If they had not grown 300+ percent, the fine likely would have been proportionately impactful.

https://threatpost.com/zoom-settlement-85m-security-investment/168445/

Zoom Settlement: An $85M Business Case for Security Investment

… “This large Zoom settlement should be a wake-up call to not only all software and service providers, but also for the enterprises that use them,” Emil Sayegh, president and CEO of Ntirety explained to Threatpost. “The only answer is a comprehensive security posture.”

No one could have possibly predicted how quickly Zoom would become the go-to way to do business in a pandemic-plagued economy. For context, on March 15, 2020, the day stay-at-home orders started to snowball across the globe, almost 600,000 users downloaded the app. In 2020, the Zoom reported a 326 percent spike in sales, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan announced last March the company is still anticipating a 40-percent increase in sales in 2021.

The video-conferencing platform’s exploding user base also drew attention to security, with many wondering just how secure the app really was. By late March, Zoom found itself accused of misrepresenting its security. The company’s claims of offering end-to-end encryption turned out not to be exactly true, leaving conference data visible to Zoom itself.

Zoombombings also became an issue. Pranksters inserting pornographic images and other intrusions into conference meetings and even school sessions became so regular on the platform that by April 2020, the FBI was threatening teleconference hackers with jail time. The Zoombombings also drew the attention of New York Attorney General Letitia James who scrutinized the platform’s security.

In the middle of all this, Zoom also had to remove an iOS app that was sharing analytics with Facebook without disclosing the fact to users.

What followed was a class-action lawsuit filed in California for Zoom’s privacy violations.

If you had this data, what would you do with it?

https://news.yahoo.com/china-stolen-enough-data-compile-110000433.html

China has stolen enough data to compile a 'dossier' on every American

… Matthew Pottinger, a former Trump deputy national security adviser, warned during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday that China was looking to use the data it had stolen from the United States and worldwide to influence and coerce everyone from political leaders to private citizens.

“Assembling dossiers on people has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Beijing’s penetration of digital networks worldwide, including using 5G networks … has really taken this to a new level,” Pottinger said. “So, the Party now compiles dossiers on millions of foreign citizens around the world, using the material that it gathers to influence, target, intimidate, reward, blackmail, flatter, humiliate, and ultimately divide and conquer.”

Looks like the worms from this can Apple opened are opening other cans…

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/06/apple-to-consider-csam-detection-per-country/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Apple Addresses CSAM Detection Concerns, Will Consider Expanding System on Per-Country Basis

Apple this week announced that, starting later this year with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, the company will be able to detect known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) images stored in iCloud Photos, enabling Apple to report these instances to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a non-profit organization that works in collaboration with law enforcement agencies across the United States.

The plans have sparked concerns among some security researchers and other parties that Apple could eventually be forced by governments to add non-CSAM images to the hash list for nefarious purposes, such as to suppress political activism.

"No matter how well-intentioned, Apple is rolling out mass surveillance to the entire world with this," said prominent whistleblower Edward Snowden, adding that "if they can scan for kiddie porn today, they can scan for anything tomorrow." The non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation also criticized Apple's plans, stating that "even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor."

(Related)

https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/06/apple-internal-memo-icloud-photo-scanning-concerns/

In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features, doubles down on the need to protect children

… In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features, doubles down on the need to protect children

Always a fun topic for my students to kick around.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/06/self-driving-ai-death-decisions/

How should autonomous cars make life-or-death decisions? In the best of worlds, they won’t.

The goal of machine learning, say advocates, should be getting to the point where we’re asking if it’s ethical to let people drive.

… “You need to solve safety to get to autonomy, not the other way around,” he said. But the wider industry’s approach was to begin with so-called Level 1 driver assistance features. Then, incrementally work up to a vision that has yet to be realized: Level 5 cars or vehicles advanced enough to make better decisions than humans in all driving conditions — including life-or-death scenarios.

That’s where philosophers and ethicists have long brought up one of the foundational issues facing an autonomous-driving future. It’s known as the “trolley problem,” and it basically boils down to this: How do you teach a car to make complex, life-or-death decisions in seemingly lose-lose scenarios on the road? And if cars can’t do this, would you trust them to carry your child to school or your parent to a doctor’s appointment?

… So now many, including Lunn, are approaching the issue from a different perspective: Why not stop cars from getting in life-or-death situations in the first place?

