Failure by design.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/security-oversight-at-first-american-causes-data-leak-of-900-million-records/

Security Oversight at First American Causes Data Leak of 900 Million Records

First American, the largest real estate title insurance company in the United States, just won a particularly awful silver medal. An ongoing data leak at the company appears to have exposed the transaction records of about 900 million customers, which would make it the second-largest data breach in history behind the 3 billion accounts that were impacted by the Yahoo! hack of 2013.

… The worst part of all this is that this devastating leak wasn’t the result of a phishing scam, or even an insecure Amazon bucket. First American appears to have failed to secure unique URLs to these documents properly, using a sequential system and allowing anyone to access customers information simply by entering the right URL into a web browser.

Not at the bleeding edge of election security. It also didn’t hurt that California now requires paper ballots.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/09/voting-machine-maker-election-security/

Top voting machine maker reverses position on election security, promises paper ballots

Voting machine maker ES&S has said it “will no longer sell” paperless voting machines as the primary device for casting ballots in a jurisdiction.

ES&S chief executive Tom Burt confirmed the news in an op-ed.

TechCrunch understands the decision was made around the time that four senior Democratic lawmakers demanded to know why ES&S, and two other major voting machine makers, were still selling decade-old machines known to contain security flaws.

Burt’s op-ed said voting machines “must have physical paper records of votes” to prevent mistakes or tampering that could lead to improperly cast votes. Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill a year ago that would mandate voter-verified paper ballots for all election machines.

Think very carefully before you put words in Bill’s mouth. (Useful for generating confusion in the 2020 elections?)

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613647/facebooks-ai-system-can-speak-with-bill-gatess-voice/

Facebook’s AI system can speak with Bill Gates’s voice

The company’s AI researchers have developed a speech synthesizer capable of copying anybody’s voice with uncanny accuracy.

Not sure that the UN will follow, but it’s something to think about.

https://www.justsecurity.org/64490/estonia-speaks-out-on-key-rules-for-cyberspace/

Estonia Speaks Out on Key Rules for Cyberspace

… Speaking at the 2019 CyCon Conference, President Kersti Kaljulaid reaffirmed the applicability of international law in cyberspace before observing that “[s]overeignty entails not only rights, but also obligations.” She emphasized, drawing on the law of State responsibility, that States are responsible in law for “internationally wrongful cyber operations… whether or not such acts are carried out by state organs or by non-state actors supported or controlled by the state.” President Kaljulaid also powerfully stressed that “[i]f a cyber operation violates international law, this needs to be called out.” Doing so is crucial, for if interpretive efforts are to advance, States have to not only condemn other States for conducting hostile cyber operations, but also label them as violations of international law and specify the precise rule of law that they breached.

Another guesstimate. I think it’s much farther away than most experts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/06/10/how-far-are-we-from-achieving-artificial-general-intelligence/#34eddbc86dc4

How Far Are We From Achieving Artificial General Intelligence?

… Put simply, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) can be defined as the ability of a machine to perform any task that a human can.

… the rapid rate at which AI is developing new capabilities means that we might be get close to the inflection point when the AI research community surprises us with the development of artificial general intelligence. And experts have predicted the development of artificial intelligence to be achieved as early as by 2030. A survey of AI experts recently predicted the expected emergence of AGI or the singularity by the year 2060.

Thus, although in terms of capability, we are far from achieving artificial general intelligence, the exponential advancement of AI research may possibly culminate into the invention of artificial general intelligence within our lifetime or by the end of this century.

Architecture. Robots in Colorado.

https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-warehouse-robots/

INSIDE THE AMAZON WAREHOUSE WHERE HUMANS AND MACHINES BECOME ONE

… Amazon needs this robotic system to supercharge its order fulfillment process and make same-day delivery a widespread reality. But the implications strike at the very nature of modern labor: Humans and robots are fusing into a cohesive workforce, one that promises to harness the unique skills of both parties.