Targeting technology. The modern equivalent of
WWI’s “third man on a match.” Apparently it only took that
long for a sniper to target troops on a smoke break.
Pentagon
bans use of geolocators on fitness trackers, smartphones
The Pentagon is banning deployed personnel from
using fitness trackers, smartphones and potentially even dating apps
that use geolocating features that could reveal the user's location.
The ban was announced in a Pentagon memorandum
issued Friday and signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick
Shanahan.
"Effective immediately, Defense Department
personnel are prohibited from using geolocation features and
functionality on government and non-government-issued devices,
applications and services while in locations designated as
operational areas," the policy memo said.
The new normal?
Campaigns
on Their Own as Cyber Threats Roil Midterms
Kamala
Harris has been the target of social media misinformation campaigns
since she became a U.S. senator.
Every
month for the last 18 months, her office has discovered on average
between three and five fake Facebook profiles pretending to be hers,
according to a Harris aide. It's unclear who creates the pages,
which are often designed to mislead American voters about the
ambitious Democratic senator's policies and positions.
The
aide spoke on the condition of anonymity, like more than a half dozen
campaign officials contacted for this story, for fear of attracting
unwanted attention from adversaries or scrutiny on the Senate
office's evolving cybersecurity protocols.
… The
Democratic National Committee has worked to strengthen its own
internal security protocols and encouraged state parties to do the
same, according to Raffi Krikorian, who previously worked for Uber
and Twitter and now serves as the DNC's chief technology officer.
But
in an interview, he acknowledged there are limits to how much the
national party can protect the thousands of Democratic campaigns
across the country.
… "At
the end of the day, the U.S. government is not putting any type of a
bubble around any (campaign). They do not have the authority,
capacity or capability to do it," said Shawn Henry, a former
senior FBI official who now leads the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike,
which works with political campaigns. "NSA is not sitting in
the ISPs filtering out malicious traffic."
Henry
added: "They've got to take pro-active actions themselves."
(Related) Yet technology keeps moving.
West
Virginia to introduce mobile phone voting for midterm elections
West Virginians serving overseas will be the first
in the country to cast federal election ballots using a smartphone
app, a move designed to make voting in November's election easier for
troops living abroad. But election integrity and computer security
experts expressed alarm at the prospect of voting by phone, and one
went so far as to call it "a horrific idea."
Florida would be crazy not to ask if your children
are crazy! Another example of distinguishing mental health from any
other medical information.
From the
road-to-Hell-has-been-traveled-too-frequently dept.
Carrie Seidman has a commentary on Florida law
that all parents of Florida students should read, and parents in
other states should take note of in case the same provision is
proposed in their states. Seidman writes, in part:
Buried amid the school security measures swiftly passed by the Florida Legislature in the wake of the shootings last February at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland is a mostly overlooked provision that requires parents or guardians registering a child for public school to disclose any mental health information in the prospective student’s past.
Sounds good, right? Having school officials made aware of a child dealing with mental health challenges means that the student and family can be connected to all available services, and school staff will be on alert to provide additional support. Who could argue with that?
As always, the devil lies in the details, which include everything from whether the person doing the registering will feel comfortable disclosing the information to how that sensitive information will be managed and shared. Those are questions that every school district in Florida is now grappling with.
Read more on Herald-Tribune.
Seidman provides useful examples of how different districts are
attempting to translate the requirement and so some are asking for
very very detailed information, while others ask for less.
But should they be asking at all?
Well, the law says they should, but the executive director of NAMI,
quoted in the story, really captures the concerns about this type of
provision. So let me highlight a few questions:
-
Should districts be collecting this information or do families have the right to withhold health information about their child if they are not seeking accommodations for it or special services for it by the school district? Under the new Florida provisions, they seemingly no longer have the right to withhold health information of this kind. But where is the evidence to justify this mandated disclosure? Should there be a strict scrutiny standard? If not, what standard would be appropriate to justify a law that intrudes on privacy of sensitive information?
-
If parents notify the school district, what responsibility under I.D.E.A. do school districts then incur to screen the student for the need for special education services?
-
If parents notify the school district, what liability do school districts then incur if they do not provide mental health screening and services, and the student then acts out behaviorally?
In my experience, I know that many
families — and many students — do NOT want the school district
knowing about a diagnosis, if the diagnosed condition is
stigmatizing. And many, if not most, psychiatric/psychological
diagnoses are viewed that way by parents and students.
As always, in a rush to be reactive
and kidding ourselves that we’re being proactive, the Florida
legislature has enacted legislation that perhaps would best have not
been enacted. And given how utterly horrible most school districts
are at protecting student data, has the state of Florida just
provided threat actors like TheDarkOverlord with just more
low-hanging fruit to attack?
If it’s in the Wall Street Journal, it must be
so?
Facebook to
Banks: Give Us Your Data, We’ll Give You Our Users
The social-media giant has asked large U.S. banks
to share detailed financial information about their customers,
including card transactions and checking-account balances, as part of
an effort to offer new services to users.
Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where
people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with
friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase &
Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp to
discuss potential offerings it could host for bank
customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the
matter.
Facebook has talked about a feature that would
show its users their checking-account balances, the people said. It
has also pitched fraud alerts, some of the people said.
… Banks face pressure to build relationships
with big online platforms, which reach billions of users and drive a
growing share of commerce. They also are trying to reach more users
digitally. Many struggle to gain traction in mobile payments.
Yet banks are hesitant to hand too much control to
third-party platforms such as Facebook. They prefer to keep customers
on their own websites and apps.
As part of the proposed deals, Facebook asked
banks for information about where its users are shopping with their
debit and credit cards outside of purchases they make using Facebook
Messenger, the people said.
(Related) A carefully worded denial. In order to
provide the services customers are “opting in to” Facebook must
have access to the data.
Facebook
denies seeking users' bank data
Facebook has denied reports that it is actively
asking banks for details of users' financial transactions.
… Facebook said some users opted in to
accessing some financial information in its Messenger app.
… However, Facebook said that users must opt
in to linking the Messenger chat app to their bank accounts.
I agree. How do we live with it?
AI Weapons
Are Here to Stay
The debate
around the ethics of AI weapons has involved everyone from advocacy
groups, to government
officials, to Google
engineers. Many agree that AI weapons carry very significant
ethical concerns. Which begs the question, will these concerns, and
the efforts of anti-AI weapons advocacy groups, result in a ban of
their use or a strong taboo? Some seem
to think that an international agreement will be enough to stop
their adoption in the world’s militaries. However, the development
of a taboo around the use of AI weapons depends
on something much more straightforward, their effectiveness on the
battlefield.
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