The Lost Art-Datenbank is an online database published by the German Lost Art Foundation (Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste. It contains information on cultural objects looted from Jewish collectors or transferred due to Nazi persecution during the Nazi era. Until 2015, it was managed by the Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste (Magdeburg Coordination Office). == Creation == Following the Washington Conference of 1998, and the commitments to provide more transparency regarding looted art, Germany launched the Lost Art Database in 2000 order to help Holocaust victims and their families track down artworks that had been looted from them or lost due to Nazi persecution. == Functionality == The Lost Art Database lists art and books and other cultural objects that were lost, seized, stolen or forceably sold during the Nazi era. The database is divided into search requests from victims' families, heirs or institutions and "found" reports from cultural institutions on items with unresolved provenance gaps from the Nazi periods. The section on reports of finds lists objects that are known to have been unlawfully seized or relocated as a result of the war. In addition, reports are published here on cultural objects for which an uncertain or incomplete provenance may indicate a possible unlawful seizure or war-related relocation. The publication of reports in the Lost Art Internet Database is carried out on behalf of and with the consent of the reporting persons and institutions. The responsibility for the content of the reports lies with these legal or natural persons. There have been controversies over which items should be included in the database. Lost Art is based on the Washington Principles adopted in 1998, which Germany has committed itself to implementing (Joint Declaration, 1999). The Lost Art Database is considered a key resource in the search for looted art and the victims of persecution. Every item in the Lost Art Database has an identifier, known as a Lost Art ID. Proveana is the linked research database. == Other lost art databases == Other countries have launched databases to help identify Nazi looted art. Each database has its own area of focus. The German Lost Art Database allows families or heirs to submit information. Other countries have databases that focus on looted artworks that have not been found or artworks that were repatriated to the national authorities after the defeat of the Nazis but were never returned to their original owners. Other databases have been created for stolen antiquities, looted art from colonial era, art stolen from Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, or from museums or collectors.
Stripe, Inc.
Stripe, Inc. is an Irish and American multinational financial services and software as a service (SaaS) company dual-headquartered in South San Francisco, California, United States, and Dublin, Ireland. The company primarily offers payment-processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications. Stripe is the largest privately owned financial technology company with a valuation of about $159 billion and over $1.9 trillion in payment volume processed in 2025, processing transactions for 5 million businesses in that year. == History == Irish entrepreneur brothers John and Patrick Collison founded Stripe in Palo Alto, California, in 2010, and serve as the company's president and CEO, respectively. In 2011 the company received a $2 million investment, including contributions from Elon Musk, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Irish entrepreneur Liam Casey, and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and SV Angel. In March 2013, Stripe made its first acquisition, Kickoff, a chat and task-management application. In 2012 the company moved from Palo Alto to San Francisco. In October 2019, the company announced that it would be moving from the South of Market area to Oyster Point in the neighbouring city of South San Francisco in 2021. In February 2021, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and of the Bank of England, was appointed to the company's board. Carney stepped down from his role with the company in 2025 in order to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Stripe acquired accountancy platform Recko in October 2021 whose solution was to be added to Stripe's existing suite of financial tools. In January 2022, Stripe entered a five-year partnership with Ford Motor Company. Through the deal, Stripe would handle transactions for consumer vehicle orders and reservations. That same month, Stripe partnered with Spotify to help the company monetize subscriptions. In April 2022, Twitter announced that it would partner with Stripe, Inc. (digital payments processor) for piloting cryptocurrency pay-outs for limited users in the platform. In April 2022, Stripe announced its strategic partnership with UK-based financial technology company ION. The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2022 that the company's internal share price had fallen, causing its implied valuation to drop from $95 billion to $74 billion. In November 2022, the company announced it intended to initiate layoffs, terminating some 14% of its workforce. Throughout 2022 and 2023, the company announced a number of large enterprise customers, including Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, Uber, BMW, Maersk, Zara, Lotus, Alaska Airlines, Le Monde, and Toyota. The company also announced in March 2023 that OpenAI is working with Stripe to commercialize its generative AI technology. In January 2025, Stripe sent layoff notices to nearly 300 workers, primarily affecting roles in Product, Operations and Engineering. The company experienced controversy when the company sent a cartoon picture of a duck to the laid-off employees. Stripe's Chief People Officer Rob McIntosh later apologized for the mistake. After