In 2017, KrebsOnSecurity showed how easy it is for identity thieves to undo a consumer’s request to freeze their credit file at Experian, one of the big three consumer credit bureaus in the United States. Last week, KrebsOnSecurity heard from a reader who had his freeze thawed without authorization through Experian’s website, and it reminded me of how truly broken authentication and security remains in the credit bureau space.

It is now free in every U.S. state to freeze and unfreeze your credit file and that of your dependents, a process that blocks identity thieves and others from looking at private details in your consumer credit history. If you’ve been holding out because you’re not particularly worried about ID theft, here’s another reason to reconsider: The credit bureaus profit from selling copies of your file to others, so freezing your file also lets you deny these dinosaurs a valuable revenue stream.

In the wake of one data breach after another, millions of Americans each year are offered credit monitoring services that promise to shield them from identity thieves. Although these services can help true victims step out from beneath the shadow of ID theft, the sad truth is that most services offer little in the way of real preventative protection against the fastest-growing crime in America.

As a dividend investor, you might have trained yourself to look for fantastic yields when placing your money. While 10% yields are attractive, they’re worthless if the company can’t sustain the payments.

These 15 companies have paid out dividends for at least 100 years—and are hoping to continue for a hundred more. Will any of these companies still be paying a dividend when we ring in the 22nd century?

Travel medical insurance

Clive Robinson • September 15, 2022 3:03 AM

@ Winter,

Re : Blockchain efficiency

“Blockchains are transparent, robust, and fast.”

No they are not.

To be transparent they need to be “public” and few people actually want every financial move they make being made naked and open to all.

Whilst they look like they are robust they are not as data structures, or systems. The only robustness they bring to the table over existing systems is by the public duplication. Which is problematical as who is going to pay for the infrastructure many times that of Googles current setup, just to implement one such? Remember you would need a minimum of four such systems[1] and all the high security communications to support it, which would make the NSA envious.

As for fast, the current systems due to the moronic “Proof of XXX” attached are so slow transactions are at best just a handful a second. Even without that “Proof of XXX” the number of global transactions at any one time numbers up in the tens of millions a second, something most do not realise.

But people do not appreciate the combined,

1. Gate Keeper Effect
2. Ripple across Effect.

This will create a significant time delay which has consequences in that high speed transactions can be done and compleated long before the blockchain gets updated, thus “High Frequency Fraud” will be a result. This will require “back-out” mechanisms that don’t exist because they destroy the blockchain security model.

Then of course any system with locked in time delay and capacity issues, is a “Sitting Duck” target for extortion by “Denial of Service”(DoS) attack.

To be honest I’m surprised there has been no real concerted effort to Ransom one of the crypto-coin blockchains by a DDoS…

As has been pointed out the idea of a global blockchain is a “Crypto-Anarchists” dream and every one elses very real nightmare.

Because like it or not, it will become not some kind of libertarian freedom, but a tool of near total oppression as it will have all the failings of hierarchical systems[2] that certain entities will lust after to control. We actually see this with blockchain gate keepers already.

[1] There is a problem with blockchains in that if someone gets more than 50% control they can “own it”. This means you need three at all times sharing effectively equitably. Add in the fact “at all times” need 100% availability, and no single system has 100% reliability means you need an absolut minimum of four, preferably more.

[2] Mankind has known many of the failings of single and hierarchical systems for as long as there has been any kind of social structure. War is just one obvious side effect, slavery or forced servitude yet another the list of hierarchical system failings is both long and grevious. For centuries at the very least people have sort out ways to robustly maintain the desirable effects of social cohesion, yet get rid of hierarchies, or atleast their many undesirable side effects, and so far the failure to do this is effectively 100%…

Sen. Joe Biden wanted a sweetheart deal for the banks that stripped student loans of bankruptcy protections, and it created a train wreck. //

In general, borrowers burdened by too much debt and unable to pay their loans can usually discharge them in a personal bankruptcy case. Some debts, particularly those owed to the government, are not dischargeable. But consumer loans and credit card debts generally are dischargeable. //

Why did Biden staunchly back this change — even as Democrats like Teddy Kennedy denounced it for “sacrific[ing] Americans to the rampant greed of the credit card industry”? Because Biden was a long-time water carrier for the credit card and banking industries. And both he and his family profited from that arrangement.

Request a Consumer Disclosure Report

Access your file and learn more about the personal information LexisNexis Risk Solutions maintains about you in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request

Request a Security Freeze for Yourself

By applying these recommendations, you will likely be well on your way to achieving financial freedom and long-lasting fulfillment.

CALC2QIF is the OpenOffice version of XL2QIF. It is a Calc (OpenOffice spreadsheet) macro that converts data to QIF format, the format used by Money, Quicken, GNUCash.... to import transactions.

CALC2QIF is optimized for frequent conversions, it supports also different date formats (US, Europe, pre/post 2000).

XL2QIF is an Excel Add-In that converts data to QIF format, the format used by Money and Quicken to import transactions.
XL2QIF is optimized for frequent conversions, it supports also different date formats (US, Europe, pre/post 2000).

When you install this macro, there is a new XL2QIF menu added to Excel with an item to create a QIF file (Save to QIF) and an item to import a QIF file (Load from QIF).

It's also possible to choose the language at the first installation. You can choose French or English. After that the macro will never ask again for the language.

Unlearning money avoidance is hard. Don't waste time on regrets.

When you stumble — and we all do — Brewer says it's important to lead with curiosity, not criticism, because the latter option isn't productive.

Instead of falling into a pattern of self-judgment with constant "review and regret" every time you impulse-shop or avoid the utility bill, Brewer suggests approaching mistakes with a growth mindset. What could you learn from your misstep? What is it telling you?

Many security-conscious people probably think they’d never fall for a phone-based phishing scam. But if your response to such a scam involves anything other than hanging up and calling back the entity that claims to be calling, you may be in for a rude awakening. //

Mitch’s bank managed to reverse the unauthorized wire transfer before it could complete, and they’ve since put all the stolen funds back into his account and issued a new card. But he said he still feels like a chump for not observing the golden rule: If someone calls saying they’re from your bank, just hang up and call them back — ideally using a phone number that came from the bank’s Web site or from the back of your payment card. As it happened, Mitch only followed half of that advice.

Opinion: Cryptocurrencies are useless. Blockchain solutions are frequently much worse than the systems they replace. Here's why. //

In his 2008 white paper that first proposed bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto concluded with: “We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.” He was referring to blockchain, the system behind bitcoin cryptocurrency. The circumvention of trust is a great promise, but it’s just not true. Yes, bitcoin eliminates certain trusted intermediaries that are inherent in other payment systems like credit cards. But you still have to trust bitcoin—and everything about it. //

By blockchain, I mean something very specific: the data structures and protocols that make up a public blockchain. These have three essential elements. The first is a distributed (as in multiple copies) but centralized (as in there’s only one) ledger, which is a way of recording what happened and in what order. This ledger is public, meaning that anyone can read it, and immutable, meaning that no one can change what happened in the past.

The second element is the consensus algorithm, which is a way to ensure all the copies of the ledger are the same. This is generally called mining; a critical part of the system is that anyone can participate. It is also distributed, meaning that you don’t have to trust any particular node in the consensus network. It can also be extremely expensive, both in data storage and in the energy required to maintain it. Bitcoin has the most expensive consensus algorithm the world has ever seen, by far.

Finally, the third element is the currency. This is some sort of digital token that has value and is publicly traded. Currency is a necessary element of a blockchain to align the incentives of everyone involved. Transactions involving these tokens are stored on the ledger. //

Most blockchain enthusiasts have a unnaturally narrow definition of trust. They’re fond of catchphrases like “in code we trust,” “in math we trust,” and “in crypto we trust.” This is trust as verification. But verification isn’t the same as trust. //

What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network. And you need to trust them absolutely, because they’re often single points of failure.

