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Showing posts from November, 2020

FTC Stops Debt Collector’s Alleged “Debt Parking” Scheme, Requires it to Delete Debts it Placed on Consumers’ Credit Reports

Agency complaint alleges company collected millions in fake debts by placing bogus information on consumer credit reports The Federal Trade Commission has taken action   against a debt collection company that allegedly placed bogus or highly questionable debts onto consumers’ credit reports to coerce them to pay the debts. Under a settlement with the FTC, the company, Midwest Recovery Systems (Midwest Recovery), is prohibited from the practice, known as “debt parking,” and required to delete the debts it previously reported to credit reporting agencies. The FTC alleged   that Midwest Recovery collected more than $24 million from consumers on such debts, largely by debt parking. Also known as “passive debt collection,” debt parking can result in a consumer only finding out that a purported debt exists when his or her credit report is accessed in connection with buying a car or home, opening a credit card, or seeking employment. While the debts may not be valid, consumers can feel press...

SSH Jump Server

If the server is accessible via proxy.goyun.info then you can access other servers behind the same NAT boundary via -J command line flag, i.e. on the client: $ ssh -J proxy.goyun.info 10.8.8.8 you can update your client’s SSH configuration in ~/.ssh/config with the following: Host 10.8.8.*     ProxyJump proxy.goyun.info An example Jump user without other privileges: Match User jumpuser PermitTTY no X11Forwarding no PermitTunnel no GatewayPorts no ForceCommand /usr/sbin/nologin User client file: client SSH configuration with: Host 10.8.8.* ProxyJump jumpuser@proxy.goyun.info

With the Windows 10 Game Bar, you can record the last several seconds or minutes of screen activity after you've already performed it.

First grant permission for the computer to record your activities in the background.  Open the Game Bar and click the Settings icon. Scroll down the Settings screen and check the box to Record in the background while I'm playing a game.  Click the drop-down menu for Record the last and change the interval to anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.

Install and Update Python to 3.9 in Ubuntu

Windows Sandbox

Windows Sandbox allows users to test applications to make sure they do not perform unwanted activity Windows Sandbox is a new feature that was added to Windows 10 build 1903 (19H1) that allows users to execute programs in a sandboxed environment that has no affect on your normal system. 

Enable and configure Microsoft Defender Antivirus always-on protection in Group Policy

You can use Local Group Policy Editor to enable and configure Microsoft Defender Antivirus always-on protection settings. To enable and configure always-on protection: Open Local Group Policy Editor. To do this: In your Windows 10 taskbar search box, type gpedit. Under Best match, click Edit group policy to launch Local Group Policy Editor. In the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor, expand the tree to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Microsoft Defender Antivirus. Configure the Microsoft Defender Antivirus antimalware service policy settings.

FTC Approves Administrative Complaint Against Supplement Marketer Health Research Laboratories, LLC

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a Part 3 administrative complaint against dietary supplement marketer Health Research Laboratories, LLC (HRL), its owner and officer Kramer Duhon, and Whole Body Supplements, LLC (WBS) for making unsubstantiated claims that their supplements—The Ultimate Heart Formula (UHF), BG18, and Black Garlic Botanicals—prevent or treat cardiovascular and other diseases, and that their supplement Neupathic cures, mitigates, or treats diabetic neuropathy. In December 2019, FTC staff and the State of Maine filed a contempt motion against HRL , Duhon, and WBS in federal district court for violating a January 2018 stipulated final order . According to the contempt motion , after agreeing to the 2018 order prohibiting unsubstantiated health claims, the defendants violated its terms by making unsubstantiated claims about UHF, BG18, Black Garlic Botanicals, and Neupathic. Earlier this year, a court issued an order denying the FTC’s contempt motion. Staff then ...

