option, and click “Install”.

Install dig by dnf/yum

[root@ca34c0badae5 /]# dnf -y install dig Last metadata expiration check: 0:02:15 ago on Thu Aug 27 20:03:15 2020. No match for argument: dig Error: Unable to find a match: dig [root@ca34c0badae5 /]# dnf whatprovides '*bin/dig' Last metadata expiration check: 0:07:18 ago on Thu Aug 27 20:03:15 2020. bind-utils-32:9.11.17-1.fc32.x86_64 : Utilities for querying DNS name servers Repo        : fedora Matched from: Other       : *bin/dig bind-utils-32:9.11.22-1.fc32.x86_64 : Utilities for querying DNS name servers Repo        : updates Matched from: Other       : *bin/dig [root@ca34c0badae5 /]# dnf -y install bind-utils

FTC Announces that its September Data Portability Workshop will be Held Online

The Federal Trade Commission announced that the September 22, 2020, workshop examining the potential benefits and challenges to consumers and competition raised by data portability will be held online. The online workshop will bring together consumer advocates, industry representatives, economists, regulators, and other stakeholders for a wide-ranging public discussion on data portability, which is the ability for consumers to move data—such as emails, contacts, calendars, financial information, health information, favorites, friends, or content posted on social media—from one service to another or to themselves. The agenda, along with information about how to view the event online, will be posted on the event page closer to the date of the event. The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers . You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). Like the FTC on Faceboo

Java new line

Use the %n conversion — the \n escape is not platform independent.

Java Byte streams should only be used for the most primitive I/O.

Java Suppressed Exceptions

An Java exception can be thrown from the block of code associated with the try-with-resources statement. If an exception is thrown from the try block and one or more exceptions are thrown from the try-with-resources statement, then those exceptions thrown from the try-with-resources statement are suppressed, and the exception thrown by the block is the one that is thrown by the mothod. Retrieve Java suppressed exceptions by calling the Throwable.getSuppressed method from the exception thrown by the try block.

Most Telemarketer Fees to Access the FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry to Increase in FY 2021

Image
The Federal Trade Commission has announced FY 2021 fees for telemarketers accessing phone numbers on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry. Most of the annual fees will increase slightly from FY 2020, and are set forth in a proposed  Federal Register notice . All telemarketers calling consumers in the United States are required to download the numbers on the National DNC Registry to ensure they do not call people who have registered their phone numbers. The first five area codes are free to download, and organizations that are exempt, such as some charitable organizations, may obtain the entire list for free. Telemarketers must subscribe each year for access to the Registry numbers. Most FY 2021 Registry access fees will increase slightly based on the re-evaluation required by the Do‑Not‑Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007. Under the Act’s provisions, in FY 2020 telemarketers will now pay $66 for yearly access to Registry phone numbers in a single area code, which is an incr

FTC Seeks Comment on Changes, Effectiveness of Five FCRA Rules

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking comment on proposed changes that would bring several rules implementing parts of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in line with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act). In separate Notices of Proposed Rule Making (NPRMs), which will be published in the Federal Register shortly, the FTC proposed changes that would clarify that five FCRA rules promulgated by the FTC apply only to motor vehicle dealers. The Dodd-Frank Act, enacted in 2010, transferred rulemaking authority related to parts of the FCRA to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, narrowing the FTC’s FCRA rulemaking authority for these rules. The NPRMs propose changes to the following rules: Address Discrepancy Rule , which outlines the obligations of users of consumer reports when they receive a notice of address discrepancy from a nationwide consumer reporting agency (CRA); Affiliate Marketing Rule , which gives consumers the right to restri

FTC and State of Wisconsin Warn Hearing Aid Sellers About Deceptive Stimulus Payment Claims

The Federal Trade Commission and the state of Wisconsin have sent warning letters to a company that placed newspaper advertisements and social media posts suggesting it could provide government stimulus money to customers to purchase their hearing aids. The letters highlight claims included in the ads and posts that implied consumers were eligible for such a benefit, including language such as “COVID-19 HEALTHCARE STIMULUS PROGRAM” and “Receive up to $3000 through our HEALTHCARE STIMULUS PROGRAM. Must register by July 31.” The ads and posts also included the Great Seal of the United States next to a headline reading “FREE HEARING AIDS.” The letters warn the recipients to cease making all deceptive claims and instruct them to notify the FTC and State of Wisconsin within 48 hours about the specific actions they have taken to address the concerns raised in the letters. The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers . You can learn more abou

Zoom tmux pane

Ctrl + b (prefix) + z works to zoom into a particular pane in tmux.  If you press Ctrl + b + z again, it zooms pane back to original size.

Remove a repository on Ubuntu

To delete a software repository from Ubuntu and its derivatives, just open the /etc/apt/sources.list file and look for the repository entry and delete it. 

