Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
Wired: “Every January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces a personal challenge he will undertake in the year ahead. In 2016, he committed to running 365 miles before the year was up. In 2017, he milked cows and rode tractors as part of his resolution to meet more people outside the Silicon Valley bubble. Last January, …
“This essay argues that “data ownership” is a flawed, counterproductive way of thinking about data. It not only does not fix existing problems; it creates new ones. Instead, we need a framework that gives people rights to stipulate how their data is used without requiring them to take ownership of it themselves. The Data Care Act, a bill introduced …
Joshua New, senior policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation – “The United States is the global leader in developing and using artificial intelligence (AI), but it may not be for long. Succeeding in AI requires more than just having leading companies make investments. It requires a healthy ecosystem of AI companies, robust AI …
The Computational Propaganda Project – Algorithms, Automation and Digital Politics. Philip N. Howard, Bharath Ganesh, Dimitra Liotsiou, John Kelly & Camille François, “The IRA, Social Media and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012-2018.” Working Paper 2018.2. Oxford, UK: Project on Computational Propaganda. comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk. 46 pp. “Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) launched an extended attack …
EFF doesn’t endorse products. “But as Internet-connected products proliferate, ads for them bombard holiday shoppers with promises of a more streamlined life. And they do so without always divulging that they’re tracking you more than a jolly fat man who sees when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. So, we are taking a different …
Fortune: “Donald” has joined a new list. Not of world leaders, but of “worst passwords.” The password-management firm SplashData released its annual list of the 100 worst character combinations it found among leaks of about five million passwords. “Donald” entered the list at position 23. You’ll also find “qwerty” (#9), password (#2), and baseball (#32). …
Axios: “For millennia, technology, in terms of its big-picture impact, was, well, meh. Look at the straight line in the chart — that includes every major invention since the year 1 AD, including the printing press. Then James Watt triggered the Industrial Revolution by reinventing the steam engine, and before you knew it we all …
EFF: “Way back in 2010, we launched our popular browser extension HTTPS Everywhere as part of our effort to encrypt the web. At the time, the need for HTTPS Everywhere to protect browsing sessions was as obvious as the threats were ever-present. The threats may not be as clear now, but HTTPS Everywhere is still …
Kosseff, Jeff, Cybersecurity of the Person (October 31, 2018). First Amendment Law Review, 2019. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3276218 “U.S. cybersecurity law is largely an outgrowth of the early-aughts concerns over identity theft and financial fraud. Cybersecurity laws focus on protecting identifiers such as driver’s licenses and social security numbers, and financial data such as credit …
BBC News: “The National Health Service will be banned from buying fax machines from next month – and has been told by the government to phase out the machines entirely by 31 March 2020. In July, the Royal College of Surgeons revealed nearly 9,000 fax machines were in use across the NHS in England. The …
The Hill: “The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, following a 14-month probe, released a scathing report Monday saying the consumer credit reporting agency aggressively collected data on millions of consumers and businesses while failing to take key steps to secure such information. The breach is estimated to have harmed 148 million consumers. “In 2005, former Equifax Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Richard …
Lawfare: “On Nov. 11 [2018] at 11:00 a.m., more than 70 world leaders walked towards the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War and to honor the 19 million people who lost their lives in it. French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a charged speech denouncing …
