Current Events in July 2018

The Beautiful Pig of Longview, Wash., is recalling an undetermined amount of ready-to-eat and raw pork and beef products.

The products were produced, packed and distributed without undergoing inspection and were also under U.S. retention when shipped without approval.

There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.

The recalled items, produced from June 2, 2017, through July 8, 2018, can be found here.

The recalled products, bearing establishment number “EST. 1098” inside the USDA mark of inspection, were distributed to retail locations in Oregon and Washington. The product labels do not include any identifying lot codes or use by dates.

What to do

Customers who purchased the recalled products should consume them, but discard them or return them to the place of purchase.

Consumers with questions about the recall may contact Christopher Leach by email at TheBeautifulPig11@gmail.com.

Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) is recalling 399 model year 2018 Mercedes-Benz GLA250s and GLA250 4Matics.

The child seat top tether anchorage point on the center position of the rear seat may not have been installed.

If the anchorage point is missing, a child seat will not be able to be properly installed in the center rear seat position, increasing the risk of injury.

What to do

MBUSA will notify owners, and dealers will replace the rear seat backrest, free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin August 3, 2018.

Owners may contact MBUSA customer service at 1-800-367-6372.

As Amazon's Prime Day gets underway this afternoon, other retailers aren't casually standing around.

Target and Walmart are offering up deals of their own for the consumers who haven't paid the $119 a year to become Prime members.

Target has drawn a bullseye on Tuesday, July 17 – the full day Amazon has set aside for Prime Day specials. Target says all consumers can reap savings on dozens of deals across Target.com, including furniture and home items, beauty and personal care products, toys, and electronics.

Consumers who spend a total of $100 at Target.com on Tuesday will receive a free six-month membership to Shipt, which provides same day delivery of grocery items, purchased online but delivered from a nearby Target store.

Other deals include :

• Discounts on select top toy brands

• 30 percent off Target-exclusive home brands

• Sale prices on cookware, small appliances and floorcare

• 25 percent off beauty and personal care

• Up to 30 percent off select baby gear

• Up to 30 percent off top Google products

Free next-day shipping on Restock items

Target is also offering free next-day shipping on Target Restock items ordered on July 17.

Walmart, meanwhile, is promoting its “Ultimate Summer Savings” with special deals on LEGO toys, laptop computers, grills, and the Google Home smart speaker. Both Target and Walmart stress that savings are open to all consumers, with no membership fee requirement.

Amazon began offering pre-Prime Day deals last week and is preparing to officially launch at noon PT with its full line-up. This year there is a special emphasis on Amazon devices.

Prime members can receive six months of free music streaming from Amazon Music Unlimited when they purchase a qualifying Amazon Echo device during Prime Day. Shoppers will find a $30 discount on the Echo Spot, and $100 off on the Echo Look, the recently-introduced video player.

Eligible Prime members will also get 10 percent back on select Amazon devices, including Echo, Fire TV, and Kindle when they shop on Prime Day using the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card or Amazon Prime Store Card.

When faced with criticism, CEO Elon Musk has shown a tendency to lash out with defensive statements or claims about his critics, but none have quite reached the levels as this one.

Tesla shares reportedly fell more than three percent on Monday after Musk called one of the divers who helped save a youth soccer team trapped in Thailand’s Tham Luang cave complex a “pedo guy.” Analysts say that Tesla shares reached their lowest levels in six weeks.

Vernon Unsworth was part of a team of expert divers from all over the world who convened in Thailand last week to figure out a plan to rescue the 12 boys.

At the same time, the Tesla CEO had also traveled to Thailand. Musk told his followers on Twitter that he was talking to cave experts about a “tiny, kid-size submarine” that he had created that “might be safe enough to try.”

In the end, it was the team of divers who saved the children through a complicated rescue mission. Musk’s role in the rescue was initially unclear.

Asked in a CNN interview about what Musk did exactly, Unsworth, sounding annoyed, said that the submarine was a “PR stunt” and that the billionaire CEO did nothing to help.

Musk “can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Unsworth added.

In response, Musk wrote another post on Twitter on Sunday, promising to release footage of his submarine in action. “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it,” Musk concluded. He later deleted the post.

“I believe he’s called me a pedophile,” Unsworth responded in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.

History of controversial claims

It’s not the first time that Musk has made baseless claims about critics.

