Americans say they are worried about getting hacked, but many of them don’t take even the most basic steps to protect themselves, according to a study released Wednesday by Bitdefender. The firm’s research says that one-third of U.S. consumers don’t use anti-virus software, and 30 percent use the same [Keep reading]
If I hear one more analyst say this is a golden age of journalism, my head will explode. That’s a terrible disservice to the thousands of former journalists who have been forced out of this noble profession in recent years. If you aren’t scared about the future of journalism, and [Keep reading]
“How often should you change your password?” Sounds like it should be a pretty easy question, right? After all, it gets right to the heart of most security issues that people face. Turns out, it’s a really hard question to answer. And that’s a problem, because as I spend more [Keep reading]
Tis the season of haunting zombies, and being scared by something you thought was dead. That can be a pretty good description of how the debt collection business works sometimes. You might think an old checking account is long dead, but there are ghoulish ways those accounts can come back [Keep reading]
“Americans don’t have a debt problem, they have a spending problem.” That conventional wisdom has been repeated so often that many folks will believe it uncontested. It doesn’t stand up to examination, however. What Americans have, quite clearly, is an income problem. Median adjusted household income has hovered between $50,000 [Keep reading]
Here’s another strong hint that technology is making us dumber, and more critically, less sympathetic people. British scientists published a study last month showing that second screeners — people who watch TV while playing with their cell phones, for example — have smaller brains in places where it matters: a [Keep reading]
Digital criminals inventing and exploiting identities out of thin air, rather than impersonating real consumers, are a fast-growing menace, according to a new report from fraud-fighting firm ID Analytics. This relatively new form of identity fraud, called synthetic identity fraud, involves criminals using random Social Security numbers, mismatched names and [Keep reading]
Some less-than-above-board debt collectors deploy a number of unsavory tactics while trying to persuade consumers to give them money, but none worse than this: trying to collect on debts that just don’t exist. It happens, often. Sometimes, bad records are to blame. Debt notes are often sold, re-sold and re-sold [Keep reading]
Everything we do, kind or evil, ripples through life like the waves that violently and then gently ripple out from a peddle dropped in a pond. Every act, part of a fabric. Many times, we won’t even live to see the consequences of our actions; or they are so distant [Keep reading]
John Southerland knows where every penny goes. In fact, after reading other Restless Project budgets, he sent me a spreadsheet detailing all of his family’s expenses for the past 10 years. And his perspective is simple: For his family, a middle-class income doesn’t support a middle-class way of life. “I [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan