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December 25, 2025 |
With the traditional ringing of the bell we bring this meeting to order!
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Welcome to this week’s meeting of the eClub of the State of Jefferson.
Hello eClub Members, welcome to this week’s weekly meeting, and Merry Christmas!
So very sorry for my absence these past few weeks or has it been longer?!?
The best part is that I belong to the State of Jefferson Rotary eClub, and I can attend a meeting or Coffee Chat wherever I am!
I hope you all enjoy this week’s meeting, and if you don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks, it just means I am enjoying family and friends.
Yours in Rotary,
Jackie
Jackie Oakley
2025-2026 Club President
The Four-Way Test
The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.
The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings:
Of the things we think, say or do
- Is it the TRUTH?
- Is it FAIR to all concerned?
- Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
- Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
email president@StateOfJeffersonRotary.org
MERRY CHRISTMAS - HAPPY HANUKKAH - HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Classic Christmas Music Mix 2023
It's that time of year again! The best time of the year! Christmas time! In this video, we're bringing you a 1-hour playlist of some of the best classic Christmas music! From classics like "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to more recent hits! Listen and enjoy!
Weekly eClub "Coffee Chat" Zoom meetings
Tuesday at 12:00 PM PDT
These “fellowship” meetings are informal opportunities to get acquainted with each other. If it fits your schedule, we look forward to “seeing” you at the meetings. Enjoy talking about "stuff" like water witching/dowsing, green flashes at sunset, Christmas in Pakistan, and much much more.
December is Disease Prevention and Treatment Month
We believe good health care is everyone’s right. Yet 400 million people in the world can’t afford or don’t have access to basic health care.
Disease results in misery, pain, and poverty for millions of people worldwide. That’s why treating and preventing disease is so important to us. We lead efforts both large and small. We set up temporary clinics, blood donation centers, and training facilities in underserved communities struggling with outbreaks and health care access. We design and build infrastructure that allows doctors, patients, and governments to work together.
Our members combat diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and polio. Prevention is important, which is why we also focus on health education and bringing people routine hearing, vision, and dental care.
How Rotary makes help happen
We educate and equip communities to stop the spread of life-threatening diseases. Rotary members have hundreds of health projects underway around the world at any given time.
Our impact on disease
The Rotary Foundation is changing the world by providing grants for projects and activities around the globe and in your own backyard.
Rotary makes amazing things happen, like:
Providing clean water: Rotary has worked with partners to provide more than 80 percent of Ghana’s people with clean water to fight Guinea worm disease.
Reducing HIV infection: In Liberia, Rotary members are helping women get tested for HIV early in their pregnancies. They used prenatal care to reduce new HIV infections in children by 95 percent over two years.
Ending polio: Rotary members have played a key role in bringing the world to the brink of polio eradication. Their efforts have not only ended polio in 122 countries but also created a system for tackling myriad other health priorities, such as Ebola.
Finding belonging, purpose, hope in Rotary after a loss
Tia Coppus, right, and her Rotary sponsor, Becca Smith.
By Tia Coppus, assistant governor of District 7710 and a member of the Rotary Club of Cary-Kildaire, North Carolina, USA
Sometimes there are moments in life that shift everything. Some of you may have experienced one, and some of you may not have yet. But when it happens, you feel it deep in your soul. For me, that moment came through Rotary.
In October of 2021, I lost my husband to cancer. After months of caretaking during COVID, the silence that followed was overwhelming. Seven days after his passing, a dear friend — someone I’d first met through Rotary — called me and said, “You need to come next Thursday for dinner. We want to see you.”
At that point, I hadn’t been out much in almost 19 months. I was emotionally drained, uncertain how to reenter the world. My thoughts raced: What if I’m not okay? What if I break down in front of people? What if I bring everyone else down?
There were days when I’d simply sit in the car with the sunroof open, driving with no destination, just trying to breathe. But something about that invitation tugged at me. Maybe I needed connection more than I realized. So, I decided to show up.
When I walked into that Rotary dinner, I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t seen my club in so long, and I was nervous. Vulnerable. Unsure if I’d be able to hold it together. But before I could even sit down, a woman I had never met wrapped her arms around me and said, “Welcome! We’re so glad you’re here.”
She had joined the club during those 19 months I’d been away, and yet her hug felt like it came from someone who had known me forever. It was genuine, immediate, and healing.
In that moment, surrounded by familiar faces and new friends, I realized something profound: I wasn’t alone.
All around me were people who had been part of my life’s journey in ways both big and small. There were Rotarians who had sung Christmas carols in my driveway during the pandemic, just to bring joy to my family when I couldn’t leave the house. There were those who had organized a fundraiser to send my husband on a bucket-list trip we never thought possible. There were people who had quietly dropped off meals, sent texts, and checked in — over and over again.
As I sat there that night, I could feel the warmth in that room. No one asked difficult questions or forced conversations. They simply offered presence, compassion, and community. And that was enough.
That evening became what I now call my Rotary moment — the realization that Rotary isn’t just about the service projects, fundraisers, and global initiatives we proudly support. It’s about the heart behind it all.
We often talk about the difference we make in the world: eradicating polio, fighting hunger, supporting education, and improving access to clean water. But what we sometimes forget is how much Rotary gives back to us, the members.
Rotary gives us belonging. It gives us purpose. And, in my case, it gave me hope.
When I walked into that dinner, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to face people again. But when I walked out, I knew I had found a community that would carry me through the darkest moments of my life.
Rotary has a way of doing that — of showing up quietly, lovingly, when you need it most. It reminds you that even when you’re the one who’s used to giving, it’s okay to receive.
So, if you are searching for connection, service, and a place to belong — Rotary might just be the answer. It certainly was for me.
Road trip builds awareness for polio eradication
An End Polio Now benefit concert held at the concert hall in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 27 October, organized by Rotary clubs in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Director Christine Büring (left) at the benefit concert.
By Christine Büring, Rotary International Director, member of the Rotary Club of Altenburg, Germany
A week dedicated to polio — in lieu of taking a vacation? When End Polio Now Coordinator Christian Schleuss shared this idea, it gained momentum quickly. When he invited me to join, I cleared my calendar. Some members in our district have grown tired of talking about polio, so in our regional plan I set a goal to find new ways of talking about our long-standing effort to eradicate polio. This trip was a chance to accomplish that and be part of Schleuss’ effort.
Our two zones had scheduled to celebrate World Polio Day with events in Switzerland, and I also wanted to get to know the Rotary leadership in Switzerland better, as it falls within my area as an RI director. A whirlwind of activities began 20 October with a visit to Rotary International’s office in Zurich, where we met my friend, Trustee Pearl Okoro from Nigeria — a one-woman End Polio Now movement — where polio is still painfully real.
From there, we traveled to Geneva and visited the World Health Organization (WHO). Polio is a true changemaker. We were reminded how the infrastructure created through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988 continues to strengthen many other areas of global health. The program built wastewater surveillance systems worldwide, opened doors for other vaccines, fostered trust, and created networks of trained — often female — health workers.
Oliver Rosenbauer, the program’s spokesperson, and Dr. Jamal Ahmed, described the long and powerful list of benefits of this program. I see enormous opportunities for deeper collaboration and will bring that message back to our board. I was deeply moved when WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus took time to meet personally with us and even cut an End Polio Now cake that had been brought for the celebration.
On 24 October, Rotary and Rotaract clubs in Liechtenstein organized a public End Polio Now event in Vaduz. Together we transformed the square in front of the Parliament building. The End Polio Now flag flew alongside the national flag; while information booths, fundraising items like tulips, “polio shots” made of liqueur and chocolate, and grilled sausages drew crowds. The Minister of Health attended, as did local media. Dressed in our red End Polio Now vests, we made for fantastic social media visuals. We shared social posts seen around the world.
Over the course of the week, the 20 some Rotarians from Switzerland and Germany, dressed in red as walking billboards for End Polio Now, became friends. We embodied Rotary’s vision: a world where people learn from one another, take action together, and find deep fulfillment in being part of something larger than themselves.
