This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it kis a follow-up to a previous article I published: "Is Satellite Internet the Answer to a Presently Unreliable Internet Connection?" that I published on 3 November 2022 at: https://eogn.com/page-18080/12976963.

While I was thinking of switching my internet service provider to Starlink (the satellite provider invented by Elon Musk), I have now changed my mind after reading the following:

Starlink"Residential customers will now start each monthly billing cycle with an allocation of "Priority Access" data that tracks what you're using from 7AM in the morning until 11PM at night. If you surpass that 1TB cap, which Starlink says less than 10 percent of users currently do, you'll be moved to "Basic Access" data, or deprioritized data during heavy network congestion, for the rest of your billing cycle. If you want to buy more Priority Access data, you can, at the cost of 25 cents per GB, and any data used between 11PM and 7AM doesn't count towards your Priority Access tally.

"This announcement comes off the back of a recent article by ArsTechnica, showing that Starlink's median download speed has dropped to 62Mbps in Q2 of 2022 as the network struggles under the load of increased subscriber numbers."

If the service presently only provides 62 megabits of speed today and now the company is introducing data caps to slow it even further from 7AM until 11PM, I am no longer interested.

The MyHeritage Blog tells a story that fascinates me:

Angelina B., a 53-year-old MyHeritage user from Augsburg, Germany, grew up believing that her birth father was Spanish and had died fighting in the Vietnam War. Her son gave her a DNA test as a gift, and not only did she discover the truth about her heritage — she found her father… alive and well.

You can read the full story and view photos at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2022/11/i-was-told-my-dad-died-at-war-i-found-him-through-myheritage-dna-and-hes-alive/

This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it is a important article that I believe all computer-owning citizens should be aware of.

The following announcement was written by the Better Business Bureau:

BBB Scam Tracker online tool saved consumers $31.4 million in 2021 alone, according to BBB Institute estimates.

The BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust (BBB Institute) is partnering with Amazon and Capital One to help people learn about scams, report them, and avoid losing money and/or personal information by enhancing the capabilities of the BBB Scam Tracker online reporting tool.

The new features make it easier for consumers to identify scams and report them while arming partners with more robust data on scammers to better protect consumers.

“BBB Scam Tracker was launched in 2015 and its impact has been significant,” said Melissa Lanning Trumpower, executive director of BBB Institute, the Better Business Bureau’s educational foundation. “By our estimates, BBB Scam Tracker saved consumers $31.4 million in 2021 alone. Partnering with Amazon and Capital One enables us to expand the impact of this platform.”

“Our partnership with the Better Business Bureau and support of the enhanced Scam Tracker tool highlights our focus on helping consumers and earning their trust,” said Sarah Strauss, Head of Customer Service and Strategy at Capital One. “Educating consumers on how to better protect themselves from scams and what to do if they think they’ve been a scam victim is crucial in the fight against bad actors.”

“Amazon is committed to protecting our customers from scams and helping them protect themselves,” said Kathy Sheehan, vice president and associate general counsel at Amazon. “We’re grateful to support the work of consumer advocates like the Better Business Bureau. Better data on attempted scams—whether consumers report them directly to us or through tools like Scam Tracker—will help identify the bad actors behind these fraudulent schemes and bring them to justice.”

The new BBB Scam Tracker provides an improved customer experience and enhanced data capabilities for partners to collaborate on fighting scams.

The BBB Scam Tracker makes it easier for consumers to report scams via mobile or desktop. It includes a new guided questionnaire that makes it quick and easy to report a scam. Consumers can now review and edit their reports before submission, and then share the report with friends and family via social media or email. They also have the option to receive updates about the constantly evolving tactics that scammers use.

In addition, an upgraded search function enables consumers to search scams in the tool by URL, email address, phone number and more. BBB Scam Tracker reports are also accessible via broader online searches, expanding the reach of the platform and helpful information to others who may be searching for help.

Additional features include an API and system-generated report functionality that enables scam data sharing with fraud-fighting partners. Updated back-end technology improves the speed of the tool and allows for future enhancements to be made.

BBB Institute will continue to make upgrades to Scam Tracker to meet the growing needs of consumers that lose money to scams, particularly the older demographic groups who are more susceptible to fraud.

