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Daily Archives: April 7, 2021

Sorry, judges, encrypted chat is not like a private thought

Engadget: “A state judge recently ruled that two of the men who plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor did not make terrorist threats because they used an encrypted chat app to do so. Since federal agencies and lawmakers have been trying to get encrypted comms backdoored by arguing that they are the tool of choice for terrorists, we won’t blame you if your double-take gave you whiplash. It already boggles the mind to see a terrorism charge dropped against people doing domestic terrorism things, like plan and coordinate to attack the Capitol, blow up a bridge to stop police, murder law enforcement that got in the way to kidnap a US state governor, and murder said governor. But hang on. Just try not to strain anything when we tell you that the judge’s reason not to charge the foiled kidnappers for “threatening an act of terrorism” is because 12th District Court Judge Michael Klaeren said that using encrypted comms is the same as having private thoughts. “After onboarding new members through mediums such as Facebook, the group’s conversations took place in encrypted chats,” reported The Detroit News…”

How to Stop Spam Calls

Wirecutter – The research:” When people talk about spam calls, they tend to refer to four types of calls: Telemarketing: These calls originate from a live person who is trying to sell you something from a legally registered business. Such calls are annoying but generally not fraudulent. Legal robocalls: Legal robocalls are automated calls for… Continue Reading

Long Covid isn’t as unique as we thought

Vox: “…The dominant narrative about long Covid has been that it’s a uniquely perplexing feature of Covid-19. Reports of “Covid brain fog” or “Covid dementia,” for example, suggest a disturbing and extraordinary ability of the coronavirus to destroy the lives of survivors. Even a year later, some patients are still struggling to return to work… Continue Reading

Data scraped from 500 million LinkedIn users found for sale online

Tech Republic: “A massive trove of LinkedIn account data has been found for sale online, containing 500 million user records including email addresses, phone numbers, links to other social media profiles and professional details Reported by CyberNews researchers, the leak was posted to a forum popular with hackers by a user asking for a “four-digit… Continue Reading

Social Media Use in 2021

Pew Research Center – “A majority of Americans say they use YouTube and Facebook, while use of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok is especially common among adults under 30. Despite a string of controversies and the public’s relatively negative sentiments about aspects of social media, roughly seven-in-ten Americans say they ever use any kind of social… Continue Reading

Americans are super-spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation

“Infodemic pathways: Evaluating the role that traditional and social media play in cross-national information transfer” by Aengus Bridgman, Eric Merkley, Oleg Zhilin, Peter John Loewen, Taylor Owen, and Derek Ruths was published in Frontiers in Political Science. DOI: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.648646 “Misinformation about COVID-19 is spreading from the United States into Canada, undermining efforts to mitigate the… Continue Reading

National Archives can’t resurrect Trump’s tweets, Twitter says

Politico: “Twitter will not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump’s past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available on the social media platform, the company told POLITICO on Wednesday, in the latest display of Silicon Valley’s power over communications channels used by the U.S. government. The statement came as the National Archives… Continue Reading

Your post-vaccination travel questions, answered

Vox – Can Americans travel right now? Kind of. Should Americans travel right now? That’s more complicated…”There’s been a lot of debate about the ethics of traveling right now. While some borders are technically open, it raises concerns about bringing Covid-19 to different countries and possibly infecting locals. Early on in the pandemic, for example,… Continue Reading