What happens when you hand enforcement to a bureaucracy?

https://www.pogowasright.org/europes-data-law-is-broken-departing-privacy-chief-warns/

Europe’s Data Law Is Broken, Departing Privacy Chief Warns

Stephanie Bodoni reports:

The European Union’s “GDPR” privacy law suffers from “massive flaws” and endless infighting, according to one of the bloc’s top regulators.

The General Data Protection Regulation — put in motion with great fanfare three years ago — promised multibillion-euro fines for global companies and faster action to solve 21st century problems. But in reality, it’s sparked clashes between watchdogs and delays to probes, said Johannes Caspar, who’s about to step down as head of the Hamburg data protection commission after 12 years.

Read more on Bloomberg.

Edge or over-the-edge computing?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ai-is-taking-over-our-gadgets-11624680004

How AI Is Taking Over Our Gadgets

If you think of AI as something futuristic and abstract, start thinking different.

We’re now witnessing a turning point for artificial intelligence, as more of it comes down from the clouds and into our smartphones and automobiles. While it’s fair to say that AI that lives on the “edge”—where you and I are—is still far less powerful than its datacenter-based counterpart, it’s potentially far more meaningful to our everyday lives.

… These so-called edge devices can be pretty much anything with a microchip and some memory, but they tend to be the newest and most sophisticated of smartphones, automobiles, drones, home appliances, and industrial sensors and actuators. Edge AI has the potential to deliver on some of the long-delayed promises of AI, like more responsive smart assistants, better automotive safety systems, new kinds of robots, even autonomous military machines.

We’re all beginners for the next 20 years…

https://thenextweb.com/news/beginners-guide-to-artificial-intelligence-policy

A beginner’s guide to AI: Policy

Welcome to Neural’s beginner’s guide to AI. This long-running series should provide you with a very basic understanding of what AI is, what it can do, and how it works.

In this edition of the guide, we’ll take a glance at global AI policy.

(Related)

https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/tip/10-steps-to-achieve-AI-implementation-in-your-business

10 steps to achieve AI implementation in your business

Maximizing the value of insights into your business, industry and competition requires a thoughtful, creative, experimental, incremental and team approach to deploying AI.

Interesting thoughts. Not sure I see things exactly their way.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/06/25/how-ai-is-changing-the-nature-of-analytics/

How AI is changing the nature of analytics

At its heart, artificial intelligence is an analytics tool. Its value comes from the ability to parse through enormous amounts of data, without direct human supervision, to identify patterns and anomalies that can then be put to use.

But since human-driven analytics have existed for centuries, long predating the modern computer age, how will this new generation of technology change the game? And how can organizations make sure they are getting their money’s worth once this technology is pushed into production environments?

The key element that AI brings to analytics is context, Oracle’s Joey Fitts and MIT research fellow Tom Davenport recently wrote in the Harvard Business Review. Under traditional analytics, the analyst was rarely an expert in the system or process being analyzed. They knew analytics, not marketing or sales or data networking. Their ultimate recommendations often lacked the context that can only come from broad knowledge and experience.

Interact with an AI developed map.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57615408

'Eyes of a machine': How to classify Planet Earth

We are a force of Nature. Humans have reshaped the surface of the Earth to their whim.

Changes that used to occur naturally over hundreds, even thousands of years, can now turn over in a matter of weeks.

One of the ways we've tried to keep track of this relentless recasting of our planet is through the land cover map.

Researchers will take aerial photos or satellite images and categorise the scene below. Where are the grasslands and forests; the roads and buildings; what is water and what is snow or ice?

… The Living Atlas Sentinel-2 2020 Land Cover Map, produced with the assistance of Microsoft, is open source. Anyone can play with it. Take a look at your home area and see how well you think the model did in gauging the different surface types.

Practical AI? Upgrade your old John Deere tractor.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/safeai-raises-21-million-to-build-smart-vehicles-for-heavy-industry.html

Why driverless tech works for mining and construction but robotaxis aren’t ready, according to SafeAI CEO

Despite the ambitions of Waymo, Cruise, Tesla and others, robotaxis have yet to revolutionize transportation in the U.S., and remain in a state of perpetual technical development. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicles are already at work full-time in heavy industries like mining and construction.

That’s one reason SafeAI founder and CEO Bibhrajit Halder left his autonomous passenger vehicle work behind. The start-up retrofits vehicles and equipment that are already popular in heavy industries – including haul or dump trucks, dozers, and skid steers – with its autonomous systems.

Because I need some of that ‘culture’ stuff…

https://www.bespacific.com/1540-monet-paintings-in-a-two-hour-video/

1540 Monet Paintings in a Two Hour Video

Open Culture – “To know anything about the school of painting called Impressionism, one must know Claude Monet, who gave the movement its name with his painting Impression, Sunrise and provided its method — an almost confrontational relationship with landscape in plein-air. “I have gone back to some things that can’t possibly be done: water, with weeds waving at the bottom,” Monet wrote in a letter to his friend Gustave Geffroy in 1890. “It is a wonderful sight, but it drives one crazy trying to paint it. But that is the kind of thing I am always tackling.” That “kind of thing,” the compulsion to paint nature in motion, required working quickly, repeating the same experiments over and over, despairing of getting it right, producing in the attempt his glorious series of haystacks and water lilies. Monet began painting landscapes upon meeting artist Eugene Boudin, who taught him to paint in open air, and he never stopped, refining his brushstroke for almost seventy years: from his first canvas, 1858’s View from the banks of the Lezade, to his last, The Rose Bush, finished in 1926, the final year of his life…”

Microsoft and the rumor of a free operating system.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/windows-11-use-microsofts-pc-health-check-app-to-check-if-your-device-is-compatible-heres-how/

Windows 11: Use Microsoft's PC Health Check app to check if your device is compatible. Here's how

The new Windows 11 operating system should be compatible with the vast majority of PCs on the market, according to a Windows blog post published Thursday.

… Follow these steps to test whether your PC meets the system requirements for Windows.

1. Download Microsoft's PC Health Check here. Open the file, agree to the terms of service and click Install. Make sure the box is checked that says Open PC Health Check, and click Finish.

2. The app home page that pops up says "PC health at a glance." At the top, a box reads "Introducing Windows 11." Click Check now.

… If your machine is compatible, you can download the Windows 11 update for free when it becomes available around the 2021 holiday season.

External (portable) drives are often used to store evidence…

https://gizmodo.com/western-digital-confirms-my-book-live-drives-are-being-1847171372

Western Digital Confirms 'My Book Live' Drives Are Being Deleted Remotely

Unplug your drives from the internet right now to keep any data safe.

Western Digital’s popular My Book Live hard drives are being deleted remotely by an unknown attacker, according to the company. And there’s not much anyone can do at this point but unplug their drives from the internet.

“We have determined that some My Book Live devices have been compromised by a threat actor,” Western Digital’s Jolin Tan told Gizmodo early Friday by email. “In some cases, this compromise has led to a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device.”

A whole new field to hack. Be the first one on your block to brick your neighbor’s Tesla.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/protecting-the-software-defined-vehicle/

Protecting the Software-Defined Vehicle

The move toward software-defined vehicles is enabling a wealth of safety, comfort and convenience innovations – and the innovations do not stop when those vehicles leave a dealership. Through over-the-air (OTA) updates, the software that runs the vehicle can continue to evolve and improve throughout its lifecycle, delighting consumers for years to come.

This is a powerful capability, but it requires an approach to development that always has cybersecurity in mind. Attacks might come from physical access to a vehicle, or even via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, but cellular connections mean an attacker could potentially access the vehicle’s systems from anywhere in the world.

Could this idea spread?

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/06/banning-surveillance-based-advertising.html

Banning Surveillance-Based Advertising

The Norwegian Consumer Council just published a fantastic new report: “Time to Ban Surveillance-Based Advertising. ” From the Introduction:

The challenges caused and entrenched by surveillance-based advertising include, but are not limited to:

• privacy and data protection infringements

• opaque business models

• manipulation and discrimination at scale

• fraud and other criminal activity

• serious security risks

At least it was unarmed.

https://www.pogowasright.org/baltimore-spy-plane-program-was-invasion-of-citizens-privacy-court-rules/

Baltimore spy plane program was invasion of citizens’ privacy, court rules

Kim Lyons reports:

The city of Baltimore’s spy plane program was unconstitutional, violating the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search, and law enforcement in the city cannot use any of the data it gathered, a court ruled Thursday. The Aerial Investigation Research (or AIR) program, which used airplanes and high-resolution cameras to record what was happening in a 32-square-mile part of the city, was canceled by the city in February.

Local Black activist groups, with support from the ACLU, sued to prevent Baltimore law enforcement from using any of the data it had collected in the time the program was up and running.

