Truth and Hammer

Author: Truth & Hammer

Buyer Beware: Used Nest Cams Can Let People Spy on You

We’ve explained before that when you’re selling or giving away your old smart-home devices, it’s critical to do a factory reset on them first in order to protect your data and privacy. We’ve recently learned, however, that even performing a factory reset may not be enough to protect privacy for owners of the popular Nest Cam Indoor. And in a twist, this time the risk is on the side of the person receiving the device, not the person disposing of it.

A member of the Facebook Wink Users Group discovered that after selling his Nest cam, he was still able to access images from his old camera—except it wasn’t a feed of his property. Instead, he was tapping into the feed of the new owner, via his Wink account. As the original owner, he had connected the Nest Cam to his Wink smart-home hub, and somehow, even after he reset it, the connection continued.

We decided to test this ourselves and found that, as it happened for the person on Facebook, images from our decommissioned Nest Cam Indoor were still viewable via a previously linked Wink hub account—although instead of a video stream, it was a series of still images snapped every several seconds.

Here’s the process we used to confirm it:

Our Nest cam had recently been signed up to Nest Aware, but the subscription was canceled in the past week. That Nest account was also linked to a Wink Hub 2. Per Nest’s instructions, we confirmed that our Aware subscription was not active, after which we removed our Nest cam from our Nest account—this is Nest’s guidance for a “factory reset” of this particular camera.

Nest’s instructions for doing a factory reset on the Nest Cam indicate that there is no factory reset button, a common feature on smart-home devices.

After that, we were unable to access the live stream with either the mobile Nest app or the desktop Nest app, as expected. We also couldn’t access the camera using the Wink app, because the camera was not online. We then created a new Nest account on a new (Android) device that had a new data connection. We followed the steps for adding the Nest Cam Indoor to that new Nest account, and we were able to view a live stream successfully through the Nest mobile app. However, going back to our Wink app, we were also able to view a stream of still images from the Nest cam, despite its being associated with a new Nest account.

In simpler terms: If you buy and set up a used Nest indoor camera that has been paired with a Wink hub, the previous owner may have unfettered access to images from that camera. And we currently don’t know of any cure for this problem.

We are unsure what further implications there may be regarding Nest’s video service, including whether it may be vulnerable to other methods or through other smart-home device integrations. We’re also unsure whether this problem affects the entire Nest lineup, including the Nest Cam Outdoor, Nest Cam IQ Outdoor, and Nest Hello video doorbell.

We reached out to Nest for comment about why this is happening, which devices are involved, and what the company plans to do about it, but we haven’t received an official response yet—we’ll update this post when we do.

For now, our advice is to avoid buying a second-hand Nest device and to unplug any used ones you may have already purchased.

Sources

1. How to restart or factory reset your Nest camera or Nest Hello, Google Nest Help

This content was originally published here.

June 21, 2019
New Breakthrough Pill Could Cure Tinnitus

Researchers at the University of Arizona in the US have made a breakthrough in their study on tinnitus in mice which could eventually lead to a cure in humans. According to the study published in the journal PLOS Biology, blocking a specific protein that fuels brain inflammation in the mice stopped the condition in its tracks.

The treatment works on a molecule called TNF-A (tumour necrosis factor alpha) that disrupts communication between neurons. When this communication is disrupted, neuro inflammation is halted, believed by the researchers to be a major contributing factor to the condition.

Study co-author Professor Shaowen Bao said, “Genetic knock out of TNF-A or pharmacologically blocking its expression prevented neuro-inflammation and ameliorated the behaviour associated with tinnitus in mice with noise induced hearing loss.”

As with any animal trial, far more rigorous study needs to be conducted before the treatment is applied to humans.

Even with the success of this study, scientists maintain that the underlying process of tinnitus remains a mystery. The most common cause of tinnitus is damage and loss of the tiny sensory hair cells in the cochlea of the inner ear, called stereocilia. This tends to happen as people age, and it can also result from prolonged exposure to excessively loud noise. Hearing loss may coincide with tinnitus.

The team of scientists are hopeful their research will lead to a gene therapy to combat ringing in the ears and other hearing loss disorders, possibly even in a simple pill form.

This content was originally published here.

