Voter lists were a major target in 2016 (and earlier), I guess they haven’t had time to secure any of these. Does not bode well for the 2020 election.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-warns-of-ddos-attack-on-state-voter-registration-site/
FBI Warns of DDoS Attack on State Voter Registration Site
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned of a potential Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that targeted a state-level voter registration and information site in a Private Industry Notification (PIN) released today.



(Related) "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/iowa-democrats-should-have-known-better-than-to-use-an-app/
Iowa Democrats Should Have Known Better Than To Use An App
… Both Chisnell and MacAlpine questioned why the party didn’t simply use the caucuses as a chance to pilot an app, rather than diving into a full roll out. But in a way, the party already piloted using an app back in 2016. Both the Republican and Democratic parties in Iowa introduced apps built by Microsoft to report results during the caucuses in 2016. And it didn’t work last time, either, with multiple results not properly transmitted.






Technically, there is no reason to stop at pictures of faces. We could build a complete dossier on most social media users.
CEO of Creepy Face Recognition Firm Clearview AI Says He Has First Amendment Right to Billions of Photos
Hoan Ton-That, the CEO and founder of a face recognition company that he freely admits could help lead to a surveillance “nightmare” and a “dystopian future or something,” says he has a First Amendment right to scrape whatever images he damn well pleases off public websites like Twitter to pad out his company’s supposedly three billion photo database.
Clearview AI has licensed its face surveillance systems to over 600 law enforcement agencies ranging from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to local police departments. It operates with virtually next to no oversight, claims it’s exempt from biometric data laws, and marketed its tools to law enforcement as a sort of face recognition free for all while reportedly making false claims about its usefulness in cracking cases. Clearview’s database is built off images scraped from public sources on the internet like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Venmo, Google, and countless other websites.






Because we can’t ensure our own privacy?
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/can-privacy-be-big-business-wave-startups-thinks-so-n1128626
Can privacy be big business? A wave of startups thinks so.
… The California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect Jan. 1, gives people the right to know what large companies know about them and the right to block the sale of that information to others. In effect, it created a market for privacy expertise and software.
A wave of privacy-focused technology startups is offering a variety of services, from personal data scrubbing to business-focused software meant to help companies comply with the law.
A brief list of the nearly 300 companies now selling privacy services
… Personal privacy is still under threat from data breaches, data harvesting and elsewhere, but it may also finally be living up to its promise as a profitable business.
“We’ve just created a privacy industry,” said Alastair Mactaggart, head of Californians for Consumer Privacy, the organization that pushed the state to pass its landmark new privacy law.






I did not see this coming.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/intercontinental-exchange-approaches-ebay-about-a-takeover-11580845016
NYSE Owner Intercontinental Exchange Makes Takeover Offer for eBay
The owner of the New York Stock Exchange has made a takeover offer for eBay Inc. that could value the sprawling online marketplace at more than $30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
… The companies aren’t currently in formal talks, and there is no guarantee eBay would agree to a deal.






Can this logic be expanded?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/welfare-surveillance-system-violates-human-rights-dutch-court-rules
Welfare surveillance system violates human rights, Dutch court rules
A Dutch court has ordered the immediate halt of an automated surveillance system for detecting welfare fraud because it violates human rights, in a judgment likely to resonate well beyond the Netherlands.
The case was seen as an important legal challenge to the controversial but growing use by governments around the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and risk modelling in administering welfare benefits and other core services.
Campaigners say such “digital welfare states” – developed often without consultation, and operated secretively and without adequate oversight – amount to spying on the poor, breaching privacy and human rights norms and unfairly penalising the most vulnerable.






Something to look into?
https://www.bespacific.com/law-firm-launches-free-e-discovery-app/
Law Firm Launches Free E-Discovery App
eWeek: “New York-based law firm Reed Smith on Feb. 3 announced the launch of the new “E-Discovery App” for litigation professionals and others in the e-discovery community. This mobile application was developed in-house by the firm’s Records & E-Discovery (RED) Practice Group in collaboration with the firm’s legal tech subsidiary, Gravity Stack. The E-Discovery App is a free download available through the Apple App Store and Google Play. To install the app on a phone, users can simply click on the Apple Appstore or Google Play and search for “E-Discovery App.” “Our clients and professionals within the e-discovery community have been seeking an on-demand tool that gives them access to many e-discovery resources at their fingertips,” David Cohen, a Reed Smith partner and RED chair, said in a media advisory. “Our app provides a great starting point for legal professionals and helps drive progress for our clients.”..






Something strange for my Cryptography lecture.
https://mymodernmet.com/nyc-trees-font-katie-holten/
NYC Parks Are Using a Designer’s ‘Tree Font’ to Plant Secret Messages with Real Trees