Wednesday, April 22, 2020


It is never easy to rush new systems into use. (Probably not too serious.)
Nearly 8,000 small businesses seeking relief loans may have had personal data shared with other applicants
The SBA notified nearly 8,000 business owners of the potential inadvertent disclosure of information, which included names, Social Security numbers, tax identification numbers, addresses, dates of birth, email, phone numbers, marital and citizenship status, household size, income, disclosure inquiry and financial and insurance information, according to a letter sent to business owners, which CNBC obtained.
If the user attempted to hit the page back button, he or she may have seen information that belonged to another business owner, not their own.




Better tools.
Browser maker Vivaldi now has a built-in tracker blocker that uses DuckDuckGo tech
Vivaldi is launching the 3.0 version of its browser, and it includes an integrated tracker blocker made in partnership with DuckDuckGo. The company’s Android version of its browser is also leaving beta.
The new tracker blocker in Vivaldi uses the same blocklist as DuckDuckGo’s Privacy Essentials browser extension. Announced in March, that blocklist is based on data from DuckDuckGo’s Tracker Radar, which regularly crawls the web to identify new trackers to block.
Vivaldi is also adding a built-in ad-blocker in version 3.0, but it will be disabled by default. The browser already let you block ads that were misleading or contained malware by flipping on a setting in Vivaldi.




Another perspective.
What to Expect From Brazil’s General Data Protection Law?
The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has set in motion a wave of privacy policies all around the world. One of the biggest laws was the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) that went into effect on the 1st of January, 2020. This law has affected 500,000 organizations worldwide. If that wasn’t enough, Brazil is right behind the U.S in introducing its own Brazilian General Data Protection Law (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais – LGPD) in early August, 2020. In this article we will look into the impact of the LGPD law, its differences and similarities with the GDPR and how it is set to further change the paradigm of digital data privacy on a global scale.
Unlike the CCPA and GDPR, the LGPD does not take into account the size or revenue of a company; instead, it focuses on the information a company holds. Under article 3 of the LGPD, any organization that performs the following tasks are liable to comply with the LGPD:
  • Processing data within the territory of Brazil,
  • Processing data of individuals who are within the territory of Brazil, regardless of where in the world the data processor is located,
  • Processing data which is collected within the territory of Brazil.




How dare you allow our citizens to complain!
Exclusive: Facebook agreed to censor posts after Vietnam slowed traffic - sources
Facebook’s local servers in Vietnam were taken offline early this year, slowing local traffic to a crawl until it agreed to significantly increase the censorship of “anti-state” posts for local users, two sources at the company told Reuters on Tuesday.




To their credit...
Mastercard To Launch Online Course On Digital Ethics, Privacy And AI
A partnership between The University of Oxford, Saïd Business School and Mastercard will launch an online education program to teach business leaders about the strengths and perils of the modern day internet.
Called the Oxford Cyber Future Program, the six-week class will cover artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, threat analytics, data privacy and digital ethics, a press release states.




Perspective.
Who will be the winners in a post-pandemic economy?
COVID-19 is putting the global economy into a tailspin. Many countries are heading for very sudden and unprecedented recession. This crisis will catalyze some huge changes. Few industries will avoid being either reformed, restructured or removed. Agility, scalability and automation will be the watchwords for this new era of business, and those that have these capabilities now will be the winners.
Thanks to government stimulus packages, liquidity is coming back to the market. It will keep enough of the economy afloat so that it can climb out of recession rapidly once the various lockdowns are lifted. But the way much of it is structured means that it will likely benefit already better capitalized larger businesses, over the smaller operators who may struggle.
As president of a global technology firm, what intrigues me is where there will be paradigm shifts, as opposed to just existing trends either accelerating or decelerating.
For instance, the shift from cash to digital payments is clearly accelerating.
In the UK, ATM usage was already falling between 6% and 14% a year, but has now plummeted by more than half.
In the workplace we’re already seeing a super-charging of the nascent bring your own device (BYOD) trend in business technology. As people scramble to work and socialize remotely, previously niche tools such as Zoom, Slack, Microsoft’s Teams, and even the Houseparty app, are suddenly supporting millions of personal and corporate interactions every minute.
To create long-term resilience we will likely see further robotic automation and artificial intelligence (AI) within our supply chains. These technologies reduce manual intervention and hand-offs, cutting transmission risks, and reducing the reliance on humans to work face-to-face. They can also enable production to scale and shrink in response to sudden demand.


(Related)
All the things COVID-19 will change forever, according to 30 top experts
Tech exec, VCs, and analysts—from WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart to AOL cofounder Steve Case—on the pandemic’s lasting impact on how we live, work, and think.




Write what I mean, not what I say? (Student papers I can read?)
Microsoft Word’s AI wants to rewrite your crappy sentences
Microsoft has released a handy new tool for writers struggling to turn their ingenious ideas into words.
The feature is a new addition to Rewrite Suggestions, an AI-powered editor for Word that was first unveiled at the 2019 Microsoft Build conference.
The tool initially only offered ideas on different ways to express a phrase, but the update adds suggestions for entire sentences.
The feature is currently only available for users of Word on the web with a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, but Microsoft plans to extend it to desktop and mobile versions in the future.




Stuff to do while in quarantine.
The 7 Best Virtual Museums You Can Tour Without Leaving Home



No comments: