Bytes

The best way to secure your email

If you’re wondering what is the single best piece of advice for securing your personal data, said Zack Whittaker in TechCrunch.com, there’s a short answer: “Turn on two-factor” authentication. Sending a text-message code or phone prompt in addition to a password “in nearly every case” prevents automated hacking attempts. Research released by Google this week showed that having a text message sent to your phone to confirm any suspicious login “prevented 100 percent of automated bot attacks that use stolen lists of passwords” and 96 percent of attempts to steal passwords. For cybersecurity experts, the simple precaution ranks “as more important than using unique or strong passwords.” Two-factor authentication did not prevent “targeted” attacks from professional hackers trying to breach your account—but “just one in a million users faces targeted attackers.”

U.S. skips online-hate deal

The Trump administration refused to sign an international accord intended to curb online extremism, said Adam Satariano in The New York Times. French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern met in Paris last week to sign the agreement, labeled the “Christchurch Call,” after attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March that were “livestreamed on Facebook and spread virally over the internet.” Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter all signed the nine-point plan that “calls for the companies to take steps like updating their terms of use, identifying checks on livestreaming, sharing technology development, and collaborating on protocols for responding to crises.” But the White House said it would not “join the endorsement,” on the ground that it violated free-speech protections.

Technologies headed to oblivion

What technologies of today will be gone by the time my 2-year-old son is old enough to use them? asked Joanna Stern in The Wall Street Journal. I counted six of them. Among them: Credit cards will become obsolete, as stores take mobile payments or use artificial intelligence to scan and charge items as we move about. Smartphone sizes will likely shrink, as more phones “will have displays you’ll be able to unfold or even unfurl like a sail.” And smart speakers might seem futuristic now. But soon that technology simply “will live all around us—in our kitchen appliances, car dashboards, computers, glasses, showers, and more.”

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