The week concluded with a training seminar for district End Polio Now coordinators and a magnificent benefit concert at the concert hall in Lucerne. I returned home enriched and inspired. My sincere thanks, as always in Rotary, go to the many hands that organized, hosted, and supported these events. The list is long.
We are writing history. A volunteer organization determined to eradicate a disease and refusing to give up after more than 40 years. We are continually bringing partners to the table and often providing crucial support behind the scenes. That story is a blueprint for why I, as a Rotarian, give my time and resources. Unite for Good works when we are far-sighted and bold, generous and cooperative, persistent and adaptable. And when we continue to speak up for the cause.
I’m proud of who we are, and what we are accomplishing.
To learn more about our polio eradication efforts or make a gift to end polio, visit endpolio.org
Before the American Revolution, Native nations guarded their societies against tyranny
When the founders of the United States designed the Constitution, they were learning from history that democracy was likely to fail – to find someone who would fool the people into giving him complete power and then end the democracy.
They designed checks and balances to guard against the accumulation of power they had found when studying ancient Greece and Rome. But as I discuss with Ken Burns in his new documentary, “The American Revolution,” there were others in North America who had also seen the dangers of certain types of government and had designed their own checks and balances to guard against tyranny: the Native Americans.
Although most Americans today don’t know it, there were large centralized civilizations across much of North America in the 10th through 12th centuries. They built massive cities and grand irrigation projects across the continent. Twelfth-century Cahokia, on the banks of the Mississippi River, had a central city about the size of London at the time. The sprawling 12th-century civilization of the Huhugam had several cities of more than 10,000 people and a total population of perhaps 50,000 in the Southwestern desert.
An artist’s depiction of life in Cahokia. Michael Hampshire for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The ruins of these constructions remain, more than 1,000 years later, in places as far-flung as Phoenix, St. Louis and north Georgia.
The American Colonists and founders thought Native American societies were simple and primitive – but they were not. As research has found, including my own, and as I explain in my book, “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America,” Native American communities were elaborate consensus democracies, many of which had survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power.
Powerful rulers led many of these civilizations, combining political and religious power, much as monarchs of Europe in later centuries would claim a divine right to rule.
Our mission is to share knowledge and inform decisions.
In the 13th century, though, a global cooling trend began, which has been called the Little Ice Age. In part because of that cooling, large-scale farming became more difficult, and these large civilizations struggled to feed their people. Elites began hoarding wealth. The people wanted change.
Spreading out
The residents of North America’s great cities responded to these stresses by reversing the centralization of power and wealth. Some revolted against their leaders. Others simply left the cities and spread out into smaller towns and farms. All across the continent, they built smaller, more democratic and more egalitarian societies.
Huge numbers left Cahokia’s realm entirely. They found places that still had game to hunt and woods full of trees for firewood and building, both of which had declined near Cahokia due to its rapid growth.
The population of the central city of Cahokia fell from perhaps 20,000 people to only 3,000 by 1275. At some point the elite left as well, and by the late 15th century the cities of Cahokia’s realm were completely gone.
Encouraging engaged democracy
As they formed these new and more dispersed societies, the people who had overthrown or fled the great cities and their too powerful leaders sought to avoid mesmerizing leaders who made tempting promises in difficult times. So they designed complex political structures to discourage centralization, hierarchy and inequality and encourage shared decision-making.
These societies intentionally created balanced power structures. For example, the oral history of the Osage Nation records that it once had one great chief who was a military leader, but its council of elder spiritual leaders, known as the “Little Old Men,” decided to balance that chief’s authority with that of another hereditary chief, who would be responsible for keeping peace.
Another way some societies balanced power was through family-based clans. Clans communicated and cooperated across multiple towns. They could work together to balance the power of town-based chiefs and councils.
An ideal of leadership
Many of these societies required convening all of the people – men, women and children – for major political, military, diplomatic and land-use decisions. Hundreds or even thousands might show up, depending on how momentous the decision was.