Tools & Techniques. For example: The word “computer” peaked in 1986 but is present every year covered by Google (1800 to 2019)

https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/08/add-googles-ngram-viewer-to-your-list.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+freetech4teachers/cGEY+(Free+Technology+for+Teachers)

Add Google's Ngram Viewer to Your List of Research Tools

Google's Ngram Viewer is a search tool that students can use to explore the use of words and names in books published between 1800 and 2019. The Ngram Viewer shows users a graph illustrating the first appearance of a word or name in literature and the frequency with which that word or name appears in literature since 1800. The graph is based on the books and periodicals that are indexed in Google Books.

Yes, Computer Security students, you should talk to your lawyers early and often.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/black-hat-how-cybersecurity-can-be-a-legal-minefield-for-lawyers/#ftag=RSSbaffb68

Black Hat: How cybersecurity incidents can become legal minefields

When a company becomes the victim of a cyberattack, executives are faced with a tsunami of challenges: containing a breach, remediation, informing customers and stakeholders, identifying those responsible, and conducting a forensic analysis of the incident -- to name but a few.

However, it is not just the real-world issues faced, in the now, that businesses have to tackle: the legal ramifications of a security incident have become more important than ever to consider.

… When attorneys are brought into a cybersecurity incident, they need to consider areas including data protection standards (such as HIPAA or GDPR), insurance coverage, liability, the preservation of evidence, and the potential for lawsuits and class-action claims.

Robust IT systems are no longer enough to protect against the financial and reputational harm of cyberattacks, and it is up to legal teams to assist victims in making the right decisions in the aftermath.

According to Merker, during a cybersecurity incident, "IT professionals and security folks, people who are not lawyers, [often] find themselves in a weird solution where they need to think like a lawyer or at least have one there."

In case you missed it…

https://www.ft.com/content/14440f81-d405-452f-97e2-a81458f5411f

Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

Security researchers raise alarm over potential surveillance of personal devices

Apple intends to install software on American iPhones to scan for child abuse imagery, according to people briefed on its plans, raising alarm among security researchers who warn that it could open the door to surveillance of millions of people’s personal devices.

(Related) It didn’t take long to slide down that slippery slope, did it? They move from matching known child abuse images to identifying ANY sexually explicit image. What will they look for next and who will they notify?

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/new-apple-technology-will-warn-parents-and-children-about-sexually-explicit-photos-in-messages/

New Apple technology will warn parents and children about sexually explicit photos in Messages

Apple later this year will roll out new tools that will warn children and parents if the child sends or receives sexually explicit photos through the Messages app. The feature is part of a handful of new technologies Apple is introducing that aim to limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) across Apple’s platforms and services.

As part of these developments, Apple will be able to detec t known CSAM images on its mobile devices, like iPhone and iPad, and in photos uploaded to iCloud, while still respecting consumer privacy.

The new Messages feature, meanwhile, is meant to enable parents to play a more active and informed role when it comes to helping their children learn to navigate online communication. Through a software update rolling out later this year, Messages will be able to use on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo being shared is sexually explicit. This technology does not require Apple to access or read the child’s private communications, as all the processing happens on the device. Nothing is passed back to Apple’s servers in the cloud. [How does the notice get to mom and dad? Bob]

(Related) This is worth a read and offers links to even more…

https://www.pogowasright.org/apples-plan-to-think-different-about-encryption-opens-a-backdoor-to-your-private-life/

Apple’s Plan to “Think Different” About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life

Move toward domestic passports. Creating a valuable hacking target?

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/gadgets/privacy-efficacy-concerns-remain-new-york-s-vaccine-passport-apps-n1276037

Privacy and efficacy concerns remain for New York's vaccine passport apps

“People are going with something that is completely unproven and potentially harmful,” said one privacy expert.

As New York becomes the first major U.S. city to mandate proof of vaccination against Covid-19 for indoor activities, like going to restaurants and theaters, technology experts are raising concerns that the apps have accuracy and privacy problems, to the point that they are advising New Yorkers to revert to using their original paper vaccine cards.

Some New York legislators have even gone so far as to propose a bill that would mandate that such “immunity passports … only collect the minimal amount of information required to verify an individual’s vaccine or test status” and that “they delete this information within 24 hours.”

