Try multiple searches. A search for Denver shows data not available with a search for Colorado.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facial-recognition-local-police-clearview-ai-table

Your Local Police Department Might Have Used This Facial Recognition Tool To Surveil You. Find Out Here.

Clearview AI has created a powerful facial recognition tool and marketed it to police departments and government agencies. The company has never disclosed the entities that have used its facial recognition software, but a confidential source provided BuzzFeed News with data that appeared to be a list of agencies and companies whose employees have tried or used its technology.

Using that data, along with public records and interviews we have created a searchable database of US-based taxpayer-funded entities, including tribal, local, and state police departments publicly funded university law enforcement bodies; district attorneys’ offices; and federal agencies such as the Air Force and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We have included only those agencies for which the data shows that at least one associated individual ran at least one facial recognition scan as of February 2020.

(Related) Clearview is not the only tool

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/tech-police-surveillance-smart-home-devices

Your 'smart home' is watching – and possibly sharing your data with the police

You may have a roommate you have never met. And even worse, they are nosy. They track what you watch on TV, they track when you leave the lights on in the living room, and they even track whenever you use a key fob to enter the house. This is the reality of living in a “smart home”: the house is always watching, always tracking, and sometimes it offers that data up to the highest bidder – or even to police.

This problem stems from the US government buying data from private companies, a practice increasingly unearthed in media investigations though still quite shrouded in secrecy. It’s relatively simple in a country like the United States without strong privacy laws: approach a third-party firm that sells databases of information on citizens, pay them for it and then use the data however deemed fit. The Washington Post recently reported – citing documents uncovered by researchers at the Georgetown school of law – that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been using this very playbook to buy up “hundreds of millions of phone, water, electricity and other utility records while pursuing immigration violations”.

I don’t know how it works, but I bet I can make it justify my project!

https://fortune.com/2021/04/06/no-code-a-i-is-coming-is-your-company-ready/

No-code A.I. is coming. Is your company ready?

The number of “no code” A.I. platforms, software that allows people without specialized skills to build algorithms, is proliferating rapidly.

The companies that market no-code machine learning platforms include Akkio, Obviously.ai, DataRobot, Levity, Clarifai, Teachable Machines, Lobe (which Microsoft bought in 2018), Peltarion and Veritone, to name a few. They allow non-A.I. experts to create A.I. systems using simple visual interfaces or drag-and-drop menus. Some of the software is designed specifically for computer vision, some for natural language processing, and some for both.

The latest to enter the no-code fray is Primer, a San Francisco company that I’ve mentioned before in this newsletter. Primer’s evolution is worth mentioning because it is probably instructive of where the entire A.I. software-space may be headed. To date, Primer has been known as a leader in creating A.I. software that helps analysts—those who work for government intelligence agencies, as well as the kind who work for banks and for companies in departments like business development and marketing—rapidly sift through vast quantities of news and documents. To achieve this, the company has used some of the most state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques.

But as Sean Gourley, Primer’s chief executive officer, explains, as good as Primer’s natural language processing software is, many of its customers want something bespoke: “Our big Fortune 50 companies and big national security customers kept saying the models are great but can I make it do the thing I want it to do?”

So come up with a test that will work! (Or must we wait for an AI to do it?)

https://hackaday.com/2021/04/06/death-of-the-turing-test-in-an-age-of-successful-ais/

DEATH OF THE TURING TEST IN AN AGE OF SUCCESSFUL AIS

IBM has come up with an automatic debating system called Project Debater that researches a topic, presents an argument, listens to a human rebuttal and formulates its own rebuttal. But does it pass the Turing test? Or does the Turing test matter anymore?

… Naturally Turing didn’t call his test “the Turing test”. Instead he called it the imitation game, since the goal was to imitate a human. In Turing’s paper, he gives two versions of the test. The first involves three people, the interrogator, a man and a woman. The man and woman sit in a separate room from the interrogator and the communication at Turing’s time was ideally via teleprinter. The goal is for the interrogator to guess who is male and who is female. The man’s goal is to fool the interrogator into making the wrong decision and the woman’s is to help him make the right one.

