Journalist Ronan Farrow explains how turning off your phone each night can protect you from getting hacked
There are just so many ways for important information held on your phone to be swiped—from subscription based apps that secretly send private customer data to Facebook to fake accounts that get your friends to invest in some kind of fake crypto.
And of course—this is more than a modern day inconvenience. It poses real threats to democracy and global human rights, which is why so many are calling for more regulations and safeguards. Of course, as with most regulations, change isn’t coming fast. Which isn’t good news, considering how rapidly technology evolves.
However, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has an incredibly simple tip for preventing our phones from being hacked: Turn them off more often.
While appearing on the Daily Show to promote his new documentary, Surveilled, Farrow told correspondent Desi Lydic that we as a society should be "freaking out" more about the lack of government restraints about spyware technology, saying that it could turn the country “into an Orwellian surveillance state,” affecting anyone who uses a device, essentially—not just political dissidents.
But, as Farrow noted, turning your phone off and on every day is an easy way to protect yourself, since most current forms of spyware “will be foiled by a reboot.” And even if you aren’t, say, a journalist of political activity (i.e. common targets for malware), you’re thwarting apps from monitoring your activity or collecting your data. And better still, you’re making it more difficult for hackers to steal information from your phone. Privacy protection aside, it’s a great way of just keeping your device healthy. Basically, it seems like the age-old solution for virtually all tech issues still holds up.
Remembering to turn it off…that's a different challenge altogether. Photo credit: Canva
There are a few other things worth turning off now and then, such as bluetooth and location devices when you’re not using them, according to the NSA. In addition, Farrow also suggested keeping devices updated, and perhaps most important of all, actually writing to your representative about the issue.
However, when it comes to wrapping devices in tinfoil as a makeshift Faraday cage…that might not be the best use of one’s aluminum.
“Experts vary on exactly how effective that approach is,” Farrow told Lydic, just before quipping, “we need better policies. Not just better tinfoil.”
Expanding on Farrow’s 2022 New Yorker investigative exposé on the notorious spyware Pegasus, Surveilled, which is available to stream on Max, delves into the multibillion-dollar industry of commercial spyware and its potential threats, making it evidently clear that this is not an issue for the elite few, or one to ignore until the future.
On a (slightly) brighter note, Farrow has recently debuted another new work, this time a true crime series, titled Not a Very Good Murderer, which he himself narrates. Find it on Audible.
The rise of misinformation on social media has been a monumental stress test for the world’s critical thinking skills. Misinformation has had a huge influence on elections, public health and the treatment of immigrants and refugees across the world. Social media platforms have tried to combat false claims over the past few years by employing fact-checkers, but they haven’t been terribly effective because those who are most susceptible to misinformation don’t trust fact-checkers.
“The word fact-checking itself has become politicized,” Cambridge University professor Jon Roozenbeek said, according to the Associated Press. Further, studies show that when people have incorrect beliefs challenged by facts, it makes them cling to their false assumptions even harder. These platforms have also attempted to remove posts containing misinformation that violates their terms of service, but this form of content moderation is often seen as insufficient and is often applied inconsistently.
How do we combat dangerous misinformation online if removing false claims or debunking them hasn’t been effective enough? A new study published in the journal Science Advances by a team of university researchers and Jigsaw, a division of Google, has found a relatively simple solution to the problem they call “pre-bunking.”
Pre-bunking is an easy way of inoculating people against misinformation by teaching them some basic critical thinking skills. The strategy is based on inoculation theory, a communication theory that suggests one can build resistance to persuasion by exposing people to arguments against their beliefs beforehand.
The researchers learned that pre-bunking was effective after conducting a study on nearly 30,000 participants on YouTube.
“Across seven high-powered preregistered studies including a field experiment on YouTube, with a total of nearly 30,000 participants, we find that watching short inoculation videos improves people’s ability to identify manipulation techniques commonly used in online misinformation, both in a laboratory setting and in a real-world environment where exposure to misinformation is common,” the recently published findings note.
