...and so the hacking of the 2020 Election begins quietly.
Russian state hackers suspected in targeting Biden campaign firm – sources
Joel Schectman, Raphael Satter, Christopher Bing, and Joseph Menn report:
Microsoft Corp recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to three people briefed on the matter.
The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working with Biden and other prominent Democrats, over the past two months, the sources said.
Read more on Reuters.
(Related) So quietly, the people who were supposed to notice missed it entirely. Or perhaps their focus is too narrow?
Top U.S. federal election protection official says no sign of infrastructure hacks
The official leading the effort to protect U.S. elections from foreign hacking said on Tuesday he had seen no signs of infiltration on computer systems used to record and tabulate votes.
“The technical stuff on networks, we’re not seeing,” said Chris Krebs, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “It gives me a little bit of confidence.”
For my Computer Security students.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/09/the_third_editi.html
The Third Edition of Ross Anderson’s Security Engineering
Ross Anderson’s fantastic textbook, Security Engineering, will have a third edition. The book won’t be published until December, but Ross has been making drafts of the chapters available online as he finishes them. Now that the book is completed, I expect the publisher to make him take the drafts off the Internet.
I personally find both the electronic and paper versions to be incredibly useful. Grab an electronic copy now while you still can.
This law was probably passed by people with faces.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/tech/portland-facial-recognition-ban/index.html
Portland passes broadest facial recognition ban in the US
The city of Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday banned the use of facial-recognition technology by city departments — including local police — as well as public-facing businesses such as stores, restaurants and hotels.
… In addition to halting city use of the surveillance technology, the new rule prevents "private entities in places of public accommodation" in Portland from using it, too, referring to businesses that serve the general public — a grocery store or a pizza place, for instance. It does not prevent individuals from setting up facial-recognition technology at home, such as a Google Nest camera that can spot familiar faces, or gadgets that use facial-recognition software for authenticating users, like Apple's Face ID feature for unlocking an iPhone.
Should we worry or simply forge ahead?
https://www.cyberscoop.com/chinese-cyber-power-united-states-harvard-belfer-research/
Chinese cyber power is neck-and-neck with US, Harvard research finds
As conventional wisdom goes, experts tend to rank the U.S ahead of China, U.K., Iran, North Korea, Russia, in terms of how strong it is when it comes to cyberspace. But a new study from Harvard University’s Belfer Center shows that China has closed the gap on the U.S. in three key categories: surveillance, cyber defense, and its efforts to build up its commercial cyber sector.
What’s important?
Internet Society’s “Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit” Aims to Protect the Future of the Internet
The Internet Society’s new “Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit” may be primarily aimed at policymakers, but it’s a worthwhile read for anyone who considers themselves a stakeholder in the future of the internet.
The paper centers on five critical properties of networking that have made the internet successful and vital to human communication, and on the threats that could potentially undermine these principles. The primary threat that the paper identifies is a splintering of the internet, with both authoritarian nations and private interests gating things off into permission-based centralized networks.
[The Toolkit:
The availability of Internet search has changed the way lawyers must operate. Is it true for all other professions?
https://www.bespacific.com/the-search-for-clarity-in-an-attorneys-duty-to-google/
The Search for Clarity in an Attorney’s Duty to Google
Murphy, Michael, The Search for Clarity in an Attorney’s Duty to Google (August 23, 2020). U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 20-30, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3682235 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3682235
“Attorneys have a professional duty to investigate relevant facts about the matters on which they work. There is no specific rule or statute requiring that an attorney perform an internet search as part of this investigation. Yet attorneys have been found by judges to violate a “Duty to Google” when they have failed to conduct an internet search for relevant information about, for example, a claim, their own client, and even potential jurors in a trial.
So much information is now available to attorneys so easily in electronic search results, it is time to wonder where, when, and how much attorneys should be searching. This Article examines the following questions: is the “Duty to Google” merely yet another example of how attorneys must become proficient in technology to meet their professional ethical obligations? Or is it something more? Where should this duty be codified, if anywhere? At what point does technology like a search engine become so “mainstream” that attorneys have a duty to use it or face allegations of malpractice? How will attorneys know how much Googling is enough?