June 21, 2019
Ayesha Curry Admits She Sends Steph “Hundreds” Of Sexy Photos To Keep Things Spicy

Source: FayesVision/WENN.com / WENN

We told you earlier this week that actress Bella Thorne has a bone to pick with Whoopi Goldberg. The 21-year-old former Disney star had some topless photos of herself hacked, and in order to keep her hacker from leaking them to the public, she released them in an effort to take her power back.

However, Whoopi felt that in this day and age, Bella should have known better than to take risque photos of herself when it’s so common for them to be stolen and released. Bella felt that Whoopi was victim-blaming, and posted emotional InstaStories calling Whoopi’s comments “disgusting.”

A lot of people agreed with the Hollywood veteran though, and felt that stars should know that since they run a higher risk of being exposed, they shouldn’t even think about sharing nude, topless, risque — whatever — photos. That hasn’t stopped many celebs from doing it though, including Ayesha Curry.

While visiting E! News’ Daily Pop to promote her new ABC series, Family Food Fight, Ayesha was asked if she sends “spicy” photos to husband Stephen Curry when he’s on the road and she said, “Hundreds! Hundreds of them!”

However, she admitted that she’s very worried about them getting out.

“He won’t delete them off of his phone!” she said. “He’s not that secure with his phone so it’s actually one of the scariest things in my life.”

She said the trick to keeping those images from getting out is taking photos from the “neck down” (so people can’t prove the photos are of her) and changing her password a lot.

SEE ALSO: Ayesha Curry Reveals She Got A Botched Boob Job

“I’m going to change mine as soon as I get up off this couch,” she said.

It makes sense though that Ayesha is spicing things up with sexy photos. She and Steph have been together since they were teenagers and married since 2011. Not to mention, she also has to deal with other women who are out here trying to get the NBA champion’s attention.

“The ladies will always be lurking and waiting for their moment,” she said recently on Red Table Talk, “but for me, I honestly hate it.”

But aside from naughty photos, the pair keep things solid by making their relationship a priority over everything, and it works.

“Putting ourselves first, and making sure that we make time for date nights and for each other. That’s been very important, as hard as it is,” she said. “Because when you become a parent, you want to put your kids first, and we do, but we do it second to our relationship. Because ultimately, when our relationship is good, the kids are happy and they’re thriving and our family life is good. We have to put that into perspective and realize that it’s not us being selfish, it’s making sure we set a strong foundation.”

This story was originally posted on .

This content was originally published here.

June 21, 2019
Younger generations are growing horns in the back of their head

Younger generations seem to be developing horns in the back of their skulls due to the extended use of technology like smartphones and tablets.

Two Australian researchers made the bizarre discovery while examining hundreds of X-rays of people aged between 18 and 30, finding almost half had developed bone growths.

They’re the kind of spurs normally seen in hunched-over elderly people who’ve subjected their bodies to long-term poor posture and significant stress loads on their bones.

But the presence of the “horn-like” skull growths raise serious concerns about what extended use of phones is doing to young people’s bodies.

The findings by Dr David Shahar and Associate Professor Mark Sayers at The University of the Sunshine Coast flew under the radar when they were published at the end of last year, two years after their initial warning about the trend.

But a BBC article last week about how tech is changing the human body cited their research and saw an explosion in interest in the work.

These kinds of growths are typically found in older people and result from long-term stress on the skeleton and, until the advent of gadget technology, were rarely found in young people.

“This is evidence that musculoskeletal degenerative processes can start and progress silently from an early age,” Dr Shahar said.

“These findings were surprising because typically they take years to develop and are more likely to be seen in the ageing population.

“It is important to understand that, in most cases, bone spurs measure a few single millimetres and yet we found projections of 10 to 30 millimetres in the studied young population.”

One of the X-rays showing the horn.Source:Supplied

This particular growth measured more than two centimetres in length.Source:Supplied

The findings offer a warning about the impact of poor posture, especially in young people, due to extended phone and gadget use.

source

June 21, 2019
Freaky robot fish powered by ‘blood’ and goes days ‘without eating’

Engineering and Applied Mechanics, said: “We realised that the operation time of most robots is very short before they have to recharge, on the order of tens of minutes, yet humans can operate for days without eating.

“We wanted to solve this problem by finding ways to store energy in all the components of a robot.

“This robot blood is our first demonstration of storing energy in a fluid that is normally only used for actuation.”