The second test in Turing’s paper replaces the woman with a machine but the machine is now the deceiver and the man tries to help the interrogator make the right decision. The interrogator still tries to guess who is male and who is female.

Something for my students?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7v8mx/coded-bias-netflix-documentary-ai-ethics-surveil

'Coded Bias' Is the Most Important Film About AI You Can Watch Today

Before it was even released, Coded Bias was positioned to become essential viewing for anyone interested in the AI ethics debate. The documentary, which was released on Netflix this week, is the kind of film that can and should be shown in countless high school classrooms, where students themselves are subjected to various AI systems in the post-pandemic age of Zoom. It's a refreshingly digestible introduction to the myriad ways algorithmic bias has infiltrated every aspect of our lives—from racist facial recognition and predictive policing systems to scoring software that decides who gets access to housing, loans, public assistance, and more.

Perspective. How the Russians see Bilbo.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/soviet-union-lost-lord-rings-215024023.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEifL5ny4YxNzln9H0BntaDPBdXitJhyztEQA41-BLXHDyOAeBwNvy0HFLs3AIkEHlBbTAnXtPyUfkC9npnLkIe5-J1qb5BXg2HaJpXhdPP4Wbu-ROssoTXUbGEYmkbsWCke0sKyHoz23RwHa91e1ZrhY3QZlQVxCz_pxGAxhWDg

Soviet Union’s Lost ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie Rediscovered After 30 Years and Released for Free

As first reported by The Guardian, a Soviet Union-era television adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved works was recently rediscovered and uploaded to stream for free on YouTube. The Russian-language 1991 made-for-TV movie is titled “Khraniteli” and is based on the first novel in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Posted to YouTube in two parts, the streams have earned a combined 800,000 views and counting in one week. The Guardian claims the video is “the only adaptation of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy believed to have been made in the Soviet Union.”

It is always useful to know exactly how large a ransom you can demand.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/cyber-insurance-firm-suffers-sophisticated-ransomware-cyber-attack-data-obtained-may-help-hackers-better-target-firms-customers/

Cyber Insurance Firm Suffers Sophisticated Ransomware Cyber Attack; Data Obtained May Help Hackers Better Target Firm’s Customers

One of the largest insurance firms in the U.S. CNA Financial was reportedly hit by a “sophisticated cybersecurity attack” on March 21, 2021. The cyber attack disrupted the company’s employee and customer services for three days as the company shut down “out of an abundance of caution” to prevent further compromise.

… The insurance company posted a statement on its website notifying the public that it “sustained a sophisticated cybersecurity attack. The cyber attack caused a network disruption and impacted certain CNA systems, including corporate email.”

… CNA financial did not notify potential victims because it could not determine if the attackers stole any data. [No logs? Bob]

… Coalition CEO Joshua Motta said a nightmare scenario would be if the attackers stole policyholders’ data. He noted that accessing the data could help hackers determine which companies had applied for or acquired cyber insurance, the scope of coverage, and the limits of deductibles.

Ransomware operators could use that information during negotiations after compromising the cyber insurance policyholders. They could use the information to set optimal ransom demands matching the policyholders’ cyber insurance coverage.

It can’t hurt! Repetition is not a bad thing. Redundancy is not a bad thing. Reiteration is not a bad thing.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/new-wef-principles-for-cybersecurity-board-governance-address-expansion-organizational-scope-of-cyber-risk/

New WEF Principles for Cybersecurity Board Governance Address Expansion, Organizational Scope of Cyber Risk

Cyber risk climbs the organizational priority ladder every year, but it accelerated in a unique way with the pandemic conditions of 2020. The World Economic Forum’s newly-released principles for board governance of cybersecurity offer a base of best practices for dealing with this new reality, with a new element being a strong emphasis on organization-wide implementation of cybersecurity culture.