The researchers uploaded videos into YouTube ad slots that discussed different types of manipulative communication used to spread false information such as ad hominem attacks, false dichotomies, scapegoating and incoherence.
Here’s an example of a video about false dichotomies.
Researchers found that after people watched the short videos, they were significantly better at distinguishing false information than they were before. The study was so successful that Jigsaw is looking to create a video about scapegoating and running it in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These countries are all combating a significant amount of false information about Ukrainian refugees.
There’s an old saying, “If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. Teach that man to fish and he’ll eat forever.” Pre-bunking does something very similar. We can either play a game of whack-a-mole where social media platforms have to suss out misinformation on a minute-by-minute basis or we can improve the general public’s ability to distinguish misinformation and avoid it themselves.
Further, teaching people to make their own correct decisions about misinformation will be a lot more effective than pulling down content and employing fact-checks. These tactics only drive vulnerable, incredulous people toward misinformation.
There's a lot of behind the scenes info most of us don't know.
One strange reality of life is that there's a lot that happens behind the scenes of…well, everything…that people simply never know about. I'm not talking about deep state conspiracies here or anything, just normal run-of-the-mill industry secrets that only people who work in those industries knows.
Some of these "secrets" are actual secrets meant to be kept sacred, like how certain magic tricks work. Some are things we don't really want to know, like how the sausage gets made. And some are simply things that industry folks know but don't bother to inform the rest of us about, like the fact that the average movie theater employee really doesn't give a hoot if you sneak in candy as long as you're not obvious about it.
We're all curious, though, about what goes on in the back room, behind the counter, under the radar, etc. So when someone on Reddit asked "What industry 'secret' do you know that most people don’t?" people flocked to answer—and to see what people said.
To be clear, there's no way to officially verify these insider secrets, but it's still fun to see what people who work in various industries reveal.
Do you know who actually wrote that nonfiction book you loved?
"Most—probably 80 percent or more—of the books on the nonfiction bestseller list (autobiographies, memoirs, political/business books, etc.) are ghostwritten.
The ghostwriter added an encouraging caveat, though:
"Most (good) ghostwritten books are a true collaboration: somebody with an amazing story (or great idea/argument or whatever) who genuinely has the 'goods,' so to speak… but not the major league-level writing chops it takes to execute the best/most effective/most entertaining version of their story. So they bring in a specialist who knows the craft of storytelling and how to structure and execute something on the scale of a book, and—together, over the course of a year or so of deep collaboration—they bring the story to life. It’s the only way these voices would be heard in book form, in a lot of cases, and (IMHO, as someone who collaborates on these books), there’s no downside as long as the author genuinely invests time and effort."
The house always wins, but especially on slot machines
"I saw how slot machines for casinos were designed... don’t play slots." – Eliza_Lisa
"I had a buddy that was in the casino industry and claimed that 80% of their profits came from slot machines. This was the older mechanical types. The newer computerized ones can be programmed to do anything." – Mo_Jack
That security guard? Not all that helpful if the ish hits the fan.
"I'm an unarmed security guard.
Every now & then I'll get a comment from someone about how they're glad I'm around in case there's an active shooter or something.
Yea; if that happens? We're not doing anything aside from getting ourselves to safety and calling the cops.
We're literally told in training that if we try to intervene directly with an active shooter we'll be fired." – disinfo_bot_47·
"'Detect, Deter and Report' was the slogan at Securitas back in the day.
We were frequently told we were there for insurance purposes and were expected to NOT take action beyond calling the cops and getting ourselves to safety.
Want to see a study that's behind a paywall? Just ask the researcher.
"I'm an academic researcher and I can speak for a huge number in my field when I say:
If you want access to our studies and they're behind a paywall, you can email us and we will send you the study.
We are genuinely delighted to share and if you want further context for the results or what have you, I'll always try my best to oblige.