They strove for consensus, though they didn’t always achieve it. In some societies, it was customary for the losing side to quietly leave the meeting if they couldn’t bring themselves to agree with the others.
Leaders generally governed by facilitating decision-making in council meetings and public gatherings. They gave gifts to encourage cooperation. They heard disputes between neighbors over land and resources and helped to resolve them. Power and prestige came to lie not in amassing wealth but in assuring that the wealth was shared wisely. Leaders earned support in part by being good providers.
‘Calm deliberation’
The Native American democracy that the U.S. founders were most likely to know about was the Iroquois Confederacy. They call themselves the Haudenosaunee, the “people of the longhouse,” because the nations of the confederacy have to get along like multiple families in a longhouse.
In their carefully balanced system, women ran the clans, which were responsible for local decisions about land use and town planning. Men were the representatives of their clans and nations in the Haudenosaunee council, which made decisions for the confederacy as a whole. Each council member, called a royaner, was chosen by a clan mother.
The Haudenosaunee Great Law holds a royaner to a high standard: “The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans – which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will.” In council, “all their words and actions shall be marked by calm deliberation.”
The law said the ideal royaner should always “look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.”
Of course, people do not always live up to their values, but the laws and traditions of Native nations encouraged peaceful discussion and broad-mindedness. Many Europeans were struck by the difference. The French explorer La Salle in 1678 noted with admiration of the Haudenosaunee that “in important meetings, they discuss without raising their voices and without getting angry.”
Politicians, government officials and everyday Americans might find inspiration in the models of democracy created by Native Americans centuries ago. There was an additional ingredient to the political and social balance: Leaders looked ahead and sought to protect the well-being of every person, even those not yet born. The people, in exchange, had a responsibility to not enmesh their royaners in less serious matters, which the Haudenosaunee Great Law called “trivial affairs.”
A Christmas Story – A Rifle for Christmas
[Editor's note - The following story makes the rounds on the internet. I don't know if it is a true story or not but the story reflects the Christmas spirit and, to me, exemplifies Rotary and Rotarians. Have a very Merry Christmas!]
Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving.
It was Christmas Eve 1881. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn't been enough money to buy me the rifle that I'd wanted so bad that year for Christmas.
We did the chores early that night for some reason. I just figured Pa wanted a little extra time so we could read in the Bible. So after supper was over I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace and waited for Pa to get down the old Bible. I was still feeling sorry for myself and, to be honest, I wasn't in much of a mood to read scriptures. But Pa didn't get the Bible, instead he bundled up and went outside. I couldn't figure it out because we had already done all the chores. I didn't worry about it long though, I was too busy wallowing in self-pity. Soon Pa came back in. It was a cold clear night out and there was ice in his beard. "Come on, Matt," he said. "Bundle up good it's cold out tonight."
I was really upset then. Not only wasn't I getting the rifle for Christmas, now Pa was dragging me out in the cold, and for no earthly reason that I could see. We'd already done all the chores, and I couldn't think of anything else that needed doing, especially not on a night like this. But I knew Pa was not very patient at one dragging one's feet when he'd told them to do something, so I got up and put my boots back on and got my cap, coat, and mittens. Ma gave me a mysterious smile as I opened the door to leave the house. Something was up, but I didn't know what.
Outside, I became even more dismayed. There in front of the house was the work team, already hitched to the big sled. Whatever it was we were going to do wasn't going to be a short, quick little job. I could tell. We never hitched up the big sled unless we were going to haul a big load.
Pa was already up on the seat, reins in hand. I reluctantly climbed up beside him. The cold was already biting at me. I wasn't happy. When I was on, Pa pulled the sled around the house and stopped in front of the woodshed. He got off and I followed. "I think we'll put on the high sideboards," he said. "Here, help me." The high sideboards! It had been a bigger job than I wanted to do with just the low sideboards on, but whatever it was we were going to do would be a lot bigger with the high sideboards on. When we had exchanged the sideboards, Pa went into the woodshed and came out with an armload of wood---the wood I'd spent all summer hauling down from the mountain, and then all fall sawing into blocks and splitting. What was he doing? Finally I said something. "Pa," I asked,"what are you doing?"
