As attacks get seriouser and seriouser, when will we cross the threshold that guarantees war?

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/10/1020596/how-chinas-attack-on-microsoft-escalated-into-a-reckless-hacking-spree/

How China’s attack on Microsoft escalated into a “reckless” hacking spree

At first the Chinese hackers ran a careful campaign. For two months, they exploited weaknesses in Microsoft Exchange email servers, picked their targets carefully, and stealthily stole entire mailboxes. When investigators eventually caught on, it looked like typical online espionage—but then things accelerated dramatically.

Around February 26, the narrow operation turned into something much bigger and much more chaotic. Just days later, Microsoft publicly disclosed the hacks—the hackers are now known as Hafnium—and issued a security fix. But by then attackers were looking for targets across the entire internet: in addition to tens of thousands of reported victims in the US, governments around the world are announcing that they were compromised too. Now at least 10 hacking groups, most of them government-backed cyber-espionage teams, are exploiting the vulnerabilities on thousands of servers in over 115 countries, according to the security firm ESET.

While President Joe Biden contemplates retaliating against the Russian hackers whose attack on another software company, SolarWinds, became public in December, the Hafnium hack has become an enormous free-for-all, and its consequences could be even worse.

(Related) Being a ‘security partner’ would really help a hacker group.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-probing-whether-leak-played-role-in-suspected-chinese-hack-11615575793?mod=djemalertNEWS

Microsoft Probes Whether Leak Played Role in Suspected Chinese Hack

Microsoft Corp. is investigating whether the hackers behind a world-wide cyberattack may have obtained sensitive information necessary to launch the attack from private disclosures it made with some of its security partners, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wider implications?

https://www.pogowasright.org/google-must-face-suit-over-snooping-on-incognito-browsing/

Google Must Face Suit Over Snooping on ‘Incognito’ Browsing

Malathi Nayak and Joel Rosenblatt report:

Google failed to kill a lawsuit alleging that it secretly scoops up troves of internet data even if users browse in “Incognito” mode to keep their search activity private.

The consumers who filed the case as a class action alleged that even when even they turn off data collection in Chrome, other Google tools used by websites end up amassing their personal information. A federal judge on Friday denied the Alphabet Inc. unit’s initial request to throw out the case.

Read more on Bloomberg.

(Related)

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-google-android-listening/

Your Phone Is Secretly Always Recording: How to Stop Google From Listening

Is your phone always listening to you? Does Google keep a log of everything you say? And if so, what can you do about it?

In an age where every device has a microphone and they're made by companies who love to track what you do, these are valid questions. Let's take a look at the facts behind Google's recordings and how to stop your phone from listening to you.

Hey, we scanned your text to teach computers to read, your voice messages to teach them to talk, your pictures to learn to recognize faces, so why not your home movies?

https://www.engadget.com/facebook-ai-video-training-user-videos-192132366.html

Facebook is using AI to understand videos and create new products

Facebook has taken the wraps off a project called Learning from Videos. It uses artificial intelligence to understand and learn audio, textual, and visual representations in public user videos on the social network.

… Facebook says it has already harnessed the tech to enhance Instagram Reels recommendations, such as surfacing videos of people doing the same dance to the same music. The system is showing improved results in speech recognition errors as well, which could bolster auto-captioning features and make it easier to detect hate speech in videos.

Because we remember when one meter resolution was the best we could do. Now better than 6 inches!

https://spacenews.com/umbra-15-centimeters/

Umbra advertises SAR imagery with 15-centimeter resolution

Radar satellite startup Umbra plans to capture imagery with a resolution as high as 15 centimeters per pixel thanks to a Federal Communications Commission license.

Tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/essential-iphone-apps-for-writers/

5 Essential iPhone Apps for Every Writer

Mobile writing apps enable you to work on projects wherever you are. Whether you’re looking for a complex word processor or a minimalist note-taking app, these iPhone writing apps can help with your task.

