Archive for February, 2017

MESA, AZ - A woman from California racked up $16,000 in charges using identities stolen from 18 people across the country.

Court records show that the woman took the identities of eighteen people, created multiple credit card accounts from four department stores where she purchased items on a weekly basis.

Mesa police report that between June 1, 2016, and February 1, 2017, Maria Del Carmen Ramos, age 37, used stolen identities to create and use credit cards accounts to buy items at 15 different Kohl’s stores in Maricopa County.

Police say Ramos received personal profiles of 18 people from a friend in California. Ramos allegedly used these profiles to create credit card accounts at Kohl’s, Macy’s, Toy ‘R’ Us and JC Penney.

Loss prevention officers at Kohl’s say they have video evidence showing Ramos using the fake cards to make 36 purchases totaling over $16,000. Police say the total benefit value to Ramos could rise as high as $100,000.

So far police have identified 18 victims whose identities were stolen. One of the victims set up a password on her account after seeing fraudulent purchases. This hold, police say, allowed them to capture Ramos at the Kohl’s store near McKellips and Hayden roads on February 1.

Ramos reportedly told police that she was making purchases weekly, buying mostly clothing for her family, as well as shoes, electronics, and gift cards because they were easy to sell. Police say they found multiple identifications in her purse when she was arrested.

Police are contacting the victims, five of who are from New York.

Ramos has been charged with 130 counts of forgery, identity theft and fraudulent schemes.

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For most, augmented reality is a type of game—one where they can fight bad guys, fly spaceships, or catch Pokémon in a hybrid environment made up of both virtual and real-life elements.

But at Sandia National Laboratory augmented reality has a much bigger purpose—nuclear security.

Computer scientists Tam Le and Todd Noel have adapted augmented reality headsets—originally designed for gaming—as part of the physical security training curriculum Sandia provides in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) International Nuclear Security programs.

“This technology really enhances our mission, which is to increase and improve the international nuclear security training for those who deal with our nuclear stock piles and weapons and materials,” said Le in an exclusive interview with R&D Magazine. “It really does help to increase and improve this training in so many ways.”

Le and Noel have been incorporating augmented reality elements into Sandia’s nuclear training programs since March 2016. Most notably, they’ve updated the International Training Course on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities (ITC), a three-week training session for nuclear materials and facilities professionals worldwide.

Trainings are held at Sandia’s Integrated Security Facility, which was originally designed to protect Category I nuclear material, but now serves as a venue for hands-on physical security training. The incorporation of the augmented reality headsets at the facility allows students to peer through walls and see all the processes needed to handle and protect nuclear material, without having to access actual hazardous material.

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How To Stop Your Smart TV From Spying on You

THIS WEEK, VIZIO, which makes popular, high-quality, affordable TV sets, agreed to pay a $2.2 million fine to the FTC. As it turns out, those same TVs were also busily tracking what their owners were watching, and shuttling that data back to the company’s servers, where it would be sold to eager advertisers.

That’s every bit as gross as it sounds, but Vizio’s offense was one of degree, not of kind. While other smart TV platforms don’t sell your viewing data at the IP level to the highest bidder without consent, like Vizio did, many do track your habits on at least some level. And even the companies that have moved on from ACR—like LG when it embraced webOS—have older models that liberally snoop.

But good news! There are ways to keep your smart TV from the prying eyes of the company that made it. In fact, there’s one absurdly easy way that will work for any television you can buy. Let’s start there.

Dumb It Down
The single most foolproof way to keep an internet-connected TV from sending data to far-flung ad tech servers around the globe? Disconnect it from the internet. And honestly, you should be doing that anyway.

Think about what you’re really getting from the “smart” part of your high-tech television. A shoddy interface? Voice commands that work half the time, if you’re lucky? A few bonus ads popping up in unexpected places? No thank you! Go to Settings, find the Wi-Fi On/Off toggle, and shut it down.

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“Prosecutors like to say they are “doing God’s work” by representing the interests of victims. An ex-prosecutor I interviewed for my book, Making a Case for Innocence, used those words when I asked her why some prosecutors are willing to lie or hide evidence to get a conviction, and why some prosecutors seem more focused on winning cases than getting to the truth.

“At the end of the day, we want justice,” she said.

A vague answer, at best.

Still, it might explain the tunnel vision I see infecting some prosecutors: Too many of them seem so driven in their mission to “put the bad guys away,” that they become overconfident in their rightness and are tempted to bend the rules—all to ensure a “mission accomplished.”

I admit, it rubs me the wrong way when a government employee suggests that justice is only served by a conviction. Putting “bad guys” away is all well and fine, but some prosecutors seem to forget that not everyone sitting at the defendant’s table is a “bad guy.”

To a degree, it’s a problem of philosophy: Many prosecutors are in the business of pursuing guilt, so they see it everywhere. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And many police departments view themselves more as law enforcers than as society’s protectors, or as crime preventers.

Meanwhile, many criminal defense attorneys and investigators feel as strongly as prosecutors do that they are doing “God’s work.” By protecting the rights of people charged with crimes, they counterbalance the power of prosecutors and police, and thus, make our system fairer for all.

We don’t know the exact number of innocent people currently incarcerated, but we can estimate based on exoneration rates:”

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