Read more on The Verge

EPIC.org writes:

The en banc 4th Circuit ruled today that Baltimore’s warrantless aerial surveillance program violates the Fourth Amendment because it “enables police to deduce from the whole of individuals’ movements[.]” The Aerial Investigation Research program was a public-private partnership with Persistent Surveillance Systems that flew several surveillance planes above Baltimore, capturing detailed video of 32 square miles of the city per second. Using the AIR pilot program, Baltimore Police were able to track individual movements throughout the city for up to 12 hours a day. The pilot program was not renewed at the end of its 6-month term last year. EPIC joined an amicus brief in the case, arguing that under Carpenter v. United States the Baltimore Police Department’s ability to track individuals with at least 45 days of flight video augmented by automated license plate reader systems constituted a search. EPIC previously filed an amicus brief in Carpenter v. United States and has long fought to limit drone surveillance and other forms of aerial spying.

Resource?

https://fpf.org/blog/fpf-partners-with-penn-state-and-university-of-michigan-researchers-on-searchable-database-of-privacy-related-documents/

FPF PARTNERS WITH PENN STATE AND UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN RESEARCHERS ON SEARCHABLE DATABASE OF PRIVACY-RELATED DOCUMENTS

FPF is collaborating with a team of researchers to build a searchable database of privacy policies and other privacy-related documents. The PrivaSeer project, led by researchers from Penn State and the University of Michigan, has received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to ease the process of collecting and utilizing privacy documents and privacy-related data.

AI has a negative impact?

https://hai.stanford.edu/news/new-approach-mitigating-ais-negative-impact

A New Approach To Mitigating AI’s Negative Impact

Stanford launches an Ethics and Society Review Board that asks researchers to take an early look at the impact of their work.

… The Ethics and Society Review (ESR) requires researchers seeking funding from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) to consider how their proposals might pose negative ethical and societal risks, to come up with methods to lessen those risks, and, if needed, to collaborate with an interdisciplinary faculty panel to ensure those concerns are addressed before funding is received.

(Related) If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em?

https://www.protocol.com/workplace/twitter-ethical-ai-meta

How Twitter hired tech's biggest critics to build ethical AI

… One year later, Twitter's commitment to Font's team has convinced even the most skeptical people in tech — the ethics research community itself. Rumman Chowdhury, notorious and beloved by her fellow researchers for her commitment to algorithmic auditing, announced that she would be leaving her new startup to become Twitter's META leader. Kristian Lum, a University of Pennsylvania professor renowned for her work building machine-learning models that could reshape criminal justice, will join Twitter at the end of June as their new head of research. And Sarah Roberts, famous for her critiques of tech companies and the co-director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, will become a consultant for the META team this summer, researching what Twitter users actually want from algorithmic transparency.

I need this technology! It will also be fun to reverse the transformation…

https://thenextweb.com/news/nvidias-vid2vid-cameo-ai-turns-image-into-talking-head-video-videoconferencing

Nvidia AI could let you make video calls in your PJs without anyone knowing

… Nvidia has unveiled an AI model that converts a single 2D image of a person into a “talking head” video.

Known as Vid2Vid Cameo, the deep learning model is designed to improve the experience of videoconferencing.

If you’re running late for a call, you could roll out of bed in your pajamas and disheveled hair, upload a photo of you dressed to impress, and the AI will map your facial movements to the reference image — leaving the other attendees unaware of the chaos behind the camera. That could be a boon for the chronically unkempt, but you should probably test the technique before you turn up in your birthday suit.

This is an interesting story that could provide bad examples in so many areas.

https://www.databreaches.net/westfield-clerk-mayor-battle-over-spyware-installed-on-city-hall-computers/

Westfield clerk, mayor battle over spyware installed on city hall computers

Richard Essex reports:

Spyware was found on all of the computers in the Westfield clerk treasurer’s office, and now she and the mayor are battling in court about it.

This particular software allows remote access to all the data stored in that office, which includes information for a dozen city bank accounts, and personal information for city employees and taxpayers.

Cindy Gossard, Westfield’s clerk treasurer, says she never gave permission to anyone to install the software and she doesn’t know who has access to sensitive city information held by her office.

Read more on WISH-TV.

[From the article:

She believes the spyware was installed by the city’s information technology department in November. She discovered the software around the same time the mayor of Westfield, Andy Cook, sued her.

A simple overview.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-protection/gdpr-three-years-in/

GDPR – Three Years In

May 2021 marks the third anniversary of the biggest shake up to data protection legislation for a number of decades. Even in draft form, GDPR promised disruption and enforcement in spades and although the final version had some changes, it still maintained its prowess. However, did the reality deliver on these and has the carrot won against the stick?

