Tuesday, August 13, 2019


Kleptocracy only applies if you steal from your own people. North Korea is just organized crime?
UN Probing 35 North Korean Cyberattacks in 17 Countries
U.N. experts say they are investigating at least 35 instances in 17 countries of North Koreans using cyberattacks to illegally raise money for weapons of mass destruction programs — and they are calling for sanctions against ships providing gasoline and diesel to the country.
Last week, The Associated Press quoted a summary of a report from the experts which said that North Korea illegally acquired as much as $2 billion from its increasingly sophisticated cyber activities against financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.
The report cites three main ways that North Korean cyber hackers operate:
Attacks through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT system used to transfer money between banks, “with bank employee computers and infrastructure accessed to send fraudulent messages and destroy evidence.”
Theft of cryptocurrency “through attacks on both exchanges and users.”
And “mining of cryptocurrency as a source of funds for a professional branch of the military.”




Data managers should review lists of who can access their data periodically. Managers should review lists of the data their employees can access periodically.
Almost half of employees have access to more data than they need
betanews: “A new study of over 700 full-time US employees reveals that that 48 percent of employees have access to more company data than they need to perform their jobs, while 12 percent of employees say they have access to all company data. The survey by business app marketplace GetApp also asked employees what classifications of data protection are in place at their company. No more than a third of businesses were found to use any one individual data classification. The lowest in use are Proprietary (15 percent) and Highly Confidential (18 percent). The most commonly used are Confidential — 33 percent of businesses use this classification, Internal — 30 percent, Public — 29 percent and Restricted/Sensitive — 25 percent…




My students were rather convincing that they would call the police.
What do you do when you see a murder on the internet?
In today’s Big Story podcast, two weeks ago, four people were dead in a Markham, Ontario home. Before the police had seen the bodies, another group of people had. The alleged killer shared a potential confession as well as graphic evidence of the crimes with some acquaintances he’d made while playing an online video game. So around the world, while police had no knowledge of what was transpiring, this group of gamers was facing an impossible dilemma.




Eventually, we’ll figure it out.
European Parliament Publishes Study on Blockchain and the GDPR
On July 24, 2019, the European Parliament published a study entitled “Blockchain and the General Data Protection Regulation: Can distributed ledgers be squared with European data protection law?” The study explores the tension between blockchain technology and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), the EU’s data protection law. The study also explores how blockchain technology can be used as a tool to assist with GDPR compliance. Finally, it recommends the adoption of certain policies to address the tension between blockchain and the GDPR, to ensure that “innovation is not stifled and remains responsible”. This blog post highlights some of the key findings in the study and provides a summary of the recommended policy options.




Normally, these are the folks who tell you how to process data under the GDPR.
PwC will have to work to rebuild trust after shock GDPR fine
The GDPR clearly establishes legal bases, under which personal data may be processed by controllers. Consent is one such basis, but it’s not the only one. And PwC’s choice of consent as a legal basis for processing personal data of its employees was not appropriate, the DPA found.
The data was processed in the course of the company’s commercial activities, and the employees were not informed about that. That kind of approach was found to be in violation of the GDPR’s fairness and transparency principles.
The accountability principle was also not complied with since the company failed to demonstrate appropriate compliance and transferred the burden to data subjects. As PwC was in this case a controller of personal data, such transfer was inappropriate.




Where did they cross the line? What do employers say?
Exclusive: Google's jobs search draws antitrust complaints from rivals
Google’s fast-growing tool for searching job listings has been a boon for employers and job boards starving for candidates, but several rival job-finding services contend anti-competitive behavior has fueled its rise and cost them users and profits.
Similar to worldwide leader Indeed and other search services familiar to job seekers, Google’s tool links to postings aggregated from many employers. It lets candidates filter, save and get alerts about openings, though they must go elsewhere to apply.
Alphabet Inc’s Google places a large widget for the 2-year-old tool at the top of results for searches such as “call center jobs” in most of the world.
Some rivals allege that positioning is illegal because Google is using its dominance to attract users to its specialized search offering without the traditional marketing investments they have to make.
Other job technology firms say Google has restored industry innovation and competition.




Often helpful in a ‘least common denominator’ kind of way. Lots of references to other standards. (Definitions need some work)
A Plan for Federal Engagement in Developing Technical Standards and Related Tools
NIST – U.S. Leadership in AI: A Plan for Federal Engagement in Developing Technical Standards and Related Tools. Prepared in response to Executive Order 13859 Submitted on August 9, 2019. “United States global leadership in AI depends upon the Federal government playing an active and purpose-driven role in AI standards development. That includes AI standards-related efforts needed by agencies to fulfill their missions by:
    • supporting and conducting AI research and development,
    • actively engaging in AI standards development,
    • procuring and deploying standards-based products and services, and
    • developing and implementing supportive policies, including regulatory policies where needed..”
This plan identifies the following nine areas of focus for AI standards: Concepts and terminology; Data and knowledge; Human interactions; Metrics; Networking; Performance testing and reporting methodology; Safety; Risk management; Trustworthiness…”




When playing blackjack with a robot dealer, never say, “Hit me!”
Robots need a new philosophy to get a grip
Robots need to know the reason why they are doing a job if they are to effectively and safely work alongside people in the near future. In simple terms, this means machines need to understand motive the way humans do, and not just perform tasks blindly, without context.
According to a new article by the National Centre for Nuclear Robotics, based at the University of Birmingham, this could herald a profound change for the world of robotics, but one that is necessary.
"Imagine asking a robot to pass you a screwdriver in a workshop. Based on current conventions the best way for a robot to pick up the tool is by the handle," he said. "Unfortunately, that could mean that a hugely powerful machine then thrusts a potentially lethal blade towards you, at speed. Instead, the robot needs to know what the end goal is, i.e.,to pass the screwdriver safely to its human colleague, in order to rethink its actions.
Robotic manipulation and the role of the task in the metric of success, Nature Machine Intelligence (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s42256-019-0078-4




Because I like lists. (Quantity not quality) How far down the list must you go to find a site you don’t recognize?
Ranking the Top 100 Websites in the World
Visual Capitalist – Ranking the Top 100 Websites in the World – “As a greater portion of the world begins to live more of their life online, the world’s top 100 websites continue to see explosive growth in their traffic numbers. To claim even the 100th spot in this ranking, your website would need around 350 million visits in a single month. Using data from SimilarWeb, we’ve visually mapped out the top 100 biggest websites on the internet. Examining the ranking reveals a lot about how people around the world search for information, which services they use, and how they spend time online…”




For my students.
… Sifting through large piles of resumes is often machine-assisted, and machines don’t care about your potential. Machines only care about which words you’ve used and the “value” that has been assigned to them. Jobscan knows this and tries to play into it.
Jobscan’s primary function is to read your resume and cover letter. From there, it will tell you how likely you are to make it past first-round filters based upon the language you’ve used in your application.



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