Student Loan Debt Relief Scammer Brandon Frere Agrees to Settle FTC Charges

Student loan debt relief scammer Brandon Frere and his companies, including Ameritech Financial, have entered into an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to settle  charges they misled approximately 40,000 consumers about lowering their student loan debt. According to the FTC’s 2018 complaint , Brandon Frere and his companies sent personalized mail to consumers that falsely claimed they were eligible for federal programs that would permanently reduce their monthly debt payments to a fixed low amount or result in total loan forgiveness. The FTC alleged that Frere and his companies charged up to $800 in illegal up-front fees to enroll consumers in a federal loan assistance program. They also charged consumers $100-$1,200 advance fee for enrollment in a “financial education” program, followed by ongoing $49-$99 monthly membership fees for the life of the loan, which typically is 10-25 years. The order bans Frere and his companies from providing debt relief services and prohibits ...

Resources for Families

Resources to Support Reading Supporting Reading at Home Mental Health and Well-Being Resources

FTC Alleges Mobile Banking App Misled Users About Access to Their Funds, Failed to Deliver on Promised High Interest Rates

The Federal Trade Commission sued the operators of a mobile banking app, alleging that they falsely promised users high interest rates on their accounts and “24/7” access to their funds. In a complaint  filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Beam Financial Inc. and its founder and CEO Yinan Du, also known as Aaron Du, promised users of their free mobile banking app that they could make transfers out of their accounts and would receive their requested funds within three to five business days. Instead, some users waited weeks or even months to receive their money despite repeated complaints to Beam, while others said they never received their money, according to the complaint. "Beam Financial promised convenient 24/7 access to savings, but then people had to wait weeks or months to get their money," said Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Many consumers said Beam’s failure to provide their requested funds caused real financial harm, partic...

FTC Warns Frank Financial Aid to Stop Potentially Misleading Marketing Directed to Students Seeking Coronavirus Financial Relief

The Federal Trade Commission has sent a warning letter  to a company that markets financial aid prep assistance to post-secondary students, notifying the company that it could potentially be misleading consumers about access to a coronavirus relief program. The letter to the operators of Frank Financial Aid (Frank) highlights the company’s claims that it gives students “everything you need” to apply for emergency grants available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and that there are four identified eligibility criteria for the emergency relief. In fact, as the FTC’s letter notes, Frank’s purported assistance to students consists primarily of providing a form letter that may lack the information a student would need to apply for one of the grants from his or her school. The CARES Act program for students is administered by individual colleges and universities, and each has its own unique application process and grant eligibility criteria. The FTC’s le...

Express is the de facto standard JavaScript Server Side framework.

Express is the complete Application framework with, e.g., middleware, routing, template. Express supports MVC pattern with View system supporting 14+ templating engines. Express offers robust routing. Express supports content negotiation.

Script to install Jenkins plugins

jenkins-plugin-cli WARN: install-plugins.sh is deprecated, please switch to jenkins-plugin-cli $ which jenkins-plugin-cli /bin/jenkins-plugin-cli Example: /bin/jenkins-plugin-cli git:latest

Run and login to Kite from command line

with systemd, run systemctl --user start kite-autostart  without systemd, run $HOME/.local/share/kite/kited  To login, run this command in a terminal:          ~/.local/share/kite/login-user 

FTC Sends Letters Warning 20 More Marketers to Stop Making Unsupported Claims That Their Products and Therapies Can Effectively Prevent or Treat COVID-19

Commission has sent similar letters to more than 330 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 ninth 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 more than 330 companies and individuals . Some of the letters announced today target products and “treatments” the FTC has warned companies about previously, including intravenous (IV) Vitamin C infusions, ozone therapy, and supplements. Others challenge claims that more obscure products and therapies can prevent or treat COVID-19. For example, in this round of mailings, warning letters went to companies claiming that everything from copper water bottles to...

DNS Propagation Checker

whatsmydns.net lets you instantly perform a DNS lookup to check a domain name's current IP address and DNS record information against multiple nameservers located in different parts of the world.

