Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 21, 2026

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 21, 2026 – 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 the increasingly …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Records, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

I switched everything to local AI and stopped sending my documents to the cloud

MakeUseOf: “For a long time, I didn’t think twice about pasting a contract into ChatGPT, uploading a confidential report to ask for a summary, or feeding a client proposal into a cloud AI tool. Then one day I actually stopped and read a terms of service document (something I’d been lazily skimming for years) and …

Subjects: AI, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

It’s Time for Teachers to Break Up with Amazon

Institute for Local Self Reliance: “Here’s why teachers should break up with Amazon’s wish lists — and where to find better alternatives.  Teachers routinely spend their own money on school supplies. With public school district budgets being slashed nationwide, over 90 percent of public K-12 teachers now pay for classroom supplies out of their own pockets, …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Economy, Education, Financial System, Internet, Libraries

Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations?

Candal-Pedreira C, Ruano-Ravina A, Fernández E, Ramos J, Campos-Varela I, Pérez-Ríos M. Does retraction after misconduct have an impact on citations? A pre–post study. BMJ Global Health. 2020;5:e003719. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003719 Background Retracted articles continue to be cited after retraction, and this could have consequences for the scientific community and general population alike. This study was conducted …

Subjects: Education, Knowledge Management

Metadata Exposes Authors of ICE’s ‘Mega’ Detention Center Plans

Wired [no paywall]: “Comments and other data left on a PDF detailing Homeland Security’s proposal to build “mega” detention and processing centers reveal the personnel involved in its creation. A PDF that Department of Homeland Security officials provided to New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte’s office about a new effort to build “mega” detention and processing …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Defense, E-Records, Government Documents, Legal Research

How to know if an AirTag is tracking you

engadget – “Apple’s AirTag is designed to help people keep track of personal belongings like keys, bags and luggage. But because AirTags and other Bluetooth trackers are small and discreet, concerns about unwanted tracking are understandable. Apple has spent years building safeguards into the AirTag and the Find My network to reduce the risk of …

Subjects: Privacy, Wireless Web

ChatGPT and Gemini Fail to Stop their AI Voice Tools From Spreading False Claims

Reality Check Podcast: ChatGPT and Gemini Fail to Stop their AI Voice Tools From Spreading False Claims & an iPhone 18 Hoax – Podcast – This week’s episode covers NewsGuard’s audit of leading AI audio bots, which found that ChatGPT and Gemini advance false claims on topics in the news about 50 percent of the time, …

Subjects: AI, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Trump Is Still Deporting People Wherever He Wants

The New Yorker – How the Administration is overwhelming federal courts and getting away with third-country removals. [no paywall]: “In March of 2025, the Trump Administration was widely criticized for sending more than two hundred Venezuelans to CECOT, a notoriously brutal mega-prison in El Salvador. Yet, over the past eleven months, the Administration has continued …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Courts, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top

Library of Congress, In Custodia Legis: “In the previous release, we enhanced access to the Senate legislation actions overview display and added the ability to download the text of legislation in XML format. With this release, member profile pages for current members of the Senate now include a “committees” tab that lists the member’s committee assignments …

Subjects: Congress, E-Government, Government Documents, Legal Research

Payrolls to Prompts: Firm-Level Evidence on the Substitution of Labor for AI

Slashdot: “A new study [PDF] from Ramp’s economics lab has found that businesses are steadily replacing freelance workers hired through platforms like Upwork and Fiverr with AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic, and the substitution is happening at a fraction of the cost. The paper, authored by Ryan Stevens, Ramp’s Director of Applied Sciences, tracked …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Internet, Knowledge Management