When that trust turns out to be misplaced, there is no recourse. If your bitcoin exchange gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you lose all of your money. If you forget your login credentials, you lose all of your money. If there’s a bug in the code of your smart contract, you lose all of your money. If someone successfully hacks the blockchain security, you lose all of your money. In many ways, trusting technology is harder than trusting people. Would you rather trust a human legal system or the details of some computer code you don’t have the expertise to audit? //

Any blockchain system will have to coexist with other, more conventional systems. Modern banking, for example, is designed to be reversible. Bitcoin is not. That makes it hard to make the two compatible, and the result is often an insecurity. //

To the extent that people don’t use bitcoin, it’s because they don’t trust bitcoin. That has nothing to do with the cryptography or the protocols. In fact, a system where you can lose your life savings if you forget your key or download a piece of malware is not particularly trustworthy. No amount of explaining how SHA-256 works to prevent double-spending will fix that. //

A false trust in blockchain can itself be a security risk. The inefficiencies, especially in scaling, are probably not worth it. I have looked at many blockchain applications, and all of them could achieve the same security properties without using a blockchain—of course, then they wouldn’t have the cool name.

Honestly, cryptocurrencies are useless. They're only used by speculators looking for quick riches, people who don't like government-backed currencies, and criminals who want a black-market way to exchange money.

To answer the question of whether the blockchain is needed, ask yourself: Does the blockchain change the system of trust in any meaningful way, or just shift it around? Does it just try to replace trust with verification? Does it strengthen existing trust relationships, or try to go against them? How can trust be abused in the new system, and is this better or worse than the potential abuses in the old system? And lastly: What would your system look like if you didn’t use blockchain at all?

While we’re at it, we should mandate that all doors and trunks and whatever can be opened from the outside even if the main and 12V batteries die. Tesla Model 3s don’t have emergency releases for the rear doors, for example.

After years of learning lessons the hard way, I can say confidently that with the help of three simple principles, my husband and I have learned how to keep the peace and build our wealth as a team.

The 3 rules we follow to keep the peace

1. Honesty
   Yes, honesty is the foundation of good relationships in general, but when it comes to money, it becomes more nuanced than choosing not to message an ex behind your partner's back. When two people are trying to share money, the struggle usually stems from good, but opposing, best intentions. //

2. Mutual respect
   Once, in the heat of a nasty battle over whether we should buy a mattress secondhand, I called my husband "Scrooge McDuck." While it was a spiteful and silly dig, it also summarizes how I felt about his frugal tendencies. He, on the other hand, felt I had the financial acumen of a 7-year-old in a candy shop with $100 to burn. //

This is why the most important change we made in our approach to sharing finances was recognizing that our spender/saver dynamic didn't need to be a battle of opposites, but could instead be a balance of strengths.

Being a saver means my husband is always wary of potential financial hardships. //

But being a spender means I am open to taking financial risks that on his own, my husband would have been too scared to take. By pushing him to sell our house at the top of the market, I made us $120,000 //

3. Humility
   But mutual respect requires more than recognizing what the other person has to offer. It also means recognizing that one financial style isn't necessarily superior to another.

Shares of uranium mining companies surged Monday as retail traders from Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum focused their energies on the rallying radioactive metal.

Companies tied to uranium in Australia and the U.K. powered higher Monday, while shares of U.S.-listed companies also rose.

convert currency value

DoNotPay is excellent at fighting back against robocalls with a great feature called RoboRevenge. The idea is to hit the fraudsters where it hurts the most—their wallets. With the help of DoNotPay, you can get up to $3000 from the annoying spam callers.

You will need to engage with the caller, though. If you get a robocall that hangs up, you can expect another call to come your way within days, if not hours. That’s the opportunity for some sweet robocall revenge.

The process is easy because DoNotPay does all the hard work for you. All you need to do is:

1. Log on to DoNotPay via your web browser when you get the call
2. Choose the RoboRevenge option
3. Create a free virtual credit card
4. Provide the card details to the caller (rest assured that they will ask for it)
5. Wait for DoNotPay to obtain the caller’s details (it will happen as soon as they try to make a transaction)
6. Follow the instructions provided by DoNotPay to start a robocall lawsuit and get up to $3000

There is nothing dangerous or illegal about RoboRevenge. The DoNotPay virtual credit card is just a card number that is not tied to your bank account or any other funding source. It only appears like a real card to the caller.

Since calling you is illegal without written consent, the caller is already breaking the law. Even if your number is not on the Do Not Call List, the app will register you automatically. The Do Not Call List registration cannot expire, so if you are registered, your number will stay there until you request otherwise. The only issue is that lawsuits can only be made against callers and companies that are calling from the States.