Patrick Dunne

Ransomware attacks were the most-observed cyberthreat last year — in part because of COVID-19 and more employees working from home — but many victims did not report the attacks to authorities, mostly out of fear of reprisal, experts told Digital Privacy News.
“We got about 2,700 ransomware cases in 2019,” said Keith Wojcieszek, a former U.S. Secret Service agent and managing director of the cyber risk practice at Kroll, the New York cybersecurity firm that recently released survey findings on...

COVID Is ‘Laying the Foundation for the Future Surveillance State’
Kian Vesteinsson is a research analyst for technology and democracy at Freedom House, a research institute in Washington.
He also greatly contributes to the annual “Freedom on the Net” report produced by the nonprofit, which was established in 1941.
The report, released in October, analyzes how countries worldwide handle internet freedom.
“The public-health crisis has created an opening for the digitization, collection and ana...

California residents will vote Tuesday on a divisive privacy initiative: Prop 24, also known as the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act.
Alastair Mactaggart, the San Francisco developer, wrote and financed Prop 24 to enhance or adjust provisions of his previous initiative, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA).
Prop 24 would require businesses to provide customers with an opt-out regarding the collection of their private data and would limit how that information is used...

Ask anyone to name a multi-millionaire, and you’ll probably hear names like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk.
All rich, and all men.
Yes, the majority of millionaires around the world are male—around 90%, according to research by GlobalData’s WealthInsight. What’s more, many of the 10% of female millionaires have inherited some or all of their wealth.
Ingrid Arna, however, is a self-made millionaire entrepreneur.
In 2020, women make up a mere 7.4% of CEO seats in Fortune 500 companies and...

Tech Giant Reaches Settlement for Breaching Ill. Biometric Privacy Laws
Facebook may owe you as much as $400.
The social media giant recently settled a class-action lawsuit and agreed to pay out $650 million to Illinois residents for violating the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), one of the strictest laws of its kind.
Known as Patel vs. Facebook, the case initially was brought by a group of plaintiffs in the Northern District of California in San Francisco, alleging the compa...

Rasmus and Christian Mikkelsen never thought they’d be sitting atop a virtual empire that they built from the ground-up. In just a few short years, the Mikkelsen Twins went from directionless high school graduates with nowhere to go to incredibly successful self-made millionaire entrepreneurs.
“If people from my high school were to see where we are right now, no one would believe it,” said Rasmus. “No exaggeration; we were the most invisible and insignificant kids through high school.”
Back i...

Online Voting Is Not Safe
With the concerns surrounding a U.S. Postal Service slowdown and voter suppression, discussions continue to grow about online voting for the 2020 election.
But many cybersecurity experts are skeptical, including Murat Kantarcioglu, a professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Kantarcioglu, who holds a doctorate in computer science from Perdue University, told Digital Privacy News that online voting lacked a meaningful method of self-auditing,...

The coronavirus hasn’t been kind to most companies, to say the least. Massive layoffs, reduced traffic, rent prices, tumbling stocks, and a lack of loan forgiveness led many small businesses struggling to survive. There are a few winners – cleaning services, streaming platforms, e-commerce, online food delivery services, and so forth – but most mom-and-pop stores face significant hardships.
Restaurants were hit particularly hard from the pandemic. Most of them no longer allow sit-down dining,...

Centralized finance has long been a mainstay in the economic world. At its core, centralized finance simply refers to the concentration of planning and decision-making to a central location or institute. For example, the U.S. first opened the Bank of North America in 1782. This bank was referred to as the father of the credit system and paper circulation. Yet, the Bank of North America never became the nation’s central bank due to pushback over concerns that it would favor foreigners and enac...

Female entrepreneurship has become increasingly common as more women set out into the business world. In 2018, there were 12.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. That’s a substantial increase from the 402,000 women-owned businesses back in 1972. Currently, 40% of U.S. companies are owned by women.
Many have become household names — Arianna Huffington, Indra Nooyi, Debbie Fields, and more. But perhaps nobody has a better story than that of Sara Blakely.
Blakely founded Spanx, a shapewe...

The world is slowly changing as more people begin to embrace the idea of female leadership. Every day, women are making huge strides in countless industries. They’re building new businesses, raising money, speaking up, and leading the charge in traditionally masculine fields.
Perhaps there’s no better example than that of Sara Blakely, founder and CEO of apparel brand Spanx. In 2012, she landed on the cover of Forbes for being the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. The magazine also list...

I’ve struggled with money problems more times than I could count. My first post-college job was as a part-time blog writer making $11 an hour. I tried to save up as much as I could, even though a lot of my paycheck was going to rent, gas, and public transportation. My then-girlfriend and I lived with my parents, which helped us save money because they charged very low rent.
I eventually got a better job as a receptionist, working five days a week and making $18 an hour. We moved into a small ...

What does it take to become a millionaire?
The elusive American dream might seem far-fetched for some, but it’s a reality for many others. According to the online casino guide Slotsia, most millionaires are self-made by age 36. They didn’t inherit a vast fortune or win the lottery – instead, they relied on hard work and creativity.
Perhaps there’s no more famous example than the world’s richest man: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In 1994, Bezos read that internet usage grew by 2,300% in a single ...

Danny Carlson, founder and CEO of Kenji ROI is one of the youngest and most successful entrepreneurs of our time. But life wasn’t always this way.
Carlson was what you might call a misguided youth back in the day. As a teenager, he spent most of his days skating, smoking, listening to death metal, and paying no attention to his more significant life goals. Carlson described his younger self as a “party-happy, adrenaline-seeking machine hell-bent on killing brain cells like it was a video game...