How to Change Your PayPal Password

Hand holding up a smartphone with the PayPal app logo on display.
Update Your PayPal Password

If you have not already chosen a new password for your account, consider learning a few tips to come up with a strong password. Then, start the password change process by opening a web browser on your device and launching the PayPal website. Log in to your account with your current password.

Once you’ve logged in, in PayPal’s top-right corner, click the gear icon to open settings.

On the page that opens, in the tab list at the top, click the “Security” tab.

Open the "Security" tab.

In the “Security” tab, click “Password.”

Select "Password" in the "Security" tab.

A “Change Your Password” window will open. In this window, click the “Current Password” field and type your current PayPal password. Then click the “New Password” field and type the new password you want to use with your account. Click the “Confirm New Password” field and re-enter your new password. Then save your changes by clicking “Change Password” at the bottom.

Change the PayPal account password.

And that’s it. Your PayPal account password is now changed. Going forward, you will use this new password to sign in to your account on all your devices.

  • If you also use Discord, you can change your Discord password just as easily.
  • If you’re like most of us, you probably struggle to remember your account passwords. Luckily, you can use a password manager and have it remember and retrieve your passwords for you. Check out our guide to learn more about those tools.
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What Is a Double VPN, and Does It Even Work?

VPN connections symbolized over a world map.

An interesting feature that’s popping up more and more in VPN advertisements is one called double VPN or multi-hop VPN. Once offered by just a handful of VPN  services, it seems other VPNs are now catching up to the marketing potential of these extra-secure connections. Does the reality live up to the expectation, though?

What Is a Double VPN?

A double VPN connection is one where an internet connection is run through two VPN servers operated by the same VPN service, one after the other. It’s a feature offered by a handful of VPNs—including some of our best VPN picks like NordVPN and ProtonVPN—and promises extra security for those who need it.

Note that a double VPN is not the same as running two VPNs at the same time: in that case, you have to configure two different VPN services to play nice together. Double VPN or multi-hop connections have fewer configuration issues as they’re a pre-packaged feature offered by a VPN service. To explain how double VPN works, let’s quickly go over the basics: normally, when you connect to the internet, you connect from your home to your internet service provider’s server and then to the website you want to visit. A VPN changes this and reroutes your connection, so after going to your ISP it goes to a server operated by the VPN before going to the website.

The reason for doing this is twofold: your IP address is changed to that of the VPN, handy for circumventing regional blocks as well as censorship, and the connection between the ISP and the VPN server is encrypted in a so-called tunnel, meaning nobody knows what you’re up to—assuming you’ve used incognito mode to sign out of all your online accounts.

A double VPN adds a second VPN server into the chain, so you go from the ISP server to a VPN server, then another VPN server run by the same company, and then to the website of your choice. This is called a cascade configuration, where one connection “falls” into another one. Essentially, for every new VPN connection, you’re adding a new encryption tunnel.

However, there’s a big downside to using double VPN: your speed is going to take a massive hit. A single connection already hurts your connection speed badly enough, and adding a second hop will reduce it even further. We’ve seen double VPN connections that barely got 10 percent of the original connection’s speed.

  • Which VPNs Offer Double VPN?

As of 2022, double VPN connections were relatively rare until recently, when suddenly more and more VPN services started offering them. A quick look around the internet shows the following VPN services offer some kind of double-hop functionality at time of writing:

  • Hide.me
  • IVPN
  • NordVPN
  • Perfect Privacy
  • ProtonVPN
  • Surfshark
  • VPN.ac
  • Windscribe

Please note that we’ve arranged them alphabetically to avoid turning this into some kind of “best double VPN” popularity contest.

  • Why Use a Double VPN?

The benefits of using a double VPN depend on who you ask. Most VPN providers will tell you that running two tunnels means you’re double secure. For example, Surfshark claims on its website that “if anyone wants to get to you, they have to breach the VPN server you’re connecting to. That’s twice as hard to do with two VPN servers.”

ProtonVPN takes a slightly different tack: in its setup, called Secure Core, one server is in a country like Switzerland or Sweden with strong data protection laws and another somewhere else. “If the other VPN server is somehow compromised,” ProtonVPN promises, “your online traffic and IP address remain safe.”