The only limiters on that last bit is that:
the original data for the study might have reached the end of our right to keep it, in which case it will have been destroyed.
I might have forgotten details or I might have written that paper during a particularly hectic time and my file system might be total shit.
Also a lot of us are on ResearchGate and various social media things so you can contact us through there. If you can't contact us directly or we're being slow, one of the other authors on the paper might be contactable." – and_so_forth
Bestsellers might be bestsellers because people buy their own books
"The New York Times best seller list has a lot of people on it who buy massive numbers of their own books." – Ibringupeace
"Apparently, there is a symbol that indicates that while it did make best seller status, there was a bulk buy. A footnote, if you will, or similar to an asterisk." – spoda1975
Private messages aren't 100% private, in case you hadn't figured that out yet
"Worked in online community management and social media for years - Admins CAN read all of your PMs. Private only means private from the masses, not from administration, we had to be able to read them to check reports of abuse, grooming, illegal activity etc. I can't tell you how much cringeworthy shit I had to read through, especially from guys trying to hook up." – will_write_for_tacos
You may not have actually witnessed your baby's first steps
"If your baby goes to a nursery/daycare, chances are those weren't their 'first' steps/words etc that you witnessed. Industry standard is to not tell parents when these things happen as it makes them feel bad. I've seen kids up and walking about the room for weeks, even months before their parent proudly announced at drop off that they 'Took their first steps last night.'" – by_the_way_mate
Being extra nice can get you some sweet free upgrades
"If you’re nice to hotel staff they are more likely to give you free sh*t." – Archibald_Thrust
"A good friend of mine (Korean) visited las Vegas for her honeymoon. The husband was just a student at the time and she worked at a call center to pay their bills. When they were checking in at the hotel, the man at the front desk asked where they were from. She told them we are from Korea! And the man responded," oh I love Korean food!". They were a bit early to check in so they left their bags and went out to get some food at a local Korean restaurant. When they came back they bought some food for the front desk guy and when they handed the food over the guy was shocked and upgraded them to the penthouse. Little did my kind friends know, the guy was a manager and the penthouse was available. Friend sent me pics after they got in their room and wow... Las Vegas penthouse is probably a room I will never be able to afford in my lifetime... All for a little Korean food they got a memory they will never forget." – GroovinBaby
"Oh for sure. I worked in hospitality for years, and all my favorite guests got upgrades, free snacks, etc. And the awful guests got the exact opposite lol." – PalerEastMadeIt
Most of us aren't making the most of Google's powerful search capabilities.
Do you ever just stop and marvel at how much the internet has changed human existence? At no other time in history has the average person had access to so much knowledge. Yes, we use it for dumb things too, but anyone with an internet connection can learn anything they set their mind to, from languages to auto mechanics to music to rocket science. It's mind-blowing.
This unlimited access to information is amazing, but it can also be overwhelming. If I Google "rocket science," I get 190 million results in 0.7 seconds. If I actually had an interest in learning about rocket science—which I don't—I wouldn't even know where to begin.
I could narrow down those results with more specific search terms, of course. But that would barely be scratching the surface of Google's search abilities. As Chris Hladczuk wrote on Twitter, "If you use it right, Google is the most powerful tool in the world. But the truth is most people suck at it."
It's true. Many of us have no idea how to actually utilize Google effectively to find the information we want or need. I use Google all the time and thought I was pretty good at it, but after reading Hladczuk's thread of tips and researching more, I realized there are so many ways I could up my Google game to save myself some time and effort.
Here are 13 tips and tricks for better Googling that we can all use:
1. Make use of the one-click filters that Google already set up.
Google makes it easy to narrow down search results with pre-set filter categories that show up at the top of your search results. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it's easy to gloss over them if you don't know they're there. If you just want news stories or just want images for your search topic, you'd click "News" or "Images" at the top of the search results page.