Earlier this summer, the non-profit journalism website Reveal reported that the Tesla factory in Fremont had been leaving injuries off the books and firing or demoting workers who suffered debilitating, permanent injuries on the job. Tesla responded to the reporting with a statement calling Reveal an “extremist organization.”

Tesla has also criticized the driving abilities of customers who have publicly complained about its cars, as ConsumerAffairs reported in May.

One driver who said his wheel fell off without warning, for instance, was publicly lambasted by Tesla for living “down such a long dirt road that it required two tow trucks to retrieve the car,” neither of which the driver said was true.

The latest release of Google Chrome -- Chrome 67 -- is a good news, bad news story. The company has taken measures to beef up protection against cyber attacks like the recent one from Spectre, but the new version will take more of a user’s computer resources to run.

Google candidly admits that the new version of Chrome will eat up as much as 13 percent of your computer’s system memory thanks to the add-on of something called “site isolation.” Site isolation is a second-line defense designed to limit the ability of unscrupulous websites to access or thieve personal account information on other websites.

Owning 79 percent of the browser market, Google has little choice but to protect users from potential attacks. In a blog post, the company vows the trade-off is well worth the extra drag on a user’s computer.

“Site Isolation is a significant change to Chrome's behavior under the hood, but it generally shouldn't cause visible changes for most users," wrote Charlie Reis, a software engineer at Google.

“It simply offers more protection between websites behind the scenes," Reis said.

"Site Isolation does cause Chrome to create more renderer processes, which comes with performance trade-offs: on the plus side, each renderer process is smaller, shorter-lived, and has less contention internally, but there is about a 10-13 percent total memory overhead in real workloads due to the larger number of processes."

Reis promises his team “continues to work hard to optimize this behavior to keep Chrome both fast and secure;” but for the short haul, consumers are just going to have to grin and bear it.

What computers will be affected?

Chrome’s new feature is a cross-platform change and will affect Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS (operating system) users. Google says it’s exploring options to broaden Site Isolation coverage to Chrome for Android devices which also have supplemental security issues.

If Chrome users would prefer leaving Site Isolation turned off, Reis says they’re out of luck. Ninety-nine percent of all users will be impacted, with Google holding back one percent for the sake of monitoring and bettering the browser’s performance.

Earlier this year, Microsoft made a good neighbor move to make Chrome’s armor stronger with a new browser extension of its own called "Windows Defender Browser Protection."

On the ground, most of us are subjected to relentless sales pitches every day, from robocalls to pop-up ads on the internet.

But if you think taking an airline flight will give you a couple of hours of peace from the endless selling, you could be wrong. At least two major airlines are enlisting flight attendants to pitch the airline's credit card to a captive audience, buckled in at 30,000 feet.

United is the latest airline to turn its flight attendants into sales personnel. Beginning September 1, it will require flight attendants to offer a sales message to domestic and international passengers on the benefits of carrying the airline's credit card.

“We are introducing a new training program for our co-branded credit card that is especially designed for flight attendants, as this work group has the most engagement with our customers,” the airline said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “Our inflight crew are effective ambassadors, who can best communicate to our customers in the moment the benefits of the United Explorer card."

Lucrative for the airlines

United joins American as carriers that will use the cabin crew to pitch credit cards to passengers, offering financial incentives for each sale. For the airline, co-branded credit cards can be lucrative.

The banks that manage airline travel cards usually buy miles from the airline that are, in turn, used to reward cardholders who spend a certain amount using the card.

While travel rewards cards are not a good fit for most consumers, those who travel a lot may find them highly beneficial. An airline cardholder may get special perks, such as preferred seating, early check-in, and free checked bags, which could easily pay for the annual fee over a year of heavy travel.

VIP lounge access

Carrying an airline co-branded credit card may also give travelers access to the airline's VIP lounge, with more relaxing surroundings than an airline terminal gate and an offering of complementary food and beverages.

Not all are the same, however. Forbes and The Points Guy recently rated the top four airline credit cards for their access to airport amenities.

They include The Platinum Card from American Express; Citi /AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard; Delta Reserve Credit Card from American Express; United MileagePlus Club Card.

All four cards carry hefty annual fees of between $450 and $550, so the cards would probably only pay off for high-frequency air travelers.