  • Dubious Claims

According to these claims, double VPNs sound like a clear upgrade for security. Of course, this raises the obvious—if slightly awkward—question of why not every VPN service offers them.

This is because these claims are, at best, an overstatement. For example, Surfshark’s claim that it’s harder to breach two servers than it is one is true—though we’re not sure if it’d be twice as hard. Even if true, to crack the encryption on one server or connection could take a billion years if using a brute force attack, so turning that to two billion seems excessive.

ProtonVPN’s claim seems to make more sense at first. After all, if a server is compromised, your data could be there for all to see. This means going through a second server in a country with more strict privacy laws makes sense.  However, with the right warrant, authorities could still request your data and the company will cooperate.

While ProtonVPN can’t hand over all your information—its own encryption protocols prevent that—some information will still leak out, enough at least that it might not be worth the huge hit to performance your internet connection takes for going through two VPN tunnels.

  • Digging a Deeper Hole

These two aren’t even the most egregious claims: Hide.me goes even a step further: on top of all other benefits, it can even improve your connection speed in certain situations. We wonder which situations these are, as we’ve never in all our days of VPN speed testing seen a VPN improve a network’s speed.

In the same vein, NordVPN backs up its assertion of “complete privacy” when using double VPN with the following statement: “nobody, not even your ISP can see your final destination on the web. They can only know that you are using a VPN service.” As we explain in this article, that’s what a VPN does, period—no matter if you hop once, twice, or eight times. To claim only a double VPN provides this is simply untrue.

While there is certainly a case, albeit a small one, to be made for double VPN connections, most of the claims you’ll see on the websites of VPN services are there to part you from your money. As the struggle for VPN market share heats up, though, we can expect more wild claims like the ones we’ve outlined above; make sure to take them with a grain of salt.

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How to Turn Off Silent Mode on iPhone

To turn off silent mode and bring your iPhone back to ring mode, you can either use your phone’s physical switch or use an option in the Settings app. We’ll show you both ways to disable the silent mode.

The easy way to turn off silent mode is to use the physical Ring/Silent switch. If this switch is broken or is faulty, then use an option in the Settings app to disable silent mode. In case your phone’s physical switch is stuck on silent mode, the Settings option will override that and bring you back to ring mode.

  • Turn Off Silent Mode on iPhone Using the Switch

On the left side of your iPhone, you have a small switch that you can flip to switch between ring and silent mode. If your iPhone is currently in silent mode, then behind this switch, you will see orange color.

iPhone in silent mode.

To disable silent mode and enable ring mode, flip this switch once so that you don’t see the orange color anymore.

Flip the Ring/Silent switch on the iPhone.

Your iPhone is now in ring mode, and you’re all set.’

Take iPhone Off Silent Mode in Settings

If you can’t use the physical switch to deactivate silent mode, then use an option within Settings to go back to ring mode.

  • To do so, first, open the Settings app on your iPhone. In Settings, tap “Accessibility.” If you don’t see this option, tap “General” and then tap “Accessibility.”

Tap "Accessibility" in "General."

Tap “AssistiveTouch.”

Select "AssistiveTouch."

Turn on the “AssistiveTouch” option.

Enable the "AssistiveTouch" feature.

You’ll now see a gray box on your iPhone’s screen. This box holds an option to enable and disable silent mode on your phone. To reveal that option, tap the box.

In the menu that opens, tap “Device.”

Select "Device" in the menu.

In the “Device” menu, to turn off your iPhone’s silent mode, tap “Unmute.”

Tap "Unmute" in the menu.

And your iPhone is now out of silent mode. You may now close the box and even disable AssistiveTouch if you want.

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How to Set Up Voicemail on iPhone

Setting up voicemail on iPhone is a simple process that takes place in the Phone app. Open Phone and tap the Voicemail tab at the bottom.

Phone app, Voicemail tab

Select “Set Up Now,” create a voicemail password, and choose if you want a Default or Custom greeting. If you pick Custom, you can record your own greeting by simply following the prompts.

