Wednesday, April 14, 2021

So that’s how they did it!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/04/14/azimuth-san-bernardino-apple-iphone-fbi/

The FBI wanted to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. It turned to a little-known Australian firm.

Azimuth unlocked the iPhone at the center of an epic legal battle between the FBI and Apple. Now, Apple is suing the company co-founded by one of the hackers behind the unlock.





Is it more important for governments to read our correspondence than it is for us to protect it?

https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/uk-seeks-to-discourage-facebook-rollout-of-end-to-end-encryption-citing-risks-to-the-safety-of-children/

UK Seeks To Discourage Facebook Rollout of End-to-End Encryption, Citing Risks to the Safety of Children

Since 2019, Facebook has been talking about adding end-to-end encryption to all its messaging services. It appears that the government of the United Kingdom would prefer that these plans go no further. The Home Office, the agency responsible for most of the police work done in England and Wales, is slated to deliver a keynote speech on April 19 that will call on the government to increase regulation of the technology. The speech will be accompanied by a report that takes social media and tech companies to task for not doing enough to protect children.





What would make it less creepy?

https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-deploys-alarming-robot-dog-manhattan-public-housing-complex

NYPD Deploys "Creepy" New Robot Dog In Manhattan Public Housing Complex

The NYPD's robot dog is once again stirring privacy concerns and cyberpunk prophesies of some New Yorkers, after the four-legged machine was spotted inside of a Manhattan public housing complex on Monday.

A video shared on Twitter shows the robot trotting out of a building on East 28th Street in front of two NYPD officers, then slowly descending the stairs as bystanders look on in shock. "I've never seen nothing like this before in my life," one woman can be heard saying.

Since October, the NYPD has dispatched the robot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage situations, raising fears of unwanted surveillance and questions about the department's use of public dollars. The mobile dog, which comes equipped with automated sensors, lights, and cameras capable of collecting "limitless data," is sold at a starting price of $74,000.





At the least, it’s bad policing.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/14/1022676/robert-williams-facial-recognition-lawsuit-aclu-detroit-police/

The new lawsuit that shows facial recognition is officially a civil rights issue

On January 9, 2020, Detroit police drove to the suburb of Farmington Hill and arrested Robert Williams in his driveway while his wife and young daughters looked on. Williams, a Black man, was accused of stealing watches from a luxury store. He was held overnight in jail.

On Tuesday, the ACLU and the University of Michigan Law School’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative filed a lawsuit on behalf of Williams, alleging that the arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights and was in defiance of Michigan’s civil rights law.

The suit requests compensation, greater transparency about the use of facial recognition, and an end to the Detroit Police Department’s use of facial recognition technology, whether direct or indirect.





Probably has more general application.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/can-financial-institutions-prepare-ai-risks/

How Can Financial Institutions Prepare for AI Risks?

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies hold big promise for the financial services industry, but they also bring risks that must be addressed with the right governance approaches, according to a white paper by a group of academics and executives from the financial services and technology industries, published by Wharton AI for Business.





An interesting experiment.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/04/strategy-in-the-artificial-age-observations-from-teaching-an-ai-to-write-a-u-s-national-security-strategy/

STRATEGY IN THE ARTIFICIAL AGE: OBSERVATIONS FROM TEACHING AN AI TO WRITE A U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

Analysts are gifted at identifying the departures from precedent that appear in each new U.S. National Security Strategy.

This article attempts to do the opposite. Instead of asking what has changed across each iteration of this document, this article seeks to understand what has remained the same. To this end, I used machine learning to create the “bernardcodie” program. Bernardcodie is an artificial recurrent neural network trained on the entirety of the U.S. National Security Strategy corpus. Leveraging the natural ability of deep learning networks for pattern identification, this article complements human insight with artificial analysis. So, what patterns are revealed when we teach an artificial neural network the canon of U.S. national security strategies and ask it to write its own strategy?





My AI continues to ask, “Can a corporation (also not a living person) own a patent?”

https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2021/04/14/can-ai-own-patent-new-legal-drama-will-decide

Can an AI own a patent? A new legal drama will decide





Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/annual-threat-assessment-of-the-us-intelligence-community/

Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community

Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “This annual report, April 2021 of worldwide threats to the national security of the United States responds to Section 617 of the FY21 Intelligence Authorization Act (P.L. 116-260). This report reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community (IC), which is committed every day to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers, warfighters, and domestic law enforcement personnel need to protect American lives and America’s interests anywhere in the world. This assessment focuses on the most direct, serious threats to the United States during the next year.





Perspective. Imagine a future where AI Einstein teaches physics and other AIs teach whatever the are experts in.

https://nerdist.com/article/ai-albert-einstein-bot-can-answer-your-questions/

Have a Chat with an A.I. Version of Einstein

For years, sci-fi movies and shows have been showing us a future where someone uses technology to bring back Albert Einstein. On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lt. Barclay brings him back on the holodeck to help solve a puzzle. In Steven Spielberg’s film A.I., Einstein’s a library computer program called “Dr. Know.” Well, we are officially living in the future now. Because someone has created a virtual Einstein who answers questions from users. To interact with the Digital Einstein Experience yourself, be sure to click here.



No comments: