Tuesday, April 14, 2020


This is an industry I could do very well in. Shame it’s not legal.
Cybercrime May Be the World's Third-Largest Economy by 2021
As organizations go digital, so does crime. Today, cybercrime is a massive business in its own right, and criminals everywhere are clamoring to get a piece of the action as companies and consumers invest trillions to stake their claim in the digital universe.
That's why the World Economic Forum's (WEF) "Global Risks Report 2020 states that cybercrime will be the second most-concerning risk for global commerce over the next decade until 2030. It's also the seventh most-likely risk to occur, and eighth most impactful. And the stakes have never been higher. Revenue, profits, and the brand reputations of enterprises are on the line; mission-critical infrastructure is being exposed to threats; and nation-states are engaging in cyber warfare and cyber espionage with each other.




A complex solution to a complex problem.
GDPR, CCPA and beyond: How synthetic data can reduce the scope of stringent regulations
As many organizations are still discovering, compliance is complicated. Stringent regulations, like the GDPR and the CCPA, require multiple steps from numerous departments within an enterprise in order to achieve and maintain compliance. From understanding the regulations, implementing technologies that satisfy legal requirements, hiring qualified staff and training, to documentation updating and reporting – ongoing compliance can be costly and time intensive.
If an organization can identify all of its personal data, take it out of the data security and compliance equation completely – rending it useless to hackers, insider threats, and regulation scope – it can eliminate a huge amount of risk, and drastically the reduce the cost of compliance.
Synthetic data makes this possible by removing identifiable characteristics of the institution, customer and transaction to create what is called a synthetic data set. Personally identifiable information is rendered unrecognizable by a one-way hash process that cannot be reversed. A cutting-edge data engine makes minor and random field changes to the original data, keeping the consumer identity and transaction associated with that consumer completely protected.
Once the data is synthetized, it’s impossible for a hacker or malicious insider to reverse-engineer the data.




Hasn’t this been the goal and the fear since the start?
Artificial intelligence is evolving all by itself
Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving—literally. Researchers have created software that borrows concepts from Darwinian evolution, including “survival of the fittest,” to build AI programs that improve generation after generation without human input. The program replicated decades of AI research in a matter of days, and its designers think that one day, it could discover new approaches to AI.
In a preprint paper published last month on arXiv, the researchers show the approach can stumble on a number of classic machine learning techniques, including neural networks. The solutions are simple compared with today’s most advanced algorithms, admits Le, but he says the work is a proof of principle and he’s optimistic it can be scaled up to create much more complex AIs.




I imagine this would be irritating. Is it also negligent?
Ransomware attacks lock 2 Manitoba law firms out of computer systems
Sean Kavanagh reports:
Work at two Manitoba law firms is at a virtual standstill after cyber attacks left staff without access to their computer systems, locking out digital files, emails and data backups.
Read more on CBC.ca.


(Related) Recovery is possible, exposure is certain.
Backup or Disaster Recovery for Protection Against Ransomware?
To pay, or not to pay? Is it better to suffer the pain and outage of ransomware – or pay up, and by doing so, end it?
Like all such questions, there is no easy or simple answer. Can the affected organization afford a loss of operation? Does it have SLAs that will cause legal problems if they are broken? Does it have the support of a larger organization – government or insurance – that can either force its hand or support the cost of disruption? Is it in thrall to shareholders?
The best solution to difficult questions is to avoid the question. For ransomware, that either means prevention or simple, low-cost recovery. Since it is currently impossible to guarantee prevention, the onus is on low-cost recovery to avoid the choice between downtime and paying up.
Here the choice is between data backup and disaster recovery. The question now becomes, is backup alone enough, or is full disaster recovery required to mitigate the effect of ransomware? By ‘disaster recovery’, we mean the full gamut of backing up data, recovering that data, and business restitution without loss of business continuity.
In September 2016, the Barnstable, Massachusetts, police department became a victim of ransomware. Just two months earlier, however, Barnstable’s CIO Craig Hurwitz had deployed a backup and back-dating DR capability from Reduxio. The logs showed exactly when the infection occurred. Hurwitz requested that Reduxio back date his systems to just two minutes prior to the infection. This was achieved in just 35 minutes, with Barnstable PD operational without ransomware and without paying a ransom.




Could this continue after the pandemic?
SCOTUS to Break Tradition Hold Oral Arguments by Teleconference
The Court will hear oral arguments by telephone conference on May 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13 in a limited number of previously postponed cases. The following cases will be assigned argument dates after the Clerk’s Office has confirmed the availability of counsel:
18-9526, McGirt v. Oklahoma
19-46
, United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V.
19-177,
Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, Inc.
19-267,
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, and 19-348, St. James School v. Biel
19-431,
Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, and 19-454, Trump v. Pennsylvania
19-465,
Chiafalo v. Washington
19-518,
Colorado Department of State v. Baca
19-631,
Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc.
19-635,
Trump v. Vance
19-715,
Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, and 19-760, Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG
In keeping with public health guidance in response to COVID-19, the Justices and counsel will all participate remotely. The Court anticipates providing a live audio feed of these arguments to news media. Details will be shared as they become available. The Court Building remains open for official business, but most Court personnel are teleworking. The Court Building remains closed to the public until further notice.”




Perspective.
Amazon to Expand Shipments of Nonessential Items, Continue Adding Staff
Tech giant’s planned hiring of 175,000 workers to help it handle surge in orders during pandemic




The Pandemic business?
Harvard Business Review COVID Coverage
HBR – “We’ve made our coronavirus coverage free for all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.”




Entertaining myself.
5 Musical Skills You Can Learn Online for Free, With or Without Instruments


(Ditto)
The BIG List of the Easiest Music Learning Websites Today



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