Over the past two years, consumers have been benefiting from competition between wireless companies, as cell phone providers have been rolling out unlimited data usage and lower bills as a means of securing customers.

Now, with new consumer-price data, the continued hype over promotions seems to be fading out. According to the Labor Department, the consumer-price index -- an indicator of current offers from wireless providers -- showed a 0.3 percent increase in June from last year.

“In terms of promotional intensity, things have cooled quite a bit,” said Jeffrey Moore, lead researcher at Wave7 Research.

CTIA -- a telecommunications trade group -- reported that 95 percent of American adults now own cell phones. In all, they used 15.7 trillion megabytes in mobile data in 2017 -- up from 4.1 trillion in 2014. These numbers complicate the work of wireless providers that need to spend money to keep up with the ever-increasing demands of the industry, and also try to keep and win new customers.

Cutting back on discounts

Back in February, executives at Sprint and T-Mobile -- two companies that have been most aggressive in cutting prices -- revealed they would be cutting back on discounts for the remainder of the year. Though T-Mobile made a bid to acquire Sprint in April, the deal raised eyebrows in the Senate, as many Senators feared it would decrease competition for consumers and, ultimately, raise prices.

Former Sprint executive Matt Carter reported that both Sprint and T-Mobile have been leading the charge among wireless providers when it comes to offering discounted pricing plans in an effort to gain subscribers. However, doing so leaves the companies with less money to not only pay their debt, but also invest in network upgrades.

“At some point in time, you have to have some stabilization around your pricing plans to be able to meet all the various needs they have,” Carter said. He also noted that when Sprint and T-Mobile cut back on price discounts, it allowed “AT&T and Verizon to hold steady” on their pricing plans.

The fine print in wireless plans

Sprint recently announced a new wireless plan, offering customers a tiered plan that replaced its previous five lines for $100 option. Sprint’s new top tier plan with five lines will cost customers $22 per line per month -- a $20 increase from the previous promotion.

Like other wireless companies, Sprint is also offering customers plans with a choice of the video-streaming service Hulu and the music-streaming service Tidal, as well as a more basic unlimited plan.

“Including that kind of content is becoming important,” said Dow Draper, Sprint chief commercial officer. Draper also noted that customers’ bills are likely lower than before when factoring in the additional benefits of the new plans.

Similarly, AT&T has been offering customers subscriptions to DirecTV and HBO, while T-Mobile began offering access to Netflix with wireless plans.

Last month, Verizon unveiled a new -- but also pricier -- unlimited data plan entitled “aboveunlimited.” The new plan allows customers to select different tiers of unlimited data plans within one single plan. Despite the raise in price, Verizon executives are confident with the new plan, as it gives customers the opportunity to choose the plan that best suits their needs for every person in the family.

“I think it’s fair to say objectively based on our performance since some of our competitors changed their offerings, we’ve not seen any increase in our churn,” said Ronan Dunne, president of Verizon Wireless. “We’ve continued to see high levels of customer engagement and satisfaction.”

On Saturday, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed that the site had removed two accounts: @GUCCIFER_2 and @dcleaks. The accounts are believed to have been used to bolster Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and damage Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s.

According to the indictment, the hackers went after the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The move occurred just hours after the Justice Department -- led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller -- indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges for election tampering. Mueller is continuing to investigate Russia’s interference with the 2016 election and whether President Trump’s campaign was involved in the incident.

A Twitter spokesperson told the New York Daily News that the accounts were suspended for “being connected to a network of accounts previously suspended for operating in violation of our rules.”

A look into the hack

According to the indictment, in early 2016, the group started a two-part operation that began with “spearfishing” efforts. In these early stages, the Russians were able to hit over 300 people involved in the Clinton campaign and Democratic group.

From there, the Russian agents allegedly started both a Facebook and Twitter page where they identified themselves as “American hacktivists,” while also creating a website called DCLeaks.com.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein indicated that there were no American citizens explicitly mentioned in the indictment, but the defendants “corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the internet.”

Rosenstein also said he believed cyber attacks on United States elections would continue to occur with even greater technological advances.

“The Internet allows foreign adversaries to attack America in new and unexpected ways,” said Rosenstein. “Free and fair elections are hard-fought and contentious, and there will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide, and conquer us.”

Twitter security

Late last week, Twitter announced it would be removing millions of suspicious accounts in an effort to clear the site of fake accounts.

