Wednesday, April 10, 2019

I guess it will depend on which HAL 9000 you get; 2001 or 2010.
Get Ready for the First Wave of AI Malware
… The threat of a HAL-9000 intelligence directing malware from afar is still the realm of fiction, so too is the prospect of an uber elite hacker collective that has been digitized and shrunken down to an email-sized AI package filled with evil and rage. However, over the next two to three years, I see six economically viable and “low hanging fruit” uses for AI infused malware – all focused on optimizing efficiency in harvesting valuable data, targeting specific users, and bypassing detection technologies.




Innovative software from the people who drafted the California Consumer Privacy Act
John Myers reports:
California has launched few government projects with higher stakes than its ambitious 2018 program for registering millions of new voters at the Department of Motor Vehicles, an effort with the potential to shape elections for years to come.
Yet six days before the scheduled launch of the DMV’s new “motor voter” system last April, state computer security officials noticed something ominous: The department’s computer network was trying to connect to internet servers in Croatia.
Read more on Los Angeles Times.




The cost of a data breach...
Yahoo could pay $117.5 million to settle data breach
Yahoo is back in the courtroom with a revised settlement proposal meant to make amends for its massive data breaches. If this proposal is approved, the company will pay $117.5 million.
Between 2013 and 2016, Yahoo had three separate breaches. The first leaked information from an estimated three billion accounts and is now the largest data breach in history. Yahoo's 2014 breach, which exposed 500 million users, follows close behind.
In January, Judge Lucy Koh rejected Yahoo's first settlement proposal. It called for a $50 million payout and two years of free credit monitoring for about 200 million people in the US and Israel. But Koh rejected the initial proposal because it didn't say how much the settlement was worth or how much victims might expect to recover. Now, it's up to Koh to decide if this proposal gets it right.


(Related)
Vito Pilieci reports:
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will monitor American credit agency Equifax Inc. for the next six years after an investigation into a massive data breach of personal information at the firm in 2017.
The commissioner has also released a “compliance agreement” with the company that cracks down on Equifax demanding it develop better data retention policies, delete or anonymize all Canadian personal information, increase privacy and security measures when it comes to handling or storing data. The privacy commissioner has requested regular reports from bother Equifax Canada and it’s U.S. parent company for the next six years (until 2025) detailing how it is meeting the requirements. The commissioner also specified that it may ask for additional information or visit Equifax’s offices, either in Canada or anywhere around the world where Canadian personal information is being processed.
Read more on Ottawa Citizen




No doubt this will be used to bash Microsoft. On the other hand, what did they learn about China’s AI expertise and who did they share it with?
Microsoft worked with Chinese military university on artificial intelligence
Microsoft has worked with a Chinese military-run university on artificial intelligence research that could be used for surveillance and censorship.
Three papers, published between March and November last year, were co-written by academics at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing and researchers with affiliations to China’s National University of Defense Technology, which is controlled by China’s top military body, the Central Military Commission.




Perspective. Interesting idea.
Uber Vouchers lets businesses buy rides for their customers in bulk
Uber unveiled a new product Tuesday called “Uber Vouchers” that’s designed to help businesses sponsor free or discounted ride-hail trips for their customers. It’s the company’s latest service aimed at growing the B2B (business-to-business) market, and the announcement comes right before Uber is expected to officially announce its public offering.




An interesting summary.
How Fintech Is Revolutionizing Financial Services
Fintech is not only the future, but it is here,” said Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania at the April 3 launch of the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton. The business school is planting an official stake in the ground by establishing a center dedicated solely to fintech. “We have an incredible history and heritage in finance, but I think the best way for us to honor the history of the school is to leverage it for the future,” added Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett , at the event. (Garrett also wrote a LinkedIn post about the event .)
It’s helpful to think about fintech companies as fitting into any of three main business verticals — lending, asset and wealth management, and payments, according to David Klein, CEO and co-founder of CommonBond, which he said allows his firm to provide lower cost student loans. Layer on top three technology horizontals — front-end, middle ware and back-end — and pretty much any fintech company will fall into this grid, he said during a panel discussion among fintech disruptors and regulators at the launch event.




Perspective. Another area where laws are slow to catch up.
Study – Phone Addicts are the New Drunk Drivers
Zendrive: “…Last year, 6,227 pedestrians lost their lives to the hands of drivers who were most likely driving under the influence of a smartphone. On a national level, drivers are 10 percent more distracted this year than last. And from out under the shadows, Phone Addicts have positioned themselves as public enemy number one, replacing drunk drivers as the ultimate threat on public roads… Phone Addicts are glued to their phones, so they’re more distracted, more dangerous, and more likely to cause a crash. When comparing this year’s data to the 2018 report, we found that the number of ‘Phone Addicts’ doubled in the last year.
Overall, ‘Phone Addicts:’
    • Spend 3x more drive time actively using their phones
    • Actively ignore the road 28% of the time they’re driving
    • Are on the road 1.5x more times than the general population
    • Are more of a public danger than drunk drivers…”




Perspective. What, if anything, will be collectible?
Government Watchdog Flips On Dollar Coin
Analysts have long argued that the federal government could save money by making the switch because even though coins cost more to mint, they last much longer than paper money. In 2011, the Government Accountability Office estimated the savings at $5.5 billion over 30 years.
But a second look from the GAO flips that coin argument on its head. Analysts now say the government would lose between $611 million and $2.6 billion over 30 years by phasing out the dollar bill. The economics have shifted because dollar bills are lasting longer.
"When we last looked at this issue in 2011, the paper dollar was only lasting a little bit over three years," said John Shumann, an assistant director at the GAO. "When we looked at this issue again this year, we found that the paper dollar is now lasting almost eight years long."




Architecture. Looking to the future of the industry, Ford was a bit too hot on the prospect of self-driving.
FORD TAPS THE BRAKES ON THE ARRIVAL OF SELF-DRIVING CARS
Ford CEO Jim Hackett Tuesday joined the growing ranks of vehicle and tech execs willing to say publicly that self-driving cars won’t arrive as soon as some had hoped.
The industry “overestimated the arrival of autonomous vehicles,” Hackett told the Detroit Economic Club. Though Ford is not wavering from its self-imposed due date of 2021 for its first purpose-built driverless car, Hackett acknowledged that the vehicle’s “applications will be narrow, what we call geo-fenced, because the problem is so complex.” Bloomberg earlier reported the comments.




The Porn industry is a (very) early technology adopter. What are they doing with AI?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PORN ON THE INTERNET
THE FUROR OVER internet pornography had started with the publication of a study, “Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway,” in The Georgetown Law Journal. The authoritative-sounding study, written by a Carnegie Mellon undergraduate, Marty Rimm, claimed to be “a Survey of 917,410 Images, Description, Short Stories and Animations Downloaded 8.5 Million Times by Consumers in Over 2000 Cities in Forty Countries, Provinces and Territories.” Rimm asserted that 80 percent of images on newsgroups, the primary repository of pictures online, were porn.
(“Rimm’s implication that he might be able to determine ‘the percentage of all images available on the Usenet that are pornographic on any given day’ was sheer fantasy,” as Mike Godwin wrote on HotWired)




Big infographic because it’s a big area?
Visualizing the AI Revolution in One Infographic


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