Clipstar Protects The Young

By Digital Trends Staff December 2, 2007

Clipstar Protects The Young Clipstar, the social video site currently in beta, is using an Anti-Grooming Engine from Crisp Thinking to stop thegrooming of young people by pedophiles. The Anti-Grooming Engine analyzes chat to discover potential dangers of grooming and bullying in both content and context. “Crisp can beconfigured to monitor many thousands of interactions simultaneously. It watches out for suspicious behaviour and conversation patterns, assesses and ranks risks and alerts a moderator or a parentwhenever the threat level rises and an under-18 may be in danger. The system is flexible, scalable and uncannily accurate in pinpointing grooming risks. In urgent cases, families can be alerted bytext messages and emails and the social network site can put an immediate block on the offending adult’s account,” Crisp Thinking explained on its site.

Digital Trends Staff

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Smart Home

How to protect your home security camera from hackers

Google Nest Indoor Security Camera

You've probably seen the stories in the news about trouble with do-it-yourself Wi-Fi home security cameras. There are home camera “invasions,” where user video is stolen from private cameras and posted to the internet, or straight-up hacking where an unknown person can access your camera and the microphone attached to it, and speak to you, threaten your children, or otherwise harass you from afar.

While these instances are rare, they do exploit certain vulnerabilities in wireless home surveillance cameras, so it's important to know how it happens, how you can tell if your camera's been hacked already, and how to secure your home network and evaluate whether your cameras are at risk and fix them.
How do hackers get into your cameras?
Why hackers hack security cameras is a whole separate question, but there are two common ways hackers can access wireless network information.
Local Wi-Fi network hacking
The first involves the hacker being within the range of your Wi-Fi. The hacker either guesses your Wi-Fi password or creates a duplicate or spoof network that looks like your Wi-Fi network. Next, they suppress the real network so that you sign in to their network instead. Once they have your password, they log in to your actual Wi-Fi network, and that's where the trouble begins.
Remote hack attack
While these local attacks are possible, they’re much less likely than a remote attack. Remote attacks occur when hackers gain your actual password info. How do they get your password? Sometimes if people use weak passwords like 11111, password, or 123456, hackers can simply try a bunch of the most common and default passwords until they hit on the right one.

Smart Home

How a smart thermostat can protect your home from brownouts

walmart drops prices on google home hub with nest thermostat and security camera learning

Summer's here, and for some parts of the country, it's going to be challenging to escape the extreme temperatures. Air conditioning is a must-have for those mid-July heatwaves, even more so for those with respiratory troubles and other health conditions. The trouble with summer and air conditioning, though, is that everyone on your street or in your apartment building has the same idea as you: They want to be cold, and they want to stay cold. When there's too much strain on your local power grid, there's a chance a brownout may occur. This is a temporary lag in electrical power that can affect your home for a few minutes or up to several hours.

Thankfully, today’s homes are significantly smarter and more efficient when it comes to combating high energy demands from appliances and HVAC systems. Take, for instance, the beauty and wonder of smart thermostats, which monitor and regulate the temperature of your home. They’re far more efficient because they’ll kick off your air conditioning system when you’re not home, or simply operate it at a lower capacity to maintain a specific temperature. They learn your habits over time to reduce power consumption, saving you money in the long run.

Smart Home

Should you continue to buy air purifiers to protect you from the coronavirus?

The Coway Airmega purifier.

Though the end of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is in sight with the introduction of the vaccine, there are still factors to consider -- and we should all still act with caution. One way people sought to keep themselves safe is by using air purifiers, which resulted in a 57% growth in sales over the span of 2020.

Aside from frequent handwashing and wearing masks, technology can offer protection from air pollutants and other health risks.