Sunday, July 21, 2019


Translated by Google. I don’t think this is as exciting as the reporting makes it seem.
Mosquito, Nadezhda, Nautilus: hackers revealed the essence of the projects of the secret contractor of the FSB
The hackers broke into the server of a major contractor of the Russian special services and departments, and then shared with reporters descriptions of dozens of non-public Internet projects: from de-anonymization of users of the Tor browser to research the vulnerability of torrents.
It is possible that this is the largest data leak in the history of the work of Russian special services on the Internet.




We can, therefore we must!”
Why Drive-Thru Restaurants Want to Track Your License Plate
"Welcome back. Would you like to order the same thing you ordered Tuesday at 5:37 p.m.?"
Some fast food brands are toying with the idea of using license plate recognition technology (the kind of thing used in speed traps) to track customers and provide them with additional features like customized ordering screens, according to the Financial Times. Clearly, there are benefits here: Beyond just customized menus, chains could offer other conveniences like linking your car to a loyalty program or even a credit card, making payment a breeze. This technology could almost certainly speed up drive-thru times — a major industry concern.




We’ll protect your Privacy, unless ordered not to.”
Scott Greenfield writes:
The LA Times calls it “unprecedented,” which may be true in the sense that it’s never happened before. But the notion that corporations aren’t above the law isn’t entirely novel, and even the behemoths, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (“FIT”), must comply with a California state court order in a criminal proceeding. Imagine that.
In an unprecedented move, the California Supreme Court has allowed the defense in a gang-related murder trial in San Francisco to obtain private postings from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
In a brief order Wednesday, the court let stand a San Francisco judge’s ruling that the social media companies must turn over the private postings being sought by defendants in a murder trial.
According to Jim Tyre, this “brief order” was the California equivalent of a cert denial, referred to as “postcard denials” because they were sent out on a post card in the olden days that said something on the order of, “nah.” But in this instance, the refusal to bend to the will of the FIT was apparently shocking. Don’t they own California?
Read more on Simple Justice.
[From the article:
From the perspective of FIT, this was a test of fortitude, one that reflected their dedication to preserving the sanctity of users’ secrecy from the prying eyes of the defense. Mind you, the government already had access to it, which may not have thrilled FIT but didn’t present enough of a problem that it was willing to go to the mattresses. But the defense?




Innovating yourself into trouble.
Publishers are pissed about Amazon’s upcoming Audible Captions feature
Earlier this week, Audible revealed that it was working on a new feature for its audiobook app: Audible Captions, which will use machine learning to transcribe an audio recording for listeners, allowing them to read along with the narrator. While the Amazon-owned company claims it is designed as an educational feature, a number of publishers are demanding that their books be excluded, saying these captions are “unauthorized and brazen infringements of the rights of authors and publishers.”
On its face, the idea seems useful, much in the same way that I turn on subtitles for things that I’m watching on TV, but publishers have some reason to be concerned: it’s possible that fewer people will buy distinct e-book or physical books if they can simply pick up an Audible audiobook and get the text for free, too.
And Audible may not have the right to provide that text, anyhow.
This isn’t the first time that Amazon has come under fire for publishers when it comes to translating text to audio, or vice-versa. In 2009, the company backtracked on a text-to-speech feature on the Kindle, which allowed readers to listen to their book with machine-generated narrator. The Authors Guild argued that the feature deprived authors of their audio rights, and Amazon disabled it.




Perfect for anyone thinking about researching a Privacy topic.
From the office of the New Zealand Privacy Commission:
The Privacy Good Research Fund is now open for applications for privacy-related research.
The Privacy Good Research Fund offers funding support to researchers worth in total up to $75,000. Successful applicants will receive funding of up to $25,000 for individual projects.
Information for Applicants
The Privacy Good Research Fund is open for applications from 15 July to 9 September 2019. Application forms and further information are available below.
For more information, email researchprogramme@privacy.org.nz.
Research priority areas
Applications are welcome for research projects that develop new privacy-related knowledge, provide practical solutions, or promote innovation.
The PGRF also welcomes research that will support organisational experiences in improving practice in data privacy and ethics, using the Data Protection and Use Policy (DPUP) as the implementation example. For more information, see the SIA website.
The SIA has a dedicated portion of funding to apply to this area.




US ethics aren’t ‘universal ethics?’ Surely we must be talking of Normative or Applied Ethics, right?
Global AI Ethics: A Review of the Social Impacts and Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence
The ethical implications and social impacts of artificial intelligence have become topics of compelling interest to industry, researchers in academia, and the public. However, current analyses of AI in a global context are biased toward perspectives held in the U.S., and limited by a lack of research, especially outside the U.S. and Western Europe. This article summarizes the key findings of a literature review of recent social science scholarship on the social impacts of AI and related technologies in five global regions. Our team of social science researchers reviewed more than 800 academic journal articles and monographs in over a dozen languages. Our review of the literature suggests that AI is likely to have markedly different social impacts depending on geographical setting. Likewise, perceptions and understandings of AI are likely to be profoundly shaped by local cultural and social context. Recent research in U.S. settings demonstrates that AI-driven technologies have a pattern of entrenching social divides and exacerbating social inequality, particularly among historically marginalized groups. Our literature review indicates that this pattern exists on a global scale, and suggests that low and middle-income countries may be more vulnerable to the negative social impacts of AI and less likely to benefit from the attendant gains. We call for rigorous ethnographic research to better understand the social impacts of AI around the world. Global, on-the-ground research is particularly critical to identify AI systems that may amplify social inequality in order to mitigate potential harms. Deeper understanding of the social impacts of AI in diverse social settings is a necessary precursor to the development, implementation, and monitoring of responsible and beneficial AI technologies, and forms the basis for meaningful regulation of these technologies.



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