As
a taxpayer, this is depressing. As a manager, this in
incomprehensible.
Federal
Cybersecurity Risk Determination Report and Action Plan
NextGov:
“Many federal agencies
don’t know how hackers are targeting them, can’t tell when
hackers steal large amounts of their data and aren’t efficiently
spending the cybersecurity money they have, according to a
report and action plan released last week. Roughly three-quarters of
federal agencies’ cybersecurity programs are currently “at risk”
or “at high risk,” according to the
report, which was mandated in a 2017 executive order from
President Donald Trump. That
order stated that top agency leaders would be held responsible
for preventable cyber incidents that happened on their watch. Yet,
most agencies, when polled, “did not, or could not, elaborate in
detail on leadership engagement above the [chief information officer]
level,” this month’s review found…”
Perhaps the Justices do not have to be as “analog”
as the Court itself. I want my students to be explainers of
technology. That means they have to understand it.
The Supreme
Court Is Stubbornly Analog — By Design
The Supreme Court is an openly — even proudly —
technophobic institution. Cameras are forbidden,
which means there are no images or videos from high-profile cases,
and briefs and other legal filings only
recently became available at the court’s website. Chief
Justice John Roberts argued
in 2014 that these Luddite tendencies are just part of the legal
system: “The courts will always be prudent whenever it comes to
embracing the ‘next big thing.’” The justices — who
communicate
mostly on paper, rather than via email — can sometimes seem as
analog as the institution they serve.
… There are systemic reasons for the court’s
reluctant approach to technology — American law is a
backward-looking enterprise even outside the highest court. But
regardless of why it’s happening, legal scholars say the
consequences are clear: When Supreme Court justices lack an
understanding of what technology means for the lives of the people
affected by their decisions, they will struggle to respond
effectively to technological change.
It seems Michael Porter’s barriers to entry are
becoming less of a problem.
Why
High-Tech Commoditization Is Accelerating
Knowledge embedded
within state-of-the-art production and design tools is a powerful
force that is leveling the global technology playing field. It
democratizes innovation and makes future competition ever more
challenging.
Another summary of the GDPR.
Personal
Data Protection and the EU GDPR
“Everyone is talking about the European
Union‘s (EU) General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which takes effect today.
Recent news
reports about misuse of personal data suggest that rules to
protect personal data are essential in today’s interconnected
(online) world. But what is the GDPR exactly? And why should you
care about an EU law if you live in the United
States?…”
“We can, therefore we must?” I have been
looking for a good “bad example” and wouldn’t you know it,
California has come through in spades!
Digital
license plates that change displays and track your car being tested
in California
… The Sacramento
Bee reports that the city government took delivery last week of
24 Chevrolet Volts equipped with the plates, which are priced
at $699 each, but were provided at no cost by the
manufacturer, Reviver Auto, for evaluation.
The plates use e-ink screens like e-books, and are
equipped with a GPS tracker
that can transmit the location of the vehicle. They have
a reflective surface, backlighting, weatherproofing and are hardwired
to the car.
Reviver Auto says that the technology conforms to
the General Data Protection Regulation standards, and that the
tracking and display features are controlled by each plate’s owner.
Sacramento Innovation Officer Louis Stewart said
that the city is assuring labor representatives that it won’t use
them to monitor individual employees.
Reviver Auto VP of Marketing Bobby Penn told Fox
News that the telematics data will never be shared with the DMV or
law enforcement, and promises that the company will not sell any
information to outside companies. No personal data is stored in the
device itself.
Users
can modify the display with custom messages via an app and
electronically update their registration without the need for a
sticker or visit to the DMV. They’re being marketed as a fleet
management tool for commercial outfits that can double as a
promotional platform, as the screens can display company branding and
advertisements when the vehicles are parked, while still showing the
plate number in a smaller font.
Along with the convenience factor, a pitch to
retail customers is that they are the
ultimate vanity plate, with the potential to update them
on a whim to show support for causes or sports teams, or simply to
project a personal message for the day.
Owners can also have the plates display the word
“stolen” if their cars go missing, while emergency messages, like
amber alerts and flood warnings, can be blasted to all of the devices
in an affected area in an effort to reach other motorists.
… A $7 monthly fee is required, with
additional costs for the GPS tracking feature.
One retailer, Galpin Motors in Van Nuys, is
offering three-year plans priced at $189 and $279, respectively, plus
$99 for installation.
(Related)
… The state claims they could save up to $20
million per year on postage, but there’s some pretty huge questions
about that, as well as about security, cost, durability and pretty
much everything.
… They claim these plates are durable, but
compared to a rectangle of stamped metal, they’re not. At all. In
fact, the more you think about it, the stupider this gets: You’d be
mounting a $700 electronic device on the most vulnerable parts of
your car, often right on your bumper. Want to turn a minor parking
lot miscalculation into a $700 bill and the inability to legally
drive your car around? Then get a Reviver Plate, dummy!