To further filter, click "Tools" on the right. Depending on what other filters you're using you can sort by date (in News), type of document (in Books), duration or quality (in Videos), and so on. Just utilizing these built-in filtering tools will greatly enhance your Google search experience with very little effort.
Google's preset filters help you narrow down search results with one click.
Screenshot via Google.com
2. Use the minus sign (-) to eliminate words you don't want in your results.
Let's say you want to research George Bush's presidency but you want the first Bush, not George W. Bush. You could Google "George H.W. Bush," but that's not generally what he was referred to prior to his son running for president.
Using the hyphen, or minus sign, before a word or phrase you don't want included in results will eliminate that word or phrase from the search. So Googling "George Bush -W." tells Google to pull up results for George Bush, but without "W." Voila! All senior Bush results.
3. Quotations marks (" ") give you exact phrase results.
Googling multiple words at once can give you a mixed bag of results. The search will include all of the words, but not necessarily in order. If you are looking for an exact phrase, let Google know that by putting it in quotation marks.
4. Use a colon (:) to search a specific website.
Let's say you wanted to see all of Upworthy's articles about dogs. Type in "dogs:upworthy.com" and Google will give you all of our pupworthy content. (Generally speaking, you should put in the .com or .org or whatever the extension is on the URL, but "dogs:upworthy" works, too.)
5. Looking for a specific file type? Tell Google with (filetype:).
Do you swear you saw a printable PDF of dad jokes, but can't remember where you found it? A search for "dad jokes" gives you a gazillion results you'd have to wade through to find a PDF. But you can search just for PDFs by typing "bad dad jokes filetype:PDF" into your Google search bar.
6. Search for similar or synonymous terms with a tilde (~).
Say you wanted to find a Spanish teacher in your area. Searching "local Spanish ~teacher" would also bring up search results for Spanish tutors, instructors and so on. (Google does some of this intuitively, but there may be instances when results are too honed in on one word.)
7. Do a fill-in-the-blank search with an asterisk (*).
Want to know what percentage of Americans have been vaccinated for COVID-19? Want to know how many gorillas are left in the wild? A search for "* percent of Americans vaccinated for COVID" and "* gorillas left in the wild" will bring those exact numbers right to the top of your results.
Pull up a tip calculator with one click.
Screenshot via Google.com
8. Calculate a tip or set a timer in a jiffy.
Searching for "tip calculator" brings up a simple, handy tip calculator without having to click through to any website. Nifty.
And you can set a timer by typing "timer" and however many minutes you want into the search bar. The timer starts automatically and will beep when finished. (Just don't close that browser window.) You can also pull up a stopwatch with a simple "stopwatch" search.
9. Track a package without having to go to the carrier's website.
All you have to do is copy and paste any tracking number into the Google search bar. No need to go to USPS or UPS or FedEx websites first. Just straight to Google.
10. Track a flight without having to go to the airline's website.
Just like the tracking number, simply enter your flight number (e.g., DL 275) into the Google search bar. Easy peasy.
11. Do quick definition checks and look up time and weather in different places.
Sometimes Google is more intuitive to use than we might assume. Want to look up what "obfuscation" means? No need to search for an online dictionary. Just type "define obfuscation" into the search bar. (You don't even have to spell it right, as long as you're close.) Wondering what the weather's like where grandma lives? Search "weather Orlando" to get current conditions. Need to know if it's too late to contact that friend overseas? Search "time Barcelona" to get the current local time.
12. Search for free-to-use images with Creative Commons licenses across multiple websites at once.
Finding photos that are free to use, either with or without attribution requirements, can be tedious. But it's easy to find Creative Commons License photos on Google if you know what to click.
Type in your search term for whatever images you want (say "snuggly kittens"), then click Images, then Tools, then Usage Rights, then Creative Commons Licenses.
When you click on an image, you can click "License details" and it will tell you which Creative Commons license applies to the photo so you know how to attribute it.
