You
could see this one coming. Is the First Amendment a defense?
Class
action suit against Clearview AI cites Illinois law that cost
Facebook $550M
Just
two weeks ago Facebook settled a lawsuit alleging violations of
privacy laws in Illinois (for
the considerable sum of $550 million ).
Now controversial startup Clearview AI, which has gleefully admitted
to scraping and analyzing the data of millions, is the target of a
new lawsuit citing similar violations.
Clearview
made waves earlier this year with a business model seemingly
predicated on wholesale abuse of public-facing data on Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram and so on. If your face is visible to a web
scraper or public API, Clearview either has it or wants it and will
be submitting it for analysis by facial recognition systems.
Just
one problem: That’s illegal in Illinois, and you ignore this to
your peril, as Facebook found.
The
lawsuit, filed yesterday on behalf of several Illinois citizens and
first
reported by Buzzfeed News,
alleges that Clearview “actively collected, stored and used
Plaintiffs’ biometrics — and the biometrics of most of the
residents of Illinois — without providing notice, obtaining
informed written consent or publishing data retention policies.”
An
unreasonable request? Doesn’t the EU do much the same?
Twitter,
Facebook Fined for Not Moving User Data to Russia
A
court in Moscow fined Twitter and Facebook 4 million rubles each
Thursday for refusing
to store the
personal data of Russian citizens on servers in Russia, the largest
penalties imposed on Western technology companies under internet use
laws.
The
fines of nearly $63,000 are the first five-figure fines levied on
tech companies since Russia adopted a flurry of legislation starting
in 2012 designed to tighten the government’s grip on online
activity.
… Commenting
on Thursday’s court rulings, Roskomnadzor said Twitter and Facebook
would be fined 18 million rubles ($283,000) each if they don’t
comply this year.
Last
year, Twitter and Facebook were fined the equivalent of $47 each for
violating
the same personal data regulation.
The punishment had no effect on the two companies, so in December
Russian authorities increased the fines.
Oh
yeah, Privacy. We were going to address that someday.
Ring
to tighten privacy amid concerns it shares customer data with
Facebook and Google
Ring,
the Amazon-owned maker of smart-home doorbells and web-enabled
security cameras, is changing its privacy settings two weeks after a
study showed the company shares customers' personal information with
Facebook, Google and other parties without users' consent.
The
change will let Ring users block the company from sharing most, but
not all, of their data. A
company spokesperson said people will be able to opt out of those
sharing agreements "where applicable." The spokesperson
declined to clarify what "where applicable" might mean.
This
is the first such ruling I recall. Once identified, will they try to
re-gruntle this disgruntled customer?
SBS
News reports:
The Federal Court of Australia has granted a Melbourne dentist an order which forces tech giant Google to reveal the identification of an anonymous online reviewer.
The lawyer for a Melbourne dentist who received an anonymous online negative review has welcomed the decision by an Australian Federal Court judge compelling Google to release the identity of the reviewer.
Dr Matthew Kabbabe claims the reputation of his Melbourne dental practice has suffered, following a scathing review left by a disgruntled customer late last year.
Read
more on SBS
News.
Need
I say, Architecture!
Top
13 enterprise architecture tools for 2020
These
popular and emerging EA tools offer businesses everything they need
to support enterprise architecture and digital transformation.
Enterprise
architecture (EA) tools help organizations align business objectives
with IT goals and infrastructure. These tools help manage
information related to EA while helping companies plan roadmaps for
digital transformation. They offer collaboration, reports, testing,
simulations and more to help organizations create and implement
models for better business and IT processes, development and
architecture.
One
Architecture perspective.
AIoT
– Convergence of Artificial Intelligence with the Internet of
Things
Last
such great convergence occurred in the late 1990s as mobile phones
and the internet collided to change the course of human history. The
convergence of AI and the IoT will bring in a similar revolution on
an even grander scale.
The
ability to capture data through IoT is a large scale evolution that
has exploded on the scene over the past five years. These new
advancements have been accompanied by new concerns and threats
associated with privacy and security. Large volumes of confidential
company information and user data are tempting targets for dark web
hackers as well as the global government entities. The high level of
risk has also brought in newer and more responsibilities that
accompany the increased capability.
Sensors
are now applied to almost everything. This indicates that infinitely
more data can be collected from every transaction or process in
real-time. IoT devices are the front line of the data collection
process in manufacturing environments and also in the customer
service departments. Any device with a chipset can potentially be
connected to a network and begin streaming data 24/7.
Obvious,
but not commonly known. Parallels the changes businesses must make
to remain competitive.
THE
ABCS OF AI-ENABLED INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS
From
July 2014 to April 2015, a period of about 10 months, experts
estimate there were 23 million tweets involved in the
self-proclaimed Islamic State’s online marshalling of support and
influence operations. These tweets contained critical information
about the group’s leadership, information narratives, and even
indications of tactical activities. While the Islamic State didn’t
tweet its way into Mosul, this open-source data was of significant
intelligence value. But
it’s impossible for any given analyst to sort and understand 23
million tweets manually.
This illustrates the dilemma that recent advances in technology pose
for traditional methods of intelligence analysis: The digitization of
human society has made huge amounts of information available for
analysis. This information comes from an ever-increasing number of
sources, like online social networks, digital sensors, or ubiquitous
surveillance, and has been increasingly
useful for intelligence. Too
much information is being produced too quickly for an
intelligence analyst to even comprehend it using current analysis
techniques and software, much less derive meaningful intelligence
from it or verify its veracity.
The
changing information environment will force the conduct of military
intelligence analysis to change too. This change cannot simply be
the acquisition
of some new analysis software or implementation of a new policy,
but rather must be more comprehensive changes across all military
intelligence organizations. To meet the new realities of the
information environment, and by corollary the new realities of
intelligence analysis, the whole of military intelligence needs to
modernize in three areas. First, military intelligence organizations
like the Army G-2,
the J-2,
and Futures Command should
continue modernizing the tools and infrastructure supporting
intelligence analysis and make these changes more broadly available
to the force. Second, the military intelligence schoolhouse ought to
update how it trains and develops intelligence analysts. Third,
military intelligence research organizations — like Intelligence
Advanced Research Projects Activity and elements within U.S. Army
Intelligence and Security Command — need research into potential
disruptive technologies to maintain the integrity of intelligence
analysis.
Security tools.
The Private
Internet Access Android app is being open sourced
Private Internet Access (PIA) is open sourcing its
Android VPN app and dependencies code to the public as part of its
commitment to open sourcing all clients in the name of transparency
and privacy. The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community is a
cornerstone of everything we enjoy on the internet.
… Private
Internet Access first announced their plans to open source their VPN
client software on all platforms in 2018.
Over the last few years, PIA has open sourced its Chrome
Extension, Firefox Add-On,,
Private
Internet Access tunnel for Apple Platforms,
and Desktop
client.
The open source PIA desktop client even includes the code for how to
allow users to resolve
Handshake names.
It is with great pleasure that the PIA team releases the code for
the PIA VPN Android App to the public for anyone to review.
Links
to all of the repositories can be found at pia-foss
on Github.
More information on PIA’s FOSS codebases can also be found here
We’re
trying to help our students navigate the new interview process.
Cost
Cutting Algorithms Are Making Your Job Search a Living Hell
More
companies are using automated job screening systems to vet
candidates, forcing jobseekers to learn new and absurd tricks to have
their résumés seen by a human.
Policy: Double check before taking any
irreversible action.
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