Amazon and Capital One are both BBB Accredited Businesses. Amazon has been BBB Accredited since 1996. Capital One has been BBB Accredited since 1995. With their support of this project, Amazon and Capital One become members of the BBB Corporate Trust Council, a coalition of select companies that join with BBB Institute to build a trustworthy marketplace by providing their expertise, resources, and funding support.

Questions about the project or how to get involved should be directed to the BBB Institute at Institute@IABBB.org.

Here is a list of all of this week's articles, all of them available here at https://eogn.com:

(+) Who Will Inherit Your Bitcoins or Other Digital Currency?

Announcing a DNA Test Promotion from MyHeritage!

Using DNA to Solve Cold Cases Just Got a Lot Easier, Thanks to Math

Nearly 50 Years After Murder, the ‘Lady of the Dunes’ Is Identified Thanks to DNA and Genetic Genealogy

Romano Lecture Explores the Myths and Realities of Immigration

Collaborative Project Identifies Nearly 1,000 Slave Transactions in Macon, Georgia From 1823-65

New WorldCat.org Connects Genealogy Enthusiasts, Educators, and Historians to the World’s Libraries

New Hampshire Set To Pilot Voting Machines That Use Open-Source Software

Woman Given Up for Adoption in Australia is Reunited 60 Years Later With British Family She Never Knew She Had

It’s Not Too Late to Submit Your Ideas for the 2030 Census!

HouseNovel Looks to Crowdsource Home History

Canadian Photo Archive Based in Mississauga at Risk of Closing Without Help From the Public

Shambellie House Museum of Costume

Step Into Your Scottish Roots With New Findmypast Records

New Fairfield, Iowa Genealogy Group to Meet at Library

Amazon Drive is Ending December 31, 2023

Is Satellite Internet the Answer to a Presently Unreliable Internet Connection?

Amazon Drive is Ending December 31, 2023

Scientists say using math to sort through DNA could help investigators put stubborn cold cases to rest. The approach combines the relatively new field of forensic genetic genealogy – solving crime by charting out DNA-based family trees – with increasing computational power to speed up and simplify this complex form of investigation

In a new paper recently published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, researchers from Stanford University, California-based Identifinders, and the DNA Doe Project explain how they developed a new mathematical model to help investigators greatly narrow down their giant pools of genetic candidates: 

”We formulate a program that – given the list of matches and their genetic distances to the unknown target – chooses the best decision at each point in time: which match to investigate, which set of potential most recent common ancestors to descend from, or whether to terminate the investigation.” 

By using a decision tree to optimize the candidate search, the researchers say their new process improves the existing process for forensic genetic genealogy by a factor of 10. They can also use this protocol to pull relevant matches even from large pools with a low likelihood of success. 

In fact, the new algorithm is so effective that researchers say it “can solve a case with a 7,500-person family tree around 94% of the time,” compared to only 4% of the time with the current method, according to a Stanford University press release. Basically, it’s a great way to speed up and enrich the research investigators are already doing – like turning your regular bicycle into an e-bike. 

You can read a lot more of the details in an article published in the 4StateNews web site at: https://tinyurl.com/3mnfwzbh.

I am sure you know by now that this newsletter is sponsored by MyHeritage. I was surprised (and delighted) this morning to learn that the company is now offering DNA tests at a very low price: $39 U.S. plus shipping. (The normal price is $89 plus shipping.)

Please note how simple the test is:

During those 4 weeks, MyHeritage will:

...search for people whose DNA matches yours: your relatives. Our DNA Matching technology reveals the percentage of DNA you share with your matches, showing you how closely related you are. You can connect with your newly found relatives to learn more about your family and discover shared ancestors.

Click on the above icon to see all the details of this special offer.

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. 

NOTE: This isn't really a genealogy article. However, genealogists are usually very familiar with the reasons for writing a will. Whether the information in this article applies to you or to a loved one, I will suggest that all genealogists and everyone else should be aware of this information. 

Do you own Bitcoins or other crypto-currencies? Do your parents or other family members own such digital assets? Even your adult children may have digital currencies and may not have considered inheritance issues in the case of their unexpected demise. If you or any relative who owns crypto-currencies should die unexpectedly, who gets the inheritance? Do the future heirs know how to claim and retrieve the crypto-currency?