"You been by the Widow Jensen's lately?" he asked. The Widow Jensen lived about two miles down the road. Her husband had died a year or so before and left her with three children, the oldest being eight.
Sure, I'd been by, but so what? "Yeah," I said, "why?"
"I rode by just today," Pa said. "Little Jakey was out digging around in the woodpile trying to find a few chips. They're out of wood, Matt." That was all he said and then he turned and went back into the woodshed for another armload of wood. I followed him. We loaded the sled so high that I began to wonder if the horses would be able to pull it. Finally, Pa called a halt to our loading, then we went to the smoke house and Pa took down a big ham and a side of bacon. He handed them to me and told me to put them in the sled and wait. When he returned he was carrying a sack of flour over his right shoulder and a smaller sack of something in his left hand.
"What's in the little sack?" I asked.
"Shoes. They're out of shoes. Little Jakey just had gunny sacks wrapped around his feet when he was out in the woodpile this morning. I got the children a little candy too. It just wouldn't be Christmas without a little candy."
We rode the two miles to Widow Jensen's pretty much in silence. I tried to think through what Pa was doing. We didn't have much by worldly standards. Of course, we did have a big woodpile, though most of what was left now was still in the form of logs that I would have to saw into blocks and split before we could use it. We also had meat and flour, so we could spare that, but I knew we didn't have any money, so why was Pa buying them shoes and candy?
Really, why was he doing any of this? Widow Jensen had closer neighbors than us. It shouldn't have been our concern. We came in from the blind side of the Jensen house and unloaded the wood as quietly as possible, then we took the meat and flour and shoes to the door. We knocked. The door opened a crack and a timid voice said, "Who is it?"
"Lucas Miles, Ma'am, and my son, Matt. Could we come in for a bit?" Widow Jensen opened the door and let us in. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The children were wrapped in another and were sitting in front of the fireplace by a very small fire that hardly gave off any heat at all. Widow Jensen fumbled with a match and finally lit the lamp. "We brought you a few things, Ma'am," Pa said and set down the sack of flour. I put the meat on the table. Then Pa handed her the sack that had the shoes in it. She opened it hesitantly and took the shoes out one pair at a time. There was a pair for her and one for each of the children---sturdy shoes, the best, shoes that would last.
I watched her carefully. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and then tears filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She looked up at Pa like she wanted to say something, but it wouldn't come out. "We brought a load of wood too, Ma'am," Pa said, then he turned to me and said, "Matt, go bring enough in to last for awhile. Let's get that fire up to size and heat this place up." I wasn't the same person when I went back out to bring in the wood. I had a big lump in my throat and, much as I hate to admit it, there were tears in my eyes too. In my mind I kept seeing those three kids huddled around the fireplace and their mother standing there with tears running down her cheeks and so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn't speak. My heart swelled within me and a joy filled my soul that I'd never known before. I had given at Christmas many times before, but never when it had made so much difference. I could see we were literally saving the lives of these people.
I soon had the fire blazing and everyone's spirits soared. The kids started giggling when Pa handed them each a piece of candy and Widow Jensen looked on with a smile that probably hadn't crossed her face for a long time. She finally turned to us. "God bless you," she said. "I know the Lord himself has sent you. The children and I have been praying that he would send one of his children to spare us." In spite of myself, the lump returned to my throat and the tears welled up in my eyes again. I'd never thought of Pa in those exact terms before, but after Widow Jensen mentioned it I could see that it was probably true. I was sure that a better man than Pa had never walked the earth, save One.
I started remembering all the times he had gone out of his way for Ma and me, and many others. The list seemed endless as I thought on it. Pa insisted that everyone try on the shoes before we left. I was amazed when they all fit and I wondered how he had known what sizes to get. Then I guessed that if he was on an errand for the Lord that the Lord would make sure he got the right sizes.