Your money or your beer? That’s a new one!

https://www.databreaches.net/cyber-attack-causes-systems-outage-at-molson-coors/

Cyber attack causes systems outage at Molson Coors

Yesterday, WTMJ reported:

Molson Coors was the target of a cyber attack, the company confirmed to WTMJ on Wednesday. The brewery experienced a “systems outage due to a cyber-security incident,” according to Adam Collins, the company’s chief communications and corporate affairs officer.

While some outlets questioned whether the attack might be related to the Microsoft Exchange issue that has been in the news, BleepingComputer sources suggest it may be a ransomware attack.

Probably worth following, but I need to find a non-Twitter aggregation tool.

https://techbeacon.com/enterprise-it/nothing-artificial-here-30-ai-experts-follow-twitter

Nothing artificial here: 30 AI experts to follow on Twitter

… To help you get started on the learning curve, or to further increase your knowledge base, we've selected 30 people working in the AI/ML field who are talking about the topic on Twitter.

(Note: We've broken these experts down by category. There are academic researchers, practitioners, authors, tech leaders, software quality gurus, and, yes, two ethicists.)

Take-down is going to be the tough part.

https://fpf.org/blog/india-massive-overhaul-of-digital-regulation-with-strict-rules-for-take-down-of-illegal-content-and-automated-scanning-of-online-content/

INDIA: MASSIVE OVERHAUL OF DIGITAL REGULATION, WITH STRICT RULES FOR TAKE-DOWN OF ILLEGAL CONTENT AND AUTOMATED SCANNING OF ONLINE CONTENT

On February 25, the Indian Government notified and published Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. These rules mirror the Digital Services Act (DSA) proposal of the EU to some extent, since they propose a tiered approach based on the scale of the platform, they touch on intermediary liability, content moderation, take-down of illegal content from online platforms, as well as internal accountability and oversight mechanisms, but they go beyond such rules by adding a Code of Ethics for digital media, similar to the Code of Ethics classic journalistic outlets must follow, and by proposing an “online content” labelling scheme for content that is safe for children.

The Code of Ethics applies to online news publishers, as well as intermediaries that “enable the transmission of news and current affairs”. This part of the Guidelines (the Code of Ethics) has already been challenged in the Delhi High Court by news publishers this week.

Curious how any tool could be used for long without an understanding of how it worked. What would the company’s liability be if its software resulted in convictions without basis?

https://thenextweb.com/tech/2021/03/12/dna-software-for-criminal-cases-new-scrutiny-syndication/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

Powerful DNA software used in hundreds of criminal cases faces new scrutiny

… The latest practice to come under scrutiny is an obscure technique, “probabilistic genotyping,” that takes incomplete or otherwise inscrutable DNA left behind at a crime scene, often in minuscule amounts, and runs it through a software program that calculates how likely it is to have come from a particular person. One such program, TrueAllele, has been used in more than 850 criminal cases over the past 20 years. The problem? No one knows whether it works—the code, developed by a private company called Cybergenetics, is proprietary.

Government crime labs that use the software don’t get access to the program’s source code. Employees of Cybergenetics don’t get access. Even the authors of the peer-reviewed studies of TrueAllele have never had access to the code.

But now, two criminal cases—one in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and another in the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey— may give the world a first peek into TrueAllele’s secretive algorithm. Last month, the New Jersey judge ordered prosecutors to hand over the source code for TrueAllele, and a few weeks later, the federal judge in Pennsylvania did the same.

How do I find a neutral source?

https://themarkup.org/citizen-browser/2021/03/11/split-screen?feed=biden_trump

How Different Are Americans’ Facebook Feeds?

Snapshots from the Facebook feeds of our Citizen Browser panelists illuminate how Facebook’s recommendation algorithm siloes information on the platform.

Facebook’s recommendation algorithm shows different news, groups, and hashtags to different users. But who sees what? Split Screen attempts to answer that question with real world data from paid panelists as part of The Markup's Citizen Browser project. Now showing two weeks of data collected from Friday Feb. 26 to Today.

Getting rid of students...

https://www.makeuseof.com/google-search-jobs-carousel/

Google Search Rolls Out New Tools to Help Job Seekers

How could you be surprised if you follow facial recognition at all?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx83bz/verkada-hacked-facial-recognition-customers

Hacked Surveillance Camera Firm Shows Staggering Scale of Facial Recognition

Hackers have broken into Verkada, a popular surveillance and facial recognition camera company, and managed to access live feeds of thousands of cameras across the world, as well as siphon a Verkada customer list. The breach shows the astonishing reach of facial recognition-enabled cameras in ordinary workplaces, bars, parking lots, schools, stores, and more.

If not faces, license plates. No rules here?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/license-plate-scans-aid-crime-solving-but-spur-little-privacy-debate-11615384816?mod=djemalertNEWS

License-Plate Scans Aid Crime-Solving but Spur Little Privacy Debate

License-plate readers are feeding immense databases with details on Americans’ driving habits, helping solve crimes despite little public awareness about the breadth of the data collected or how it is used.

The vast network of automated license-plate scanners, which has been growing for decades, makes it nearly impossible to drive anywhere in the U.S. without being observed. The scanners first appeared on telephone poles and police cars, then on toll plazas and bridges, and in parking lots. Today, scanners are routinely placed on tow trucks and municipal garbage trucks, gathering images of plates on cars they pass while making their rounds.

… The scanners, which automatically grab images of any plates they identify, are an often-overlooked layer of the surveillance that blankets Americans, along with social media, online searches, mobile-phone apps and credit-card purchases. Private companies feed snapshots of plate numbers—including time, date and location—then share that information with police departments, which are largely free to access it at their discretion.

The scope of these data pools is difficult to measure. But Vigilant Solutions, a division of Motorola Solutions Inc. and one of the largest private vendors of data and scanners, boasted a decade ago that it had 450 million plate scans in its commercial database, with 35 million new plates added each month.

Today, the company’s marketing materials say its database contains more than nine billion scans of American citizens’ license plates. That means Vigilant—one of dozens of companies in its industry—has more than 30 license-plate scans for every registered vehicle on the nation’s roads today.

Interesting. Do you have to point to a specific person or policy?

https://www.insideprivacy.com/data-privacy/german-court-overturns-gdpr-fine-raises-legal-questions-about-fines-against-companies/

German Court Overturns GDPR Fine, Raises Legal Questions About Fines Against Companies

On February 18, 2021, the District Court of Berlin overturned a €14.5 million fine that had been imposed on German real estate company Deutsche Wohnen SE. The Court held that the fine – which was issued by the Berlin Supervisory Authority (“SA”) and had been the second highest fine in Germany so far under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) – failed to satisfy certain rules under German law, and therefore was invalid.

This case raises important questions on the interplay between the GDPR and German law regarding the attribution of regulatory offenses to a company. In this blog post, we consider this topic in greater depth and how it may eventually be resolved in court.

… Although the official decision of the Berlin District Court has yet to be published, the Berlin SA said the Court concluded that “fines can only be imposed on legal entities if there is evidence of a specific act by management or legal representatives that led to the offense” (see press release of the Berlin SA here, in German).

But can we teach them to lie well?

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2021/03/10/it-might-be-unethical-to-force-ai-to-tell-us-the-truth/

Study: It might be unethical to force AI to tell us the truth

… A team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University today published a pre-print study discussing situations like this and whether we should allow AI to lie. Perhaps shockingly, the researchers appear to claim that not only should we develop AI that lies, but it’s actually ethical. And maybe even necessary.

… You can check out the entire study here on arXiv.