… The company also takes pains to point out
that if your car is stolen the plate will say STOLEN or if the car is
tagged in an Amber Alert, the plate will give a warning, which is
great as long as criminals don’t master the difficult and subtle
art known as “removing a license plate.”
… The guy in the video there keeps playing up
the aesthetic benefits of the electronic plate, but they don’t seem
to acknowledge it’s just
black and white.
That’s not even beginning to address the issues
surrounding plates being hacked, because, duh, they will—for all
manner of purposes and reasons and scams—and then there’s the
privacy issues, and that they will eventually wear out and break, and
that there will be charging and battery issues and on and on.
This is
a classic example of assuming throwing more technology at something
will solve a problem, in this case a problem that barely
even exists. Also, who would even want one of these?
There’s nothing cool or appealing about them.
A strong indication that the world is not ready
for self driving cars?
A Tesla sedan running in its autopilot mode
crashed into a parked police car in Laguna Beach, California on
Tuesday, per
the Associated Press, resulting in “minor injuries” to the
driver. The officer in charge of the cruiser at the time of the
crash was not inside the vehicle and thus avoided being injured.
… Tesla has repeatedly emphasized that the
autopilot system is only intended to assist, not replace, an alert
human driver, and requires drivers to agree that they understand how
to use it before it can be activated.
… In a statement to USA Today, the
manufacturer wrote, “When using Autopilot, drivers are continuously
reminded of their responsibility to keep their hands on the wheel and
maintain control of the vehicle at all times.”
Perspective. I think this is big. Probably not
suggesting that Facebook is obsolete, but it may be becoming
redundant. For an entire generation, Facebook was how you connected
to the Internet.
Mobile
Direct Traffic Eclipses Facebook
New data shows that for the first time, mobile
direct-to-site traffic has surpassed Facebook. Could this mean that
mobile does not equal social after all?
With all of the discussion around the duopoly and
the lack of control publishers have over their traffic, we wanted to
take a look at our data to observe traffic differences since the
Facebook
algorithm changes were announced in January. Surprisingly,
overall traffic to publisher sites has not declined – instead, it’s
remained steady (see chart below). How is this possible?
… We know
that the majority of readers arrive on a site directly via desktop.
However, for as long as we can remember, this behavior has been
different on mobile devices; mobile readers = social readers, where
someone on mobile most likely found your content from Facebook.
Our latest data shows that’s no longer the
case. Now, mobile readers are
arriving to a site (website or app) directly to the homepage or
section front more often than from attributed social platforms,
namely Facebook.
… Mobile
direct traffic surpassing Facebook traffic to publisher sites is an
important milestone. It means consumers may be more loyal to news
sites than expected, and publishers may be in a better position
vis-a-vis Facebook as well.
Perspective. Jeff Bezos thinks big.
How Amazon
Is Using Whole Foods in a Bid for Total Retail Domination
Fortune:
The Seattle giant believes selling you groceries is the key to
selling you everything else… The very thing that makes grocery
delivery hard—that food goes bad—is the reason it’s so
desirable to a company like Amazon. Because cheese grows mold and
meat goes rancid and milk sours, consumers can’t hoard it in their
cupboards or refrigerators indefinitely as they might toilet paper or
laundry detergent. As a result, the average family hits the
supermarket at minimum once a week; there’s nothing else you
purchase or consume so much or so often. For Amazon, getting in on
that frequency is critical to further ingraining itself in our
routines and behaviors. “Food is the platform for selling you
everything else,” says Walter Robb, the former co-CEO of Whole
Foods. “It’s an everyday way into your life. There’s nothing
else that happens quite that way.” Amazon’s quest is therefore
about much more than just food…”
I wonder is Mr. Kissinger feels challenged? Could
AI be smarter than he is?
How the
Enlightenment Ends
… Aware of my lack of technical competence in
this field, I organized a number of informal dialogues on the
subject, with the advice and cooperation of acquaintances in
technology and the humanities. These discussions have caused my
concerns to grow.
Heretofore, the technological advance that most
altered the course of modern history was the invention of the
printing press in the 15th century, which allowed the search for
empirical knowledge to supplant liturgical doctrine, and the Age of
Reason to gradually supersede the Age of Religion. Individual
insight and scientific knowledge replaced faith as the principal
criterion of human consciousness. Information was stored and
systematized in expanding libraries. The Age of Reason originated
the thoughts and actions that shaped the contemporary world order.
But that order is now in upheaval amid a new, even
more sweeping technological revolution whose consequences we have
failed to fully reckon with, and whose culmination may be a world
relying on machines powered by data and algorithms and ungoverned
by ethical or philosophical norms.
This is not why I’m considered ‘agreeable.’
Is it?
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