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Microsoft Patch Tuesday, Febru1

Microsoft today released software updates to plug security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software. This month’s relatively light patch batch is refreshingly bereft of any zero-day threats, or even scary critical vulnerabilities. But it does fix four dozen flaws, including several that Microsoft says will likely soon be exploited by malware or […]

The Digital Production Group a1

This post was co-authored with Dinah Handel, Digitization Service Manager  Digitization Services is thrilled to announce new digitization capabilities for photographic negatives, slides, glass plates, and any transmissive materials. In late 2021, the Digital Production Group purchased a Digital Transitions Film Scanning Kit, to digitize photographic materials of most sizes and types. The image above […]

IRS To Ditch Biometric Require1

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said today it will be transitioning away from requiring biometric data from taxpayers who wish to access their records at the agency’s website. The reversal comes as privacy experts and lawmakers have been pushing the IRS and other federal agencies to find less intrusive methods for validating one’s identity with […]

How Phishers Are Slinking Thei1

If you received a link to LinkedIn.com via email, SMS or instant message, would you click it? Spammers, phishers and other ne’er-do-wells are hoping you will, because they’ve long taken advantage of a marketing feature on the business networking site which lets them create a LinkedIn.com link that bounces your browser to other websites, such […]

Computing Cultural Heritage in1

We are so pleased to introduce Khadijah Camp, who has joined us temporarily from the Library Collections Service Group’s Employee Resources Management & Planning Team. She is working as an Innovation Specialist on the Computing Cultural Heritage in the Cloud (CCHC) initiative. Khadijah Camp. Khadijah is working on the Computing Cultural Heritage in the Cloud […]

2022 LibLearnX Wrap-Up

More than 2,100 people attended the American Library Association’s (ALA) inaugural LibLearnX virtual conference January 21–24. The format of LibLearnX is designed to motivate, inspire, and enable discussions that shape the future of libraries and communities, emphasizing active and applied learning in a variety of formats. The lineup also included familiar ALA conference components: high-profile […]

Newsmaker: Rhone Talsma

Who is Rhone Talsma? On January 26, Talsma earned a spot in Jeopardy! history when he unseated fellow contestant Amy Schneider, who had racked up a 40-game winning streak, the second highest on the iconic game show. Talsma, multimedia librarian at Chicago Ridge (Ill.) Public Library, was the most recent in an impressive line of […]

LC Labs Letter January 2022

LC Labs Letter January 2022

January 2022 LC LABS LETTERA Monthly Roundup of News and Thoughts from the Library of Congress Labs Team News from the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative Marya McQuirter joins the Library of Congress as Director of the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative Marya McQuirter has joined the Digital Strategy Directorate as Director of the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI). […]

Under the Influence: Long Over1

Under the Influence: Long Overdue: The Creative Boom of Library Marketing

One of the most well-written podcasts (oh, and I guess it’s a radio show too) out there is Terry O’Reilly’s Under The Influence. Terry tells stories of how marketing works (and sometimes doesn’t), and it’s always an entertaining and fascinating half-hour. His most recent episode, Season 11, episode 3, is Long Overdue: The Creative Boom […]

Fake Investor John Bernard Sin1

Several articles here have delved into the history of John Bernard, the pseudonym used by a fake billionaire technology investor who tricked dozens of startups into giving him tens of millions of dollars. Bernard’s latest victim — a Norwegian company hoping to build a fleet of environmentally friendly shipping vessels — is now embroiled in […]

Why you should pay attention t1

Why you should pay attention to your Creative Commons licenses

I have never given a second thought to ensuring I’ve chosen the correct/most recent version of a creative commons license. That’s changed, because I just finished reading Cory Doctorow‘s post, A Bug in Early Creative Commons Licenses Has Enabled a New Breed of Superpredator. In it, he outlines the emergence of the Copyleft troll, someone […]

Who Wrote the ALPHV/BlackCat R1

In December 2021, researchers discovered a new ransomware-as-a-service named ALPHV (a.k.a. “BlackCat“), considered to be the first professional cybercrime group to create and use a ransomware strain written in the Rust programming language. In this post, we’ll explore some of the clues left behind by a developer who was reputedly hired to code the ransomware […]

Scary Fraud Ensues When ID The1

What’s worse than finding out that identity thieves took out a 546 percent interest payday loan in your name? How about a 900 percent interest loan? Or how about not learning of the fraudulent loan until it gets handed off to collection agents? One reader’s nightmare experience spotlights what can happen when ID thieves and […]

Crime Shop Sells Hacked Logins1

Up for the “Most Meta Cybercrime Offering” award this year is Accountz Club, a new cybercrime store that sells access to purloined accounts at services built for cybercriminals, including shops peddling stolen payment cards and identities, spamming tools, email and phone bombing services, and those selling authentication cookies for a slew of popular websites. Criminals […]

What’s new online at the Libra

What’s new online at the Library of Congress – Winter 2021/22

Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal will now be sharing out semi-regularly about new additions to publicly-available digital collections and we can’t wait to show off all the hard work from our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been […]