Antitrust is the new “in” topic?

https://www.ft.com/content/d5bb5ebb-87ef-4968-8ff5-76b3a215eefc

EU struggles to build antitrust case against Amazon

Regulators in Brussels are struggling to gather enough evidence to bring antitrust charges against Amazon, despite working on the landmark case for nearly two years, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

In July 2019, EU regulators accused the online retailer of manipulating its algorithm to boost its own products “artificially” over its rivals’. As a result, they alleged, users often end up buying lower-quality products at a higher price.

But EU officials are still struggling to understand how Amazon's algorithm works, despite sending a series of detailed questions to the company about the criteria used to boost a product’s visibility, according to people familiar with the matter.

These people added that officials are also unlikely to be able to view the online retailer's proprietary code directly to build their case, owing to legal barriers around trade secrets.

(Related)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-to-dismiss-antitrust-suits-saying-it-hasnt-harmed-consumers-11615400041?mod=djemalertNEWS

Facebook Seeks to Dismiss Antitrust Suits, Saying It Hasn’t Harmed Consumers

Facebook Inc. FB +3.01% on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss antitrust lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, arguing that government enforcers have no valid basis for alleging the social media giant is suppressing competition.

The FTC “utterly ignores the reality of the dynamic, intensely competitive high-tech industry in which Facebook operates,” the company said in seeking to dismiss the commission’s case. In a second motion, Facebook argued the states’ case “does not and cannot assert that their citizens paid higher prices, that output was reduced, or that any objective measure of quality declined as a result of Facebook’s challenged actions.”

I want one! Should be a simple upgrade to deal with a Miller Moth infestation. New York might deploy on to handle their ‘Sky Rats’ (pigeons).

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Terrifying-Raspberry-Pi-powered-AI-mosquito-killing-laser-gives-off-serious-Terminator-vibes.527273.0.html

Terrifying Raspberry Pi-powered AI mosquito-killing laser gives off serious Terminator vibes

A Russian PhD student at South Ural University, apparently irked by the fact that disease-spreading mosquitos kill hundreds of thousands of people every year, created an innovative, if utterly horrifying solution: a 1W laser controlled by a Raspberry Pi, powered by an AI neural network, capable of detecting and incinerating mosquitos all by itself.

Perspective.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/beneath-the-surface-monitoring-the-deep-and-dark-web/

Beneath the Surface: Monitoring the Deep and Dark Web

We are all familiar with the web that Google shows us – the “visible” surface web that is indexed by search engines. When you search for your own name on Google, you’re likely met with results that are familiar to you, including social media profiles, your bio on your employer’s website, and maybe a few local media clippings if you’ve been interviewed by the press. As vast as it may seem, with millions of results for even just a simple search of your name, the surface web actually only makes up about 4% of the entire web. Just like an iceberg, there is a much larger part of the web, the deep web, that is beneath the surface and not indexed. This means search engines cannot “crawl” this information (think: paywalled content, bank account information, medical records, etc.). You cannot locate it with a simple Google search. Enterprises focus much of their attention on the surface web, and rightfully so, because these results make up your company’s public presence. However, monitoring the hidden corners of the internet is just as if not more important for risk professionals.

Learn from the failures of others. How not to gather electronic evidence?

https://www.bespacific.com/you-know-its-bad-when-the-court-decision-has-a-table-of-contents-part-deux/

You Know It’s Bad When The Court Decision Has A Table Of Contents: Part Deux

Above The Law - “…In DR Distributors, LLC v. 21 Century Smoking, Inc., originally filed in 2012, two companies that sell electronic cigarettes brought suit and counterclaims alleging, among other things, trademark violations under the Lanham Act. The court’s decision is 256 pages long. Like the Smalls decision 18 months ago, this decision was at times painful to read. Not because it was long but because it seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In truth, though, most of the damage was entirely self-inflicted and could have been avoided. Much of the blame here is on the defendant because they had repeatedly told former defense counsel that all relevant ESI [electronically stored information] was on four computer hard drives and that they “had all the data,” which was false — and they knew it was false. The defendant here did nothing to educate counsel otherwise, even after it became apparent that defense counsel was under a distinct misunderstanding. In the end, the defendant failed to reasonably search for and produce ESI even after it had been instructed to do so by the court. Former counsel for the defendant is not without blame, though. His errors were fundamental. And “because those fundamental errors occurred at the outset of the case, they permeated the entire case from then on,” the court wrote. Defense counsel failed to understand his client’s ESI, failed to conduct custodian interviews, and failed to issue a written legal hold. In fact, the client here was left to perform the “self-collection of ESI without any instruction, monitoring, or documentation.” In the end, the defendant failed to preserve and timely disclose relevant ESI. Relevant information was spoliated and even after the spoliation was discovered defendant lied about it and counsel failed to inform the court…”

Heads-up (literally). Another theater for war.

https://thenextweb.com/space/2021/03/09/star-wars-france-conducts-first-military-drills-in-space/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

Star wars: France conducts first military drills in space

France today began the first-ever military training drills conducted in space. Begun, the star wars era has.

Working with US Space Force and German space command, the French training drills were designed in response to the shifting global attitude towards space.

According to French news outlet AFP, via Phys.Org, France’s Space Command was announced in 2019. Defense minister Florence Parly told reporters at the time that France needed to act because its “allies and adversaries” were “militarizing space.”

Could be interesting if the court agrees… I suspect they will not agree.

https://www.pogowasright.org/epic-to-supreme-court-congress-allows-people-to-sue-when-their-privacy-rights-are-violated/

EPIC to Supreme Court: Congress Allows People to Sue when their Privacy Rights are Violated

From EPIC.org:

EPIC has filed an amicus brief in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that people can sue when their privacy rights are violated, regardless of whether they allege that the violation led to other harms. The case concerns a suit brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), one of many laws that create privacy rights for individuals to help them maintain control over their personal information. Ramirez and many others sued after TransUnion violated the FCRA, but the company argued that they don’t have “standing” to sue. Other tech companies also filed a brief arguing that the Supreme Court should limit standing in privacy lawsuits. Standing is a constitutional doctrine that dictates when federal courts have authority to resolve cases. EPIC argued that privacy plaintiffs have standing to sue and that “standing was never meant to be a complicated inquiry or a substantial barrier to the vindication of legal rights.” EPIC warned that “[c]ourts that require proof of consequential harm are usurping the legislative role and rewriting these privacy laws” because “it is not the business of courts to tell Congress which rights are enforceable, and which are not.” EPIC previously filed an amicus brief in Spokeo and frequently files amicus briefs in cases interpreting standing under a variety of privacy laws.

A simpler decision?

https://www.pogowasright.org/epic-aclu-eff-push-court-to-limit-warrantless-forensic-searches-of-cell-phones/

EPIC, ACLU, & EFF Push Court to Limit Warrantless Forensic Searches of Cell Phones

From EPIC.org:

EPIC, together with the ACLU and EFF, recently filed an amicus brief in Wisconsin v. Burch, urging the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stop police from conducting warrantless forensic searches of cell phones and indefinitely retaining the data based on vague consent forms. The defendant in the case had verbally consented to a limited search of his text messages during a hit-and-run investigation. Police then asked him to sign a vague consent form that did not specify his phone would be forensically analyzed and the data stored indefinitely. Police used a forensic device to download the entire contents of the phone, retained a full copy, and disclosed data that was outside the scope of his limited verbal consent to another department for use in an unrelated investigation. In their brief, EPIC, ACLU, and EFF argued that someone who consents to a limited search does not reasonably expect police may access, copy, and store vast amounts of personal information held on their phone. These searches violate the Fourth Amendment by “enabl[ing] the State to rummage at will among a person’s most personal and private information whenever it wanted, for as long as it wanted” without a warrant. EPIC regularly files amicus briefs challenging unlawful access to cell phone data.

