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Daily Archives: May 10, 2022

Thousands of Popular Websites See What You Type—Before You Hit Submit

Wired – “A surprising number of the top 100,000 websites effectively include keyloggers that covertly snag everything you type into a form. When you sign up for a newsletter, make a hotel reservation, or check out online, you probably take for granted that if you mistype your email address three times or change your mind and X out of the page, it doesn’t matter. Nothing actually happens until you hit the Submit button, right? Well, maybe not. As with so many assumptions about the web, this isn’t always the case, according to new research: A surprising number of websites are collecting some or all of your data as you type it into a digital form. Researchers from KU Leuven, Radboud University, and University of Lausanne crawled and analyzed the top 100,000 websites, looking at scenarios in which a user is visiting a site while in the European Union and visiting a site from the United States. They found that 1,844 websites gathered an EU user’s email address without their consent, and a staggering 2,950 logged a US user’s email in some form. Many of the sites seemingly do not intend to conduct the data-logging but incorporate third-party marketing and analytics services that cause the behavior. After specifically crawling sites for password leaks in May 2021, the researchers also found 52 websites in which third parties, including the Russian tech giant Yandex, were incidentally collecting password data before submission. The group disclosed their findings to these sites, and all 52 instances have since been resolved…”

ICE ‘now operates as a domestic surveillance agency’

Engadget: “Although it’s supposed to be restricted by surveillance rules at local, state and federal levels, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has built up a mass surveillance system that includes details on almost all US residents, according to a report from a major think tank. Researchers from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology said… Continue Reading

Watch Recordings of Law Library Webinars and Events You May Have Missed

In Custodia Legis: “Over the past six months, the Law Library has held many webinars on topics concerning foreign, comparative, and international law, Law Library collections, as well as our recurring orientations on how to research U.S. case law, federal statutes, and federal regulations. The Law Library also presented its annual Supreme Court Fellows Lecture and Human Rights Day… Continue Reading

Finding Legislative Information on Topics of Interest Using the Library of Congress

Teaching with the Library of Congress: “The best place to start for insights into the workings of the U.S. Congress is Congress.gov. Congress.gov is the official source of information on Congress, and includes searchable records of legislation from 1973 to the present. For example, a quick search on “technology” for the current Congress produces a… Continue Reading

The next book ban: States aim to limit titles students can search for

Washington Post: “Republican lawmakers across the country are proposing legislation that would target online library databases and library management technology — tools built by a half-dozen large companies that catalogue millions of books, journals and articles that students peruse for assignments. These bills — already enacted in Utah and Tennessee, on the verge of becoming… Continue Reading

Digital Investigation Techniques: A NIST Scientific Foundation Review

NIST: “The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published Digital Investigation Techniques: A NIST Scientific Foundation Review. This draft report, which will be open for public comment for 60 days, reviews the methods that digital forensic experts use to analyze evidence from computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices. The purpose of NIST… Continue Reading

6 reasons to ditch Chrome and try Vivaldi, the enthusiast’s browser

PCWorld: “Download the Vivaldi browser. Right now. And in the few, painless seconds that downloading and setting up Vivaldi entails, let us convince you why doing so will enhance your browsing experience. Running a secondary browser is one of the easiest, most impactful decisions you can make on your computer. Why? Because you don’t actually… Continue Reading

Meet the New Old Book Collectors

The New York Times – A growing cohort of young enthusiasts is helping to shape the future of an antique trade. “…The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, a trade group with more than 450 members, hopes to see that change. The group started a diversity initiative in 2020 to “encourage and promote the participation of… Continue Reading

The massive, unregulated source of plastic pollution you’ve probably never heard of

Recode: “We’re making these nurdles and basically spilling oil, just in a different form.” NEW ORLEANS — On an overcast day in April, on the edge of Chalmette Battlefield, a few miles outside the city, Liz Marchio examined a pile of broken twigs and tree branches on the bank of the Mississippi River. “Usually I… Continue Reading