Get public IP address of current instance

curl ifconfig.me curl http://checkip.amazonaws.com

Expand Azure os disk

Using the left Navigation select "Virtual machines". Locate the Virtual Machine to upgrade and click its name. Stop the VM Select "Disks" from the left navigation window of the Virtual Machine. Locate the disk which needs to be expanded. And click on the disks name. Alter the "Size" field of the disk. Start the Virtual Machine

FTC Sends Refund Checks Totaling More Than $700,000 to Small Business Owners Defrauded by Deceptive Robocalls

Image
The Federal Trade Commission is mailing refunds totaling more than $700,000 to small business owners who were deceived by a robocall scheme. According to the FTC, the defendants, operating as Pointbreak Media, Modern Spotlight, National Business Listings, and Modern Source Media, called small business owners, claimed to be acting on Google’s behalf, and threatened that Google would label their businesses “permanently closed” unless they spoke with a “Google specialist.” The defendants’ telemarketers then told the small business owners that the defendants could “claim and verify” the business owners’ Google listing and ensure it would appear prominently on the search engine, for a one-time fee ranging from $300 to $700. The court found that these claims were false.   The FTC is sending refunds to 4,467 small business owners with an average refund amount of $158.32. Those who receive checks should deposit or cash their checks within 60 days. If you were charged by Pointbreak Med

MOOC

 mooc.org mooc网站: https://www. futurelearn.com (来自英国的mooc) https://www. open2study.com/ (来自澳大利亚的mooc) https:// iversity.org/ (来自德国的mooc,德语为主,部分英语课程) http:// openuped.eu/ OpenupEd 欧盟mooc平台 https://www. france-universite-numerique-mooc.fr / (来自法国的mooc,法语) http:// schoo.jp/ (来自日本的mooc,日语) https://www. miriadax.net/ (西班牙语综合mooc平台) 一些大学和机构的专门mooc网站: https:// class.stanford.edu/ (斯坦福大学mooc) Complexity Explorer (圣菲研究所复杂系统mooc) JANUX | The University of Oklahoma (Oklahoma 大学mooc) http://www. xuetangx.com/ (清华大学学堂在线) http://www. icourse163.org/ (中国大学mooc ) http:// mooc.et.nthu.edu.tw/ (台湾国立清华大学mooc) http:// onlinecourse.olympic.org / (国际奥委会mooc平台)

FTC Sends Letters Warning 20 More Marketers to Stop Making Unsupported COVID-19 Treatment

Commission has sent similar letters to almost 300 other sellers and marketers nationwide The Federal Trade Commission announced it has sent letters warning 20 more marketers nationwide to stop making unsubstantiated claims that their products and therapies can prevent or treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. This is the eighth set of warning letters the FTC has announced as part of its ongoing efforts to protect consumers from health-related COVID-19 scams. In all, the Commission has sent similar letters to almost 300 companies and individuals. Several of the letters announced today target “treatments” the Commission has warned companies about previously, including intravenous (IV) Vitamin C infusions, ozone therapy, and supplements. Others challenge claims that nasal spray, skincare products, or acupuncture can prevent or treat COVID-19. However, currently there is no scientific evidence that these, or any, products or services can prevent or treat the disease.

FTC Staff Issue Perspective Paper on Video Game Loot Boxes Workshop

Staff of the Federal Trade Commission issued a paper detailing key takeaways from the agency’s August 2019 “Inside the Game” workshop , which examined consumer protection issues related to video game “loot boxes.”  The staff perspective paper describes the workshop discussion of loot boxes, which are random rewards that players may buy within a video game for a small fee or earn through game play. It summarizes discussions of loot boxes, including that players may use them, for example, to change a character’s appearance or to “pay-to-progress” in the game. It also summarizes comments made about how these types of in-game microtransactions have become a multi-billion-dollar market, accounting for a significant percentage of revenue derived from video games, particularly for free video games downloaded via mobile apps. The paper highlights public concerns raised about loot boxes, emerging academic research, and industry self-regulatory initiatives discussed at the workshop and in comm

FTC Adds Charges Against Auto Marketer For Deceptive “Prize” Mailers

New administrative complaint includes prior charges of misleading COVID-19 claims The Federal Trade Commission has issued an administrative complaint  against a marketer, Traffic Jam Events, LLC, and its owner, David J. Jeansonne II, charging multiple counts of deceptive conduct. The administrative complaint mirrors a prior federal court complaint, which the Commission voluntarily dismissed to pursue a broader administrative proceeding. The administrative complaint alleges that the respondents have deceived consumers with mailers supposedly directing them to obtain federal COVID-19 stimulus benefits. The complaint also alleges that, in addition to the misleading COVID-19 mailers, respondents sent flyers to consumers containing matching numbers indicating that consumers had won a valuable prize. Consumers were then told they had to go to a car dealership to “claim” the prize, but the small print on the back of the mailer revealed that there was only a 1-in-52,000 chance the consumer ha

FTC Sends Refunds Totaling More Than $9.1 Million to Customers Defrauded by Deceptively Marketed “Amazing Wealth System”

Image
The Federal Trade Commission is mailing checks and sending PayPal payments totaling more than $9.1 million to customers who paid for an “Amazing Wealth System” workshop. According to the lawsuit brought by the FTC , the defendants, FBA Stores and related companies and individuals, falsely claimed their “Amazing Wealth System” would enable people to create a profitable online business selling products on Amazon. However, the defendants had no affiliation with Amazon.com, buyers did not earn the advertised income, most consumers lost significant amounts of money, and many of the customers experienced problems with their Amazon stores, including losing their ability to sell on Amazon.com. The FTC is sending checks to 13,348 customers with an average refund amount of $684.24. Those who receive checks should deposit or cash their checks within 60 days. People who paid for workshops from FBA Stores and related companies but did not receive a refund, should contact the refund administr

Fedora is the community-driven OS supported by Red Hat Linux.

Fedora serves as a testing ground for many features which are eventually pulled into RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Red Hat’s primary product. For Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS, packages are installed using the command dnf install <package>

Identifying the EBS device on EC2

Amazon Linux creates a symbolic link from the device name in the block device mapping  For example, /dev/sdf, to the NVMe device name. $ ll /dev/sdf lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 May 18 21:08 /dev/sdf -> nvme1n1 With Amazon Linux AMI 2017.09.01 or later (including Amazon Linux 2), you can run the ebsnvme-id command as follows to map the NVMe device name to a volume ID and device name: [ec2-user ~]$ sudo /sbin/ebsnvme-id /dev/nvme1n1 Volume ID: vol-01324f611e2463981 /dev/sdf

Use the blkid command to find the UUID of the device

$ sudo blkid /dev/nvme0n1p1: LABEL="/" UUID="55da5202-8008-43e8-8ade-2572319d9185" TYPE="xfs" PARTLABEL="Linux" PARTUUID="591e81f0-99a2-498d-93ec-c9ec776ecf42" /dev/nvme1n1: UUID="7c4d5e8c-5f26-475f-b985-5a1411359058" TYPE="ext2" /dev/nvme0n1: PTUUID="83181c97-6d5e-43c9-9ede-e2f50ead5338" PTTYPE="gpt" /dev/nvme0n1p128: PARTLABEL="BIOS Boot Partition" PARTUUID="4908ae49-9d5b-423e-a23c-a507a47bacf5" /dev/nvme2n1: PTUUID="5a72544b-a4e2-4bbe-aed0-04f727374581" PTTYPE="gpt" /dev/nvme2n1p1: LABEL="/" UUID="577849ee-6d06-4473-9eec-074495a45d70" TYPE="xfs" PARTLABEL="Linux" PARTUUID="7ba2672d-1d11-4f12-9358-2edd6b813413" /dev/nvme2n1p128: PARTLABEL="BIOS Boot Partition" PARTUUID="5a9fc16d-ac21-49f8-8880-28c8f8d2e8bf"

FTC Acts Against Online Sellers That Falsely Promised Fast Delivery of Facemasks and Other Personal Protective Equipment

Suits are part of FTC’s ongoing enforcement actions against companies that are taking advantage of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against three online merchandisers for failing to deliver on promises that they could quickly ship products like face masks, sanitizer, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) related to the coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuits allege that the companies violated the FTC’s Mail, Internet and Telephone Order Rule (Mail Order Rule), which requires that companies notify consumers of shipping delays in a timely manner and give consumers the chance to cancel orders and receive prompt refunds. “When online merchants lie about the availability of personal protective equipment or about the ability of products to prevent and treat COVID-19, it’s a significant safety concern, and it’s illegal,” said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.  “The FTC will take aggressive action to stop such t

In Python programming, pass is a null statement.

Python pass statement  The difference between a comment and pass statement in Python is that, while the interpreter ignores a comment entirely, pass is not ignored. However, nothing happens when pass is executed. It results into no operation (NOP). We generally use it as a placeholder.

Ansible: set up an httpd web server

  tasks:   - name: Install apache packages      yum:       name: httpd       state: present   - name: ensure httpd is running     service:       name: httpd        state: started   - name: Open port 80 for http access     firewalld:       service: http       permanent: true       state: enabled   - name: Restart the firewalld service to load in the firewall changes     service:        name: firewalld        state: restarted

Ansible: install Apache

  tasks:   - name: ensure apache is at the latest version     yum: name=httpd state=latest   tasks:     - name: install apache2       apt: name=apache2 update_cache=yes state=latest

Ansible local command example

$ ansible --connection=local -m command -a "/bin/echo hello world" localhost localhost | CHANGED | rc=0 >> hello world

Ansible generate SSH Key

  - name: generate ssh key for a user     user:       name: ruz          generate_ssh_key: yes       #ssh_key_bits: 2048       #ssh_key_file: .ssh/id_rsa

Testing your SSH connection to GitHub

Open Git Bash. Enter the following: $ ssh -T git@github.com # Attempts to ssh to GitHub