Pikul added: “As the fluid is pumped through the fish robot, the moving fluid causes the robot to move. The vascular system, therefore, is multifunctional. It is these multiple functions that allow the robot to maintain it’s dexterity while also having a lone operational time.”

The scientist and his team came up with the idea for the robot while brainstorming new ways of making robots more independent.

He said: “We realized that the operation time of most robots is very short before they have to recharge, on the order of tens of minutes, yet humans can operate for days without eating.”

In tests, the robotic fish was able to work for eight times longer than traditional robots.

It is able to swim for long durations, against a current, and operate at a rate of 1.5 body lengths per minute, with a maximum of 36 hours.

source

June 21, 2019
Dogs Detect Lung Cancer In Blood With Stunning 97% Accuracy

Oncologists looking for highly-accurate, but not highly-expensive methods to diagnose lung cancer in patients may need not look any further than their local dog breeder community. That’s because a new study finds that beagles are capable of successfully detecting the disease by scent, a major breakthrough in identifying the specific biomarkers of the disease.

Researchers with the American Osteopathic Association say the dogs’ remarkable accuracy may lead to a safe, affordable, and effective mass cancer screening alternative in the future.

source

June 21, 2019
Popular Online Home Schooling Resource Quietly Promotes LGBT Lifestyle to Children

As an example, the website posted the following English problem found in a Khan Academy session:

The lesson is on “Irregular Plural Nouns: from ‘f’ to ‘ves.’” The unsuspecting student is told to “Choose the correct plural noun to use in this sentence”:

‘Brittany and Sofia went to lunch with their _____ every Saturday.’”

Khan Academy’s “correct” answer reveals the gay agenda behind the English “problem”:

The only choices are “wifes” or “wives.”

“Some might say that a parent could simply skip this one question while working with their homeschooled child, but the only reason this question even exists is that we have buried our heads in the sand and skipped over this garbage for far too long,” Johnston noted Monday on her online blog. “If you think it’s just this one question, think again. There’s no doubt more material from this company, and likely others will soon follow suit.”

“The LGBTQ agenda is forcing recognition of same-sex marriage and transgenderism in core courses of our public education system,” Arthur Schaper of California Mass Resistance told LifeSiteNews.

The news website noted that besides the Gates Foundation’s initial grant, the online academy has received more than $17 million in funding. They reminded founder Salman Khan that with success comes responsibility. Along with the money from corporate and private investors comes the expectation to follow certain agendas. “This is proof once again that the gay agenda has never been about assuring equality for all,” Schaper told the website. “It’s about imposing a destructive agenda on our culture and our society, and is determined to undermine Judeo-Christian values and the United States as a whole. It is anti-family, anti-life, and anti-biology.” “The long-term goal to indoctrinate children has been to normalize these destructive behaviors so that these children as adults will not only accept homosexuality and transgenderism as normal parts of life but fight to ensure their protection,” he explained.

source

Religion needs to also teach the real power of prayer and if you would like to know what that is visit this sight, https://unveiledlife.org/

Learn how to empower yourself, family and community to stop these kind of influences. Stop blaming everyone else for your lack of learning the power Christ put in you.

June 21, 2019
Little Girl Traumatized as School Teaches 6-Year-Olds ‘There Is No Such Thing as Girls and Boys’.

Does the education institutions teach science anymore? You had better get gender right if you want to raise, say, chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, oh, and maybe people! At age 6 don’t these kids need to learn to read first. Maybe then they can find some good books on the subject when they are eight and make their own understand how odd it is to be worried about this at any age. Really! If the agenda was to promote human equal rights not a genderless agenda maybe there would be a reason to teach this stuff.

A Canadian family has filed a civil rights complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario after their six-year-old daughter became overtly confused when her first-grade teacher taught the class to question their gender. In January of 2018, the child was required to watch a YouTube video titled, “He, She and They?!?—Gender: Queer Kid Stuff #2.” It contained statements such as, “some people aren’t boys or girls,” and that there are people who do not “feel like a ‘she’ or a ‘he,’” and therefore might not have a gender. In an exclusive story, The Post Millennial, reports that two-and-a-half months into the semester, Jason and Pamela Buffone could see the teacher’s lessons on gender theory were having a severely negative impact on their daughter. She would ask them repeatedly why her identify as a girl was “not real.” The young girl had never had a problem at school and her mother told the newspaper she “adores school.”