I am so…so... something or other.

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2021/04/05/can-ai-read-your-emotions-try-it-for-yourself/

Can AI read your emotions? Try it for yourself

Emotion recognition AI is bunk.

Don’t get me wrong, AI that recognizes human sentiment and emotion can be very useful. For example, it can help identify when drivers are falling asleep behind the wheel. But what it cannot do, is discern how a human being is actually feeling by the expression on their face.

You don’t have to take my word for it, you can try it yourself here.

Dovetail Labs, a scientific research and consultancy company, recently created a website that explains how modern “emotion recognition” systems built on deep learning work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=785eNqM3X8E

(Related)

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00868-5

Time to regulate AI that interprets human emotions

… There is deep scientific disagreement about whether AI can detect emotions. A 2019 review found no reliable evidence for it. “Tech companies may well be asking a question that is fundamentally wrong,” the study concluded (L. F. Barrett et al. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 20, 1–68; 2019).

… Countries around the world have regulations to enforce scientific rigour in developing medicines that treat the body. Tools that make claims about our minds should be afforded at least the same protection. For years, scholars have called for federal entities to regulate robotics and facial recognition; that should extend to emotion recognition, too. It is time for national regulatory agencies to guard against unproven applications, especially those targeting children and other vulnerable populations.

We will use these toys. How should we use them?

https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/94961-the-new-rules-of-security-how-ai-will-transform-video-surveillance

The new rules of security: How AI will transform video surveillance

The security industry is at a tipping point. For decades, we've relied on a trusted playbook that's guided how we deploy resources, design solutions and adopt technology. But AI and machine learning are quickly transforming the security landscape. And that means it's time for our legacy playbook to get a rewrite.

… We're all still building the playbook as we use it, but here are four new, unspoken "rules" for the new world of security - and how they'll continue to evolve thanks to AI.

1. Embrace flexible setups

… Smart systems can identify the difference between humans, animals, and objects and then trigger alerts based only on those identified signatures regardless of surrounding video noise like blowing leaves, headlights, inclement weather or other factors.

2. Maximize economies of scale

3. Look for behavior patterns, not faces

… we think the security benefits from smart video surveillance systems come from identifying specific behavior patterns, not faces. By analyzing common behavior patterns in retail environments, artificial intelligence and machine learning systems can learn to spot abnormal behavior — or suspicious activity that could indicate a problem without ever identifying the individual or inferring any unnecessary bias.

4. Focus on relationship-building, not bad-guy busting

Is this to support the same companies Congress rails against?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-05/u-s-forges-ahead-on-1-billion-tariff-plan-over-digital-taxes

U.S. Forges Ahead on $1 Billion Tariff Plan Over Digital Taxes

The U.S. is pressing ahead with plans to hit six nations that tax Internet-based companies with retaliatory tariffs that could total almost $1 billion annually.

Goods entering the U.S. -- ranging from Austrian grand pianos and British merry-go-rounds to Turkish Kilim rugs and Italian anchovies -- could face tariffs of as much as 25% annually, documents published by the U.S. Trade Representative show. The duties are in response to countries that are imposing taxes on technology firms that operate internationally such as Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.

Perspective.

https://www.bespacific.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-those-responsible-for-the-january-6-insurrection/

A Comprehensive Guide to Those Responsible for the January 6 Insurrection

“This primer by Seth Abramson also explains, in detail, how and why the attack on the Capitol occurred. The Department of Justice calls the FBI investigation into the January 6 assault on the United States Capitol one of the largest criminal probes in American history. One of the reasons the investigation is so historically vast and complex is that it encompasses five discrete yet overlapping classes of potential criminal defendants. This article details those five classes, establishes the key intersections between each, identifies a small number of key events in the lead-up to the insurrection, and presents an overarching narrative—confirmed by both testimonial and documentary evidence—of how the insurrection occurred…”