re-enabling cryptocurrency pay-ins in April 2024, starting with USDC, Stripe completed the acquisition of Bridge in February 2025. The acquisition of the two-year-old stablecoin platform company is valued at $1.1 billion. In June 2025, the company acquired Privy, which powers crypto wallets. In September 2025, Stripe announced it was powering Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and released Agentic Commerce Protocol for agentic commerce, which was co-developed with OpenAI. In October 2025, the company opened its second headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. In February 2026, Stripe was valued at $159 billion in a tender offer posted for employees and shareholders. The tender offer was about a 70% increase from Stripe's previous valuation published in February 2025, where it was valued at $91.5 billion. Stripe also announced that its total volume increased to $1.9 trillion USD in 2025, a 34% increase from 2024. == Technology company == === Payment processing === Stripe provides application programming interfaces that web developers can use to integrate payment processing into their websites and mobile applications. The company introduced Stripe Connect in 2012, a multiparty payments solution that lets software developers embed payments natively into their products. In April 2018, Stripe released antifraud tools, branded "Radar", that block fraudulent transactions. The same year, it expanded its services to include a billing product for online businesses, allowing businesses to manage subscription recurring revenue and invoicing. Stripe's point-of-sale service called Terminal was made available to US users on 11 June 2019. Terminal had previously been invitation-only. Terminal is currently available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. The service offers physical credit-card readers designed to work with Stripe. On 5 September 2019, Stripe launched a merchant cash-advance scheme called Stripe Capital. The scheme allows Stripe merchants to request an advance on future payments they expect to process through their Stripe merchant account. In June 2021, the company launched Stripe Tax, a service to allow businesses to automatically calculate and collect sales tax, VAT, and GST, initially rolling out to 30 countries and all US states. As of 2025, it has been made available in 102 countries. In May that year, Stripe introduced Payment Links, a no-code product allowing businesses to create a link to a checkout page and begin accepting payments on social platforms or direct channels. In January 2022, Stripe agreed to acquire Terminal manufacturing partner BBPOS, allowing the company to bring the hardware development of Terminal readers in-house. In February, it was announced as Apple's first partner on in-person Tap to Pay, which enables businesses to accept contactless payments using an iPhone and a partner-enabled iOS app. In May, Stripe announced Data Pipeline, a tool for Stripe users who store data with Amazon Redshift or Snowflake Data Cloud. Data Pipeline syncs Stripe data and reports with Amazon Redshift or Snowflake Data Cloud, where they can be queried in combination with other business information. That month, the company also introduced Stripe Financial Connections, enabling businesses to establish direct connections with their customers’ bank accounts to verify accounts for payments and pay-outs, check balances to reduce payment failures, and cut fraud by confirming bank account ownership. In September 2023, Stripe announced that its optimized checkout suite allowed businesses to offer their customers more than 100 payment methods. In May 2025, Stripe announced a new AI foundational model for payments, and introduced stablecoin powered accounts. === Corporate finance === In July 2018, Stripe introduced Stripe Issuing, a product that allows online businesses and platforms to create their own physical and digital credit and debit cards. === Atlas === On 14 February 2016, the company launched the Atlas platform to help start-ups register as US corporations, targeting foreign entrepreneurs. The platform was originally invitation-only. In March 2016, Cuba was added to the list of countries covered under the program. Originally, companies registered using Atlas were set up as Delaware-based C corporations. As of 30 April 2018, the option to be registered as limited liability companies was added. Companies set up using Atlas automatically had a business bank account and Stripe merchant account set up. === Link === In May 2021, Stripe launched Link, a service for saving and auto-filling payment details when paying via Stripe. The service supported payments in over 185 countries and Stripe reported plans to make it available to platform businesses through its API. In September 2025, Patrick Collison announced that Link had surpassed 200 million users. === Other === In 2018, Stripe started a publishing company named Stripe Press to promote ideas that support businesses. In 2019, Stripe began offering loans and credit cards to businesses in the United States. The company stated that loans are approved automatically using machine-learning models, with no human intervention. The following year, the company introduced Stripe Treasury, which provides its platform users APIs to embed financial services, allowing their customers to send, receive, and store funds. In October 2020, Stripe announced Stripe Climate, a service for businesses to fund atmospheric carbon research and capture. In 2022, Stripe started a new subsidiary called Frontier that would direct spending on carbon removal. It announced $925 million in funding from major Silicon Valley companies to fund start up companies performing carbon capture to kick-start the industry. Stripe Identity, launched in Ju
Ware report