On its face, a good idea. Another path down that slippery slope?

https://www.pogowasright.org/infrastructure-bill-would-require-alcohol-monitors-for-all-new-cars/

Infrastructure Bill Would Require Alcohol Monitors for All New Cars

Joseph Simonson and Jack McEvoy report:

The bipartisan infrastructure bill includes a provision that would require auto manufacturers to equip “advanced alcohol monitoring systems” in all new cars.

Buried in the massive proposal—which is already longer than 2,700 pages—is a section titled, “ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY,” which mandates new vehicles include “a system that … passively and accurately detect[s] whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration” of .08, in which case the system would “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation.”

Read more on the Washington Free Beacon.

A direction we could easily try.

https://bdtechtalks.com/2021/08/05/artificial-intelligence-considered-response/

To create AGI, we need a new theory of intelligence

This article is part of “the philosophy of artificial intelligence,” a series of posts that explore the ethical, moral, and social implications of AI today and in the future

… Why do we continue to replicate some aspects of intelligence but fail to generate systems that can generalize their skills like humans and animals? One computer scientist who has been working on AI for three decades believes that to get past the hurdles of narrow AI, we must look at intelligence from a different and more fundamental perspective.

In a paper that was presented at the Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Intelligence (BICA*AI), Sathyanaraya Raghavachary, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, discusses “considered response,” a theory that can generalize to all forms of intelligent life that have evolved and thrived on our planet.

Titled, “Intelligence—consider this and respond!” the paper sheds light on the possible causes of the troubles that have haunted the AI community for decades and draws important conclusions, including the consideration of embodiment as a prerequisite for AGI.

Read more for the capability rather than the current use.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/3419143/china-network-ai-people-facebook-twitter/amp/

Inside China’s chilling network of AI generated PEOPLE on Facebook & Twitter spreading anti-vaxx lies & Covid fake news

Will Criminal Justice students find this useful?

https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/08/how-to-use-google-scholar-to-find.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+freetech4teachers/cGEY+(Free+Technology+for+Teachers)

How to Use Google Scholar to Find Federal and State Court Rulings

Earlier this week I wrote about and published a video about how to use Google Scholar to research inventions and their inventors. Case law research is a third aspect of Google Scholar that can be helpful to student researchers.

The case law search function in Google Scholar enables you to find Federal and state cases via keyword search. This is helpful if you’re looking for court rulings on a topic but don’t have a specific case in mind. For example, if I’m researching the development of laws pertaining to the New England lobster fisheries I can enter “lobster fishing” into Google Scholar then search for Federal court cases that include my search term and or search for Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or Rhode Island state court cases that include “lobster fishing.”

Once you’ve found a court case related to your search term in Google Scholar you can read the case online within Google Scholar. Additionally, Google Scholar lists other cases that have cited the ruling that you’re currently reading. That provides an easy way to find related cases about your chosen research topic.

A video overview of how to use Google Scholar to locate federal and state court rulings is available here

Interesting argument. If your hacker is a foreign government (or their unacknowledged criminal allies) are you immune from security negligence claims?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/04/solarwinds_lawsuit_shareholders_motion_dismiss/

SolarWinds urges US judge to toss out crap infosec sueball: We got pwned by actual Russia, give us a break

SolarWinds is urging a US federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought against it by aggrieved shareholders who say they were misled about its security posture in advance of the infamous Russian attack on the business.

Insisting that it was "the victim of the most sophisticated cyberattack in history" in a court filing, SolarWinds described a lawsuit from some of its smaller shareholders as an attempt to "convert this sophisticated cyber-crime" into an unrelated securities fraud court case.

"The Court should dismiss the Complaint because it fails to satisfy the heightened standards for pleading a Section 10(b) claim imposed by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act," it said [PDF].

A podcast (and transcript) for once and future crooks.

https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/ciso/21/h/cybercrime-today-and-the-future.html

Cybercrime: Today and the Future

Trend Micro Research experts Erin Sindelar and Rik Ferguson use current trends and data to paint a picture of cybercrime in 2021 and shine a light on what it could look like in 2030.

You have to have a child abuse photo to locate copies of that photo. It’s easy to see what the next (AI driven?) step must be.

https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/05/report-apple-photos-casm-content-scanning/

Report: Apple to announce client-side photo hashing system to detect child abuse images in user’s photos libraries

Apple is reportedly set to announce new photo identification features that will use hashing algorithms to match the content of photos in user’s photo libraries with known child abuse materials, such as child pornography.

Apple’s system will happen on the client — on the user’s device — in the name of privacy, so the iPhone would download a set of fingerprints representing illegal content and then check each photo in the user’s camera roll against that list. Presumably, any matches would then be reported for human review.

Another unhackable tool gets hacked?

https://gizmodo.com/master-face-researchers-say-theyve-found-a-wildly-succ-1847420710/amp

'Master Face': Researchers Say They've Found a Wildly Successful Bypass for Face Recognition Tech

In addition to helping police arrest the wrong person or monitor how often you visit the Gap, facial recognition is increasingly used by companies as a routine security procedure: it’s a way to unlock your phone or log into social media, for example. This practice comes with an exchange of privacy for the promise of comfort and security but, according to a recent study, that promise is basically bullshit.

… “Our results imply that face-based authentication is extremely vulnerable, even if there is no information on the target identity,” researchers write in their study. “In order to provide a more secure solution for face recognition systems, anti-spoofing methods are usually applied. Our method might be combined with additional existing methods to bypass such defenses,” they add.

According to the study, the vulnerability being exploited here is the fact that facial recognition systems use broad sets of markers to identify specific individuals. By creating facial templates that match many of those markers, a sort of omni-face can be created that is capable of fooling a high percentage of security systems. In essence, the attack is successful because it generates “faces that are similar to a large portion of the population.”

Another anti-manipulation law. When everything is flagged, we’ll only find unchanged images suspicious.

https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-norway-photo-retouching-law/

What Is Norway's New Photo Retouching Law?

Norway issued a new law on retouching photos to improve mental health. Here's everything you need to know about the latest regulations.

The internet is full of models exhibiting their flawless and unrealistic bodies, which can exacerbate body insecurities.

In an attempt to mitigate these unrealistic beauty standards, Norway has passed a law requiring influencers and advertisers to label their retouched photos. We're going to be taking a look at what that law is, and how it affects you.

The new law passed by the Norwegian government requires influencers sponsored for social media posts and brands to disclose any modification on their photos using a ministry-approved label. Essentially, you'll now be told any time an image has been edited.

At first glance, rather vanilla.

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/dhs-st-releases-strategic-plan-for-ai-ml/

DHS S&T Releases Strategic Plan for AI & ML

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) released an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) strategic plan that will look to outline the DHS approach to using these emerging technologies.

The plan has three goals: to “drive next-generation AI/ML technologies” for use across DHS, facilitate the use of AI and ML in the DHS missions, and build up an AI and ML workforce that is interdisciplinary.

Yes, be concerned about what they took. Be more concerned about what they left behind.

https://news.softpedia.com/news/chinese-military-hackers-launch-three-pronged-attack-on-major-telecom-carriers-533652.shtml

Chinese Military Hackers Launch Tripple Cyberattack on Major Telecom Carriers

Emissary Panda (APT27), Naikon, and Soft Cell are the organizations that carried out various hacking activities on the same telecom carriers in Southeast Asia at the same time, according to Cybereason.

… Once compromised, the hackers gained access to the sensitive information contained in key network resources such as Domain Controllers (DC), high-level corporate resources such as billing servers that contain call detail record data (CDR), as well as key network components such as telecom carriers' billing servers.

A very good overview!

https://fpf.org/blog/now-on-the-internet-everyone-knows-youre-a-dog/

NOW, ON THE INTERNET, EVERYONE KNOWS YOU’RE A DOG

An Introduction to Digital Identity

(Related) On a slippery slope toward “Papers, citizen!”

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/3/22607690/microsoft-proof-vaccination-covid-19-us-buildings-office-reopening?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Microsoft will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter buildings in the US

Microsoft has informed employees that it will require proof of vaccination for anyone entering a Microsoft building in the US starting in September.

Perhaps Amazon’s next technological breakthrough will be a cure for constipation, available in suppository form. An interesting way to ‘opt in.’

https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/does-amazons-sleep-tracking-technology-invade-bedroom-privacy-concerns-raised-about-data-sharing-opacity-of-intentions-for-collected-information/

Does Amazon’s Sleep Tracking Technology Invade Bedroom Privacy? Concerns Raised About Data Sharing, Opacity of Intentions for Collected Information

Amazon’s new sleep tracking technology proposes to cast an “electromagnetic bubble” over customers, monitoring their movements throughout the night in an attempt to improve quality of rest. Critics have already raised multiple concerns, from exactly what Amazon intends to do with the data it collects about sleep habits to the amount of radiation it would need to emit to function.

