Chinese
Government Suspected in Marriott Hack: Report
Reuters’
sources said the hackers left behind some clues suggesting that the
attack was part of an intelligence gathering operation conducted by
the Chinese government. This assumption is based on the use of
tools, techniques and procedures (TTPs) known to be associated with
Chinese threat actors.
The
potential involvement of the Chinese government in the breach
suggests that the goal was espionage rather than financial gain.
CPOs
should already know about this. Did they bother to tell their
software architects?
Google
Facing Complaints of GDPR Violations From Consumer Groups in 7
Countries
As soon as the European General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in May 2018, it was only a matter
of time before tech giants like Google would start to receive
complaints about potential GDPR violations. And now just six months
later, Google is facing its first challenge under Europe’s strict
new data protection regulations. A group of seven European Union
member state countries – Czech Republic, Greece, Norway, the
Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden – are now asking European
privacy regulators to take action against Google for its “deceptive
practices” related to location tracking.
… For example, it’s a lot harder to deliver
Google Maps information that is relevant if “Location History” is
turned off. However, in the interests of personal privacy, some
users might wish to turn “Location History” off.
And
it’s here that Google appears to have created a legal headache for
itself in terms of potential GDPR violations. As the BEUC has noted,
simply toggling “Location
History” off doesn’t mean that Google stops tracking you.
Instead, in order to really stop Google from tracking you, you also
need to turn off a second type of functionality called “Web and App
Activity,” otherwise Google will continue to use your GPS location
data in various ways. The
fact that toggling something “off” doesn’t actually turn
something “off” is what is so deceptive, according to
the BEUC.
An
issue of Privacy?
Microsoft
Wants to Stop AI’s 'Race to the Bottom'
After a hellish year of tech scandals, even
government-averse executives have started professing their openness
to legislation. But Microsoft president Brad Smith took it one step
further on Thursday, asking governments to regulate the use of
facial-recognition
technology to ensure it
does not invade
personal privacy or [Would
my face ever be considered “personal space?” Bob]
become a tool for
discrimination or surveillance. [Can
you view/record/recognize my face without surveilling me? Bob]
… To address bias, Smith said legislation
should require companies to provide documentation about what their
technology can and can’t do in terms customers and consumers can
understand. He also said laws should require “meaningful human
review of facial recognition results prior to making final decisions”
for “consequential” uses, such as decisions that could cause
bodily or emotional harm or impinge on privacy or fundamental rights.
… Smith also said lawmakers should extend
requirements for search warrants to the use of facial-recognition
technology. [Not gonna
happen. Bob] He noted a June decision by the US Supreme
Court requiring authorities to obtain a search warrant to get
cellphone records showing a user’s location. “Do our faces
deserve the same protection as our phones?” he asked.
But could it tell that the depression is due to an
AI monitoring my smartphone? Will Big Brother make such monitoring
mandatory so the government can intervene with mood altering drugs?
Your
smartphone’s AI algorithms could tell if you are depressed
MIT
Technology Review: “Your smartphone’s AI algorithms could
tell if you are depressed. Smartphones that are used to track our
faces and voices could also help lower the barrier to mental-health
diagnosis and treatment. Depression is a huge problem for millions
of people, and it is often compounded by poor mental-health support
and stigma. Early diagnosis can help, but many mental disorders are
difficult to detect. The machine-learning algorithms that let
smartphones identify faces or respond to our voices could help
provide a universal and low-cost way of spotting the early signs and
getting treatment where it’s needed. In a
study carried out by a team at Stanford University, scientists
found that face and speech software can identify signals of
depression with reasonable accuracy. The researchers fed video
footage of depressed and non-depressed people into a machine-learning
model that was trained to learn from a combination of signals: facial
expressions, voice tone, and spoken words. The data was collected
from interviews in which a patient spoke to an avatar controlled by a
physician. In testing, it was able to detect whether someone was
depressed more than 80% of the time. The research was led by Fei-Fei
Li, a prominent AI expert who recently returned to Stanford from
Google. While the new work is at an early stage, the researchers
suggest that it could someday provide an easier way for people to get
diagnosed and helped…”
Are they all wrong?
Analysis |
The Technology 202: More than 200 companies are calling for a
national privacy law. Here's an inside look at their proposal.
The Business Roundtable’s consumer privacy
legislation framework, provided exclusively to The Technology 202,
calls on the United States to adopt a national privacy law that would
apply the same data collection requirements to all companies
regardless of sector -- while ramping up Federal Trade Commission
staffing and funding to enforce the rule. It calls on companies to
give consumers more control of their data and form a national
standard for breach notification.
Since you’re not driving, ads won’t be a
distraction. Unless you are trying to sleep or study for my exam.
Perhaps we could include voice: “Hey look! A McDonald’s! You
should get a Big Mac!”
Firefly
Nets $21.5 Million Seed Round To Boost Ride-Hail Driver Revenues With
On-Car Ads
… A new iteration on that on-car billboard,
Firefly replaces backlit printed placards with screens connected to
sensors and a location-aware computer that pipes in locally-sourced
ads to display for all to see. In turn, the company car-mounted
screen modules will come with a set of sensors that ingest
information about the outside world. The company brokers access to
both.
Fortunately, NASA did not include heavy weapons.
Space
station robot goes rogue: International Space Station’s artificial
intelligence has turned belligerent
… But, as numerous books and movies have
clearly warned us — shortly after being switched on for the first
time, CIMON has developed a mind of its own.
And it appears CIMON wants to be the boss.
This has CIMON’s ‘personality architects’
scratching their heads.
Dilbert explains the size of government
bureaucracies.
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