13. Reverse search images to see where they came from or where else they've been shared.
If you want to try to track down where an image originated, you can search using an image itself, either using the image URL or uploading it to images.google.com. Just click on the camera icon and either paste the URL or upload the image, and the search results will show you all the places the image lives on the internet.
Bonus: Just for fun, try typing "askew" into the Google search bar.
The folks behind the scenes at Google have a silly sense of humor, so you never quite know what you're going to get when you use it. You can also put "play pacman" into the search and actually play a mini Pac-Man game. Who knew?
Google is an incredibly useful tool in far more ways than most of us use it, and hopefully these tips will help you utilize it to its full potential. Happy searching and three cheers for digital literacy!
Recently, we learned that President Trump is not very good at keeping secrets.
According to a bombshell Washington Post report, in the course of bragging about how cool his job is, the president revealed highly classified "code word" intelligence to Russian officials visiting the White House.
Oops. Photo by Michael Reynols-Pool/Getty Images.
Most people would know not to do this.
In fact, you probably wouldn't even need to be a person in the White House to keep America's national security secrets safe. A reasonably competent nonverbal mammal could probably pull it off — and an animal president would come with a lot of advantages. No Twitter! No press conferences! We could pay them in food!
But which animal?
I wanted answers. More importantly, I wanted a Plan B for America.
Is there an animal that would be better at keeping secrets than the current president of the United States? And how quickly could John Roberts make that animal swear on a Bible?
The surprising, I-kid-you-not, possible secret-keeping savior species? Chimpanzees.
"Chimpanzees understand others' intentions, and they can adjust their behaviour to these intentions by flexibly manipulating what they make visible to others," lead researcher Karg told the BBC in 2015.
Researchers exposed 24 chimps to competitive humans, who would steal food from their cages, and cooperative humans, who would pick it up and feed it to them.
They discovered the chimps were more likely to keep food hidden in the presence of competitors and not say, for example, "Hey, we've got great food. The best food. The most delicious chocolate cake you've ever seen. Let me show you exactly where it is."
The experiment concluded that the chimps are able to selectively, intentionally deceive — and not just because they don't talk.
The key to chimpanzees' ability to keep secrets? They are able to distinguish between friend and foe on a very basic level.
Like, for example, the difference between the leader of an allied and long-term partner nation...
Once the chimps make the distinction between friend and foe, they are able to adjust their strategy — hiding resources from individuals out to get them, while sharing with those who are friendly.
You know.
Basic stuff.
Which raises the question: Is it time to oust Trump and install a great ape in the Oval Office?
Not so fast, it turns out.
"They are not very good at [keeping secrets]," Karg told the BBC, of her chimps' performance in the experiment. "You can help them by giving them some way to distract themselves."
In some ways, perhaps they're not so different from our current president after all.
That said, what would be the harm in giving Mr. Bananas a few weeks to call the shots?
Photo by Andreas Solaro/Getty Images.
Could things really get any weirder than they already are?
When one mom took to a medical platform called CrowdMed, her son Joseph was in desperate need of help.
"My son feels like an old man," she wrote. "He suffers from constant, debilitating fatigue, painful body aches ... he feels like he's dying."
After submitting his case to the site, more than 40 "medical detectives" — medical experts from around the world — took it on. They came to the consensus that he most likely had Lyme disease, even though that had previously been ruled out by his physicians following negative test results.
The medical detectives had noticed that the tests he had taken were old and known to be inaccurate now with advanced technology. They recommended he take a new test, which confirmed that Lyme disease was the correct diagnosis. He's now on the appropriate treatment plan and feeling way better.
The internet is a wild place like that.
Who would have thought the same tools we use to look at pictures of cute kittens could also help us solve mysterious medical cases?
The internet and social media have not only changed the way friends communicate with each other, but have changed the way doctors and patients communicate, too.
Like other professionals, doctors benefit from sharing insight and expertise with other doctors. But only so much can be learned from attending a conference or reading a medical journal. That's where crowdsourcing medical info has come into play.