  • Listen to Your Voicemail Messages

To access your voicemail and listen to your messages, head to the Voicemail tab in the Phone app. You’ll see a list of messages you’ve received as long as your carrier supports Visual Voicemail.

Select a message and tap the Play button to listen to it. If your wireless carrier also supports the Voicemail Transcription feature, you’ll also see your message transcribed to text. This is handy for a quick view of the message.

Voicemail messages on iPhone

Note: Visit the Apple Support page to see which voicemail features are supported in your region and for your carrier.

  • You’ll see a few other buttons for the voicemail message on the right side. Tap the speaker icon to hear the message in speaker mode, the phone icon to call the number back, or the trash can icon to delete the message.
  • You’ll also notice a share button on the top right you can use to send or share the message using your iPhone Share Sheet options. And finally, you have an info icon (small letter “i”) for details about the call or caller.

Voicemail message actions on iPhone

  • Adjust the Voicemail Notifications

When you have a new voicemail, you’ll see a badge app icon on the Phone app by default. You can change this by going to Settings > Phone > Notifications. This number displays all notifications from the Phone app including missed calls and voicemails.

When you open the Phone app, you’ll see a number on the Voicemail tab for the number of unplayed messages you have.

You can also set up an alert when you receive a new voicemail. Open Settings and select “Sounds & Haptics.” Pick “New Voicemail” under Sounds and Vibration Patterns.

  • Tap “Vibration” at the top to choose a pattern and select one of the Alert Tones or Ringtones at the bottom for the sound. Tap “Back” on the top left to save and exit.

Sounds and Haptics, New Voicemail alert options

  • Change the Voicemail Password

If you want to change the password you set up initially for voicemail, you can do this in the Settings app as well. Select “Phone,” pick “Change Voicemail Password,” enter the new password, and tap “Done.”

Change Voicemail Password on iPhone

  • Record a New Voicemail Greeting

You may also want to change the greeting you recorded for your voicemail. Open the Phone app, select the Voicemail tab, and tap “Greeting” on the top left.

Tap the Play button to hear your current greeting. To record your own, select “Custom,” press “Record” to start, “Stop” to finish, and then “Save” to use the greeting.

Record a new voicemail greeting

As you can see, setting up voicemail on iPhone is easy and worth a few minutes of your time so callers can leave you a message when you’re unavailable to answer. For additional help with calls on your iPhone, learn more about the Silence Unknown Callers feature for reducing spam calls or how to enable full-screen incoming calls.

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How to Leave an iPhone Group Chat on Messages

If you’re stuck in a group chat on an iPhone, it’s possible to leave the group if everyone is using iPhones (or Apple Messages) to communicate.

  • How to Leave a Group Messages Chat on iPhone

First, open the Messages app on your iPhone. To leave a group chat, everyone involved in the conversation thread will need to be using the Messages app an Apple device (which uses Apple’s iMessage network). Also, you can’t leave a group chat with only three people, because it would become a two-person non-group chat, and Apple hasn’t developed a solution to that issue yet.

In Messages, navigate to the list of message threads and tap the group chat you’d like to leave. When you see the conversation listed out, tap the group of avatar icons that represent the people involved in the chat at the top of the screen.

Apple

In the overlay that pops up, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap “Leave This Conversation.” (In iOS 14 and earlier, tap the “i” info button first, and then tap “Leave This Conversation.”)

Tap "Leave This Conversation."

Confirm by tapping “Leave This Conversation” again. After that, you will no longer see new messages added to that particular group chat, but it will remain on your message threads list (You can delete it by swiping to the left an tapping the trash can icon). Feel free to repeat these steps with any other Messages group chat that doesn’t involve people using SMS.

  • What to Do if “Leave This Conversation” Is Greyed Out

As mentioned above, you can’t leave an iMessage group chat with only three people as of February 2022. That’s because it would become a non-group chat (an ordinary on-on-one chat), and Apple’s iMessage software can’t handle that kind of transition at the moment. That means if you’re doing a group chat with exactly three people using Apple devices, the “Leave This Conversation” will be greyed out in the pop-up chat configuration window.

