Would this create a guilty conscious? Would that increase the probability of believing the extortion emails?

Hack on 8 adult websites exposes oodles of intimate user data

Dan Goodin reports:

A recent hack of eight poorly secured adult websites has exposed megabytes of personal data that could be damaging to the people who shared pictures and other highly intimate information on the online message boards. Included in the leaked file are (1) IP addresses that connected to the sites, (2) user passwords protected by a four-decade-old cryptographic scheme, (3) names, and (4) 1.2 million unique email addresses, although it’s not clear how many of the addresses legitimately belonged to actual users.

Robert Angelini, the owner of wifelovers.com and the seven other breached sites, told Ars on Saturday morning that, in the 21 years they operated, fewer than 107,000 people posted to them.

Read more on Ars Technica.

In the meantime, people continue to receive unrelated extortion demands via email with claims that someone has obtained your files and video of you masturbating, etc. As examples, here are two emails this blogger received this week. They refer to two different BTC wallets, and are sent to two different email addresses, but both follow the same basic format in terms of the threats.

My classes have been debating this.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-detroit-become-a-software-business-1540008107

Will Tech Leave Detroit in the Dust?

As IPO proposals value Uber at an eye-popping $120 billion, auto makers are racing to gain ground in everything from car sharing to driverless technology. At stake: who will control the future of transportation

General Motors plans to roll out a robo-taxi service next year that will let urbanites hail a driverless Chevrolet Bolt. Ford is overhauling a dilapidated Detroit train station to become a tech hub aimed at attracting software superstars. Daimler wants to merge one of its divisions with archrival BMW to create a juggernaut for services like ride hailing and car sharing.

And Toyota says it’s evolving into an entirely different company, one that focuses more on services that move people around. “It’s a matter of surviving...

It never seems to have much impact when we tell people how they are being targeted.

https://newrepublic.com/article/151548/political-campaigns-big-data-manipulate-elections-weaken-democracy

How Political Campaigns Are Messing With Your Mind

… It’s impossible to know whether Cambridge Analytica’s psychographic algorithms truly made a difference in Trump’s victory. But the underlying idea—that political campaigns can identify and influence potential voters more effectively by gathering as much information as possible on their identities, beliefs, and habits—continues to drive both Republican and Democratic data firms, which are currently hard at work on the next generation of digital campaign tools. And while the controversy surrounding Cambridge Analytica exposed some of the more ominous aspects of election campaigning in the age of big data, the revelations haven’t led to soul-searching on the part of tech companies or serious calls for reform by the public—and certainly not from politicians, who benefit most from these tactics.

(Related) For people whose minds are made up?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/technology/politics-apps-conservative-republican.html

Republicans Find a Facebook Workaround: Their Own Apps

Imagine a society in which everyone more or less agrees with you.

You wake up in the morning to online greetings from people who share your views on guns, religion and country. Your news feed contains only posts from like-minded politicians or articles from like-minded news outlets. You can safely post your own comments without fear of vitriol from trolls or challenges from naysayers.

This is the insular world in which tens of thousands of Americans who use conservative political apps are experiencing the midterm election season.

Perspective. (Although this seems more about not trusting the economists.) Do antitrust laws adequately consider companies with global reach and competitors one click away?

Should we break up the tech giants? Not if you ask the economists who take money from them

… The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched its most wide-ranging study of corporate concentration in America in more than 20 years with a series of hearings being held around the country. Chairman Joseph Simons, a practical enforcement-minded leader, launched the hearings by expressing concern over the growing problem of monopoly, which is now found in nearly every sector of the economy.