Tears were running down Widow Jensen's face again when we stood up to leave. Pa took each of the kids in his big arms and gave them a hug. They clung to him and didn't want us to go. I could see that they missed their pa, and I was glad that I still had mine.
At the door Pa turned to Widow Jensen and said, "The Mrs. wanted me to invite you and the children over for Christmas dinner tomorrow. The turkey will be more than the three of us can eat, and a man can get cantankerous if he has to eat turkey for too many meals. We'll be by to get you about eleven. It'll be nice to have some little ones around again. Matt here, hasn't been little for quite a spell." I was the youngest. My two older brothers and two older sisters were all married and had moved away.
Widow Jensen nodded and said, "Thank you, Brother Miles. I don't have to say," 'May the Lord bless you,' I know for certain that He will."
Out on the sled I felt a warmth that came from deep within and I didn't even notice the cold. When we had gone a ways, Pa turned to me and said, "Matt, I want you to know something. Your ma and me have been tucking a little money away here and there all year so we could buy that rifle for you, but we didn't have quite enough. Then yesterday a man who owed me a little money from years back came by to make things square. Your ma and me were real excited, thinking that now we could get you that rifle, and I started into town this morning to do just that. But on the way I saw little Jakey out scratching in the woodpile with his feet wrapped in those gunny sacks and I knew what I had to do. So, Son, I spent the money for shoes and a little candy for those children. I hope you understand."
I understood, and my eyes became wet with tears again. I understood very well, and I was so glad Pa had done it. Just then the rifle seemed very low on my list of priorities. Pa had given me a lot more. He had given me the look on Widow Jensen's face and the radiant smiles of her three children.
For the rest of my life, whenever I saw any of the Jensens, or split a block of wood, I remembered, and remembering brought back that same joy I felt riding home beside Pa that night. Pa had given me much more than a rifle that night, he had given me the best Christmas of my life.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
weekly@StateOfJeffersonRotary.org
Uninstall Now: These Chrome Browser Extensions Are Stealing AI Chat Logs
According to cybersecurity firm Koi, Urban VPN Proxy and three other popular browser extensions with 8 million+ installs can see conversations you've had with the top chatbots in 'raw form.'
A handful of Chrome extensions have been harvesting entire conversation logs of users' interactions with the most popular AI chatbots.
As reported by cybersecurity firm Koi, these extensions primarily offer free proxies and VPNs, but appear to be doing far more than that behind the scenes. Any time a user visits a chatbot site, a custom script executes, recording and transmitting the entire conversation. The worst part is that these extensions are used by millions.
Most chatbot users understand that the companies behind them are probably able to view the conversations, even if they've been anonymized. However, few may have considered the third-party services that scoop up that data for analytics and other purposes.
Koi co-founder and CTO Idan Dardikman wondered about it after having a particularly vulnerable discussion with a chatbot. The company asked Wings, its agentic-AI risk engine, to scan for browser extensions that could read and exfiltrate conversations from AI chat platforms.
"We expected to find a handful of obscure extensions—low install counts, sketchy publishers, the usual suspects," Dardikman says. "The results came back with something else entirely."
One extension stood out: Urban VPN Proxy. It had more than 7 million installs across the Chrome and Edge stores, and targeted conversations across 10 AI platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok (xAI), and Meta AI.
Urban VPN Proxy on the Microsoft Edge Add-ons store (Credit: Microsoft)
"For each platform, the extension includes a dedicated 'executor' script designed to intercept and capture conversations," Dardikman says. "The harvesting is enabled by default through hardcoded flags in the extension's configuration. There is no user-facing toggle to disable this. The only way to stop the data collection is to uninstall the extension entirely."
Koi points out that the developer of Urban VPN Proxy discloses the AI chat harvesting in its privacy policy, but that's not something many users are likely to read. The Chrome Web Store description, meanwhile, said, "This developer declares that your data is not being sold to third parties, outside of the approved use cases."
"Use cases" links to Chrome Web Store policies, which say "Collection and use of web browsing activity is prohibited, except to the extent required for a user-facing feature described prominently in the Product's Chrome Web Store page and in the Product's user interface."