To leave the chat anyway, tap the group of avatar icons at the top of the chat screen again and add a fourth person to the chat. After that, select “Leave This Conversation” in the same menu, and you’re good to go. Hopefully Apple will fix this issue in a future update.

  • Tips For Dealing with SMS Group Chats

You can’t leave a group chat if anyone in the group is using SMS for texting. This means that if anyone in the group has a non-Apple phone, such as one that runs Android, everyone in the group will be forced to use SMS group texting. SMS is a 30-year-old protocol that doesn’t support leaving a group or member moderation.

Instead, you can mute a group chat in Apple Messages thread list by swiping your finger to the left over it. When you see the icon shaped like a crossed-out bell, tap it, and the bell will no longer be crossed-out. After that, you won’t receive notifications from the group chat, but the thread will still appear on your messages list. We’re hoping that Apple will allow completely blocking an SMS group texting thread some time in the future.

You can also block individuals in the group chat by tapping their avatar icon, then tapping the “Info” button. Scroll down to the bottom of the window and tap “Block This Caller.” From then on, you won’t see messages from that person, but you’ll still see messages from anyone else who isn’t blocked in the group chat.

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How to Delete Downloaded Files on Oculus Go

So you downloaded something really embarrassing on your Oculus Go headset, like a Linux fan club movie. Now you need to clean up your tracks, but where do you go? Here’s how to delete downloaded videos (or other files) on your Oculus Go.

This is a good time to point out that if you’re going to be browsing Linux fan sites on the web using your Oculus headset, you should use the built-in Oculus private browsing mode, or at least clear your browser history when you’re done. Nobody needs to see footage of Linux fans.

It’s also worth noting that even if you are using private browsing mode, if you download media instead of streaming it, you’re going to need to delete the files manually using this technique.

Deleting Downloaded Media on the Oculus Go Headset

First, you’ll want to head into the Gallery, using the menu on the bottom of the home screen. You probably already knew how to get there, but you’re the one reading this, not me, so you get a screenshot.

Once you’re there, hover over the item that you want to delete, and then click on the 3 dot menu to see the Delete option. Click it, and your troubles are over. Unless you have like 942 of these files, in which case it might be easier to delete them from your computer. Keep reading for that.

Deleting Downloaded Oculus Media via Your PC or Mac

It’s a heck of a lot easier to delete a ton of files from your computer, and if you plug your Oculus into your computer, you can delete files much quicker that way as well. So use the included USB cable and plug it right into your PC or Mac. You’ll be prompted on the Oculus with a question on whether you trust your computer, which we’ll assume that you do, so click Accept. It’s your computer, after all.

If you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to download the Android File Transfer tool from the official Android website, install it, and then open it up. You’ll immediately see the embarrassing files, and you can delete them all by selecting and right-clicking or using CMD + Delete. You might want to check Movies as well while you’re at it, depending on what apps you were using.

If you’re using a Windows PC, you’ll find the headset in File Explorer mounted under Computer as VR-Headset. Head into Download, and you can delete files from there. You might want to check Movies as well while you’re at it, depending on what apps you were using.

You can also use the same technique to transfer movies to your Oculus headset that you might want to watch. It’s a heck of a lot easier to download stuff from your PC, after all.

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How to Protect Yourself From Public USB Charging Ports

You probably shouldn’t be too paranoid about these attacks. We haven’t seen widespread reports of charging ports causing problems. However, many possible attacks could happen over a USB port, and avoiding the risk is easy enough that it won’t inconvenience you.

The main problem is that USB doesn’t just transmit power—it sends data. That’s why you can plug your phone into your computer to transfer files back and forth, update the phone’s operating system, and back up its contents.

A correctly behaving USB charging port wouldn’t even try to access your phone’s data. But there’s nothing stopping it from trying after you plug in a USB cable. A charging port could try to access private data on your phone or exploit a security vulnerability and run dangerous code on your device. This type of attack is known as “juice jacking.”

While older phones just made your photos and other data accessible whenever you plugged in a cable, current iPhones and Android phones usually require your permission to share things. Your iPhone will prompt you to “Trust This Computer” when a device you’re plugged into wants access. On Android, you must enable transferring files over the connection. Even if you have USB debugging enabled, you must permit the device to access it.