Is every user presumed guilty? I wonder who is behind companies like this… The police?

https://therecord.media/dutch-and-belgian-police-take-down-encrypted-criminal-chat-platform-sky-ecc/

Belgian and Dutch police take down encrypted criminal chat platform Sky ECC

Law enforcement agencies from the Netherlands and Belgium have shut down today Sky ECC, a company that provided a secure encrypted messaging platform to criminal organizations across the world.

Authorities said they infiltrated the platform in mid-February 2021 and have managed to intercept live messages exchanged through the company’s servers.

Officials said they used the access they gained last month to collect information on Sky ECC customers and help prevent violent crimes, such as kidnappings, shootings, and murders.

… Dutch Police said Sky ECC launched last year after a similar police investigation shut down Encrochat, a company that provided a similar secure platform and encrypted phones to cybercriminals.

Research tools.

https://www.bespacific.com/search-scholarly-materials-preserved-in-the-internet-archive/

Search Scholarly Materials Preserved in the Internet Archive

Internet Archive Blogs – “Looking for a research paper but can’t find a copy in your library’s catalog or popular search engines? Give Internet Archive Scholar a try! We might have a PDF from a “vanished” Open Access publisher in our web archive, an author’s pre-publication manuscript from their archived faculty webpage, or a digitized microfilm version of an older publication. We hope Internet Archive Scholar will aid researchers and librarians looking for specific open access papers that may not be otherwise available to them. Judith van Stegeren (@jd7g on Twitter), a PhD candidate in the Netherlands, encountered just such a situation recently when sharing a workshop paper on procedural generation in computer games: “Towards Qualitative Procedural Generation” by Mark R. Johnson, originally presented at the Computational Creativity & Games Workshop in 2016. The papers for this particular year of the workshop are not indexed in the usual bibliographic catalogs, and the original workshop website hosting the Open Access papers is no longer accessible. Fortunately, copies of all the 2016 workshop papers were captured in the Wayback Machine, and can be found today by searching IA Scholar by title or conference name.…”

Tools for getting rid of students…

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-prepare-virtual-job-fair/

How to Prepare for a Virtual Job Fair

Virtual job fairs are convenient networking opportunities. If you plan on attending one, keep these tips in mind.

Leaking data by default.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/over-half-of-fortune-500-companies-are-leaving-sensitive-information-open-to-reconnaissance-via-document-metadata/

Over Half of Fortune 500 Companies Are Leaving Sensitive Information Open to Reconnaissance via Document Metadata

PDF files hosted by many organizations, including more than half of the companies listed on the Fortune 500, are leaking sensitive information. PDF document metadata can contain a variety of information that provides attackers with the reconnaissance details they need to execute a more targeted and sophisticated attack: employee names and positions, the software used to author the PDF file, web server version, physical location, and in some cases even employee ID numbers meant for internal use.

While most of the major PDF authoring tools allow one to turn off the recording of document metadata, it is generally on by default and most users do not manually disable it.

Try not to fight the last war.

https://www.govtech.com/news/Opinion-Artificial-Intelligences-Military-Risks-Potential.html

Opinion: Artificial Intelligence’s Military Risks, Potential

In the future, all combat decisions — including targets, how much to fire to minimize collateral damage — could be made by robots, with humans just monitoring the battlefield situation from a central command.

Former Secretary of the Navy J. William Middendorf II, of Little Compton, lays out the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party in his recent book, "The Great Nightfall."

With the emerging priority of artificial intelligence (AI), China is shifting away from a strategy of neutralizing or destroying an enemy’s conventional military assets — its planes, ships and army units. AI strategy is now evolving into dominating what are termed adversaries’ “systems-of-systems” — the combinations of all their intelligence and conventional military assets.

What China would attempt first is to disable all of its adversaries’ information networks that bind their military systems and assets.