Koi also flagged 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard, and Urban Ad Blocker. These extensions had far fewer installs, but 1ClickVPN Proxy still topped 600,000, and in total, across both web stores, they have more than 8 million users.
All of the extensions have since been removed from the Chrome Web Store, but remain on the Edge Store, where 1ClickVPN Proxy is listed as "Featured," which is used to highlight "extensions that meet a high bar of quality, security, and user experience." When it was live on the Chrome Web Store, Urban VPN Proxy also had a Featured badge, Koi notes.
"This means a human at Google reviewed Urban VPN Proxy and concluded it met their standards," Dardikman says. "Either the review didn't examine the code that harvests conversations from Google's own AI product (Gemini), or it did and didn't consider this a problem."
Koi recommends that anyone who has these extensions installed should uninstall them immediately. "Assume any AI conversations you've had since July 2025 have been captured and shared with third parties," it adds.
Who Invented Candy Canes?
One theory claims the iconic holiday candy was created in Germany to appease fidgety choirboys.
If anyone had cause to wonder about the allure of the candy cane, look no further than the words of Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf: “We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.”
In fact, according to the National Confectioners Association, alwaysatreat.com, candy canes are the No. 1-selling non-chocolate candy during the month of December, with 90 percent of the red and white striped treats sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The biggest single week for candy canes? The second week of December. “Likely because most people decorate their Christmas trees that week,” says Carly Schildhaus, public affairs 
manager for the NCA.
But just when and how candy canes got their start is a bit more uncertain than their popularity (1.76 billion candy canes are produced in the United States annually).
Candy Cane Invented to Quiet Choirboys?
“Legend has it that the candy cane dates back to 1670, when the choirmaster at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany handed out sugar sticks among his young singers to keep them quiet during the Living Creche ceremony,” Schildhaus says. “In honor of the occasion, he bent the candies into shepherds’ crooks.”
Susan Benjamin, founder of True Treats Historic Candy and author of Sweet as Sin: The Unwrapped Story of How Candy Became America’s Pleasure, agrees the candy cane most likely took shape in 17th-century Europe when pulled sugars, the parent to today’s sugar sticks, were all the rage. It was at that time, somewhere in Germany, that a crook was added to the stick, she says.
Benjamin also cites the theory that a German choirmaster gave candy sticks to still his fidgety choirboys during services. (It was a gentler form of enticement than “whacking them with a switch,” she says.)
“The board complained—sweets were not appropriate at so solemn a place as church,” Benjamin explains. “So, the choirmaster added a hook, making the stick resemble a staff, a religious reference that would calm the board’s concerns.”
She says the story has some credibility, but “it’s just as likely Germans added the hook to hang them from trees, alongside cookies, fruits and other treats.”
Candy Canes Were Once Only White
Most, however, agree the white candy cane made its U.S. debut in 1847 in Wooster, Ohio, according to Schildhaus, when August Imgard, a German-Swedish immigrant, decorated a small blue spruce with paper ornaments and candy canes.
Of course, today there’s nothing more iconic when it comes to candy than the alternating red and white stripes of the candy cane but, according to Schildhaus, for 200 years, before mass production was automated, they came in just one color: white.
“At the turn of the 20th century, the red stripes—and peppermint flavor—emerged as the most popular choice,” she says.
Benjamin attributes the red and white stripes to good marketing.
Theories About Candy Cane Stripes and Colors
“With the stripe came legends of stories about the candy cane, such as it being a secret code among persecuted Christians in Germany or England in the 17th century; a secret language amongst the Christian faithful depending on the stripe—three represented the trinity, one Jesus’ sacrifice),” she says, adding, “and the more general role of the stripe as the blood of Jesus.”
True? “I’m not sure,” Benjamin says. Still other theories contend the candy cane’s “J” shape is an homage to Jesus but Benjamin says that’s an urban legend.
As for the best way to eat the Yuletide treat, Schildhaus says an NCA survey found that 72 percent of people think that starting on the straight end is the "proper" way to eat a candy cane while 28 percent start at the curved end.
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