U.S. Govt. Hackers Ready to Hit Back If Russia Tries to
Disrupt Election
U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia's electric
grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin's command systems, making
them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem
it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret
documents reviewed by NBC News.
… The documents
reviewed by NBC News — along with remarks by a senior U.S. intelligence
official — confirm that, in the case of Russia.
U.S. officials continue to express concern that Russia
will use its cyber capabilities to try to disrupt next week's presidential
election. U.S. intelligence officials do
not expect Russia to attack critical infrastructure — which many believe would
be an act of war — but they do anticipate so-called cyber mischief, including
the possible release of fake documents and the proliferation of bogus social
media accounts designed to spread misinformation.
There is no support for the author’s opinion in this
article, but I agree anyway.
An Unprecedented Digital Crime Wave is Coming
My wife would never buy her dogfood from a mere supermarket.
The Seattle Times has an editorial that begins:
Recently, some King County
residents received a letter from the government reminding them they are
required by law to register their pets. The
letter was sent to a mailing list generated by a marketing company that gets
its information from various sources, including grocery-store loyalty cards.
Wait! The government is contacting people who buy
pet food to say they are suspected pet-license scofflaws? What’s next? A letter from the health department noting
purchases of ice cream and potato chips?
This practice by Regional Animal
Services of King County raises privacy concerns. Yes, the data are readily available to
internet marketers tracking clicks online. But that doesn’t mean the government should be
using it to track its citizens.
Read more on the Seattle
Times.
Making lawsuits more profitable?
Cynthia O’Donoghue and Chantelle Taylor write:
A recent High Court
decision, TLT and others v Secretary of State for the Home Office [2016]
EWHC 2217 (QB) (“TLT v SoS”), paves the
way for the greater recognition of distress in cases of data breaches
and the misuse of private information. The
victims of a data breach, in this case asylum seekers, successfully sought compensation for the shock and distress caused to
them by the accidental publication of their personal data.
Read more on JDSupra.
Should they know what Apps are doing? I’m sure someone will explain the difference
between “knowledge” and “actual knowledge.”
Lawyer speak? Is that like, “Yes,
we knew it but we didn’t actually know it?”
Maria Dinzeo reports:
Apple had no actual knowledge
that the social networking app Path was secretly accessing user contacts
without permission, an Apple attorney told a federal judge Thursday.
“There is nothing in this record
to reasonably support a conclusion of actual knowledge and there is explicit,
specific testimony to the contrary,” Apple attorney Robert Hawk told U.S.
District Judge Jon Tigar at a hearing on Apple’s motion for summary judgment.
The consolidated class action led
by Marc Opperman claims Apple distributed “invasive versions” of the Path app,
which downloaded details from users’ contact lists without their knowledge or
consent.
Read more on Courthouse
News.
Blockchain is going to be big. But is it the “next big thing?”
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602731/web-pioneer-tries-to-incubate-a-second-digital-revolution/
Web Pioneer Tries to Incubate a Second Digital Revolution
Brian Behlendorf knows it’s a cliché for veteran
technologists like himself to argue that society could be run much better if we
just had the right software. He believes
it anyway.
“I’ve been as frustrated as anybody in technology about
how broken the world seems,” he says. “Corruption
or bureaucracy or inefficiency are in some ways technology problems. Couldn’t this just be fixed?” he asks.
This summer Behlendorf made a bet that a technology has
appeared that can solve some of those apparently human problems. Leaving a comfortable job as a venture
capitalist working for early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel, he
now leads the Hyperledger
Project, a nonprofit in San Francisco created to support open-source
development of blockchains, a type of database that underpins the digital
currency Bitcoin by verifying and recording transactions.
Many governments and large companies are exploring
blockchain technology not because they want to use digital currency—Bitcoin doesn’t look likely to become widely used—but as a way to
work with other kinds of data. They
think blockchains could make things as varied as financial trades, digital
health records, and manufacturing supply chains more efficient and powerful.
No surprise.
The Political Environment on Social Media
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Nov 4, 2016
“In a political environment defined by widespread polarization and partisan animosity,
even simple conversations can go awry when the subject turns to politics. In their in-person interactions, Americans can
(and often do) attempt to steer clear of
those with whom they strongly disagree… A
new Pew Research Center survey of
U.S. adults finds that political debate and discussion is indeed a regular fact
of digital life for many social media users, and some politically active users
enjoy the heated discussions and opportunities for engagement that this mix of
social media and politics facilitates. But a larger share expresses annoyance and
aggravation at the tone and content of the political interactions they witness
on these platforms…”
Somehow I seem to get lost in some government sites. See if you can find the gifs…
National Archives searchable database of historical gifs
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Nov 4, 2016
“Welcome to the official Giphy channel for the National
Archives [currently there are 179 gifs]. For the official source of information
about the National Archives, please visit http://www.archives.gov. To learn more about our social media policies,
visit http://www.archives.gov/social-media/policies/.”
[Is this
the channel they mean? http://imgur.com/gallery/O6br7
Interesting. Maybe
Alexa doesn’t know everything right out of the box. How many of these new skills are free (and
how long will that be true?)
You can now shop for Alexa skills on Amazon.com
… Owners of Amazon
Alexa-enabled devices like an Echo or Tap can find, enable, or disable skills
via an Alexa skills marketplace or dedicated URLs for
individual skills.
The single website to find all Alexa skills launches the same
day as Google Home, immediately one of Amazon’s top competitors in the
race to place an intelligent assistant inside consumers’ homes.
Something I could do for my students?
A Clear Explanation of Gamification
Gamification is one of the trendy words in education right
now. In most education conference
programs I find at least a couple of workshops or presentations about
gamification. You've probably seen those
too. What is gamification? Common
Craft's latest video explains gamification in clear and concise terms.
Gamification is something that I had to experience
first-hand in order to really understand why it appeals to so many students and
teachers. I experienced it when I
started using the Strava app to track my bike rides. Once I started using it, I realized why kids
like digital badges. More of that story
is found in my post, What Strava Taught Me About Why Kids Love ClassDojo and Digital
Badges.
It’s not “MoneyBall” but it does amuse us here in Denver.
The Broncos Pass Defense Is Somehow Even Better This Season
Saturday nonsense.
Hack Education Weekly News
… From
the press release: “The U.S. Department of Education today launched the
EdSim Challenge, a $680,000 competition to design the next-generation of
educational simulations that strengthen career and technical skills. The Challenge calls upon the virtual
reality, video game developer, and educational technology communities
to submit concepts for immersive simulations that will prepare students for the
globally competitive workforce of the 21st century.”
… A follow-up to
something in last
week’s news. From
the Foundation for Individual’s Rights in Education: “In a decision issued
last week in Keefe v. Adams, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected a nursing student’s claim
that his free
speech and due
process rights were violated when his school punished him for his off-campus
Facebook posts. The decision
strikes a blow to the rights of students in professional-level programs.”
… The University
of New Mexico has come
under fire for spending some $7000 on an (unsuccessful) expedition in
search of Bigfoot.
No comments:
Post a Comment