Roses are red…

https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2021/04/activities-for-national-poetry-month.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+freetech4teachers/cGEY+(Free+Technology+for+Teachers) 

Activities for National Poetry Month

Tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-free-windows-10-apps-for-those-working-from-home/

The 6 Best Free Windows 10 Apps for Those Working From Home

Tools are often useful in more ways than intended.

https://www.bespacific.com/copyright-bots-powered-by-a-1998-law-threaten-the-publics-right-to-know/

Copyright bots powered by a 1998 law threaten the public’s right to know

The Hill – “…Copyright bots are automated programs that search digital content to identify copyright infringements. Google’s Content ID for YouTube is a prominent example. According to a Google publication, 98 percent of YouTube’s copyright issues were handled through the automated Content ID system in 2018. When a user uploads a video to YouTube, Content ID scans the contents against a database of files submitted by digital content owners. If the newly uploaded video matches a copyrighted file, the copyright holders have the option to make money from the offending video, be granted access to the video’s viewing statistics, or have the video taken down. However, this process is open to exploitation. A post from NYU’s Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law has called copyright actions like YouTube’s “a tool for censorship, bullying, extortion.” As the Beverly Hills police officer showed, an alleged bad actor who wishes to cover up his misconduct faces a low bar. Other examples include the Azerbaijani government allegedly censoring journalists and a former candidate for Colorado Assembly filing multiple claims against a critic’s YouTube channel, resulting in the termination of the critic’s account twice…”

A supplement to all those cameras.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/04/wi-fi-devices-as-physical-object-sensors.html

Wi-Fi Devices as Physical Object Sensors

The new 802.11bf standard will turn Wi-Fi devices into object sensors:

In three years or so, the Wi-Fi specification is scheduled to get an upgrade that will turn wireless devices into sensors capable of gathering data about the people and objects bathed in their signals.

“When 802.11bf will be finalized and introduced as an IEEE standard in September 2024, Wi-Fi will cease to be a communication-only standard and will legitimately become a full-fledged sensing paradigm,” explains Francesco Restuccia, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University, in a paper summarizing the state of the Wi-Fi Sensing project (SENS ) currently being developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

SENS is envisioned as a way for devices capable of sending and receiving wireless data to use Wi-Fi signal interference differences to measure the range, velocity, direction, motion, presence, and proximity of people and objects.

More detail in the article. Security and privacy controls are still to be worked out, which means that there probably won’t be any.

Perspective.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-revealed-the-latest-truths-about-working-from-home-one-is-truly-disturbing/

Microsoft revealed the latest truths about working from home. One is truly disturbing

The headline wasn't all that promising: "The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work – Are We Ready?"

… This headline came from a company that itself wasn't exactly ready for working from home, Microsoft. Right beneath its nostrils, a company called Zoom came along and stole hegemony over a means of communication that Microsoft might, itself, have already mastered.

Yet Microsoft has tried to catch up with its Teams and has clearly devoted much thought to our what-the-hell-is-happening world.

In July, Redmond analyzed what was going on inside its own (virtual) world and discovered some horrific facts. Sample: 52% of the company's IMs were being sent between 6pm and midnight.

More recently, though, the company wondered whether we're ready for the hybrid thing and released a Work Trend Index, which tried to paint a more complete picture of the work-life COVID has wrought.

… Sixty-one percent of leaders described themselves as "thriving."

… Microsoft, you see, says that those who don't make the decisions are thriving 23 points less than their bosses.

Perspective. Broad overview.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/3/28/friend-or-foe-artificial-intelligence-and-the-military

Project Force: AI and the military – a friend or foe?

… Doctrine is key: how these new weapons will integrate into future war plans and how they can be leveraged for their maximum effect on the enemy.

Any quantitative leap in weapons design is always a concern as it gives a country the belief that they could be victorious in battle, thus lowering the threshold for conflict.