The social media platform is trying to regain users’ trust, as many users have let fake or automated accounts follow them in the hopes of inflating their follower totals and generating the appearance of having social media influence.

“We don’t want to incentivize the purchase of followers and fake accounts to artificially inflate follower counts, because it’s not an accurate measure of someone’s influence on the platform or influence in the world,” said Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president for trust and safety. “We think it’s a really important and meaningful metric, and we want people to have confidence that these are engaged users following other events.”

Tesla's Model 3 electric vehicle has yet to receive an official NHTSA safety rating, but a real-world account of its performance in a crash suggests the vehicle does an exceptional job of protecting its occupants.

A Reddit user shared details of his wife’s accident while driving a three-month-old Model 3. During the accident, the vehicle rolled over multiple times before ending upside down. Although the vehicle was totaled, his wife suffered only a compression fracture, friction burn from the airbags, and some bruises.

“I thought the car performed spectacularly from a safety standpoint,” he wrote on the Tesla subreddit. “The driver seat airbags protected her during the roll including one underneath the steering wheel for her legs which I didn’t even know was there.”

Only minor injuries

The vehicle’s cabin remained "completely intact" and prevented any serious injuries, he said. “The windshield and glass roof obviously shattered, but they did not intrude into the cabin at all.”

Rollover accidents in electric vehicles are rare because of the large battery pack installed at the bottom of the vehicle. But despite their low center of gravity, rollover accidents in EVs can still occur.

The way this accident ended suggests the company didn’t neglect to include potentially life-saving safety features in its frantic push to hit its production target. However, the result of this accident is by no means a replacement for official third-party crash test results. The IIHS is currently testing the Model 3.

Despite a string of incidents calling into question the trustworthiness of the electric car maker’s Autopilot feature, Tesla has maintained that safety is always its number one priority.

Last year, the company revealed in a letter to shareholders that early Model 3 crash tests yielded positive results.

“Initial crash test results have been positive, and all Model 3-related sourcing is on plan to support the start of production in July,” Tesla said.

On Sunday, a special committee of the board of directors of Papa John’s met to discuss the future of founder John Schnatter with the pizza chain. The group ultimately decided to remove Schnatter from his position at Papa John’s headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky.

“As previously announced, Mr. Schnatter is no longer a spokesperson for the company of the brand,” the company wrote in a statement. “The company has specifically requested that Mr. Schnatter cease all media appearances, and not make any further statements to the media regarding the company, its business, or employees.”

The company is also in the process of removing Schnatter from all marketing materials. Additionally, Papa John’s will hire an outside investigator to look into current company policies regarding diversity.

“The special committee also intends to oversee the external audit and investigation which the company previously announced that it will conduct of all the company’s existing processes, policies, and systems related to diversity and inclusion, supplier and vendor engagement and Papa John’s culture,” the company wrote.

Schnatter will remain on the board, and still owns 30 percent of the company’s shares.

Recent scandal

Schnatter first came under fire last week when Forbes reported the founder and public face of Papa John’s used the N-word in a conference call in May. Schnatter confirmed the incident, and promptly resigned from his position.

The call was between Papa John’s and the company’s marketing agency Laundry Service, and was supposed to be a role-playing exercise for Schnatter to prevent any future public relations incidents. Schnatter drew attention to his company when he got involved in the debate over football players kneeling during the national anthem, in which he called out the NFL for lower than normal sales at Papa John’s.

Schnatter was asked how he would distance himself from racist groups online, and in effort to distance himself from his NFL comments, said: “Colonel Sanders called blacks n------s.” He also remarked that Sanders never faced public backlash for his comments.

The comment led Schnatter to discuss his upbringing in Indiana, and was intended to express his antipathy towards racism. However, many people on the call found it to be offensive. Laundry Service owner Casey Wasserman decided to terminate his company’s agreement with Papa John’s following the call.

Schnatter admitted that his comments were true, and publicly apologized.

“News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”

Within hours, shares of Papa John’s dropped 11 percent, with Schnatter losing $70 million. The company’s stock has dropped 29 percent since Schnatter’s comments in November, and shares fell five percent following the incident last week.

Since the Great Recession, homeownership rates for millennials have been lower than previous generations at the same stage in life, and a new report from the Urban Institute suggests several reasons why.