Security Controls for Computer Systems, commonly called the Ware report, is a 1970 text by Willis Ware that was foundational in the field of computer security. == Development == A defense contractor in St. Louis, Missouri, had bought an IBM mainframe computer, which it was using for classified work on a fighter aircraft. To provide additional income, the contractor asked the Department of Defense (DoD) for permission to sell computer time on the mainframe to local businesses via remote terminals, while the classified work continued. At the time, the DoD did not have a policy to cover this. The DoD's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) asked Ware - a RAND employee - to chair a committee to examine and report on the feasibility of security controls for computer systems. The committee's report was a classified document given in January 1970 to the Defense Science Board (DSB), which had taken over the project from ARPA. After declassification, the report was published by RAND in October 1979. == Influence == The IEEE Computer Society said the report was widely circulated, and the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing said that it, together with Ware's 1967 Spring Joint Computer Conference session, marked the start of the field of computer security. The report influenced security certification standards and processes, especially in the banking and defense industries, where the report was instrumental in creating the Orange Book.
Centurion Guard
Centurion Guard is a PC hardware and software-based security product, developed by Centurion Technologies. It was first released in 1996. There were several different releases and versions of this product, and many were distributed in computers donated to libraries by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. == Operating system compatibility == Microsoft Windows 7 Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool
The Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) is a legacy service in Microsoft Windows that allows Microsoft technical support agents to analyze diagnostic data remotely for troubleshooting purposes. In April 2022 it was observed to have a security vulnerability that allowed remote code execution which was being exploited to attack computers in Russia and Belarus, and later against the Tibetan government in exile. Microsoft advised a temporary workaround of disabling the MSDT by editing the Windows registry. == Use == When contacting support the user is told to run MSDT and given a unique "passkey" which they enter. They are also given an "incident number" to uniquely identify their case. The MSDT can also be run offline which will generate a .CAB file which can be uploaded from a computer with an internet connection. == Security vulnerabilities == === Follina === Follina is the name given to a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, a type of arbitrary code execution (ACE) exploit, in the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) which was first widely publicized on May 27, 2022, by a security research group called Nao Sec. This exploit allows a remote attacker to use a Microsoft Office document template to execute code via MSDT. This works by exploiting the ability of Microsoft Office document templates to download additional content from a remote server. If the size of the downloaded content is large enough it causes a buffer overflow allowing a payload of Powershell code to be executed without explicit notification to the user. On May 30 Microsoft issued CVE-2022-30190 with guidance that users should disable MSDT. Malicious actors have been observed exploiting the bug to attack computers in Russia and Belarus since April, and it is believed Chinese state actors had been exploiting it to attack the Tibetan government in exile based in India. Microsoft patched this vulnerability in its June 2022 patches. === DogWalk === The DogWalk vulnerability is a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT). It was first reported in January 2020, but Microsoft initially did not consider it to be a security issue. However, the vulnerability was later exploited in the wild, and Microsoft released a patch for it in August 2022. The vulnerability is caused by a path traversal vulnerability in the sdiageng.dll library. This vulnerability allows an attacker to trick a victim into opening a malicious diagcab file, which is a type of Windows cabinet file that is used to store support files. When the diagcab file is opened, it triggers the MSDT tool, which then executes the malicious code. Originally discovered by Mitja Kolsek, the DogWalk vulnerability is caused by a path traversal vulnerability in the sdiageng.dll library. This vulnerability allows an attacker to trick a victim into opening a malicious diagcab file, which is a type of Windows cabinet file that is used to store support files. When the diagcab file is opened, it triggers the MSDT tool, which then executes the malicious code. The vulnerability is exploited by creating a malicious diagcab file that contains a specially crafted path. This path contains a sequence of characters that is designed to exploit the path traversal vulnerability in the sdiageng.dll library. When the diagcab file is opened, the MSDT tool will attempt to follow the path. However, the path will contain characters that are not valid for a Windows path. This will cause the MSDT tool to crash. When the MSDT tool crashes, it will generate a memory dump. This memory dump will contain the malicious code that was executed by the MSDT tool. The attacker can then use this memory dump to extract the malicious code and execute it on their own computer. == Retirement == Microsoft will no longer be supporting the Windows legacy inbox Troubleshooters. In 2025, Microsoft will remove the MSDT platform entirely. Get Help is the replacement tool. == Windows versions == Windows 7 Windows 8.1 Windows 10 Windows 11 (up to 22H2) Future versions and feature upgrades will deprecate the MSDT after May 23, 2023.
