Sunday, May 09, 2021

Strange? Is the US the only country having its infrastructure repeatedly hacked? How does one distinguish this from ‘proof of concept’ testing before using these techniques in a cyber war?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colonial-pipeline-cyberattack-shut-down/

Cyberattack prompts major pipeline operator to halt operations

The Colonial Pipeline Company said in a statement it learned on Friday that it was the victim of a cybersecurity attack, and so "proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems."

In an updated statement on Saturday afternoon it said it had "determined that this incident involves ransomware." [Always a good cover for the military. Bob]

In most ransomware attacks, criminal hackers seize data and demand a large payment to release it, although it's unclear what was taken or whether any demands were made.

It's unclear who is behind the attack. Details of the incident are unclear.

The FBI leads investigations on cyberattack incidents, but infrastructure such as the pipeline is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. [FBI not CISA? Bob]



(Related) Bloomberg seems to know more…

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-09/colonial-hackers-stole-data-thursday-ahead-of-pipeline-shutdown

Colonial Hackers Stole Data Thursday Ahead of Shutdown

The hackers who caused Colonial Pipeline to shut down the biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline on Friday began their blitz against the company a day earlier, stealing a large amount of data before locking computers with ransomware and demanding payment, according to people familiar with the matter.

The intruders, who are part of a cybercrime gang called DarkSide, took nearly 100 gigabytes of data out of the Alpharetta, Georgia-based company’s network in just two hours on Thursday, two people involved in Colonial’s investigation said.

The move was part of a double-extortion scheme that is one of the group’s hallmarks. Colonial was threatened that the stolen data would be leaked to the internet while the information that was encrypted by the hackers on computers inside the network would remain locked unless it paid a ransom, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.





Data is even more valuable than we thought! Predictions have value.

https://lthj.qut.edu.au/article/view/1595

Beyond Privacy: Protecting Data Interests in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Serious challenges are raised by the way in which technology companies like Facebook and Google harvest and process user data. Companies in the modern data economy mine troves of data with sophisticated algorithms to produce valuable behavioural predictions. These data-driven predictions provide companies with a powerful capacity to influence and manipulate users, and these risks are increasing with the explosive growth of ‘Big Data’ and artificial intelligence machine learning. This article analyses the extent to which these challenges are met by existing regimes such as Australia and New Zealand’s respective privacy acts and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regime. While these laws protect certain privacy interests, I argue that users have a broader set of interests in their data meriting protection. I explore three of these novel interests, including the social dimension of data, control and access to predictions mined from data and the economic value of data. This article shows how existing frameworks fail to recognise or protect these novel interests. In light of this failure, lawmakers urgently need to frame new legal regimes to protect against the worst excesses of the data economy.





Might work, might not.

https://lida.hse.ru/article/view/12370

Rights to Intellectual Works Generated with Artificial Intelligence: A Russian View in the Global Context

The broad use of artificial intelligence in creating intellectual works poses difficulties for legislators and courts in choosing the proper legal framework for such works and defining the place of artificial intelligence in the legal system as a whole. In this article, we shall study different models of regulating such issues and analyze the prospects and consequences of their use. We show that only a few of many different models for copyrighting AI-generated works are viable and that the most promising among them is the introduction of a special limited related right for the person who organizes the use of the AI application. This model resembles already existing civil law approaches to protecting the rights of phonogram producers, broadcasting and cablecasting organizations, and database creators. Thus, the inclusion of artificial intelligence into the IP domain does not require reconstructing the legal framework but only adapting existing approaches.





I like it! An alternative to the Terminator.

https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/kesitakademi/issue/62240/932678

FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE THREAT OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY OPERATED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Mary Shelley’s well-known novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) has been one of the greatest works of English literature. The novel contains such a great number and variety of elements that - since its publication, while being studied by many authors - it has been studied from various perspectives from feminism to Marxism, from materialism to psychology. Accordingly, based on a transhumanist view, this paper has been prepared to query the ethics and limits of science by combining and equalling Victor Frankenstein’s Monster and the technology operated with Artificial Intelligence (AI). The paper interrogates to what extent the gadgets both technological and non-technological produced for the good of humanity are useful, and whether they pose a threat to the lifecycle of the universe.





Gosh, everyone knows that computers kill brain cells!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/04/study-finds-no-link-between-time-teens-spend-on-tech-devices-and-mental-health-problems/?sh=d2cc12b2cc9d

Study Finds No Link Between Time Teens’ Spend On Tech Devices And Mental Health Problems

There is “little evidence” of a link between teens’ technology use and mental health problems, according to a new Oxford University study published Tuesday, which could throw into question the myriad policies and laws implemented under the long-held assumption that technology is harmful to children.



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