I normally skip stories about laptop theft, there are just too many of them.

Sensitive info may be compromised after City of Houston employee’s laptop stolen

KHOU reports:

Information about City of Houston employees’ health insurance may have been compromised after an employee’s laptop computer was stolen.

City officials say the laptop was stolen from the employee’s car on Feb. 2. They say the password-protected computer may have contained city employees’ records, including names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and other medical information.

Read more on KHOU.

[From the article:

City officials say human resource professionals are trained not to remove laptops from City offices unless sensitive data is encrypted. They say one employee “failed to follow his training.”

Not the most reassuring headline in the age of Russian election hacking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html?mtrref=undefined&gwh=987EC048E3BF365BFAF0802337C301F3&gwt=pay

The Myth of the Hacker-Proof Voting Machine

Defining the field of play?

The six big privacy concerns for edtech

Patience Wait reports:

In December, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission hosted a workshop on student privacy and edtech in Washington, D.C. During one panel, Priscilla Regan, a professor at George Mason University — who has been writing about privacy policy since the late 1970s — set the framework for discussion by identifying six broad concerns that together comprise the facets of the student privacy discussion…… The big six, according to Regan:

• Organizational information privacy concerns

• Anonymity

• Surveillance and tracking

• Autonomy

• Bias, discrimination and due process

• Data ownership

Read more about these concerns on EdScoop.

I think of this as automating the paper list police officers used to carry in their cars. Back then, one officer drove and the other scanned for suspicious activity and checked license plates, right?

Kentucky Supreme Court Endorses License Plate Camera Tracking

The Kentucky Supreme Court declared last week that police need not bother applying for a warrant before tracking motorists with automated license plate readers (ALPR, also known as ANPR in Europe). The justices took up the issue in the case of Gregory Traft, who was stopped in Boone County on September 11, 2012, because his license plate triggered an alert from the patrol car’s automated camera system.

Traft had a warrant out for his arrest for failing to appear in court on the charge that he wrote a bad check. Deputy Sheriff Adam Schepis ordered Traft to pull over. In the course of the stop, Traft appeared to be quite drunk and was placed under arrest.

The high court’s only interest in the case was whether the deputy’s use of the license plate camera was lawful.

Read more on TheNewspaper.com

I am trying to convince my students that this will happen much faster than they think.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/23/california-could-see-self-driving-cars-with-remote-drivers-in-april/?google_editors_picks=true

California could see self-driving cars with ‘remote drivers’ in April

Self-driving cars that back up their computerized system with a remote human operator instead of a fallback driver at the wheel could be tested on California roads as early as April, the state department of motor vehicles said.

Will this happen to the US as well?

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/new-technologies-will-radically-reshape-indias-workforce/

How New Technologies Will Radically Reshape India’s Workforce

… skill development and employability remain a key challenge. At present, only 18% of the country’s workforce is formally skilled.

… even in the IT services sector, 55% to 65% of existing jobs are likely to go away because of AI.

An article I will share with my students next time I teach Excel.

Find Excel Intimidating? 5 Best Tutorials and Courses for Beginners