T-pose
In computer animation, a T-pose is a default posing for a humanoid 3D model's skeleton before it is animated. It is called so because of its shape: the straight legs and arms of a humanoid model combine to form a capital letter T. When the arms are angled downwards, the pose is sometimes referred to as an A-pose instead. Likewise, if the arms are angled upward, it is called a Y-pose. Generic terms encompassing all these (especially for non-humanoid models) include bind pose, blind pose, and reference pose. == Usage == The T-pose is primarily used as the default armature pose for skeletal animation in 3D software, which is then manipulated to create animation. The purpose of the T-pose relates to the important elements of the body being axis-aligned, thereby making it easier to rig the model for animation, physics, and other controls. Depending on the exact geometry of the model, other poses such as the A-pose may be more suitable for vertex deformation around areas such as the shoulders. Outside of being default poses in animation software, T-poses are typically used as placeholders for animation not yet completed, particularly in 3D animated video games. In some motion capture software, a T-pose must be assumed by the actor in the motion capture suit before motion capturing can begin. There are other poses used, but the T-pose is the most common one. == As an Internet meme == Starting in 2016 and resurfacing in 2017, the T-pose has become a widespread Internet meme due to its bizarre and somewhat comedic appearance, especially in video game glitches where a character's animation is unexpectedly supplanted by a T-pose. In a prerelease video of the game NBA Elite 11, the demo was filled with glitches, notably one unintentionally showing a T-pose in place of the proper animation for the model of player Andrew Bynum. The glitch later gained fame as the "Jesus Bynum glitch". Publisher EA eventually cancelled the game as they found it unsatisfactory. A similar occurrence happened with Cyberpunk 2077. In the 2023 Formula One season, driver George Russell performed a T-pose in the opening credits of the series' TV broadcasts. This quickly became a meme within the motorsports community. Russell repeated the pose after claiming pole position at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix and winning the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix.
Certified social engineering prevention specialist
Certified Social Engineering Prevention Specialist (CSEPS) is a social engineering security-awareness training and professional certification program originally developed by Kevin Mitnick and Alexis Kasperavičius. == Course structure == The original CSEPS program was structured as a multi-module corporate security-awareness course designed to teach employees, managers, and IT personnel how social engineers manipulate human behavior to bypass technical security systems. The curriculum combined case studies, psychological analysis, attack demonstrations, pretexting exercises, and operational security scenarios. The course materials described social engineering as the exploitation of "the human factor" in information security and argued that traditional technical defenses alone were insufficient to protect organizations from deception-based attacks. The training program was divided into instructional modules covering topics such as: social engineering methodology and threat analysis intelligence gathering and reconnaissance dumpster diving pretexting elicitation technique telephone-system exploitation and caller-ID spoofing psychological influence techniques industrial espionage identity theft organizational vulnerabilities security policy development and employee awareness training The course also analyzed historical and contemporary case studies involving information theft, corporate espionage, fraudulent wire transfers, and telephone-based impersonation attacks. Training exercises required participants to analyze how attackers established credibility, manipulated trust, overcame objections, and exploited organizational procedures. According to The Wall Street Journal, CSEPS was delivered as a two-day "boot camp" course costing approximately US$1,500 per attendee. Clients reportedly included the United States Air Force and the United States Marine Corps. The certification examination included multiple-choice and written-response sections dealing with social-engineering defense scenarios and mitigation strategies. == History == In 2003, Mitnick and Kasperavičius partnered with the Florida-based IT training company Intense School Inc. to offer CSEPS classes throughout the United States. In 2020, Mitnick partnered with security-awareness training company KnowBe4, and elements of the original CSEPS material became incorporated into KnowBe4's social-engineering awareness training offerings.