According to Mrs. Buffone, the teacher told the children that “there is no such thing as girls and boys,” and “girls are not real and boys are not real.” The child even asked her parents if she could go “to the doctor” about the fact that she was a girl. The girl was also “not sure if she wanted to be a mommy.” Her mother told her that when she grew up, she could make that choice, but was concerned sexual reproduction was coming up as a part of Grade One gender lessons. The parents became alarmed by their daughter’s confusion. She had never shown any signs of being confused about her gender before. The Buffones met with the teacher who told them the teaching of gender fluidity was a school board policy, and she was committed to teaching it due to “a change in society.”They brought their concerns to the principal of the Devonshire Community Public School who told them the lessons were to accommodate a child in the Grade One class who had expressed interest in self-expression as the opposite sex, according to The Post Millennial.

However, the Buffones later found out the parents of the child did not want the issue to be addressed by lessons on gender; they merely wanted the other children to be taught to act respectfully and not to bully their child. The Buffones then met with the superintendent of the school board and the curriculum superintendent. According to the complaint, “The school board did not agree to communicate with parents when sensitive discussions took place, nor did they agree to issue any directive or take corrective action in order to ensure that children of female gender identity were positively affirmed.” Tired of being stonewalled, the Buffones were forced to enroll their daughter at another school where she is now doing well in her studies. Mrs. Buffone told the newspaper the child has told the family she is happy she will not have a teacher who says that “girls are not real.”

Last fall, the child reportedly told her mother, “This table is real, and this fan is real, and even if the fan was made out of cardboard, it’s still real.” “The Ontario Human rights Code states that a poisoned environment is a form of discrimination,” Mrs. Buffone told the newspaper. “We’re going to provide evidence that the manner in which (the teacher) was teaching the concept of gender identity resulted in a poisoned environment. The principal further exacerbated the situation in that the only option provided to us was to remove our daughter from the classroom for these lessons, which is exclusionary treatment.” “This is an important case,” Buffone noted. “Our government seems to have given teachers carte blanche in terms of how they teach this concept of gender identity. If this is an example of how it can be taught, I think it’s in the public interest for the HRTO to weigh in on it.”

source

June 21, 2019
Syrian Refugee Arrested for Terrorism After Planning Attack on US Christian Church

Department of Justice officials announced Wednesday that a Syrian national has been arrested on terrorism charges, including his plan to attack a Christian church in Pittsburgh, PA. Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 21, a resident of Pittsburgh, was arrested on a federal complaint charging him with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction in relation to his plan to attack a church. According to an affidavit filed in US District Court in Pittsburgh: The FBI Pittsburgh JTTF investigation of Mustafa Mousab Alowemer (Alowemer) revealed that Alowemer plotted to bomb a church located on the North Side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (the Church), using a weapon of mass destruction (i.e., an explosive device). According to Alowemer, his motivation to detonate a device at the Church was to support the cause of ISIS and to inspire other ISIS supporters in the United States to join together and commit similar acts in the name of ISIS. Alowemer also targeted the Church in order to “take revenge for our ISIS brothers in Nigeria.” Alowemer was aware that numerous people in or around the Church could be killed by the explosion.

According to the complaint and information provided to the FBI by the Department of Homeland Security, Alowemer was born in Daraa, Syria, and was admitted to the United States as a refugee on Aug. 1, 2016. In planning the attack, Alowemer used multiple social networking and mobile messenger applications to communicate with an individual whom he believed to be a fellow ISIS supporter. During his communications, Alowemer stated his support for ISIS, and his desire to answer the call for jihad or travel to conduct jihad. Alowemer also distributed propaganda materials, offered to provide potential targets in the Pittsburgh area, requested a weapon with a silencer, and recorded a video of himself pledging an oath of allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Between April 16 and June 11, Alowemer met four times in person with an FBI Undercover Employee (UCE) and/or an FBI Confidential Human Source (CHS). At the June 11 meeting with the UCE and CHS, Alowemer provided additional details about the bomb plot and provided the materials he had purchased for construction of the device.