Most crypto-currency experts agree that the safest method of storing digital currencies is in a hardware wallet, such as the very popular Trezor and Ledger devices. Use of these high security pieces of hardware almost guarantees that no one can hack in and steal the valuable assets that are stored within the hardware wallet. After all, hardware digital wallets are usually powered off and disconnected from any computer when being used to store assets. How can a hacker steal from a computer storage device that is disconnected and powered off? 

NOTE: The only exposure of hardware wallets is for the minute or two that the wallet is being used to add or remove assets on the device. All that is needed is to plug the hardware wallet into your computer's USB port, launch a program in the computer that was supplied by the manufacturer of the hardware wallet, add or remove funds, and then immediately unplug the hardware wallet. Even during that minute or two, it is unlikely that a remote hacker will be able to connect to the computer, determine that a hardware wallet is in use, figure out which brand of wallet is in use, figure out the required user name, password, and encryption keys, and then manage to transfer the funds to his or her own wallet. It would be practically impossible for any hacker to perform all those steps in the short time a hardware wallet is connected and powered on.

As secure as the hardware wallets may be, the wallets do create a problem for potential heirs. Not only are potential hackers locked out, but future heirs also are unable to access the funds if they do not know the instructions, user names, passwords, and encryption keys required. The decentralized and unregulated nature of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies means that nobody has any way to access funds without the keys to access the hardware wallet. 

Trezor, a popular and secure crypto hardware wallet

Unlike a bank or a stockbroker, obtaining a court order along with a copy of the death certificate is useless with a hardware crypto wallet. Nobody –  and I do mean NOBODY – knows how to access the funds if the deceased did not share that information or leave instructions behind. There is no backup copy at any corporation's offices or anywhere else. The company that built and sold the hardware wallet also is unable to see its encrypted contents. Indeed, the hardware wallets are VERY secure.

The remainder of this article is reserved for Plus Edition subscribers only. If you have a Plus Edition subscription, you may read the full article at: https://eogn.com/(*)-Plus-Edition-News-Articles/12978898.

If you are not yet a Plus Edition subscriber, you can learn more about such subscriptions and even upgrade to a Plus Edition subscription immediately at https://eogn.com/page-18077.

Do you live in or near Fairfield, Iowa? Are you interested in joining  local genealogy group? If the answer to both questions is "Yes," check out the article  by Alecs Schmidt Mickunas published in the Southeast Iowa Union web site at: https://tinyurl.com/bdfthrcr.

From slashdot.org:

The software that runs voting machines is typically distributed in a kind of black box -- like a car with its hood sealed shut. Because the election industry in the U.S. is dominated by three companies -- Dominion, Election Systems & Software and Hart InterCivic -- the software that runs their machines is private. The companies consider it their intellectual property and that has given rise to a roster of unfounded conspiracy theories about elections and their fairness. New Hampshire's experiment with open-source software is meant to address exactly that. The software by its very design allows you to pop the hood, modify the code, make suggestions for how to make it better, and work with other people to make it run more smoothly. The thinking is, if voting machines run on software anyone can audit and run, it is less likely to give rise to allegations of vote rigging. 

The effort to make voting machines more transparent is the work of a group called VotingWorks. [...] On November 8, VotingWorks machines will be used in a real election in real time. New Hampshire is the second state to use the open-source machines after Mississippi first did so in 2019. Some 3,000 voters will run their paper ballots through the new machines, and then, to ensure nothing went awry, those same votes will be hand counted in a public session in Concord, N.H. Anyone who cares to will be able to see if the new machines recorded the votes correctly. The idea is to make clear there is nothing to hide. If someone is worried that a voting machine is programmed to flip a vote to their opponent, they can simply hire a computer expert to examine it and see, in real time.

Comment by Dick Eastman:

I am a big fan of Open Source software. I have lots of Open Source software installed on my computers (including the software I am using to post this message). The big advantage of Open Source software is that it is easily auditable and verifiiable by anyone who cares to do so. Use of Open Source software should resolve all the problems caused by "the big lie" in the 2020 U.S. election.

Discover thousands of new additions stemming back to the 16th century.

It's time to dive into your Scottish roots this week, with new and exclusive additions across two collections. Plus, discover three brand-new newspaper titles from England, Scotland and Wales. 

Read more here for a rundown of everything that's new.