Hi there on a tech-fantastic Thursday, friend. To your computer, null means “no value” or “invalid value.” You can imagine all the problems that creates for people with the last name Null. Online forms, like on hotel and government sites, won’t accept it at all. The Nulls have all kinds of work-arounds, like adding a letter or hyphenating it with another name. And I thought Komando was tricky.

Come say hi on social! Warning you now, I’m bringing home a new puppy soon, and I’ll do my best not to post too many videos of her. Catch me on Instagram, X, YouTube and Facebook. — Kim

Yesterday I told you all about the Dark Web. Missed it? Part 1 is here. As expected, so many of you asked me, “Why the heck would you even go on the Dark Web?”

It’s my job

No, really! The fine folks at the Daily Mail asked if I’d do a Dark Web deep dive and report back. The reason is probably the same one you had for opening this email: It’s intriguing.
I’ve been doing this long enough that I can bring you all the Dark Web craziness without putting myself at risk. I’m not recommending you go digging around. I’m sharing for the curious among us who know better.

Follow the links

There’s a whole network of aggregators that list marketplaces, Dark Web versions of media outlets and everything else, with names like The Hidden Wiki, Onion.Live and Dark.fail. I started on Reddit with a search for “.onion search aggregators.”

Finding live sites takes trial and lots of error since they refresh their URLs all the time to evade law enforcement.

Now, let’s jump into what else I found.

👉 Are there hitmen for hire?

In theory, absolutely. In reality, you’d have to dig deep to find a real person willing to commit murder or another heinous crime on your behalf. I have to assume most of what pops up in Dark Web search engines are scams or honeypots meant to lure in someone up to no good.

One site I found had a list of rates posted for arson ($10,000 to $20,000), assassination ($10,000 to $50,000), assault ($1,000 to $5,000) and kidnapping ($15,000 to $25,000). Wild that the starting rate for assassination is less than kidnapping.

👉 They’ll hack anything

One full-service group I found says they’ve been around since 2007, and “we have worked hard every single day to improve our skills.” If it can be hacked, they’ll do it.

For a $990 minimum service fee, they’ll monitor someone in real life and digitally. Stealing a password from a specific target (a theft which they guarantee will be completed in 24 hours) is between $200 to $300.

A DDoS attack that shuts down a website for a certain amount of time starts at $200. At the high end — think taking down a big site for an entire day — you’re looking at up to $6,500. But hey, that includes a week free as a bonus! They’ll cut a deal if you want to DDoS more than one site, too.

They take Bitcoin and Monero, an untraceable cryptocurrency popular for Dark Web transactions and shady deals.

👉 Hacked financial info?

That’s everywhere. I saw ads for credit card CVV dumps (that’s the three-digit code on the back), hacked Western Union accounts, PayPal logins and Cash App credentials. One site was selling hacked bitcoin wallets at huge discounts, like $899 for nearly $96,000 in bitcoin. “In case of any trouble, we will refund your money back.” Sure.

I also stumbled onto a site selling cash if you’re willing to buy $700, $2,500 or $6,000. “All bills are genuine and ready for any use. You can exchange them, spend money in store, deposit on your card through an ATM.” Yeah, seems totally legit.

😓 Phew, buddy. Writing all that up makes me want to go take a shower. Hey, if you always wondered about the Dark Web, now you know. Share this with a friend who wants the inside scoop, too!

Everything you need to refresh, recharge and restore.

🛍️ It’s on sale: Browse Amazon deals and coupons. Yes, I look at this page most days. No, I wouldn’t call it a problem. Happy shopping!

💸 Avast sold your data: If you bought the antivirus software between Aug. 2014 and Jan. 2020, you might be entitled to a cut of a $16.5 million settlement. Watch your inbox for a claim ID, then fill out the settlement claim form by June 5. I use this antivirus.*

Peter Pan always flies because he never lands: A former Disney engineer thought he was downloading an AI image generator. It was malware. Hackers stole his personal info and Disney data, then dumped it all online. That’s not even what got him fired. He was watching porn on his work computer. Dummy.

💻 Hey, students and coding nerds: Google’s Gemini Code Assistant is now free for everyone. It fixes mistakes, explains errors and recommends code changes.

Deep dive: OpenAI’s Deep research is ready to go for Plus, Team, Enterprise and Edu subscribers. You’ll get 10 deep research queries per month that pulled detailed info from multiple sources. Try it: Select Deep research in the Composer.

📦 Not bad for a side hustle: A California mom bought a few Amazon return pallets, listed the items on eBay and made $10,000 in the first month. Now, she runs a multimillion-dollar e-commerce business. Love American success stories like this. Do you have one? Let me know here.

Alexa really is getting smarter: Amazon rolled out the new Alexa+. You’ll be able to search Ring footage and upload docs, like your kid’s soccer schedule. Alexa will put the dates on your cal and snacks on the shopping list. Cost? Free with Prime or $20 a month without.

🦈 POV: You just got eaten by a shark. Divers off the coast of Freeport, Bahamas, were feeding tiger sharks when one took a huge bite out of a 360-degree camera. You can see the camera filming inside the shark’s mouth and capturing divers from its belly. Wild.

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It’s pure, flavorless and effortless to add to your coffee, tea, smoothie or whatever fits your routine. I love my NativePath Collagen in my morning tea.

Echowriting: That’s teaching AI to sound like you. Feed in a piece of writing (an email, a blog post, a text, whatever) and say, “This is my writing. I want you to analyze it, so you can sound more like me in the future.”

Make this year the one you take care of you: Hearing aids aren’t expensive and bulky like they used to be. The tech has come such a long way. Get a free evaluation with a doctor.* You’ll be glad you did.

▶️ Annoyed by Netflix autoplay? You’re not alone. To turn off autoplay previews or the next episode, log into Netflix on a browser. Go to Account > Manage Profiles > Playback Settings > Autoplay controls. Bonus: To hide certain shows or movies, go to Manage Profiles > Viewing Restrictions. Type in what you want to hide and save.

Have a college student at home? Prime Student is half the cost of a regular Prime membership, and you get a six-month free trial to boot.

⚡ Power users like you: Microsoft PowerToys adds free, new features to your Windows PC. Peek gives you a quick preview of a file without opening it. If you’ve used a Mac, you can preview a file just by hitting the space bar. With Peek, select a file, press Ctrl + Space. Install PowerToys here.

Zoom-zoom: On YouTube, double-click the right side of a video to skip ahead 10 seconds. If the intro’s still playing, double-click again to skip it. Another option: Hit the right arrow to jump ahead 5 seconds.

🚨 50% off alert: My home security pick, SimpliSafe, is having a massive sale.* Get all the gear to lock down your home. You’ll sleep better at night.

What do … Norway, Canada, Iceland, Alaska and Finland have in common? They’re the top spots to catch the northern lights this year. Pro tip for traveling on a budget: On your phone, search flights.google.com. Now there’s a “cheapest” tab to the right, focusing strictly on price.

🌈 I’ve always wondered, is the aurora borealis heavy? No, turns out it’s pretty light.

And with that, another day of tech smarts over and out! Be sure to drop a rating so we know how we’re doing. I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow with the best tech newsletter in the USA! Until then, stay your amazing self. — Kim