Friday, January 08, 2021

Is the capital different from the executive suites in any large corporation?

https://www.databreaches.net/decrypted-how-bad-was-the-us-capitol-breach-for-cybersecurity/

Decrypted: How bad was the US Capitol breach for cybersecurity?

Zack Whittaker reports on concerns that were raised after the massive security failure at the Capitol that resulted in attackers having access to papers, hard drives and more. Zack reiterates some comforting thoughts that were offered on Twitter in the aftermath of the rampage:

Most lawmakers don’t have ready access to classified materials, unless it’s for their work sitting on sensitive committees, such as Judiciary or Intelligence. The classified computers are separate from the rest of the unclassified congressional network and in a designated sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIFs, in locked-down areas of the Capitol building.

Read more on TechCrunch.

There will certainly be a lot to look into, though, including the emergency lockdown of the digital infrastructure. And as Politco reports, at least one Senator’s laptop was stolen. What was on it?

The security of the House’s intranet is something that DataBreaches.net commented on in 2018 in the context of reporting on two data leaks due to misconfigurations that this site tried to inform the House about. See No need for Russia to hack the House of Representatives if the House keeps leaving its doors open for more on those leaks. Hopefully, they had upped their security since then.





Ignorance is not limited to ‘fake news’ “Hey, look at me, I’m a Trump supporter!”

https://gizmodo.com/thanks-for-the-evidence-you-seditious-dweebs-1846010453?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Thanks For the Evidence, You Seditious Dweebs

Yesterday, a nauseated and tired public witnessed a clear, on-the-ground, real-time feed of Trump supporters committing countless potential felonies and misdemeanors. They saw it not through security footage or journalists’ reports but mostly from the culprits themselves, who gleefully livestreamed and tweeted from the Capitol building as if it was a field trip. As the high wore off, tweets and videos vanished—some deleted by the platforms themselves, others likely pulled by slack-jawed Trumpers covering their own asses.

Fortunately, archivists familiar with digital mass takedown events had the foresight to immediately crowdsource the evidence of rioting, and potential destruction of government property, weapons-related offenses, and unlawful entry, to name a few examples.

An extensive directory can be found on the New Zealand-based file hosting service MEGA; it’s the miraculously tidy result of a miles-long thread on the datahoarder subreddit, which amassed over 1,700 comments abounding with links to tweets and videos cross-posted all over the internet. A parallel archive mostly containing the same content can be found on the Prague-based search engine and data archive Intelligence X.





A start on understanding your (lack of) privacy.

https://www.pogowasright.org/this-simple-tool-will-help-you-see-what-websites-know-about-you/

This Simple Tool Will Help You See What Websites Know About You

Matthew Gault reports:

Big tech knows a lot about us, and finding out exactly what it knows and downloading a copy of it can be a chore. JustGetMyData is a website that helps users navigate sites like Facebook and Twitter so they can download a copy of their data and see what, exactly, our favorite websites know about us.

Read more on Vice.





GDPR moves slowly but the impact is massive.

https://www.databreaches.net/british-airways-set-to-pay-out-billions-in-compensation-over-data-breach/

British Airways set to pay out billions in compensation over data breach

Barclay Ballard reports:

The UK’s flagship airline, British Airways (BA), intends to begin settlement discussions later this year relating to a massive data breach that occurred in 2018. The legal firm responsible for managing the settlements believes that, collectively, BA could end up forking out billions.
Your Lawyers was appointed to the Steering Committee for the BA data breach litigation in 2019 and confirmed that BA has begun settlement discussions.

Read more on TechRadar.





A clip and transcript.

https://bigthink.com/videos/ai-governance

How will we govern super-powerful AI?

AI is likely to be a profoundly transformative general purpose technology that changes virtually every aspect of society, the economy, politics, and the military. And this is just the beginning. The issue doesn't come down to consciousness or "Will AI want to dominate the world or will it not?" That's not the issue. The issue is: "Will AI be powerful and will it be able to generate wealth?" It's very likely that it will be able to do both. And so just given that, the governance of AI is the most important issue facing the world today and especially in the coming decades.





Perspective.

http://reportalert.info/3blmedianews/?mid=312376

New Study Underwritten by Booz Allen Details How AI Is Transforming the San Diego Workforce and Economy

Behind the scenes, AI is having a significant impact on America’s cities, their economies and workforces.

In San Diego, for example, industries where AI engagement is above-average support 175,680 jobs and $33.3 billion in annual gross regional product, according to a new study released by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and underwritten by Booz Allen. One compelling takeaway—95% of the San Diego companies surveyed for the study agreed that “AI will transform my industry.” Moreover, another 89% agreed that “AI will be essential to the future of my business.”

Measuring the Future: AI and San Diego’s Economy is the first in a series of reports detailing key industries and clusters where AI and machine learning (ML) have been implemented in San Diego, and the findings quantify AI’s impact on the regional economy.





Think of the future of editorial ‘cartoons.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-the-government-regulate-deepfakes-11610038590

Can the Government Regulate Deepfakes?

Last month, the British television network Channel 4 broadcast an “alternative Christmas address” by Queen Elizabeth II, in which the 94-year-old monarch was shown cracking jokes and performing a dance popular on TikTok. Of course, it wasn’t real: The video was produced as a warning about deepfakes—apparently real images or videos that show people doing or saying things they never did or said. If an image of a person can be found, new technologies using artificial intelligence and machine learning now make it possible to show that person doing almost anything at all. The dangers of the technology are clear: A high-school teacher could be shown in a compromising situation with a student, a neighbor could be depicted as a terrorist.

Can deepfakes, as such, be prohibited under American law? Almost certainly not. In U.S. v. Alvarez, decided in 2012, a badly divided Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from regulating speech simply because it is a lie.



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