Just about everyone?

https://bgr.com/2021/04/03/facebook-data-leak-533-million-user-records-leaked-online/

Facebook’s response to Saturday’s news of a huge data leak was so awful

Monday was already shaping up to be a lively news day for tech journalists. That’s when the next episode of Sway, the podcast from The New York Times’ Kara Swisher, will be available to listen to, with the new interview subject being none other than Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Swisher on Friday teased via Twitter that the conversation with Cook will cover everything from the App Store drama around Parler to the iPhone maker’s feud with Facebook — the latter of which, on Saturday, inadvertently handed Cook even more ammunition to use against the social networking giant as he continues making his case that Facebook is awful. In case you haven’t heard by now, there’s been another huge Facebook data leak, encompassing personal information from more than 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries. This data was posted in a hacking forum, according to a report from Insider, which is to say — if you have a Facebook account, there’s a good chance your data has once again been exposed to hackers including everything from your phone number to your email address, birthday, full name, and more.

One of the big dangers with a leak like this is that hackers and other malicious actors can use this information to try to access your Facebook account, and frankly any other accounts, now that they have an abundance of information about you. They can try to reset your password, for example, and use that to cause all sorts of other mischief.

On Twitter, Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois responded to a handful of news articles and posts about this leak by tweeting the same two-sentence statement: “This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019. We found and fixed this issue in August 2019.”

In other words, Facebook is responsible for a few hundred million users having their data leaked yet again (seriously, how many times is this now?), but don’t worry, it’s fine — they fixed the problem a long time ago. Not that this does anything to help un-leak the data that’s now in hackers hands, but, hey, Facebook did its part!

Timely. (But the Facebook data was free.)

https://www.databreaches.net/buying-breached-data-when-is-it-ethical/

Buying Breached Data: When Is It Ethical?

Jeremy Kirk reports:

Security practitioners often tread a fine and not entirely well-defined legal line when conducting data breach research. This research can also pose ethical questions when commercial sources for stolen data fall into a gray area.

Kirk’s article on DataBreach Today provides a good overview of the issue. And I totally agree with Troy Hunt on this issue, who is quoted as saying:

“I can’t for the life of me understand how security companies paying for that data on a legal basis is any different than the hacker buying the data,” he says. “People justifying this practice are relying entirely on intent being the differentiating factor, but that doesn’t do anything to de-incentivize the market for stolen data.”

I know there are people who maintain that once a data dump has been made public, it’s fair game, and people can buy it and use it. But if you buy it — even if you pay for it in “tokens” on RF — you are encouraging more data theft and dumps, which harms consumer privacy. This applies even in those situations where a firm or individual is buying a data dump on behalf of the victim company who wants to find out what data the threat actors obtained. Their agent is not doing anything technically wrong or illegal (at least I don’t think they are) but by making the purchase for them, they are still rewarding the criminals with a payment and therefore still encouraging crime.

Even if you just download the data totally for free but then use it on your commercial site — like charging people to access the data that you did not have the owner’s consent to obtain or use — well, to me, that’s unethical if not actually illegal.

It can get worse?

http://modern-journals.com/index.php/ijma/article/view/723

IS AI-BASED SURVEILLANCE AND FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY DEVALUING HUMAN RIGHTS?

Innovations in Artificial Intelligence technology have demonstrated great potential to advance the society by alleviating some of the world’s most significant problems, which is a way forward towards the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These technological advancements enable mass surveillance by the State to track, monitor, and digitally surveil its citizens through facial recognition technology. As facial recognition systems are rapidly proliferating, its propensity to unjustifiably interfere with human rights, such as privacy, data protection, equality and non-discrimination further escalates. In consideration of the fact that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has not yet attained its highest level of advancement, this paper aims to study the impact of AI-based surveillance and facial recognition technology on human rights at present and its potential impact in the future. Based on doctrinal research, this paper analyses the positive and negative impact of deployment of AI technology in the European Union and India upon human rights. This paper evaluates the governance of AI technology through existing laws in the EU from a human rights perspective. It is highly imperative for India to formulate an AI governance mechanism to protect against abuse of human rights. Drawing from the best practices of EU, this paper suggests some considerations relevant for formulating a regulatory or policy framework for AI-based surveillance in India.