Hide (or show) the Remote Desktop connection bar when in full screen mode

Go to: 'Start' > 'Programs' > 'Communication' > 'Remote Desktop Connection' Click on the 'Options >>' button Click on the 'Display' tab Check (or uncheck) "Display the connection bar when I use the full screen" (for Windows CE6 Operating System) or "Display the connection bar" (for Windows CE5 Operating System) Ctrl + Alt + Home : In full-screen mode, activate the connection bar

Connect to MySQL TCP instead of a socket

Method 1: Do not use localhost - use 127.0.0.1 instead. Many clients have an internal alias that makes them connect to the socket if you specify localhost as target. Method 2: Specify that you want to use TCP and not a socket (mysql --protocol tcp) You can also easily make that the default my editing your my.cnf so it has this ([client] means any client: [client] protocol=tcp

Change a Git Remote's URL

Use the git remote set-url command followed by the remote name, and the remote’s URL: git remote set-url <remote-name> <remote-url>

Show MySQL Databases

To show all available databases enter the following command: SHOW DATABASES;

Synchronization tools

Lsyncd is designed to synchronize a slowly changing local directory tree to a remote mirror. Lsyncd is especially useful to sync data from a secure area to a not-so-secure area. Mirror is an asynchronous synchronisation tool that takes use of the inotify notifications much like Lsyncd. The main differences are: it is developed specifically for master-master use, thus running on a daemon on both systems, uses its own transportation layer instead of rsync and is Java instead of Lsyncd’s C core with Lua scripting. DRBD operates on block device level. This makes it useful for synchronizing systems that are under heavy load. Lsyncd on the other hand does not require you to change block devices and/or mount points, allows you to change uid/gid of the transferred files, separates the receiver through the one-way nature of rsync. DRBD is likely the better option if you are syncing databases. GlusterFS and BindFS use a FUSE-Filesystem to interject kernel/userspace filesystem events.

Flush the DNS cache

The command to Flush the DNS cache can vary widely depending on your specific distribution and version. Ubuntu and Debian-derived distributions use: sudo service dns-clean restart. Other Linux distributions using NSCD (Name Service Caching Daemon) may need to use one of the following commands. sudo service nscd restart  sudo systemctl restart nscd.service nscd -I hosts

Where is the Hosts File Located?

The location of the hosts file will differ by operating system.  The typical locations are noted below. Windows 10 – “C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts” Linux – “/etc/hosts” Mac OS X – “/private/etc/hosts”

Editing Windows host file

In Windows, the hosts file is located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.  You will need to edit the file with administrative privileges. Step 1. Click the Windows button and type ‘Notepad’ in the search box. Step 2. Right-click on ‘Notepad’ and then ‘Run as Administrator’. Step 3. Choose ‘Yes’ on the User Account Control pop-up. Step 4. In Notepad, choose ‘File’ then ‘Open’. Step 5. Click the address bar at the top and paste C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts – then choose ‘Enter’. Step 6. Choose Notepad from the list and then OK. Step 7. Add/Edit the appropriate IP and hostname, select Save, and close the file. Step 8. Next, you will want to flush your DNS cache so you don’t have to log out and back in for the changes to take effect. Step 9. Lastly, open an elevated command prompt as above, and enter the following command: admin@host:# ipconfig /flushdns

FTC Sends Nearly $1.5 Million to Victims of Bronx Honda’s Illegal Financing and Sales Practices

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The Federal Trade Commission is sending refunds totaling nearly $1.5 million to individuals who were affected by allegedly unlawful financing and sales practices by Bronx Honda. According to the FTC, Bronx Honda and its general manager told sales employees to charge higher financing markups and fees to African-American and Hispanic customers. The defendants told employees that these groups should be targeted due to their limited education, and not to attempt the same practices with non-Hispanic white consumers. The FTC further alleged that Bronx Honda failed to honor advertised sale prices, changed the sales price on paperwork in the middle of the sale without telling the consumer, double-charged consumers for taxes and fees, and misrepresented to consumers that they were required to pay extra reconditioning and warranty fees to purchase “certified” vehicles. The FTC is providing refunds, averaging about $371 each, to 3,977 victims of Bronx Honda’s practices. Those who receive ...

Generate a single use auto-login url for WHM

sudo /usr/sbin/whmlogin

Pfizer says its vaccine is more than 90-per-cent effective

Pfizer says its vaccine is at least 90% effective in early trials

FTC Requires Zoom to Enhance its Security Practices as Part of Settlement

Commission alleged that the company deceived users about the level of security for Zoom meeting platform and unfairly undermined a browser security feature Note: The FTC will host a conference call TODAY for media at Noon ET. Participants will include Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Andrew Smith and Maneesha Mithal, Associate Director of the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. The Call-in number is 844-291-6360 and the access code is 389969. Call-in lines, which are for media only, will open 15 minutes prior to the start of the call. The Federal Trade Commission today announced a settlement  with Zoom Video Communications, Inc. that will require the company to implement a robust information security program to settle allegations that the video conferencing provider engaged in a series of deceptive and unfair practices that undermined the security of its users. Zoom has agreed to a requirement to establish and implement a comprehensive security prog...

