Category «Internet»

Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to

ars technica: “With Microsoft’s decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google. That’s a worrying turn of events, given the company’s past behavior. Chrome itself has about 72 percent of the desktop-browser market share. Edge has about 4 percent. …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines

Essay – It’s Time for a Bill of Data Rights

“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 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Legal Research, Legislation, Privacy, Social Media

Computational Propaganda Project Report on Russia’s Internet Research Agency

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 …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines, Social Media

A Complete Guide to All 17 (Known) Trump and Russia Investigations

Wired: “…After three weeks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back bombshells by federal prosecutors and special counsel Robert Mueller, it’s increasingly clear that as 2018 winds down, Donald Trump faces a legal assault unlike anything previously seen by any president—a total of at least 17 distinct court cases stemming from at least seven different sets of prosecutors and investigators. …

Subjects: Congress, Courts, Government Documents, Internet, Social Media

New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows operation’s scale and sweep

Washington Post: “A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Trump — and worked even harder to support him …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles

Poynter: Commit to transparency — sign up for the International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles. “The code of principles of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter is a series of commitments organizations abide by to promote excellence in fact-checking. We believe nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism…” “…The commitments …

Subjects: Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Legal Research, Social Media

The EFF Gift Guide: What’s Creeping Us Out

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 …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Privacy, Social Media

‘123456’ Is 2018’s Worst Password, Study Says. But This Year, ‘donald’ Joined the List

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). …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Knowledge Management

Technology has over-saturated us

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 …

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Economy, Financial System, Internet, Knowledge Management, Recommended Books, Social Media

Young lawyers can be technophobes too

ABA Journal – legal tech entrepreneur Monica Goyal – “Many lawyers are reluctant to adopt new legal technology, says Monica Goyal, who developed platforms including My Legal Briefcase, which helps parties in the Canadian small claims courts, and Aluvion Law, which uses automation to cut legal services costs for small businesses. “Even young lawyers—we think …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media