Wholesale hacking. Allows “malware as a service.” (Are we
looking for a suspect with bad teeth?)
Ransomware
at Colorado IT Provider Affects 100+ Dental Offices
Multiple
sources affected say their IT provider, Englewood, Colo. Based
Complete
Technology Solutions (CTS),
was hacked, allowing a potent strain of ransomware known as
“Sodinokibi”
or “rEvil” to
be installed on computers at more than 100 dentistry businesses that
rely on the company for a range of services — including network
security, data backup and voice-over-IP phone service.
… The
attack on CTS comes little more than two months after Sodinokibi
hit Wisconsin-based dental IT provider PerCSoft,
an intrusion that encrypted files for approximately 400 dental
practices.
Thomas
Terronez,
CEO of Iowa-based Medix
Dental,
said he’s heard from several affected practices that the attackers
are demanding $700,000 in bitcoin from some of the larger victims to
receive a key that can unlock files encrypted by the ransomware.
Others
reported a ransom demand in the tens of thousands of dollars.
… “I
would recommend everyone reach out to their insurance provider,”
said one dentist based in Denver. “I
was told by CTS that I would have to pay the ransom to get my
corrupted files back.”
… Terronez
said the dental industry in general has fairly atrocious security
practices, and that relatively few offices are willing to spend
what’s needed to fend off sophisticated attackers. He said it’s
common to see servers that haven’t been patched for over a year,
backups that haven’t run for a while, Windows Defender as only
point of detection, non-segmented wireless networks, and the whole
staff having administrator access to the computers — sometimes all
using the same or simple passwords.
Extending
the video doorbell.
Magnolia
residents’ AI-powered surveillance camera tracks people, cars at
entrance to neighborhood, experts caution bias
At
the dining-room table of his Magnolia home overlooking Salmon Bay,
Phil Andrews props open his computer and scrolls through images
captured by a neighborhood-wide security network.
One
photo appears of a person’s back as they stroll down the tree-lined
street, and another of a black convertible. The surveillance system,
made by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, acts as an all-in-one private
investigator equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). The system
uses computer vision and machine learning to digitize and categorize
images of license plates, the color, make and model of vehicles, as
well as how many times a car has entered the neighborhood in a 30-day
period.
… Flock
Safety has proved popular throughout the city: Magnolia is one of 10
neighborhoods in the Seattle area using the system, but the company
would not disclose the other locations.
… While
Flock Safety’s business model revolves around providing evidence
for law enforcement to solve crimes, even the Seattle Police
Department (SPD) has wrestled with the morality of collecting footage
gleaned from private security systems.
… Regarding
Flock Safety, Police Department emails from August 2018 to August
2019 obtained through a public-records request showed company
representatives contacted the department in May to ensure police had
access to footage from the Magnolia camera. In response,
community-policing team officer Chad McLaughlin requested footage
only be sent to the department when there was suspicious activity.
“I
appreciate that you would like us to have access to the footage, but
this has caused major issues in the past,” McLaughlin wrote.
“Seattle doesn’t seem to like the Police monitoring any sort of
surveillance systems.”
The
opposite of a Terminator? Will we allow AI to choose those who get
the benefits?
AI
Will Drive The Multi-Trillion Dollar Longevity Economy
AI
for Longevity has more potential to increase healthy Longevity in the
short term than any other sector. The application of AI for
Longevity will bring the greatest real-world benefits and will be the
main driver of progress in the widespread extension of healthy
Longevity. The global spending power of people aged 60 and over is
anticipated to reach $15 trillion annually by 2020. The Longevity
industry will dwarf all other industries in both size and market
capitalization, reshape the global financial system, and disrupt the
business models of pension funds, insurance companies, investment
banks, and entire national economies.
KPMG
often gets things right.
Ethical
AI: Five Guiding Pillars
Corporate
responsibility is not a new mission, but it has become a more
complicated one as machine learning assumes a larger role in how work
is done. This 20 page white paper,”Ethical
AI: Five Guiding Pillars,”
provides five actionable ways organizations can re-imagine business
models around ethical AI, according to KPMG.
A good summation.
This Year’s
AI (Artificial Intelligence) Breakthroughs
When
it comes to AI (Artificial Intelligence), VCs (venture capitalists)
continue to be aggressive with their fundings. During the third
quarter, 965 AI-related companies in the US raised a total of $13.5
billion.
In fact, this year should see a record in total fundings (last
year’s total came to $16.8 billion).
Kind
of a backgrounder. The part about Level 5 self-driving cars is
interesting, but my students have taken it farther.
How
Autonomous Vehicles Fit into our AI-Enabled Future
… Indeed,
we discuss that “Autonomous Everything” is one of the four key
parts of our AI-Enabled
Vision of the Future.
The power of AI and Machine Learning combined with extremely detailed
city and road mapping, lane-keeping, collision avoidance, and
self-parking is leading to automobiles and trucks that can take us to
our destinations without us having to keep our feet on the pedals or
hands on the steering wheel.
Perspective.
The pornography industry has always been an early adopter. Consider
how other, more subtle uses might confuse
us.
Deepfake
Porn Is Evolving to Give People Total Control Over Women's Bodies
People
are creating a new kind of nonconsensual pornography by combining
deepfakes with 3D avatars that can be manipulated to do whatever they
want.
For
serious AI geeks.
Google,
Intel, MIT, and more: a NeurIPS conference AI research tour
… As
always, the first thing you want to do, even before the conference
starts, is to look over the accepted research papers. All
the papers are posted on the NeurIPS Web site,
so you can take a tour of this year's research before going, or even
without going at all.
I’m
teaching Computer Security, again.
… Simply
click
here to download this free ebook from
TradePub. You will have to complete a short form to access the
ebook, but it’s well worth it!
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