Millennials are getting married later, and while single people do buy houses, it is more common for couples to make that purchase together. Various studies have shown that fewer millennials are getting married -- and when they do tie the knot, they are older than previous generations.

The Urban Institute research suggests that is one of the main reasons homeownership among this group lags behind baby boomers and generation X.

Both of those generations had a 45 percent homeownership rate when they were between the ages of 25 and 34. The homeownership rate among millennials currently in this age bracket is 37 percent.

Fewer children

A growing family was also a reason for a couple to buy a home, but today couples are waiting longer to have children, if they even have them at all. The research shows the percentage of young married couples with children fell to 25 percent in 2015, from 37 percent in 1990.

The Institute reports the presence of a child in a household increases the chance of owning a home by 6 percent.

However, that's not to say millennials aren't buying houses. As the nation's largest generation, they made up the largest share of homebuyers in the National Association of Realtors' 2015 Generational Study.

It is only when compared to other generations, when they were in the same age bracket, that the disparity is evident. And the Urban Institute report suggests millennials face economic headwinds other generations did not.

Student loans

When baby boomers went to college, student loans were a rarity. The cost of a college education did not put students and their families in debt.

Since the turn of the century, many college students graduate with a student loan debt the size of a small mortgage. That makes it more difficult to qualify for a loan to purchase a home, a process that is already more difficult than it was for previous generations.

After the housing crash, mortgage lenders implemented highly restrictive standards for qualifying for a mortgage. As a result, fewer people who would like to purchase a home are able to do so.

Since the housing crash, homebuilders have produced new homes at about half the rate that they did before the crash. As a result, there is a growing housing shortage that has pushed up home prices, especially in urban areas – which is where millennials prefer to live.

Why it matters

Why does it matter? According to the Urban Institute, homeownership is highly beneficial to most families. It not only offers a stable place to live, but it provides a hedge against inflation and a pathway to building wealth.

The evidence can be found in a comparison of household wealth. The net worth of the average household that owns a home is $231,420, compared with the average renter’s $5,200.

Because of that, the report's authors say their findings should be of “great concern."

Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) is recalling 1,701 model year 2018 Mercedes-Maybach S560s & S560 4Matics & Mercedes S450s 4Matic, S450, S560, S560 4Matics, and S560 Coupe 4Matics.

The electrical power bars inside the pre-fuse box in the trunk may not have been secured properly.

Failure to secure the power bars securely can cause higher electrical resistance increasing the risk of a fire. Additionally, an intermittent contact between the power bars could lead to a loss of vehicle functions.

The engine operation, the seat belt functions and the instrument cluster could be impaired, increasing the risk of a crash and injuries.

What to do

MBUSA will notify owners, and dealers will inspect the pre-fuse box, replacing it as necessary, free of charge.

The recall is expected to begin August 15, 2018.

Owners may contact MBUSA customer service at 1-800-367-6372.

A state court jury in St. Louis has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $4.7 billion in damages to 22 women and their families who say the company's talcum powder caused their ovarian cancer.

The plaintiffs argued that the product contained asbestos, a carcinogen. Most of the damages were punitive, making up one of the largest product liability verdicts in history.

Expressing disappointment in the outcome, the company said it plans to file an appeal. In a statement, Johnson & Johnson said the process was unfair because it allowed the plaintiffs to present cases of 22 women in a single trial.

"The result of the verdict, which awarded the exact same amounts to all plaintiffs irrespective of their individual facts, and differences in applicable law, reflects that the evidence in the case was simply overwhelmed by the prejudice of this type of proceeding," the company said. "Johnson & Johnson remains confident that its products do not contain asbestos and do not cause ovarian cancer and intends to pursue all available appellate remedies."

Other cases

In April, a New Jersey state court ordered Johnson & Johnson and Imerys SA to pay at least $37 million in damages to a man who said he developed cancer from life-long use of the company's talcum powder.

The company has faced as many as 9,000 cases alleging its powders are linked to cancer, but it maintains that its main baby powder product has always been free of asbestos and perfectly safe.

Johnson & Johnson hosts a website, FactsAboutTalc.com, where it defends its production methods.

"The testing methodology used to detect asbestos in cosmetic grade talcum powder was developed by the Personal Care Products, formerly known as the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA), Inc., in 1976 and is still used and accepted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration," the company says. "The methodology we use for testing Johnson’s Baby Powder exceeds the CFTA industry standard."

