Value
other than money?
FBI
official says foreign hackers have targeted COVID-19 research
A
senior cybersecurity official with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation said on Thursday that foreign government hackers have
broken into companies conducting research into treatments for
COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.
… “We
certainly have seen reconnaissance activity, and some intrusions,
into some of those institutions, especially those that have publicly
identified themselves as working on COVID-related research,” she
said.
Ugoretz
said it made sense for institutions working on promising treatments
or a potential vaccine to tout their work publicly. However, she
said, “The sad flipside is that it kind of makes them a mark for
other nation-states that are interested in gleaning details about
what exactly they’re doing and maybe even stealing proprietary
information that those institutions have.”
A
topic in Computer Security / Disaster Recovery. Computers are
cheaper than most weapons of war.
Cyberwar:
How It Could Unfold and How We Can Defend Against It
What
will a cyberwar look like?
Will
it be a blitzkrieg-like invasion where a nation’s critical energy
and water systems are suddenly destroyed, plunging society into chaos
and panic? Or will it consist of a series of persistent guerilla
attacks that aggravate the populace, weaken institutions and erode
everyone’s confidence in their daily systems?
Or
will it revolve around employing falsified data to control the
“decision space,” which Vincent R. Stewart, USMC, calls “fifth
generation warfare”? In this situation, hackers inject erroneous
data into the system to coax last line of defense operators and
engineers toward hazards like energizing an area in the midst of
extreme wildfire danger. Even getting individuals to doubt their
data is a victory.
Or
will it be a shadow war, similar to the espionage during the Cold
War, where security analysts will need to spend considerable time
following up leads to determine whether an incident was a real attack
or just a mindless bot? Significantly, more effort is needed to
support criminal investigation of opportunistic mercenaries as well
as geopolitical smoke screens.
As
a pragmatist, I believe it will likely be, and already is, all of the
above.
Creating
a “this person is healthy” passport looks more and more likely.
You may need to present your ‘papers’ to fly, join any gathering,
visit a government office...
Is
the Roberts Court Going to Let Coronavirus Kill Us?
It
is looking increasingly as though a nationwide
program
of testing,
and hopefully vaccination, may be the only way to stop
the spread of
the novel coronavirus and bring back the U.S. economy.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 Obamacare decision may
actually stand in the way of effective congressional action just when
it is most needed.
In
the Obamacare case, NFIB
v. Sebelius,
Chief Justice John Roberts declared that Congress could not
constitutionally require people to obtain health insurance, relying
on a novel distinction between activity and inactivity. “Construing
the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals
precisely because
they
are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to
congressional authority (emphasis in original).”
Is
‘stay at home’ legal?
Freedom
of Association in the Wake of Coronavirus
CRS
Legal Sidebar – Freedom
of Association in the Wake of Coronavirus, April 16, 2020:
“…At least 42 U.S. states have issued emergency orders directing
residents to “stay at home,”with many states prohibiting
gatherings of various sizes to control the spread of Coronavirus
Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
… This
post discusses the legal standards that those courts applied as well
as background First Amendment principles that are likely to continue
to inform judicial review of free speech–related challenges to
gathering bans. Religious exercise principles are discussed
separately in this posting…”
(Related)
COVID-19,
Digital Surveillance, and Privacy: Fourth Amendment Considerations
CRS
Legal Sidebar – COVID-19,
Digital Surveillance, and Privacy: Fourth Amendment Considerations,
April 16, 2020:
“As COVID-19 has spread across the globe, countries like South
Korea and Israel have employed digital surveillance measures using
cell phone location data, among other things, in an effort to track
and limit the virus’s transmission. In the United States, the
federal government and some state and local governments have
reportedly begun to gather geolocation data voluntarily provided by
the mobile advertising industry to assess how people are continuing
to move and congregate during the pandemic. Technology companies
such as Google and Facebook have also discussed leveraging some of
their aggregated and anonymized location data for similar purposes.
Moreover, the recently passed CARES Act provides, as part of new
funding for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that the CDC must report to
Congress within 30 days on “the development of a public health
surveillance and data collection system for coronavirus.” In light
of these developments, some commentators have speculated about the
potential in the United States for more invasive, obligatory data
collection and tracking practices emulating the measures taken in
some other parts of the world. Actions by the federal or state
governments to surveil U.S. citizens in response to the COVID-19
pandemic could raise a host of legal issues, but as one commentator
recently recognized, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
may “determine the outer bounds of permissible surveillance at the
federal and state levels” in this context. This Sidebar
accordingly provides an overview of the Fourth Amendment and certain
relevant doctrines and exceptions before discussing how the relevant
legal frameworks could apply to coronavirus-related government
surveillance…”
Concern:
Will pent up demand crash the Internet?
Amazon,
Flipkart and other e-commerce firms in India to resume sales of
non-essential items from April 20 – TechCrunch
Flipkart,
Amazon, Snapdeal and other online shopping firms will resume selling
“non-essential” items to customers in India starting April 20,
weeks after New Delhi imposed a lockdown in the country that has cost
e-commerce companies more than a billion dollars in sales.
New
Delhi said on Thursday that e-commerce companies can resume accepting
customers orders for non-essential items including smartphones and
laptops starting next Tuesday. Spokespeople of Flipkart, Amazon,
Snapdeal, and Paytm Mall confirmed to TechCrunch that they will be
complying with the new direction.
For
those working on AI at home.
AI
and Analytics: Coming to a Process Near You
Accelerating
speed to insight from data is critical to nearly all types of
organizations, especially as managers seek to develop strategies for
responding to unexpected and rapidly changing circumstances such as
the global coronavirus outbreak. TDWI's recently published Best
Practices Report, Faster
Insights from Faster Data,
takes an in-depth look at practice and technology issues that matter
most in reducing delays in data life cycles and putting well-prepared
and relevant data in the hands of users sooner.
“I’m
shocked. Shocked I tell you!”
Study
– Students often do not question online information
PHYS.org:
“The Internet and social media are among the most frequently used
sources of information today. Students, too, often prefer online
information rather than traditional teaching materials provided by
universities. According to a study conducted by Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz (JGU) and Goethe University Frankfurt, students
struggle to critically assess information from the Internet and are
often influenced by unreliable sources. In this study, students from
various disciplines such as medicine and economics took part in an
online test, the Critical Online Reasoning Assessment (CORA).
“Unfortunately, it is becoming evident that a large proportion of
students are tempted to use irrelevant and unreliable information
from the Internet when solving the CORA tasks,” reported Professor
Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia from JGU. The study was carried out as
part of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance…”
As long as you
have extra time on your hands…
Harvard
offering access to 64 different courses online for free
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