The apparent market demand for Amazon’s new sleep tracking tech stems from reports of common sleep disturbance during the Covid-19 pandemic; studies find that as many as half of all respondents are saying that they have been having trouble getting a full night of rest since early last year.

Explaining AI.

https://fpf.org/blog/the-spectrum-of-ai-companion-to-the-fpf-ai-infographic/

THE SPECTRUM OF AI: COMPANION TO THE FPF AI INFOGRAPHIC

In December of 2020, FPF published the Spectrum of Artificial Intelligence – An Infographic Tool. designed to visually display the variety and complexity of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, the fields this science is based on, and a small sample of the use cases these technologies support for consumers. Today, we are releasing the white paper: The Spectrum of Artificial Intelligence – Companion to the FPF AI Infographic to expand on the information included in this educational resource, and describe in more detail how the graphic can be used as an aide in education or in developing legislation or other regulatory guidance around AI-based systems. We identify additional, specific use cases for various AI technologies and explain how the differing algorithmic architecture and data demands present varying risks and benefits. We discuss the spectrum of algorithmic technology and demonstrate how design factors, data use, and model training processes should be considered for specific regulatory approaches.

Until we make lawyers obsolete, I suppose we have to train them.

https://www.bespacific.com/explainable-artificial-intelligence-lawyers-perspective/

Explainable artificial intelligence, lawyer’s perspective

Explainable artificial intelligence, lawyer’s perspective. Authors: Łukasz Górski, Shashishekar Ramakrishna ICAIL ’21: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law June 2021 Pages 60–68 https://doi.org/10.1145/3462757.3466145 Published:21 June 2021

“Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a research direction that was already put under scrutiny, in particular in the AI&Law community. Whilst there were notable developments in the area of (general, not necessarily legal) XAI, user experience studies regarding such methods, as well as more general studies pertaining to the concept of explainability among the users are still lagging behind. This paper firstly, assesses the performance of different explainability methods (Grad-CAM, LIME, SHAP), in explaining the predictions for a legal text classification problem; those explanations were then judged by legal professionals according to their accuracy. Secondly, the same respondents were asked to give their opinion on the desired qualities of (explainable) artificial intelligence (AI) legal decision system and to present their general understanding of the term XAI. This part was treated as a pilot study for a more pronounced one regarding the lawyer’s position on AI, and XAI in particular.”

(Related)

https://www.bespacific.com/a-dataset-for-evaluating-legal-question-answering-on-private-international-law/

A dataset for evaluating legal question answering on private international law

A dataset for evaluating legal question answering on private international law. Francesco Sovrano, Monica Palmirani, Biagio Distefano,Salvatore Sapienza, Fabio Vitali. ICAIL ’21: Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law June 2021 Pages 230–234 https://doi.org/10.1145/3462757.3466094 Published: 21 June 2021.

“International Private Law (PIL) is a complex legal domain that presents frequent conflicting norms between the hierarchy of legal sources, legal domains, and the adopted procedures. Scientific research on PIL reveals the need to create a bridge between European and national laws. In this context, legal experts have to access heterogeneous sources, being able to recall all the norms and to combine them using case-laws and following the principles of interpretation theory. This clearly poses a daunting challenge to humans, whenever Regulations change frequently or are big-enough in size. Automated reasoning over legal texts is not a trivial task, because legal language is very specific and in many ways different from a commonly used natural language. When applying state-of-the-art language models to legalese understanding, one of the challenges is always to figure how to optimally use the available amount of data. This makes hard to apply state-of-the-art sub-symbolic question answering algorithms on legislative texts, especially the PIL ones, because of data scarcity. In this paper we try to expand previous works on legal question answering, publishing a larger and more curated dataset for the evaluation of automated question answering on PIL.”

Something to consider when it comes to Colorado.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-dell-bring-ai-for-workforce-program-to-18-community-colleges/

Intel, Dell bring "AI for Workforce" program to 18 community colleges

Intel on Tuesday announced that it's partnering with Dell Technologies to expand its AI for Workforce Program, which helps community colleges develop AI certificates, augment existing courses or launch full AI associate degree programs. With Dell providing technical and infrastructure expertise, the program will expand to 18 schools across 11 states.