If you don’t give your phone those permissions, it will still allow charging over the port but not allow data transfer.

With an iPhone, you’re probably safe unless the charger attacks your phone through an unknown security hole. Of course, Apple just added “USB Restricted Mode” to the iPhone and iPad to prevent them from being attacked by password-cracking tools connected to the Lightning data port.

If you have an Android phone, there are bigger risks. Most Android phones run outdated operating systems, which could easily have unpatched security holes that could be attacked through a USB port. They could be attacked in other ways, too. Many current Android devices from eight different manufacturers including Samsung, LG, and HTC are vulnerable to AT commands be sent over a USB cable. As usual, you’re safest if you have a Google Pixel device that’s up-to-date, but even that could theoretically be attacked.

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How to Spot a Fraudulent Website

The internet is home to roughly 1.7 billion websites. Unfortunately, many of these websites live only to scam you out of your personal data or money. Here are a few signs to look out for to spot a fraudulent website.

Double-Check the URL Name

The first thing you should do before visiting a site is ensure that the domain name is the one you intend to visit. Fraudsters create fake sites masquerading as an official entity, usually in the form of an organization you would likely recognize, such as Amazon, PayPal, or Wal-Mart. Sometimes the difference between the real site’s name and the fraudulent site’s name is almost unnoticeable. For example, the cybercriminal may build a site using rnicrosoft.com (note the “r” and “n” at the beginning of that address, which looks similar to an “m”), but you think you’re visiting microsoft.com.

What Should You Do If You Receive a Phishing Email?

There are two basic ways the cybercriminal, or “threat actor,” gets you to visit the fraudulent site. The first way is by a method known as “phishing.” Phishing is a form of cyberattack that is delivered mainly by email. The threat actor tries to entice you to click a link in the email that will then redirect you to a fraudulent copy of the real website.

Another way the threat actor may get you to visit the fraudulent site is by a method known as “typosquatting.” Typosquatting uses common misspellings of domain names (for example, amazom.com) to trick users into visiting fraudulent websites. You think you entered the domain name correctly, but you’re actually visiting a fraudulent copy of the genuine site. If you’re lucky, your web browser will warn you.

Regardless of how you get to the site, once you log in to this fraudulent website, the threat actor will harvest your login credentials and other personal data, such as your credit card information, and then use those credentials themselves on the actual website or any other website where you’re using the same login credentials.

The first and most basic method of spotting a fraudulent website is to make sure the domain name is the one you truly intend to visit.

Look For the Padlock, Then Look Harder

When you visit a website, look for the padlock to the left of the URL in the address bar. This padlock indicates that the site is secured with a TLS/SSL certificate, which encrypts data sent between the user and the website.

If the website hasn’t been issued a TLS/SSL certificate, an exclamation mark ( ! ) will appear to the left of the domain name in the address bar. If a site isn’t TLS/SSL certified, any data you send is at risk of being intercepted. The downside to this is that not all SSL certificates are authentic. These sites are usually caught pretty quickly, but it’s still best to look a little harder at the padlock just to be sure. Unfortunately, you can only dig deeper if you’re browsing the web using a desktop.

  • First, click the padlock and then click “Connection is Secure” from the context menu.
  • If the certificate is valid, then you’ll see the “Certificate is Valid” text on the next menu. Go ahead and click that for more details.
  • A new window displaying the information about the certificate will appear. You can check which site the certificate was issued to, who it was issued by, and its expiration date.

Certificate information.

While this won’t always protect you from fraudsters, the padlock (and the certificate information) is a good indicator that you’re visiting a legitimate site.

Check the Site’s Privacy and Return Policies

Fraudulent websites generally don’t go to the extent that genuine websites go to concerning privacy and return policies, if at all. For example, Amazon has a pretty thorough return policy and privacy policy that details everything the customer needs to know about each respective policy.

If a site has a poorly written return or privacy policy, that should raise some red flags. If a site doesn’t have these policies stated on their website at all, avoid them at all costs, as the site is likely a scam site.

