Day: January 26, 2021

Never mind your tax refund. Stimulus checks are why you should file early this year

The faster you file your taxes, the sooner you’ll see that stimulus green.


Sarah Tew/CNET

Of course, you’ll likely get your federal tax refund sooner if you file sooner to the time the IRS starts processing returns on Feb. 12 than to the April 15 deadline. But this year, you have two additional reasons to start preparations ahead of time for tax season 2020. By setting up direct deposit with the IRS, you’ll mostly likely receive your third stimulus check sooner, especially a new stimulus payment arrives during tax season. By filing as early as you can, you’ll also be able to recover any unpaid stimulus check money you’ve been owed since the Jan. 15 IRS deadline.

At least 8 million people who should’ve been eligible for stimulus check money didn’t receive the check they were due — and millions more may not have gotten all the funds they were entitled to — because of a clerical error or some other issue. Some folks had problems with custody and child support, missing money for child dependents in general, or accidental garnishment.

Whatever your individual situation, we’ll explain how filing early can help you

… Read More View More Never mind your tax refund. Stimulus checks are why you should file early this year

Microsoft patent would allow us to chat with the departed

Credit score: CC0 Public Area

A chilling episode of the Twilight Zone that first aired 60 years in the past centered on a younger boy (performed by Invoice Mumy) who pissed off his dad and mom by insisting he speaks to his grandmother every day on the toy telephone she had given him simply earlier than she died. When his grieving and exasperated mom lastly grabbed the telephone to toss it away, she was startled to listen to her mom’s voice on the road.

The episode touched on the yearnings all of us share of talking one final time to a beloved one now not with us.

If a just lately disclosed Microsoft patent involves fruition, we’ll be capable of see, hear and converse with long-gone kin. Or extra precisely, with 3-D movement photographs full with real looking voice reconstruction and distinct character traits culled from a trove of the person’s communications on social media platforms. In brief, a chat bot.

“Making a Conversational Chat Bot of a Particular Individual” is the dry however correct title of a patent filed by Dustin Abramson and Joseph Johnson Jr. of Microsoft in 2017 and accepted this month.

The patent states that the

… Read More View More Microsoft patent would allow us to chat with the departed

Homebrew: How to install post-exploitation tools on macOS

We’ll guide you through the process of using Homebrew package manager to install post-exploit security tools on macOS to further assess compromised system vulnerabilities found in your Apple equipment.

Illustration: Lisa Hornung, Getty Images/iStockPhoto

In this final article in the Homebrew series, we look at the availability of post-exploit tools you can use to further assess vulnerabilities in computing devices. You can use these to continue following the attack chain in an effort to establish permission escalation, persistence, and pivot from one compromised system to another, extending the attack throughout the network.

SEE: Apple Macbook Air 2020: Cheat sheet (Free PDF) (TechRepublic)

This part of the engagement is not about compromising the system initially: That is the exploit phase. But the post-exploit process deals with the initial level of access obtained on the compromised system and evolving it into something far more in order to obtain as much data on the underlying system and any hosts that might be communicating with it over the same network segment and beyond.

By using the proper tools, security admins and penetration testers can perform a deep dive on the system and continue the attack on subsequent systems encountered during the additional reconnaissance process

… Read More View More Homebrew: How to install post-exploitation tools on macOS