(Related) For good or evil?

https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2021/06/23/senator-gillibrand-announces-renewed-data-protection-act-2021/

Senator Gillibrand Announces Renewed Data Protection Act 2021

On June 17, 2021, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced the reintroduction of the Data Protection Act of 2021 (the “bill”), which would create an independent federal agency, the Data Protection Agency, to “regulate high-risk data practices and the collection, processing, and sharing of personal data.” The bill was first introduced in 2020 and has since been revised to include updated provisions intended to protect against privacy harms, oversee the use of “high-risk data practices” and examine the social, ethical, and economic impacts of data collection.

(Related)

https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-firms-battle-dmca-rules-over-good-faith-research/#ftag=RSSbaffb68

Cybersecurity firms battle DMCA rules over good-faith research

The argument is that current rules are hampering ethical and effective vulnerability reporting.

I want a T-shirt with that slogan.

https://www.bespacific.com/big-data-with-great-data-comes-great-responsibility/

Big data: With great data comes great responsibility

Open Access Government – “Dr Florian Kerschbaum from the University of Waterloo. argues that with great data comes great responsibility in this big data focus. Big data helps us combat the pandemic and build cleaner tech-nology – amongst many other benefits. We collect exposure data to contain and trace the spread of the coronavirus. Genome databases can help build better medications and vaccines. Personalised medicine may eventually allow defeating cancer. We collect household energy consumption to build a smart grid that helps save energy and supports renewable energy sources. Car and ride-sharing services in combination with electrical cars will eventually revolutionise transportation and lead to significantly lower carbon emissions. All these services are based on the collection, processing and sharing of big data, personal data. They come with great societal benefits, but they also come with risks if not handled properly. Personal data stored within large repositories of companies are regularly exfiltrated in data breaches. Almost every individual in Western society has been subject to their data being exposed in almost always multiple data breaches. Nation-state actors have been exposed to conduct cyber-espionage on individuals and companies. Although it is 2021, George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a distinct possibility nowadays. So, we must ask ourselves: How do we combine Western civil liberties with the advance of ubiquitous data collection technologies?…”

Humans, the source of every problem in AI.

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/arguments-against-hand-labeling/

Hand Labeling Considered Harmful

… There’s another critical issue, which is in some ways upstream to the challenges of bias and explainability: while we seem to be living in the future with the creation of machine learning and deep learning models, we are still living in the Dark Ages with respect to the curation and labeling of our training data: the vast majority of labeling is still done by hand.

There are significant issues with hand labeling data:

• It introduces bias, and hand labels are neither interpretable nor explainable.

• There are prohibitive costs to hand labeling datasets (both financial costs and the time of subject matter experts).

• There is no such thing as gold labels: even the most well-known hand labeled datasets have label error rates of at least 5% (ImageNet has a label error rate of 5.8%!).

Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/gartner-51-of-global-knowledge-workers-will-be-remote-by-the-end-of-2021/

Gartner: 51% of global knowledge workers will be remote by the end of 2021

Tech Republic: “By the end of 2021, 51% of all knowledge workers worldwide are expected to be working remotely, up from 27% of knowledge workers in 2019, according to Gartner. The research firm also estimates that remote workers will represent 32% of all employees worldwide by the end of 2021. This is up from 17% of employees in 2019. Gartner defines knowledge workers are those who are involved in knowledge-intensive occupations, such as writers, accountants and engineers. Gartner defines a remote worker as an employee working away from their company, government entity or customer site at least one full day a week (hybrid workers), or who works fully from home (fully remote workers)…”

Tools & techniques. Try the free options first.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-free-mind-map-tools-best-use/

The 6 Best Free Mind Map Tools (And How to Best Use Them)

Mind maps are one of the best-known logical organization tools. It’s a graphic representation of connections between concepts and ideas. The idea starts from a central topic, and we gradually connect them with different branches and label it with notes, symbols, pictures, links, and more.

Cyber crime is big business.

https://threatpost.com/bec-losses-top-18b/167148/

BEC Losses Top $1.8B as Tactics Evolve

… BEC attacks are carried out by cybercriminals either impersonating someone inside an organization, or masquerading as a partner or vendor, bent on financial scamming. A new report from Cisco’s Talos Intelligence examined the tactics of some of the most dangerous BEC attacks observed in the wild in 2020, and reminded the security community that in addition to technology, smart users armed with a healthy skepticism of outside communications and the right questions to ask are the best line of defense.