Check For Poor Spelling, Grammar, and UI

A spelling or grammar mistake is likely to happen now and again, even on the most authoritative of websites. However, most websites have teams of professionals creating these websites. If a website looks like it was created in a day by one person, is riddled with spelling and grammar errors, and has a questionable user interface (UI), there’s a chance that you’re visiting a dangerous website.

Use a Site Scanner

If you’d like to add another layer of protection between you and fraudulent websites (and also give you a heads up if you may be visiting one), then use a site scanner such as McAfee SiteAdvisor.

These tools crawl the web and test sites for spam and malware. If you visit a dangerous (or potentially dangerous) site that the program determines may contain dangerous content that could harm your PC, you’ll be notified and asked to confirm you still want to proceed to the site when you try to visit.

A Website Status notification.

While site scanners are helpful in spotting a potentially fraudulent website, not all fraudulent websites will be flagged. While you use them as an extra layer of protection, still be conscious of the sites you visit.

What to Do If You’ve Been Scammed

If you’re a victim of an online scam, there are a few measures you can take to protect yourself (and potentially protect others). What you need to do next depends on what type of information you believe the scammer may have on you.

If you purchased something using your credit or debit card from the fraudulent site, the first thing you should do is call your bank immediately and report to them what happened. They’ll freeze your accounts and cards so that the threat actor can no longer purchase anything with your details. If you believe the threat actor may also have your personal information, such as your Social Security Number, date of birth, address, and so on, you’ll want to freeze your credit so that the fraudster can’t take out any loans or open any accounts in your name.

Once that’s taken care of, file a report with your local police, notify the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), and report the site to Google.

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How to Factory Reset the Kwikset Kevo

If you’re planning on selling your Kwikset Kevo, or just moving to another house and don’t plan to take it along with you, here’s how to factory reset it so your digital keys are completely erased from it. Unfortunately, the process isn’t as obvious as Kwikset could have made it, since none of the buttons on the lock say “reset”, and there’s no way to reset the lock from the app. Luckily, we’re here to help (and it literally just takes 10 seconds).

Start by removing the black assembly cover by pushing it upward and sliding it out.

Locate the small button labeled “A”. It will be near the top-left corner of the lock.

Press and hold this button for about ten seconds until you hear the lock beep and the lights on the outside portion of the lock flash red.

Once this happens, release the button and you’ll be good to go! The Kevo is now ready for its new owner. Again, this will completely erase all of your current digital keys, as well as any fobs that you have connected to it. So make sure that you reset the lock after you’re positive that you won’t use it anymore.

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How to Fix Annoying Nest Secure Notifications

Depending on how you have Nest’s Home/Away Assist feature set up, you might be receiving notifications to set you alarm even if you’re still home.

Start off by tapping the Settings button (the gear icon) in the top right corner of the main screen.

On the “Home” page, select the “Home/Away Assist” setting.

Next, tap the “What Decides If You’re Home” setting.

As you can see, our example phone’s location is not being used to determine whether “Home” or “Away” gets enabled. To change this, tap the “Use Phone Location” option.

And then turn on the toggle switch that appears. The Nest app will now switch to “Home” or “Away” status based on your phone’s GPS location.

You can also tap each individual sensor listed for your Nest Secure system and either include or exclude it from Home/Away Assist. If you disable everything, you’ll need to manually switch to “Home” or “Away” in the Nest app to set your status.

When you’ve set all that up, go back and tap the “Security” setting under the “When You Are Away” section of the main “Home/Away Assist” page.

The toggle switch at the top lets you determine whether or not the Nest app automatically arms or disarms your Nest Secure system when you set your status “Away” or “Home.”

Below that, you can choose the security level to associate with the “Home” and “Away” statuses.

Finally, the “Remind Me” lets your Nest send you a notification reminding you to arm your Nest Secure system when the Nest app detects that you’re not at home. This is the notification pictured at the very top of the article, only this time those notifications will work properly, since we’ve fixed the Home/Away Assist issue.

With a Nest Tag, it’s really easy to manually arm and disarm your Nest Secure system, so disabling Home/Away Assist entirely isn’t a bad idea. However, if you are a big fan of complete automation, these are the settings you’ll want to customize and mess around with.

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