Here are five ways doctors (and everyday folks) are using the internet to change the medical world as we know it:
1. Medical detectives are solving difficult medical mysteries on CrowdMed.
Image via CrowdMed.
There are thousands and thousands (and thousands) of medical conditions out there. The odds of one doctor knowing all of them? Well, that'd be ridiculous! And that's exactly why CrowdMed came into existence.
As in the example above, CrowdMed uses crowdsourcing to help solve unique medical cases online. We're not talking your common cold here. We're talking difficult medical conditions that could normally take several years, and a lot of money, to diagnose. With the help of their medical experts, or "detectives," patients are given access to a wide variety of medical expertise in one online platform.
2. No Instagram filter is needed with these photos, but a medical degree can help.
While many people take joy in scrolling through photos of puppies and fancy-looking dinners on Instagram, people in the medical community are actively following photos of medical cases to compare notes. With more than 54,000 followers, the account Figure 1 is perfect for health professionals to view and discuss a variety of medical issues ranging from surgeries to X-rays to burn wounds.
"If I’m able to log on to Instagram or Figure 1 and see a picture of something that I learned about three years ago in medical school that I may see in the future, that’s really helpful for my learning going forward," emergency medicine resident John Corker told Marketplace.
3. Doctors are using an instant messenger to get their answers super fast.
A "living, breathing, evolving medical knowledge bank," SERMO has become a go-to social network for doctors around the world. Its community of 600,000 members are all verified and credentialed physicians who use the space to brainstorm, ask questions, collaborate, and exchange knowledge and experiences with each other.
And what makes it stand out is that community members can remain anonymous on the network once they've been verified. It creates a safe space for doctors to open up and ask questions they may otherwise avoid asking in a public setting or in their own practice.
"When physicians feel comfortable dialoguing without repercussions, they ask for help, they share knowledge, they admit mistakes — and together advance the universe of medical knowledge," the website reads. Makes sense.
4. What if a doctor needs a second opinion? There are Facebook groups for that.
Image via Facebook.
When Dr. Brian Jacob wanted to stay in touch and share knowledge with other surgeons around the world, he went straight to Facebook. Jacob created a closed group called International Hernia Collaboration and invited some of his surgeon friends to join.
"What began as a few of us collaborating privately about tough cases quickly spread to hundreds of vetted surgeons and industry members from over 40 countries providing each other continuous quality improvement one Facebook post and comment at a time," he wrote in Facebook Stories.
The group, which now has over 2,100 members, has seen successful outcomes thanks to their teamwork. Woo, collaboration! For example, Jacob said in his story:
"One day last year, a patient came to me insisting that he have his hernia fixed as soon as possible. Given his medical history, I suspected it would be best to wait and not operate right away. With the patient’s permission, I decided to reach out to the group for other perspectives. I posted an x-ray image of his hernia and the key information regarding his case, along with my two points: 1) When is it too soon to repair a newly formed hernia? and 2) What technique and product would you use?
Within minutes, other surgeons chimed in with comments, and I felt comforted in teaching hundreds of surgeons across the globe that there was consensus in this decision to postpone the surgery. With the support of the group, I waited a few months before operating, and saved the patient potential injury to his intestines that could occur by operating too soon. I've tracked his progress and, almost a year later, he is still doing very well."
5. Or for the minimal effort approach, let the information come directly to you.
With sites like PediHeartNet, users are able to sign up to be informed on the latest news within their expertise. For instance, PediHeartNet's listserv allows medical professionals to sign up to receive postings of worldwide discussions to their inbox on various aspects of pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery. That's both important and convenient.
When it comes down to it, the more quality information we have about our health, the better off we all are.
It's great to see medical professionals and everyday people work together to find ways to share their medical knowledge and experiences for the benefit of human good.
Remembering to turn it off…that's a different challenge altogether. Photo credit: Canva
