We received notification that our page at Fecesbook has been tagged as one with "high potential reach," and as such, all our admins are going to have to sign up for "two-factor authentication."
Heckuva thing to do to a page that only has a "reach" of a few thousand per post when there are over 60,000 fans, but that tiny reach is artificial, since Fecesbook pulled the plug on us in 2014 when we wouldn't buy ads from them after rapid growth for about two years.
But this is the latest slop dished up by Mark Zuckerberg, apparently to cover over for last week's announcement that Fecesbook was "partnering" with several banks so that people could access their bank through their Fecesbook page and do their banking online.
Why anyone thinks this is a good idea is absolutely beyond me. But people are rising to the mark of the beast, apparently.
Not us.
We did a little research into two-factor authentication (2fA, because we like to shorten long terms around here), and found out that this is the way most of the criminally-inclined do their bank thefts online.
Not kidding. Read this article about just such a thing happening down in Florida in this link from The Verge. As our tech guy put it (referencing this article from AI Weekly), "First sentence tells you all: 'Artificial intelligence will not be democratized through computers, televisions, smart speakers, or set-top boxes, but through smartphones — affordable ones.'
"Everything is being pushed into smartphones and RealID (that’ll eventually be an app on your phone). The phone WILL BE 'YOU.' Your location, your ID, your payment/bank account, your eavesdropping (mic, video, WiFi thermal and radar scanning to give layout of the building you're inside)....all of it."
We asked him "So when I can't remember a password and my credit card company sends me one on text, is that part of it?" Answer: Yes.
"2fa is using a 'known owned device' (this case your cellphone) to send the resets to instead of sending them thru the possible compromised websites/emails/accounts/etc. In theory, it’s more secure since the likelihood of the bad guy gaining both your email password AND say...your phone, is slim. But...They do not have to physically have your phone. Exactly as I warned...only your phone number. They take the phone number, type it into a free simple search online to see which provider it is on... say AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, some local-yokel cell service, etc. Then they CALL your cellphone company; claim they are you and want their number transferred or updated to a new phone and/or SIM card.
"BAM...phone companies have almost no checks, and those there are weak, simple online info like mother's last name bull, or, the scammers pay off low earnings employees at said cell phone providers a fee usually between $80-$125 per phone, and they switch your active service account over to their new phone. Immediately the phone they are holding halfway round the world BECOMES YOUR "new" phone; meanwhile you get a notice on your phone seconds before it happens; then no service. While you are scrambling to call or visit your phone company to try to stop it, using 2fa, the 'hackers' have new passwords all sent to their new phone, then change them, clean out your back accounts, etc. all in about 5-10 mins for everything.
"It’s what cartels do from India, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, etc. where governments take cuts to look the other way with no extradition treaties."
He should know. This actually happened to his mom recently.
"They DO use that info to give to key people/groups inside and higher up to benefit themselves and theirs: stealing hundreds of millions, insider trading, dirt on opposition, etc. but STOPPING it; using that intel and evidence to stop anything, no, the opposite. Corruption, self-benefit...thus why it’s WAY more sinister. And others do same in say some recent police scandals, they not only don’t say something or look away; most want in on in. How can they benefit themselves and lie, coverup (quite poorly too...ie, look at the FBI/DOJ with accusing Trump in diverting from their crimes) but also in busting say Silk Road, where a main investigator, an ex-Secret Service agent, stole almost a million dollars in Bitcoin during the bust. While, I’m guessing here, getting rid of any real hackers that could expose them like a Julian Assange or a Snowden. Because real hackers tend to have a deeper reason and drive to expose and benefit the whole...true liberals and Libertarians usually, like Julian Assange , creator of WikiLeaks, Aaron Swartz, creator of RSS, co-founder of Reddit and hacktivist, or Ross Ulbricht, creature of Silk Road, that do what they do for much bigger reasons to them."
Our notification popped up Sunday, August 12.
Sorry. We're not doing it. We've had enough problems with phones. We are accountable for our sources to whom we promised anonymity, some of whom are still in our phones (and bear in mind...these bank-miners don't just clean out your bank account; they have the names and numbers of every person in your contacts list, and they can do the exact same thing to them once they have YOUR number). We've already run into trouble trying to get a SIM or SD card or whatever it's called back from someone who had one of our phones and refused to return it. If our sources' identities are compromised, they have recourse by way of taking legal action against us. We don't need that. And with this new, weak, 2fA situation going on, that's EXACTLY what can happen, already rampant on Facebook's own Instagram when it introduced 2FA. So we're just going to terminate our Facebook page prior to this "deadline." Yall can talk here; we have a good forum that used to have a lot of activity til Fecesbook took over in 2011 or 2012. But we're not feeding the corporate ZuckBeast. We're done. We suggest you do the same. We're still on GAB, by the way. They're the only social media we currently trust...mainly because Fecesbook and the powers-that-be hate them.
Here is just how easy the whole process is explained by the most famous hacker of all-time, Kevin Mitnick.
While communicating with our tech guy to ask for a simple video explaining how this all works, he tried sending the link above to use through Facebook Messenger and...well, we'll just let what happened speak for itself:
So, it appears we are being forced off Facebook. If you wanna keep up with our news and coverage, you'll soon have to start coming to the website, like before we all got moved into Social Media internet ghettos to control free speech. We hope you'll join us here at our site from now on, and YOU will have to share our content, if you like, on social media from there on out...because we WON'T be.