Day archives: May 5th, 2021

How one phony vaccine website tried to capture your personal information

Tech Republic – “In a news release published Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland revealed that it had seized a website called freevaccinecovax.org. Allegedly the site of a real biotechnology firm developing a COVID-19 vaccine, it was actually set up to collect personal data from visitors and use that information for …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

Twitter’s latest bot will flag “harmful” language before you post

Ars Technica: “Want to know exactly what Twitter’s fleet of text-combing, dictionary-parsing bots defines as “mean”? Starting any day now, you’ll have instant access to that data—at least, whenever a stern auto-moderator says you’re not tweeting politely. On Wednesday, members of Twitter’s product-design team confirmed that a new automatic prompt will begin rolling out for …

Subjects: AI, Free Speech, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

This map shows the climate impacts on every county in the Western US

Fast Company – “…Climate change looks different everywhere. A new interactive map shows a detailed list of likely impacts by county, starting with the Intermountain West, the region bounded by the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascades and Sierras on the west. The tool was designed specifically for people who manage parks, and …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law

How to Power Up Your To-Do List

The New York Times – The free task-reminder app on your phone can keep you and your projects on track. “Getting organized is serious business, judging by the number of checklist and chore-tracker programs available. If you’re new to mobile task-manager software, Apple and Google have their own free apps that combine the convenience of …

Subjects: E-Mail, E-Records, Knowledge Management

Assessing the social and emotional costs of mass shootings with Twitter data

Brookings Blog – Assessing the social and emotional costs of mass shootings with Twitter data, Mary Blankenship and Carol Graham. May 5, 2021. “Mass shootings that result in mass casualties are almost a weekly occasion in the United States, which—not coincidentally—also has the most guns per capita in the world. Viewed from outside the U.S., …

Subjects: Congress, Health Care, Social Media

A Beginner’s Guide to Propagating Plants

LifeHacker  – “When you’re starting out with a garden, buying enough plants to cover the ground can seem really expensive. Instead, do what the pros do: Cut and plant stems and leaves, divide roots, and use ground layering to grow more of the plants you already have. Aside from the money and trips to the …

Subjects: Climate Change

College student sues Proctorio after source code copyright claim

The Verge – Lawyers claim Erik Johnson made fair use of Proctorio’s software code in a critical Twitter thread: “The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against the remote testing company Proctorio on behalf of Miami University student Erik Johnson. The lawsuit is intended to “quash a campaign of harassment designed to undermine …

Subjects: Copyright, Education, Legal Research, Social Media