A possible way forward? What is the simplest step in ethics?

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.15739

Automation: An Essential Component Of Ethical AI?

Ethics is sometimes considered to be too abstract to be meaningfully implemented in artificial intelligence (AI). In this paper, we reflect on other aspects of computing that were previously considered to be very abstract. Yet, these are now accepted as being done very well by computers. These tasks have ranged from multiple aspects of software engineering to mathematics to conversation in natural language with humans. This was done by automating the simplest possible step and then building on it to perform more complex tasks. We wonder if ethical AI might be similarly achieved and advocate the process of automation as key step in making AI take ethical decisions. The key contribution of this paper is to reflect on how automation was introduced into domains previously considered too abstract for computers.

For my geeks.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.15746

Towards An Ethics-Audit Bot

In this paper we focus on artificial intelligence (AI) for governance, not governance for AI, and on just one aspect of governance, namely ethics audit. Different kinds of ethical audit bots are possible, but who makes the choices and what are the implications? In this paper, we do not provide ethical/philosophical solutions, but rather focus on the technical aspects of what an AI-based solution for validating the ethical soundness of a target system would be like. We propose a system that is able to conduct an ethical audit of a target system, given certain socio-technical conditions. To be more specific, we propose the creation of a bot that is able to support organisations in ensuring that their software development lifecycles contain processes that meet certain ethical standards.

This could be amusing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/04/dominion-trump-disinformation-fox-news-sidney-powell-giuliani-mike-lindell-lawsuits

Dominion: will one Canadian company bring down Trump's empire of disinformation?

When Donald Trump and his allies pushed the “big lie” of voter fraud and a stolen election, it seemed nothing could stop them spreading disinformation with impunity.

Politicians and activists’ pleas fell on deaf ears. TV networks and newspapers fact-checked in vain. Social media giants proved impotent.

But now a little-known tech company, founded 18 years ago in Canada, has the conspiracy theorists running scared. The key: suing them for defamation, potentially for billions of dollars.

“Libel laws may prove to be a very old mechanism to deal with a very new phenomenon of massive disinformation,” said 4Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist. “We have all these fact checkers but lots of people don’t care. Nothing else seems to work, so maybe this will.”

The David in this David and Goliath story is Dominion Voting Systems, an election machine company named after Canada’s Dominion Elections Act of 1920. Its main offices are in Toronto and Denver and it describes itself as the leading supplier of US election technology. It says it serves more than 40% of American voters, with customers in 28 states.

But the 2020 election put a target on its back. As the White House slipped away and Trump desperately pushed groundless claims of voter fraud, his lawyers and cheerleaders falsely alleged Dominion had rigged the polls in favour of Joe Biden.

Among the more baroque conspiracy theories was that Dominion changed votes through algorithms in its voting machines that were created in Venezuela to rig elections for the late dictator Hugo Chávez.

… The company is fighting back. It filed $1.3bn defamation lawsuits against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, for pushing the allegations without evidence.

Separately, Dominion’s security director, Eric Coomer, launched a suit against the Trump campaign, Giuliani, Powell and some conservative media figures and outlets, saying he had been forced into hiding by death threats.

Then came the big one. Last month Dominion filed a $1.6bn defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, accusing it of trying to boost ratings by amplifying the bogus claims.

I had not thought of these as writing tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/free-text-to-speech-tools-educators/

The 7 Best Free Text-to-Speech Tools for Educators

Text-to-speech tools can be beneficial to students of all ages. Hearing your text out loud can help you catch mistakes you may have made and spot phrases that don't fit the writing as well as you thought.

Often, when writing a paper, you might reach a point when reading it doesn't make a big difference. That's where a text-to-speech tool can help. Below you will find the best free text-to-speech tools to help you write a paper or grade one.