On Zoom conference calls across the US this week, brows furrowed as the news broke that the video conference company had a flaw in its backend that could give hackers access to people’s webcams. Worse, Zoom seemed at first unwilling to fix the problem. Thankfully, hours after the initial reports, Zoom backtracked and issued a new fix to solve underlying vulnerability. You can go back to Zooming your brilliant brainstorms in peace, everyone.

On Zoom conference calls across the US this week, brows furrowed as the news broke that the video conference company had a flaw in its backend that could give hackers access to people’s webcams. Worse, Zoom seemed at first unwilling to fix the problem. Thankfully, hours after the initial reports, Zoom backtracked and issued a new fix to solve underlying vulnerability. You can go back to Zooming your brilliant brainstorms in peace, everyone.

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In these predominantly digital times, it's all too easy to build up a long trail of unused accounts that are now gathering dust: free trials that you never followed up on, streaming services you abandoned, on-demand clothing boxes that in the end weren't quite what you were looking for, and so on. In some ways these old accounts aren't doing any harm besides gathering virtual dust or sending you the occasional email nag.

In these predominantly digital times, it's all too easy to build up a long trail of unused accounts that are now gathering dust: free trials that you never followed up on, streaming services you abandoned, on-demand clothing boxes that in the end weren't quite what you were looking for, and so on. In some ways these old accounts aren't doing any harm besides gathering virtual dust or sending you the occasional email nag.

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Spend enough time on the social media app TikTok, and you’re bound to see a Life360 meme. That’s because Life360, a location-sharing app aimed at families, is apparently ruining the lives of teenagers all across the United States. The service allows parents to track their kids’ whereabouts in real time, among other features. As one girl with long blond hair jokes in a popular TikTok clip, it’s set her summer vacation on fire.

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In the wake of jarring revelations about how United States law enforcement agencies have deployed facial recognition, Congress seemed, for a moment, galvanized to act. Based on a Homeland Security Committee hearing in the House Wednesday, that moment appears to be fading—as hundreds of local, state, and federal law enforcement officials continue to amass and access the controversial data every day.

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You may not recognize the name Magecart, but you’ve seen its impact. A set of sophisticated hacking groups, Magecart has been behind some of the bigger hacks of the past few years, from British Airways to Ticketmaster, all with the singular goal of stealing credit card numbers. Think of them as the ATM skimmers of the web. And thanks to poor security hygiene, they’ve managed to hit 17,000 domains in the past few months alone.

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Next week, Amazon will celebrate Prime Day, a bacchanal of modestly discounted ephemera. But amid the flurry of cheap TVs and ebooks and what else, maybe Instant Pots? Watch out for this clever phishing campaign that might hit your inbox. Researchers from security company McAfee today have shared details of a so-called phishing kit, which contains the tools an aspiring hacker would need to kick off a phishing campaign, designed to target Amazon customers.

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The announcement came as we began to board. Last month, I was at Detroit’s Metro Airport for a connecting flight to Southeast Asia. I listened as a Delta Air Lines staff member informed passengers that the boarding process would use facial recognition instead of passport scanners. WIRED OPINION ABOUT Allie Funk is a research analyst for Freedom on the Net, Freedom House's annual country-by-country assessment of internet freedom. She focuses on developments in the US and Asia.

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YouTube is currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission following complaints that the platform improperly collected data from young users. It’s unclear how much data this might be, but there’s reason to believe it could be a lot. For many kids, YouTube has replaced television; depending on how parents use online platforms, children could begin to amass data even before birth.

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