Alowemer expressed a desire to meet one more time to conduct planning and coordination prior to carrying out the attempted bombing in July 2019. “Targeting places of worship is beyond the pale, no matter what the motivation,” Assistant Attorney for National Security John C. Demers said in a press release. “The defendant is alleged to have plotted just such an attack of a church in Pittsburgh in the name of ISIS. The National Security Division and our partners will continue our efforts to identify and bring to justice individuals in our country who seek to commit violence on behalf of ISIS and other terrorist organizations. I want to thank the agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this investigation.”

“Our top priority is protecting the citizens of western Pennsylvania,” said US Attorney Scott W. Brady. “Everyday investigators and prosecutors work tirelessly behind the scenes to disrupt terrorist activity and keep our community safe. While the public does not always see the results of the hard work of these dedicated men and women, this case is a visible demonstration of our commitment to rooting out terrorists and bringing them to justice.” A charge is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

source

June 21, 2019
Female Student Athletes File Federal Complaint After Transgender Runner Dominates Girls’ Track Meets

It took them some time but real females finally figured it out! Yes, there is a difference, and boys will be boys, always looking for a way to be with the girls! Funny, it seems a little extreme to me but that is how they do it now days! Once again the genders who get mixed up try to make it work for them. There seems to be a selfish side to the gender mix ups.

On Monday, three female high school athletes filed a federal discrimination complaint against Connecticut’s policy regarding transgender athletes. The girls claim they were racing at a disadvantage against their transgender opponent, a male who identifies as a female, impacting the final results of the race.

In the complaint, the female track athletes claim that the policy cost them top finishes in their races, as well as potential college scholarships because of their placement.

The complaint, filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, was submitted by the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of the student athletes. They are requesting an investigation be launched to look further into the fairness of the rule.

Christina Holcomb, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that federal Title IX rules were supposed to keep the playing field equal for female athletes, not obstruct it.

“Girls deserve to compete on a level playing field,” Holcomb said. “Women fought long and hard to earn the equal athletic opportunities that Title IX provides. Allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly 50 years of advances for women under this law.

“We shouldn’t force these young women to be spectators in their own sports,” Holcomb added.

Selina Soule, a track competitor at Bloomfield High School in Connecticut, and one of the girls behind the complaint knows this feeling personally.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Soule explained that she was unable to qualify for a 55-meter event at the New England Regionals because two of the top spots were taking by biological boys, identifying as females.

“No one in the state of Connecticut is happy about this, but no one has enough courage to speak up,” Soule said.

“I haven’t been the only one affected by this,” she added. “There have been countless other female athletes in the state of Connecticut, as well as my entire indoor track team. We missed out on winning the state open championship because of the team that the transgender athlete was on.”

According to Soule, the two transgender athletes are the reason that Soule could not go to the New England regionals. If they were unable to complete, she would have placed sixth in the 55-meter, which would have given her the opportunity to run in front of college coaches at regionals.

“I’ve gotten nothing but support from my teammates and from other athletes,” Soule said. “But I have experienced some retaliation from school officials and coaches.”

Soules complaint, which is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, requests that the Education Department “to investigate illegal discrimination against the Connecticut athletes,” including Soule herself.

Soule is not the only female athlete who has been affected by the transgender protocol in the Connecticut athletic conference.

Ever since the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference created a law “that allows biological males who claim a female identity to compete in girls’ athletic events,” the complaint says, “boys have consistently deprived [Selina] Soule and the other female athletes of honors and opportunities to compete at elite levels.”

“Girls like Selina should never be forced to be spectators in their own sports, but, unfortunately, that is exactly what is taking place when you allow biological males to compete in sports that have been set aside and specifically designed for women like Selina,” Holcomb pointed out.

“Title IX was designed to ensure that girls have a fair shake at athletics, and are not denied the opportunity to participate at the highest levels of competition.”

Emilie Kao, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, pointed out that Title IX has helped women in sports dramatically, but that the Connecticut protocol is setting them back.

“Since Congress passed Title IX in 1972, the number of women and girls participating in sports has risen from 1 in 27 to 2 in 5,” Kao said. “This has benefitted their performance in classes as well as on the playing fields.”

“By ignoring the reality of sex differences, gender identity policies threaten progress and create unfairness and danger for female athletes,” she concluded.

According to Trans Athlete, Connecticut is among 17 states that allow transgender high school athletes to compete in whatever gender category they desire.

source

June 21, 2019