I seem to remember proposing this many years ago. “Trusted custodians”

https://www.bespacific.com/how-data-trusts-can-protect-privacy/

How data trusts can protect privacy

MIT Technology Review – “…Data trusts are a relatively new concept, but their popularity has grown quickly. In 2017, the UK government first proposed them as a way to make larger data sets available for training artificial intelligence. A European Commission proposal in early 2020 floated data trusts as a way to make more data available for research and innovation. And in July 2020, India’s government came out with a plan that prominently featured them as a mechanism to give communities greater control over their data. In a legal setting, trusts are entities in which some people (trustees) look after an asset on behalf of other people (beneficiaries) who own it. In a data trust, trustees would look after the data or data rights of groups of individuals. And just as doctors have a duty to act in the interest of their patients, data trustees would have a legal duty to act in the interest of the beneficiaries…”

‘cause I know lawyers who teach.

https://www.bespacific.com/teaching-technology-to-future-lawyers/

Teaching Technology to (Future) Lawyers

Barczentewicz, Mikolaj, Teaching Technology to (Future) Lawyers (February 23, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3791608 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3791608

“The paper offers a reflection on how applications of computer technology (including data analytics) are and may be taught to (future) lawyers and what are the benefits and limitations of the different approaches. There is a growing sense among legal professionals and law teachers that the technological changes in the practice of law are likely to promote the kind of knowledge and skills that law graduates often do not possess today. Teaching computer technology can be done in various ways and at various levels of depth and that those different ways and levels have different cost and benefit considerations. The paper discusses four models of teaching technology: (1) teaching basic technological literacy, (2) more advanced but general technology teaching, (3) teaching computer programming and quantitative methods and (4) teaching a particular aspect of technology – other than programming (e.g. cybersecurity). I suggest that there are strong reasons for all current and future lawyers to acquire proficiency in effective uses of office and legal research software and standard means of online communication and basic cybersecurity. This can be combined with teaching of numerical and informational literacy. I also claim that advanced technology topics, like computer programming, should only be taught to the extent this is justified by the direct need for such skills and knowledge in students’ future careers, which I predict to be true for only a minority of current lawyers and law students.”

Has being shut-in reduced our entertainment options to this?

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-make-alexa-swear/

How to Make Alexa Swear

Want to have a bit of fun with Amazon’s Alexa? We’ll show you how to make the personal assistant swear.

An article for geeks.

https://www.notboring.co/p/excel-never-dies

Excel Never Dies

🎧 To get this essay straight in your ears: listen here or on Spotify or Apple Podcast

… We love Excel, everyone reading this probably loves Excel, and still, its impact is deeply underappreciated. Today, we’re going to fully appreciate it by covering:

• The History of Excel

• Excel as a Language

• The Lindy Effect

• Excel’s Limitations

• No-Code and the Unbundling of Excel

• Why Excel Will Never Die

Tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/13-windows-diagnostics-tools-check-pcs-health/

15 Windows Diagnostics Tools to Check Your PC's Health

Too big to boycott? They must make a real effort to get this policy so screwed up. Should the manufacturers pull their products? Can they afford to?

https://kdvr.com/news/local/i-wont-go-back-new-walmart-checkout-policy-called-racially-biased/

‘Honestly, I was shocked’: New Walmart checkout policy called racially biased

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (KDVR) — A security policy at the Walmart in Centennial is under scrutiny after complaints of racial bias.

The allegations of racial bias come almost a year after Walmart changed its practice on locking up beauty products for people of color at its stores.

… Rachel was purchasing shampoo in the beauty products for people of color aisle when she was allegedly stopped by a clerk who told her she needed to pay for the bottle at a special register near the back of the store before she could continue shopping in other parts of the Walmart store.

“I asked the sales associate, if I am purchasing Caucasian products do I need to do the same thing? She said no you can walk around the store with those products,” Rachel told the Problem Solvers. “I told her I had more shopping to do, she said it didn’t matter I still needed to pay for it back there.”