Nvim configuration file.

Neovim use a different configuration file from Vim. You need to create a file named init.vim under the directory ~/.config/nvim (if this directory does not exist, just create one). All configurations can be put into this file. Most of the configuration options for Neovim are the same with Vim.

Configure ALL Jenkins initial setup with Jenkins Configuration as Code

Jenkins Configuration as Code (JCasC) can give you Fully working Jenkins controller with: no hands on keyboard no click on UI

URI vs URL

URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. Anything that uniquely identifies a resource is its URI, such as id, name, or ISBN number. A URL specifies a resource and how it can be accessed (the protocol).  All URLs are URIs, but not all URIs are URLs.

Computer Learning Resources

  JetBrains Academy offers interactive project-based learning combined with powerful, professional development tools. Advance your Java and Python skills, with more programming languages to come.

FTC Approves Final Consent Agreement with Sunday Riley Modern Skincare, LLC

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a final consent agreement settling charges that Sunday Riley Modern Skincare, LLC (Sunday Riley Skincare) and its CEO, Sunday Riley, misled consumers by posting fake reviews of the company’s products online, at the CEO’s direction, and by failing to disclose that the reviewers were company employees. Sunday Riley Skincare sells a range of cosmetic products at various retailers, including Sephora, a multinational chain of personal care and beauty stores, and on the Sephora.com website. Sephora allows consumers to leave customer reviews of products sold on its website, providing a forum for sharing authentic feedback about the products it sells. According to the agency’s October 2019 complaint , between November 2015 and August 2017, Sunday Riley Skincare managers, including Ms. Riley, posted reviews of their branded products on the Sephora site using fake accounts created to hide their identities, and requeste...

Court Issues Order Halting Operators of Fake Websites Claiming to Sell Clorox and Lysol Products

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FTC complaint alleges defendants take advantage of consumers’ COVID-19 fears At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a federal court in Ohio has issued a temporary restraining order against 25 counterfeit websites that allegedly have been playing on consumers’ COVID-19 pandemic fears to trick them into paying for Clorox and Lysol products that the defendants never deliver. According to the FTC’s complaint , since at least July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the defendants’ counterfeit websites have been aimed at consumers urgently seeking cleaning and disinfecting products, and designed to look like genuine sellers offering Clorox and Lysol products. The FTC complaint alleges that none of the defendants’ websites are owned by, affiliated with, or authorized by the companies that make Clorox and Lysol, and that none of the consumers who paid for cleaning and disinfecting products ever received what they ordered online. “The FTC is working hard to stop fraudsters who try ...

HTML DOM console.trace() Method

The console.trace () method displays a trace that show how the code ended up at a certain point. The HTML DOM console.trace () method is used to display the stack trace upto the point the console.trace () method has been called upon. It is basically used for displaying the code path i.e how the code ended up at that point.

FTC Sends Refunds to Victims of Deceptive Money-Making Schemes Involving Cryptocurrencies

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The Federal Trade Commission is sending PayPal payments totaling more than $470,000 to people who lost money to deceptive chain referral schemes involving cryptocurrencies . According to the FTC , the defendants promoted Bitcoin Funding Team and My7Network, which falsely promised that participants could earn large amounts of money by paying cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Litecoin to enroll in the schemes. However, Bitcoin Funding Team and My7Network were chain referral schemes that depended on the recruitment of new people to make money. In fact, most participants failed to recoup their initial investments. As part of the settlement , the FTC will send 7,964 refunds through PayPal beginning on November 5, 2020. The average refund is approximately $59. Recipients who receive a refund via PayPal will have 30 days to accept the payment. The FTC never requires people to pay money to get a refund payment. For more details about the PayPal payment process, please read the related ...