… So far, more than 80 community college professors have received professional development from Intel and have been certified as Intel AI trainers. Dell is helping the schools configure AI labs for teaching in-person, hybrid and online students.

… Intel has plans to expand to 50 more community and vocational colleges in 2022.

Looking into your encrypted messages, we think you might be interested in a good criminal lawyer...

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facebook-researchers-hope-to-bring-together-two-foes-encryption-and-ads

Facebook Researchers Hope to Bring Together Two Foes: Encryption and Ads

Facebook is bulking up a team of artificial intelligence researchers, including a key hire from Microsoft, to study ways of analyzing encrypted data without decrypting it, the company confirmed. The research could allow Facebook to target ads based on encrypted messages on its WhatsApp messenger, or to encrypt the data it collects on billions of users without hurting its ad-targeting capabilities, outside experts say.

Facebook is one of several technology giants, including cloud computing providers Microsoft, Amazon and Google, now researching an emerging field known as homomorphic encryption. Researchers hope the technology will allow companies to analyze personal information, including medical records and financial data, while keeping the information encrypted

Because we can? Because encryption equals criminal?

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/cryptocurrency-surveillance-provision-buried-infrastructure-bill-disaster-digital

The Cryptocurrency Surveillance Provision Buried in the Infrastructure Bill is a Disaster for Digital Privacy

The forthcoming Senate draft of Biden's infrastructure bill—a 2,000+ page bill designed to update the United States’ roads, highways, and digital infrastructure—contains a poorly crafted provision that could create new surveillance requirements for many within the blockchain ecosystem. This could include developers and others who do not control digital assets on behalf of users.

While the language is still evolving, the proposal would seek to expand the definition of “broker” under section 6045(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include anyone who is “responsible for and regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets” on behalf of another person. These newly defined brokers would be required to comply with IRS reporting requirements for brokers, including filing form 1099s with the IRS. That means they would have to collect user data, including users’ names and addresses.

Utility overrules privacy?

https://www.pogowasright.org/amazon-will-pay-you-10-in-credit-for-your-palm-print-biometrics/

Amazon will pay you $10 in credit for your palm print biometrics

Zack Whittaker reports:

How much is your palm print worth? If you ask Amazon, it’s about $10 in promotional credit if you enroll your palm prints in its checkout-free stores and link it to your Amazon account.

Last year, Amazon introduced its new biometric palm print scanners, Amazon One, so customers can pay for goods in some stores by waving their palm prints over one of these scanners.

Read more on TechCrunch.

Do you really need this site to tell you what we think of this idea or why in years from now, you might regret any cooperation with it?

Could be useful.

https://www.bespacific.com/law-society-lawtech-and-ethics-principles-july-2021/

Law Society Lawtech and Ethics Principles July 2021

UK Law Society – Law Society Lawtech and Ethics Principles, July 2021 – “The world has evolved – it is changing still. By some estimates there have been 5.3 years of digital transformation in the last year. Thankfully, our jurisdiction is one of flexibility where the regulatory environment has enabled the legal services community to adapt to challenges, serve the public and provide trust in the wider economy. However, digital transformation can only be successful when the capabilities of people are built and the functionality, limits and benefits of tools are understood. Over the last year, we have interviewed the country’s largest law firms to understand how they have transformed, assessed solutions and navigated ethical considerations. We cannot thank the contributors enough for so willingly sharing insights and expertise with us. This paper’s main aim is to empower our profession to understand the main considerations they should make when designing, developing or deploying Lawtech, and aims to encourage greater dialogue between the profession and Lawtech providers in the development of future products and services. Although applicable to the whole profession, we hope that the framework, guidance and model procurement process in the paper will be of particular value to those firms and sole practitioners who do not have much experience of procuring Lawtech, and want support on how to get started. The paper helps solicitors to unlock the benefits brought by digital transformation by providing a starting point to assess the compatibility of Lawtech products and services against professional duties. Likewise, it also aims to help Lawtech providers understand the regulatory parameters of solicitors’ practice, embed trust and build market ready solutions…”

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-download-any-video-from-the-internet-20-free-methods/

How to Download Any Video From the Internet: 20 Free Methods

Make Use Of: “Do you want to download videos from the internet? If you see a video you like on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or any of the other leading video sites, you might want to create a copy so you can keep it forever. Thankfully, downloading videos off the internet is surprisingly easy. And here are the best free ways to download any video off the internet...”