Do you commute to work, have a family member with cancer, or know anyone who’s ever lived in a flood zone? Than you should be paying close attention to that most D.C. of Washington annual rituals, the making of the federal budget. President Donald Trump’s dramatic budget has one clear [Keep reading]
The folks at Insedia.com ask me to write a primer on what are called “specialty credit reports.” Here’s the story. Insedia has set up a bulletin board for consumers to swap their tales (of woe, or success) when trying to get their hands on these reports. Ever heard of DataX, [Keep reading]
As President Donald Trump continues to Tweet things that strain credulity, the warning we’ve heard from sensible people is this: Who will believe the U.S. government when it has something important to say? It didn’t take long to test this theory. When the Department of Homeland Security announced it was [Keep reading]
This weekend brought a fresh reminder that you should always have some “burner” email address accounts handy for interactions with e-commerce Web sites. Shoppers at Saks Fifth Avenue who had asked the firm for notifications when sold-out items were available had their personal information exposed by the firm, I [Keep reading]
Will you be better or worse off if Republicans pass their version of health care reform? That’s the burning question for most Americans as they watch the arm wrestling going on in Washington, D.C. As with the health care debate itself, there are no easy answers. The bill being debated right [Keep reading]
American consumers owe mountains of debt, but one of these mountains looms large over all the others: student loans. It’s astonishing to consider: Add up every auto loan in the country, and total student loan debt is bigger. Add up every credit card bill in the country, you only get [Keep reading]
Here’s an excerpt from a story I did for CNBC.com that published this weekend. Click above to read the entire piece. Older Americans struggling to overcome age discrimination while looking for work face a new enemy: their computers. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan recently opened a probe into allegations that [Keep reading]
Wikileaks got everyone’s attention again this week, with dire headlines proclaiming the entire American government spook infrastructure had just been decimated by the secret-smashing site. Hold on to your hyperbole: there’s a lot more to this story. Julian Assange, true to form, has shared a little leaked data and promised [Keep reading]
On Tuesday, “iPhone Queen” replaced “Welfare Queen” as an attack on lazy Americans who don’t want to pay for things. This attack is much broader, however. “So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should [Keep reading]
Howard Schmidt had an incredible American life. He was cyberczar to two presidents – a Republican and a Democrat. Before that, he ran security at Microsoft, and later practically rescued eBay when it was turning into a cesspool of fraud. He was a soldier (Air Force, then the Army Reserves), [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan