The New York Times [no paywall]: “Ahead of the U.S. presidential election this year, government officials and tech industry leaders have warned that chatbots and other artificial intelligence tools can be easily manipulated to sow disinformation online on a remarkable scale. To understand how worrisome the threat is, we customized our own chatbots, feeding them… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Pin Point. The most common 4 digit pin numbers
“Chip and PIN card, phone passcode, hotel safe – how predictable is your chosen PIN number? 3.4 million data points visualized from several data breaches. Created by the late great Nick Berry of Data Genetics (redesigned and used with permission). He wrote a great data story around this which is also worth a read. Published… Continue Reading
Toxic Gaslighting by 3M
ProPublica: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe – “Kris Hansen had worked as a chemist at the 3M Corporation for about a year when her boss, an affable senior scientist named Jim Johnson, gave her a strange assignment. 3M had invented Scotch Tape and Post-it… Continue Reading
Does One Line Fix Google?
Tedium: “Forget AI. Google just created a version of its search engine free of all the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. All you have to do is add “udm=14” to the search URL. [This past week], Google announced some big changes to its search engine that are, in a word, infuriating.… Continue Reading
When Online Content Disappears
“38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later The internet is an unimaginably vast repository of modern life, with hundreds of billions of indexed webpages. But even as users across the world rely on the web to access books, images, news articles and other resources, this content sometimes disappears… Continue Reading
The secret life of bridges
StoryMaps – A look at the state of America’s unsung infrastructure heroes: “Investing in infrastructure has, generally speaking, been a popular and productive decision by the United States government. It creates well-paying jobs, makes the country safer, and boosts the economy in a number of direct and indirect ways. That explains how, even in today’s… Continue Reading
OECD – Defining AI incidents and related terms
New AI report: OECD (2024), OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers, No. 16, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d1a8d965-en.”Defining AI incidents and related terms,” it’s a must-read for everyone in AI. Important information: An AI incident is defined as: “an event, circumstance or series of events where the development, use or malfunction of one or more AI systems directly… Continue Reading
It is dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones
The Economist – A system at the heart of global telecommunications is woefully insecure [no paywall] “For year security experts have warned that a technology at the heart of global communications is dangerously insecure. Now there is proof that it has been used to snoop on people in America. Kevin Briggs, an official at America’s… Continue Reading
Slack has been using data from your chats to train its machine learning models
Engadget – “The only way to opt out is by asking your company’s workspace owner to send Slack an email. Slack trains machine-learning models on user messages, files and other content without explicit permission. The training is opt-out, meaning your private data will be leeched by default. Making matters worse, you’ll have to ask your… Continue Reading
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 18, 2024
Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 18, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading
A salute to books and those making them more accessible
ROI.NJ: “During a time when books are being banned throughout the country, one Hudson County librarian in New Jersey is being honored for making them even more accessible. Earlier this week, Hoboken Public Library Director Jennie Pu was announced as a recipient of the 2024 Movers and Shakers award. Awarded by Library Journal, this honor… Continue Reading
Banking and the Climate Crisis
Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2024 – “The world’s 60 biggest banks committed $6,900,000,000,000 over 8 years to the fossil fuel industry, driving climate chaos & causing deadly local community impacts.” Continue Reading