… It’s easy to get hung up on the splashy breaches of major global companies. But the true revenue is being generated by smaller BEC attacks, the report said.

I’m worried that this starts us on the slippery slope to ‘papers’ required for everything, buying food, traveling, breathing…

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/vaccine-passports-market-decide/

Vaccine Passports: Why the Market Should Decide

In this opinion piece, Robert Field argues that the market, not state laws, should determine whether businesses can require proof of vaccination by customers and staff.

“No shoes, no shirt, no service.” You’ve almost certainly seen those words on a sign outside a store near a beach on a summer day. How about – “no vaccination, no verification, no visit”? Might we soon start to see words like those?

Privacy tool.

https://www.pogowasright.org/brave-launches-its-privacy-focused-no-tracking-search-engine/

Brave launches its privacy-focused no-tracking search engine

Lawrence Abrams reports:

Today, Brave launched their non-tracking privacy-centric search engine to bring another alternative to finding the information you want on the web without giving up your data.

Brave Search is being launched first in Beta so that users can test the new search engine while Brave continues to refine its features. Users who wish to test the latest search engine can try it in any existing browser, and it is the new default search engine for Brave Browser.

Read more on BleepingComputer.

Trust, but verify because employees are scum.

https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/78-of-employers-admit-to-using-digital-surveillance-tools-on-remote-workers

78% of employers admit to using digital surveillance tools on remote workers

The shift to remote work during COVID-19 spawned a rapid growth in employee monitoring software to allow bosses to digitally drop in on their remote workforce to ensure they're getting the job done.

It's been called "tattleware" or "bossware." The programs can measure an employee's active and idle time, track keystrokes and websites visited, record emails, chats and phone calls, even take screenshots and access webcams.

Managers may be gaining insight into how their remote workers spend the day but the adoption of workplace surveillance technology is making employees uncomfortable.

What else have you agreed to?

https://www.pogowasright.org/wisconsin-no-more-drawing-blood-from-unconscious-motorists/

Wisconsin: No More Drawing Blood From Unconscious Motorists

From TheNewspaper.com:

Wisconsin Supreme Court tells police they need to get a warrant before taking blood from unconscious drivers.

Police in Wisconsin may no longer draw blood from unconscious motorists following a state Supreme Court ruling last week. The justices declared unconstitutional a provision of state law stating unresponsive motorists are deemed to give their consent to blood draws when they applied for a driver’s license. As a result of the decision, police will have to secure a warrant in cases like that of Dawn M. Prado, who was involved in a fatal collision on Highway MM in Fitchburg on December 12, 2014.

Read more on TheNewspaper.com.

That doctor – patient relationship without a hint of privacy.

https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-the-internet-of-behaviors-and-how-does-it-affect-you/

What Is the Internet of Behaviors and How Does It Affect You?

… Internet of Behaviors, also known as IoB, refers to the collection and analysis of data and information gotten from users' devices to influence their behavior. Internet of Behavior entails turning the data gotten from devices connected to the internet into information then into knowledge that can be used to better satisfy the user of that product, using the user's behaviors, interests, and preferences

Me, Myself, and AI podcast. (Transcript also)

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio/starting-now-on-technology-ethics-elizabeth-renieris/

Starting Now On Technology Ethics: Elizabeth Renieris

The founding director of the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab shares her views on corporate data governance.

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio/starting-now-on-technology-ethics-elizabeth-renieris/#audio-player__audio

Thinking about technology and law.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/autonomous-vehicles-as-a-killer-app-for-ai/

Autonomous vehicles as a “killer app” for AI

… Autonomous vehicles will likely transform our economy, including changing the role of humans in transportation-related industries and potentially reducing emissions and increasing safety, all of which should ultimately lead to economic growth. However, large-scale adoption of autonomous vehicles and the ensuing economic growth will likely take time. The technology is still in development and consumers remain wary of autonomous vehicles. Moreover, federal and state legislation is still nascent, and there are competing standards for communication between vehicles. All of this needs to be resolved before AVs can become a “killer app.”

Any change is hard. Any help is welcome.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/changing-someones-mind-powerful-new-approach/

Changing Someone’s Mind: A Powerful New Approach

… No one likes to feel like someone is trying to influence them. The natural reaction to being told what to do, whether it’s to support a change initiative, accept a starting salary, or stop smoking, is to resist by pushing back. The more you allow for autonomy and allow people to participate in the process, the more effective you’ll be. Use one or a combination of four proven tactics for helping guide people to make the choice you prefer.