This article explores an attorney’s duty of investigation and notes that this duty has been, like the rest of legal practice, forever changed (and ever changing) by technology. It examines the potential sources of a Duty to Google and argues that this responsibility is poorly defined. Accordingly, this article argues for a better-defined duty of investigation, codified in a rule of professional conduct. The article concludes by looking to the future and suggesting industry-wide changes to better prepare attorneys to meet their (better defined) obligations of technological competency.”
...because you know they’re going to monkey with it!
https://www.bespacific.com/report-regulating-social-media/
Report – Regulating Social Media
The Fight Over Section 230 and Beyond by Paul M. Barrett is the deputy director of the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “Recently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 has come under sharp attack from members of both political parties, including presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The foundational law of the commercial internet, Section 230 does two things: It protects platforms and websites from most lawsuits related to content posted by third parties. And it guarantees this shield from liability even if the platforms and sites actively police the content they host. This protection has encouraged internet companies to innovate and grow, even as it has raised serious questions about whether social media platforms adequately self-regulate harmful content. In addition to the assaults by Trump and Biden, members of Congress have introduced a number of bills designed to limit the reach of Section 230. Some critics have asserted unrealistically that repealing or curbing Section 230 would solve a wide range of problems relating to internet governance. These critics also have played down the potentialy dire consequences that repeal would have for smaller internet companies. Academics, think tank researchers, and others outside of government have made a variety of more nuanced proposals for revising the law. We assess these ideas with an eye toward recommending and integrating the most promising ones. Our conclusion is that Section 230 ought to be preserved—but that it can be improved. It should be used as a means to push platforms to accept greater responsibility for the content they host…”
Future justice?
The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Courts and Online Hearings: Maintaining Open Justice, Procedural Fairness and Impartiality
Legg, Michael, The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Courts and Online Hearings: Maintaining Open Justice, Procedural Fairness and Impartiality (2021). Forthcoming (2021) Federal Law Review, UNSW Law Research No. 20-46, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3681165
“The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing mandated health protections saw courts turn to communications technology as a means to be able to continue to function. However, courts are unique institutions that exercise judicial power in accordance with the rule of law. Even in a pandemic courts need to function in a manner consistent with their institutional role and its essential characteristics. This article uses the unique circumstances brought about by the pandemic to consider how courts can embrace technology but maintain the core or essential requirements of a court. This article identifies three essential features of courts – open justice, procedural fairness and impartiality – and examines how this recent adoption of technology has maintained or challenged those essential features. This examination allows for both an assessment of how the courts operated during the pandemic, but also provides guidance for making design decisions about a technology-enabled future court.”
Is this as big a change as I think it might be?
https://fortune.com/2020/09/09/mastercard-launches-digital-currency-kit-for-central-banks/
Mastercard launches digital currency kit for central banks
In the 10 years since Bitcoin came on the financial scene, central banks have quietly been dabbling in digital currencies of their own. Now, Mastercard has unveiled a tool designed to simulate how those currencies would work in the real world.
The payments giant announced the project on Wednesday morning, calling it the Central Bank Digital Currencies Testing Platform—a bland title to be sure, but one likely to find favor with cautious central bankers.
A classroom flipping tool.
https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2020/09/video-puppet-is-now-narakeet-still.html
Video Puppet is Now Narakeet - Still Turns Slides Into Narrated Videos
Back in April I featured a neat service called Video Puppet that turns PowerPoint presentations into narrated videos. This morning I got an email notifying me that Video Puppet has been re-branded as Narakeet (why? I don't know).
Narakeet does all of the same things as Video Puppet. The only change is the name and a few new additional features. Those new features include greater control over the voice-over. You can now have multiple voice-over voices in your video and you can now control pauses in the narration.
Here's the video I made about Video Puppet last spring. The functions in Narakeet are exactly the same.
Dilbert’s answer to Artificial Intelligence.
https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-09-10
No comments:
Post a Comment