Author: Geek Planet

The Baltimore city government is recovering from a devastating ransomware attack that has locked up its systems, but officials in the city faced a new problem today. As first reported by The Baltimore Sun, Google blocked city departments from using Gmail accounts created as a workaround. RANSOMWARE ATTACK HIT MAY 7TH On May 7th, a ransomware attack froze government systems, including email, and demanded the city hand over bitcoin to reverse the hack. Weeks later, the city is still recovering from the attack, which has also shut down systems for paying water bills and some other services. While officials deal with the problem, which…

LG just revealed its 2026 Gram lineup, and the big talking point right now is weight. These new Gram laptops take the idea of an ultra-portable laptop further by using a newly developed material called Aerominum, which makes the chassis exceptionally light while remaining tough and durable. It also resists scratches better and meets strict military-grade standards for ruggedness. The result is what LG is calling the world’s lightest 17-inch laptop with dedicated RTX graphics, a claim that immediately grabs attention for anyone who hates lugging heavy gear around. What’s new in the 2026 Gram laptops? The new Gram series…

Recently, figures like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker — household names among popular science fans — have been Canceled in various venues because they refuse to deny that humans — like all primate mammals in our body plan — are sex binary. These former luminaries are discovering that, in emotionally charged matters, atheism and materialism are not the highroad to reality-based thinking that they have supposed. Most of their Cancelers agree with them that there probably is no God. And that the human brain is a randomly evolved structure that may or may not apprehend the world correctly. The Cancelers…

Discover the importance of risk quantification in organizational decision making and how it can empower businesses to make informed choices. Understanding the role of risk quantification in decision making Risk quantification plays a crucial role in decision making for organizations. It involves the process of assessing and measuring potential risks and their potential impact on business operations. By quantifying risks, organizations gain a better understanding of the likelihood and potential consequences of various scenarios. This allows decision makers to make more informed choices and develop effective risk management strategies. One of the main benefits of risk quantification is that it…

Last Saturday, I discussed how time travel, like all technology in science fiction, operates in a similar way to soft or hard magic systems in fantasy. I promised to show how this applies to the Terminator franchise, not only because we spent so much time on it but because it beautifully demonstrates the perils, along with the promise, of the Time-Travel Trope. Both Back to the Future and the first two Terminator films brought time travel to modern audiences. While it would’ve been fun to look at Back to the Future in this context, the Terminator franchise is unique. It…

WASHINGTON (TNND) — An outage at internet security and performance company Cloudflare had a disruptive domino effect worldwide on Tuesday in the latest demonstration of how reliant the internet is on just a handful of networks.An outage at internet security and performance company Cloudflare had a disruptive domino effect worldwide Tuesday in the latest instance demonstrating how reliant the internet is on just a handful of networks. (TNND)In a social media post, Cloudflare chief technology officer Dane Knecht said the outage was triggered by “a latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability” that crashed after a “routine…

Wesley J. Smith November 2, 2025 2 Ethics, Medicine and Health The vague proposal would forbid any attempts to “influence” a person’s decision to undergo an assisted suicide, such as through conversation with a family member or the display of a suicide prevention posterWesley J. Smith November 2, 2025 2 Ethics, Medicine and Health This article is republished from National Review with the permission of the author. Assisted suicide is not yet legal in Scotland — I have traveled there three times to fight that agenda — but it is a looming threat again. And now, an amendment to the…

Explore the detrimental effects of cyber security ignorance and the importance of implementing robust data loss protection measures. Understanding the Impact of Cyber Security Ignorance Cyber security ignorance can have severe consequences, leaving individuals and organizations vulnerable to cyber threats. Ignorance often leads to complacency, making it easier for hackers to exploit weaknesses in systems and networks. By understanding the impact of cyber security ignorance, individuals and organizations can take proactive measures to safeguard their data and digital assets. Common Misconceptions and Myths Surrounding Cyber Security There are several misconceptions and myths surrounding cyber security that contribute to ignorance in…

A South Korean crypto exchange employee was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to recruit a military officer to sell classified secrets to North Korea in exchange for Bitcoin, the Supreme Court ruled on December 28.  The ruling also imposes a four-year ban on the employee from financial sector activities. Court documents revealed that North Korean hackers paid the exchange staffer $487,000 in Bitcoin to recruit a 30-year-old army captain, who received $33,500 in Bitcoin in return, according to the South Korean media outlet Dailian. The staffer approached the officer through a Telegram chat, offering cryptocurrency for access…

Researchers studying AI chatbots have found that ChatGPT can show anxiety-like behavior when it is exposed to violent or traumatic user prompts. The finding does not mean the chatbot experiences emotions the way humans do. However, it does reveal that the system’s responses become more unstable and biased when it processes distressing content. When researchers fed ChatGPT prompts describing disturbing content, like detailed accounts of accidents and natural disasters, the model’s responses showed higher uncertainty and inconsistency. These changes were measured using psychological assessment frameworks adapted for AI, where the chatbot’s output mirrored patterns associated with anxiety in humans (via…