What the American Cancer Society says

The American Cancer Society (ACS) says some talc, in its natural form, contains asbestos, which is known to cause cancer in the lungs when inhaled. But it says all talcum products used in homes in the U.S. have been asbestos-free since the 1970s.

ACS says most concerns about a potential link between talcum powder and cancer have focused on whether people who have long-term exposure to natural talc fibers at work, such as talc miners, are at higher risk of lung cancer from breathing them in.

Also, there have been concerns that women using talcum powder regularly in the genital area might have an increased risk of ovarian cancer.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-1 to stop reviewing informal consumer complaints. Under the revised rules, informal consumer complaints will be sent directly to the telecom company in question.

If the matter isn’t resolved by the company, consumers will have to file a formal complaint in order to share their complaint with the FCC’s staff. Filing a formal complaint requires a payment of $225 to the FCC.

Although Democrats have voiced concern that the rule change could harm consumers by stifling their voices, FCC chairman Ajit Pai maintains that the change will simply streamline the Commission’s existing practices.

"Nothing is substantively changing in the way that the FCC handles informal complaints," Pai said. "We're simply codifying the practices that have been in place since 1986." The $225 fee required to begin the formal complaint process was in place before Pai became chairman.

Agency will forward informal complaints to companies

However, Democrats argue that the change essentially cuts the FCC out of the process of reviewing informal complaints.

"This is bonkers," said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the Commission’s sole Democrat. "No one should be asked to pay $225 for this agency to do its job. No one should see this agency close its doors to everyday consumers looking for assistance in a marketplace that can be bewildering to navigate.”

“There are so many people who think Washington is not listening to them and that the rules at agencies like this one are rigged against them—and today's decision only proves that point,” Rosenworcel said in a statement.

She noted that the FCC has reviewed informal complaints in the past, and that it receives between 25,000 to 30,000 informal complaints a month.

"After they are filed, the agency studies the complaint, determines what happened, and then works with providers to fix consumer problems," Rosenworcel said. "For decades, this has been the longstanding practice of this agency. But for reasons I do not understand, today's order cuts the FCC out of the process.”

By implementing the change, the FCC becomes “merely a conduit for the exchange of letters between consumers and their carriers,” she said.

Pai denies real change in policy

The FCC says its revised rules for handling informal complaints are simply meant to streamline and codify the agency’s existing formal complaint process.

"The new rules make no changes to existing, long-standing procedures for handling informal consumer complaints," the FCC said in a press release.

During Thursday’s meeting, Pai pointed out that no commissioner had opposed the revised wording in the appendix of the rule dealing with informal complaints when it was open for public comment in September 2017.

Prior to the decision, Rosenworcel had requested that the provisions be pulled based on her concerns, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

"I believed when I left this building last night that we had an agreement to fix this," Rosenworcel said. "They agreed to take out the language at my request and then rescinded that agreement."

An unknown person or group that apparently collects Bitcoin is exploiting consumers’ longstanding concerns about the outside monitoring of users’ internet activity.

In what security researcher Brian Krebs is describing as a “sextortion” scam, consumers have reported receiving emails claiming that malware was secretly installed on pornography sites they visited.

That malware allowed a hacker to secretly record both the online content they viewed as well as the visitor in a so-called  “double-video,” the emails claim.

The emails demand a ransom that must be paid in Bitcoin -- otherwise, the scammers claim that every person on the victims’ contact list will be sent the video. Krebs says that this is an old scam and assures consumers that hackers do not really have the recordings that they claim to possess.

The amounts that the scammers demand vary from victim to victim. Blogger Julie Neidlinger posted a screenshot of one such email she received from an account named “Octavius Guss” demanding $2900 in Bitcoin.

“If I don’t get the Bitcoins, I will definitely send out your video to all of your contacts including relatives, coworkers, etc.,” the email says.  

This particular scam has a new twist that’s not just the Bitcoin payment. “The email now references a real password previously tied to the recipient’s email address,” Krebs writes.

In her case, Neidlinger responded that the old password that the hacker uncovered is over a decade old and adds that “you’re some little two-bit momma’s boy in a basement who stumbled into Hacking for Dummies on Reddit.” She also contacted the FBI.

Gas station thieves elude police

For over an hour and a half, a line of ten vehicles pulled up to one gas pump in Detroit. One after another, the drivers loaded up without paying.

Gas station clerk Aziz Awadh noticed something was awry, but when he went to his own computer screen, he found that his remote access to the pumps had been hijacked. "I tried to stop it here from the screen, but the screen isn't working,” he told a local news station.

Police now believe that hackers broke into the gas station pumps and stole about $1,800 worth of gas. Police say it’s unclear if all 10 vehicles were involved in the hack. Perhaps people stumbled upon the security breach by chance and just couldn’t resist the opportunity to load up on free gas.

Military, airplane and medical secrets

The security firm Recorded Future published a report on Tuesday claiming it uncovered evidence that hackers are trying to sell “highly sensitive” documents belonging to the U.S. Air Force.

“Specifically, an English-speaking hacker claimed to have access to export-controlled documents pertaining to the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle,” the firm says.

The hacker’s asking price? A grand total of $200. The firm describes such a hack as incredibly unusual as well as a “disturbing preview” of better-orchestrated hacks that could occur in the future.

As it turns out, that future may not be so far off. In a separate report published yesterday by a different group, the firm McAffee describes its own discovery that hackers are selling information about airports and trying to sell it on the Dark Web. In that case, cyber criminals were caught selling passwords to access the online security systems of airports for only $10.

Not to be outdone, another group of hackers is apparently selling dead people’s medical histories on the Dark Web. That report comes courtesy of the security firm Cynerio, which says it has seen a rapid number of patient medical records breached online.

But this particular breach has an “interesting new wrinkle,” Cynerio writes. “Our research team found a post from a vendor on the dark web offering the medical records of the deceased."

Despite the concern, medical offices increasingly rely on electronic patient records. In fact, the government of Australia is encouraging its entire population to put their health records online. While doctors say this measure could give consumers more information about their health histories, online researchers worry that careless doctors or receptionists will leave patients vulnerable to both cyber criminals or insurance companies.

Australia, by the way, also requires all real estate transactions to be done through an online portal, which recently led one woman to lose $250,000 she earned on a house due to a cyber theft, she told local newspapers.  

Timehop

The app that encourages you to share your “memories”  of past social media posts you authored and pictures you took has temporarily deauthorized the accounts of all 21 million of its users to temporarily fix an apparent hack.

Still, Timehop claims no sensitive information or even social media posts were actually hacked and says that it is simply handling the situation proactively.

Macy’s

Another popular retailer, another hack. Macy’s is warning customers that anyone who shopped online via Macys.com or Bloomingdales.com may have had their passwords and credit card information stolen by hackers.

The retailer told Bloomberg it has taken new steps to prevent such hacks in the future, though it did not specify what those steps would be.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce lifted its ban preventing China’s ZTE from receiving goods from U.S. companies.

The Commerce Department previously said it would remove the ban after China’s second-largest telecommunications equipment maker paid a $1 billion penalty and completed a $400 million escrow payment as part of a settlement reached last month.

“The ZTE settlement represents the toughest penalty and strictest compliance regime the Department has ever imposed in such a case,” the Commerce Department said. “It will deter future bad actors and ensure the Department is able to protect the United States from those that would do us harm.”

As of Friday, ZTE was no longer on the Commerce Department’s “denied persons list,” Reuters reported.

Senators have pushed back

Lawmakers have expressed concern that removing the company’s seven-year restriction on receiving parts from U.S. suppliers could pose national security risks.

Last week, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that could reinstate some of the penalties on ZTE. Last month, the Senate voted unanimously to reinstate the ban on the company citing national security concerns.

ZTE’s revival was initially set in motion by President Trump, who vowed to help the company get “back into business” via Twitter back in May. He said ZTE buys parts from U.S. companies and that the deal was “also reflective of the larger trade deal we are negotiating with China and my personal relationship with President Xi.”

ZTE was first hit with the ban in April after it violated the terms of 2017 agreement stipulating that it was not allowed to sell sensitive American technology to Iran and North Korea. In addition to violating the terms of the settlement, the company lied to the U.S. about reprimanding employees involved in the illegal actions.

The ban stripped ZTE of its access to crucial U.S.-based suppliers, including Qualcomm. ZTE previously described the ban as a “death penalty” and has reportedly lost at least $3 billion since it was forced to halt major operations in April.

