Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s\u00a0 ‘Wednesday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!<\/span><\/p>\n FBI: Tech support scams now use couriers to collect victims’ money<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u200bToday, the FBI warned about courier services being used to collect money and valuables from victims of tech support and government impersonation scams.<\/span><\/p>\n This public service announcement follows a surge of reports regarding criminals using couriers to collect cash or precious metals like gold or silver from victims (many senior citizens) whom the scammers instructed to sell their valuables.<\/span><\/p>\n “The FBI is warning the public about scammers instructing victims, many of whom are senior citizens, to liquidate their assets into cash and\/or buy gold, silver, or other precious metals to protect their funds,” the FBI said. “Criminals then arrange for couriers to meet the victims in person to pick up the cash or precious metals.”<\/span><\/p>\n While some scammers choose to impersonate tech support workers or U.S. government officials, they’ve also been spotted masquerading successively as employees of technology companies, financial institutions, or the U.S. government as part of the complex scheme.<\/span><\/p>\n They’ll claim that the targets’ financial accounts have been compromised or are under imminent threat, prompting the victims to liquidate their assets as a protective measure.<\/span><\/p>\n The victims are often coerced into converting their assets into cash or precious metals or directed to wire the funds to metal dealers who will ship the purchased metals directly to the victims’ residences.<\/span><\/p>\n The scammers then arrange for couriers to meet the victims at their homes or in various public locations to retrieve the money or precious metals. To further legitimize the fraud, the criminals may also provide the victims with a passcode to authenticate the transaction with the courier.<\/span><\/p>\n Scammers also promise to keep victim’s assets in a secure account but disappear and leave them without their funds. This elaborate scheme targets vulnerable individuals, often senior citizens, and has already resulted in significant financial losses for countless victims.<\/span><\/p>\n “From May to December 2023, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) saw an uptick in this activity with aggregated losses of over $55 million,” the FBI warned…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more at Bleeping Computer.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Microsoft introduces much-needed changes to Windows 11 setup<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n When installing Windows from scratch, the process has not really changed much over the years — and neither has the way the setup experience looks. This means that the installer for Windows 11 looks virtually identical to that of Windows 10, which in turn looked virtually identical to that of Windows 8.<\/span><\/p>\n Until now. With the latest release of Windows 11, Microsoft has finally updated the look and feel of the installer. This means not only a cleaner and more consistent aesthetic, but also an improved experience for the “Repair my PC” option.<\/span><\/p>\n The changes can be found in the latest release to the Canary channel — Windows 11 insider preview build 26040. Microsoft describes the change as offering a more modern design, and it is definitely good to see that there is, at long last, a visual change from older versions of Windows.<\/span><\/p>\n In addition to changing the appearance of the installer, Microsoft has also promoted the “Repair my PC” option so it is now more prominent and obvious…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more at BetaNews.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n How to choose the streaming services that are right for you<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Has there ever been a more confusing time to be a streaming TV customer?<\/span><\/p>\n Recent years have brought lots of major changes to the industry, and starting this week, there’s another change: You’ll see commercials in Amazon Prime Video’s TV series and films for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n Amazon promises the ads will be “limited” \u2014 and you can pay an extra $2.99 per month to avoid them altogether. But the change highlights how different the industry is now compared to 2019, when NPR first published a guide to picking streaming TV services.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the past year, just about every major streaming service has raised its subscription fees, while some have cracked down on password sharing. At the same time, there are more programming bundles, membership deals, ad-supported subscriptions and streaming services overall, as surveys show cost and content remain the biggest concerns for consumers.<\/span><\/p>\n If your New Year’s resolution included getting a handle on your streaming budget, you have some challenging times ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n But we’re here to help…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more at NPR.<\/a> <\/u><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Microsoft stole my Chrome tabs, and it wants yours, too<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Microsoft Edge has a data import feature that\u2019s misbehaving.<\/span><\/p>\n Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update. I don\u2019t use Microsoft Edge regularly, and I have Google Chrome set as my default browser. Bleary-eyed at 9AM, it took me a moment to realize that Microsoft Edge had simply taken over where I\u2019d left off in Chrome. I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n I never imported my data into Microsoft Edge, nor did I confirm whether I wanted to import my tabs. But here was Edge automatically opening after a Windows update with all the Chrome tabs I\u2019d been working on. I didn\u2019t even realize I was using Edge at first, and I was confused why all my tabs were suddenly logged out.<\/span><\/p>\n After the shock wore off, I looked to make sure I hadn\u2019t accidentally allowed this behavior. I found a setting in Microsoft Edge that imports data from Google Chrome on each launch. \u201cAlways have access to your recent browsing data each time you browse on Microsoft Edge,\u201d reads Microsoft\u2019s description of the feature in Edge. This setting was disabled, and I had never been asked to turn it on. You can check for the setting at edge:\/\/settings\/profiles\/importBrowsingData…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more at <\/span><\/strong><\/span>The Verge<\/span><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n ChatGPT is leaking\u2026 again \u2014 we shouldn\u2019t be surprised but we should be disturbed<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Recent incidents again prove OpenAI\u2019s giant data sponge is not your friend, colleague, or personal organizer<\/span><\/p>\n OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT has long been ‘dumb’, willing to assist in cybercrime, an Icarus analogy for the age and a threat to sensitive company data.<\/span><\/p>\n However, we need to go all through this again, apparently, as reports are surfacing that the artificial intelligence tool is once again leaking passwords inside, just for the sake of variety, corporate support tickets.<\/span><\/p>\n Per Ars Technica, ChatGPT recently served a user chat logs from the support system of a pharmaceutical company, consisting of another user\u2019s bug report pertaining to a user portal\u2026 which contained that user\u2019s credentials. \u201cI went to make a query […] and when I returned to access moments later, I noticed the additional conversations. They weren’t there when I used ChatGPT just last night. […] No queries were made\u2014they just appeared in my history, and most certainly aren’t from me (and I don’t think they’re from the same user either),” Ars Technica reader Chase Whiteside told the publication.<\/span><\/p>\n Whiteside was also able to glean \u2018the name of a presentation someone was working on\u2019, \u2018details of an unpublished research proposal\u2019 and, one for the true TechRadar Pro anorak hardcore – a script \u2018written\u2019 in PHP, on balance probably stolen from a public Github repository.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s interesting \/ bleak (delete as per worldview) is that, despite ChatGPT not having anything near a spotless record, Whiteside says that they\u2019re \u2018a pretty heavy user\u2019 of the service while issuing no signs that this incident, or any ChatGPT-shaped incident that we\u2019ve reported on in the past year or whatever, has given them pause. Ladies, gentlemen and undefined: a dependency in action.<\/span><\/p>\n Analysis: I want to throw the intangible concept of AI into a vat of acid, can you help me?<\/span><\/p>\n Look, at TechRadar Pro we\u2019re very niche, we know that. You read us, so you already know that \u2018artificial intelligence\u2019 isn\u2019t a sentient computer, and it\u2019s just some billionaire force-feeding copyrighted digital works to a CPU to create a corpus to be spat back out at the masses like orange pips…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read more at TechRadar Pro<\/span><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wednesday Newsbytes: FBI: Tech Support Scams Now Use Couriers to Collect Victims’ Money; Microsoft Makes Big Changes in Windows Setup: How to Choose Streaming Services; Microsoft Edge Caught Stealing Chrome Tabs… and more! Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology.\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4421,4432,4401,4431,2574,1678,2509,2660,1426,1680,1656,1674,4221,2366],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27794,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27789\/revisions\/27794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nClean up on aisle GPT<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
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