However, ZTE has followed through with the terms of the deal it recently struck with the U.S. by paying the hefty fine, firing its executive team, and appointing a new chairman.

In a statement regarding the ban’s removal, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the department would “remain vigilant” in monitoring ZTE’s actions.

Facebook is currently under investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Justice Department, and the FBI, as authorities from these agencies are working to uncover how much the social media giant knew about the misuse and improper gathering of users’ data during last March’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. Specifically, the investigation is focusing on whether Facebook gave investors enough advance notice of what was going on.

Questioning is primarily focused on what Facebook knew in 2015 -- when it initially learned that Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the data of tens of millions of Facebook users -- and why the company didn’t share that information with its users or investors at the time. The news didn’t become public until March 2018. Investigators will also look into the words and actions from Facebook executives -- including CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook confirmed having received questions from federal agencies and reported that the company and its representatives will be cooperating with the investigation.

“We are cooperating with officials in the U.S., U.K., and beyond,” said Facebook spokesperson Matt Steinfeld. “We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions, and pledged to continue our assistance as their work continues.”

Facebook’s recent scandal

The Cambridge Analytica data breach first became public last March, when it was revealed that a professor used Facebook login credentials to ask users to sign up for what was said to be a personality analytics tool that would be used for academic research.

According to Facebook, the professor then violated the terms of service by selling the data of millions of Facebook users to the political marketing company Cambridge Analytica -- a company using the data to target potential voters.

In the U.K., the company allegedly targeted Facebook users inclined to vote for Britain leaving the European Union, whereas in the U.S., it was targeting users to support the Trump campaign.

Facebook reportedly removed the app -- called “This is Your Digital Life” -- as soon as the company became aware of the data breach, though it learned that not all of the data was deleted, as was required. Facebook then moved to suspend Cambridge Analytica’s account.

“We are constantly working to improve the safety and experience of everyone on Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement. “In the past five years, we have made significant improvements in our ability to detect and prevent violations by app developers.”

Changes in privacy

Since the scandal, Facebook has taken measures to protect users’ privacy moving forward.

The platform has audited thousands of apps that had access to users’ data, and it has suspended 200 apps in the process. The company has also restricted access to data for all developers using Facebook and Instagram.

The social media platform also drastically changed its privacy settings, condensing much of the settings into one easy to navigate screen.

“People have also told us that information about privacy, security, and ads should be much easier to find,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer. “Instead of having settings spread across nearly 20 different screens, they’re now accessible from a single place.”

Facebook also modified the way users see and access advertisements, as they gave users more control over the ads they view.

The U.S. Justice Department says it will appeal a judge's decision that allowed AT&T to acquire Time Warner, even though the deal has already been completed.

The government tried to block the two companies from joining forces, claiming the pairing of a telecom giant with a major content provider would be too powerful and harm consumers. But in a lengthy opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled the government had failed to show that the deal violated antitrust laws.

Leon acknowledged the Justice Department could appeal the ruling, but the judge, in very strong language, urged the government not to seek a stay that would block the two companies from proceeding with their merger. The merger was completed in mid-June.

The next step will be a hearing before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel will review the case and consider the government's argument that Leon's ruling be overturned. What isn't clear is how quickly that will take place.

AT&T has renamed Time Warner WarnerMedia, and it is busily integrating it into the company. If Leon's ruling is overturned, AT&T would have to divest itself of its recently-acquired asset, or appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

AT&T confident it will prevail

In his ruling, Leon told the Justice Department it does not have "a likelihood of success on the merits of an appeal." AT&T General Counsel David McAtee agrees.

"The Court's decision could hardly have been more thorough, fact-based, and well-reasoned,” McAtee said in a statement. "While the losing party in litigation always has the right to appeal if it wishes, we are surprised that the DOJ has chosen to do so under these circumstances."

By acquiring Time Warner, AT&T now owns HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, and Warner Brothers Entertainment. It can draw on those media assets to provide a number of streaming services.

Shortly after completing the merger, AT&T announced a new video service called WatchTV, a skinny bundle of channels that will be available “on virtually any smartphone, as well as on certain streaming devices.”

AT&T said its new service will feature 31 TV channels, including recently acquired CNN, TNT, and TBS, as well as channels from AMC Networks, Discovery Communications, and Viacom.