It used to be this was too ‘small change’ to attract crooks.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/01/fake-qr-codes-on-parking-meters.html
Fake QR Codes on Parking Meters
The City of Austin is warning about QR codes stuck to parking meters that take people to fraudulent payment sites.
Is anyone blowing the whistle on specific US databases? Perhaps some of this data could be obtained from multiple, legal sources. Must Europol attempt to check each record for possible legitimacy?
A data ‘black hole’: Europol ordered to delete vast store of personal data
The EU’s police agency, Europol, will be forced to delete much of a vast store of personal data that it has been found to have amassed unlawfully by the bloc’s data protection watchdog. The unprecedented finding from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) targets what privacy experts are calling a “big data ark” containing billions of points of information. Sensitive data in the ark has been drawn from crime reports, hacked from encrypted phone services and sampled from asylum seekers never involved in any crime.
According to internal documents seen by the Guardian, Europol’s cache contains at least 4 petabytes – equivalent to 3m CD-Roms or a fifth of the entire contents of the US Library of Congress. Data protection advocates say the volume of information held on Europol’s systems amounts to mass surveillance and is a step on its road to becoming a European counterpart to the US National Security Agency (NSA), the organisation whose clandestine online spying was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
It must be hard to write regulations when you have no idea what you are regulating.
https://thenextweb.com/news/why-its-so-hard-to-regulate-algorithms-syndication
Why it’s so hard to regulate algorithms
In 2018, the New York City Council created a task force to study the city’s use of automated decision systems (ADS). The concern: Algorithms, not just in New York but around the country, were increasingly being employed by government agencies to do everything from informing criminal sentencing and detecting unemployment fraud to prioritizing child abuse cases and distributing health benefits.
… In New York City, that initial working group took two years to make a set of broad, nonbinding recommendations for further research and oversight. One task force member described the endeavor as a “waste.” The group could not even agree on a definition for automated decision systems, and several of its members, at the time and since, have said they did not believe city agencies and officials had bought into the process.
Elsewhere, nearly all proposals to study or regulate algorithms have failed to pass. Bills to create study groups to examine the use of algorithms failed in Massachusetts, New York state, California, Hawaii, and Virginia. Bills requiring audits of algorithms or prohibiting algorithmic discrimination have died in California, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington state. In several cases—California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Vermont—ADS oversight or study bills remain pending in the legislature, but their prospects this session are slim, according to sponsors and advocates in those states.
… The Markup interviewed lawmakers and lobbyists and reviewed written and oral testimony on dozens of ADS bills to examine why legislatures have failed to regulate these tools.
We found two key through lines: Lawmakers and the public lack fundamental access to information about what algorithms their agencies are using, how they’re designed, and how significantly they influence decisions. In many of the states The Markup examined, lawmakers and activists said state agencies had rebuffed their attempts to gather basic information, such as the names of tools being used.
Meanwhile, Big Tech and government contractors have successfully derailed legislation by arguing that proposals are too broad—in some cases claiming they would prevent public officials from using calculators and spreadsheets—and that requiring agencies to examine whether an ADS system is discriminatory would kill innovation and increase the price of government procurement.
(Related)
https://www.insideprivacy.com/data-privacy/december-2021-eu-privacy-data-and-consumer-updates/
December 2021 EU Privacy, Data and Consumer Updates
Background.
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3645648/protecting-pii-examples-laws-and-standards.html#tk.rss_all
Protecting PII: Examples, laws, and standards
PII, or personally identifiable information, is any piece of data that someone could use to figure out who you are. Some types of PII are obvious, such as your name or Social Security number, but others are more subtle—and some data points only become PII when analyzed in combination with one another.
The United States General Services Administration uses a fairly succinct and easy-to-understand definition of PII:
Background.
https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-smart-home-technology/
What Is Smart Home Technology? A Guide for Absolute Beginners
… Smart home technology involves gadgets, devices, and home appliances with wireless connectivity. When connected to the home Wi-Fi internet network, they communicate with each other, a smart bridge, or a mobile phone app.
You can effortlessly control these devices from anywhere using a connected smartphone or mobile app. A few premium smart devices go the extra mile to offer energy savings and personalized services.
At the center of any smart home ecosystem, you’ll find a smart speaker. You can ask it to adjust the home lighting, heating, and so on. These are essentially small, voice-controlled computers that can search the web or manage your schedules.
(Related) Q: We’ve got lots of AI based tools, where will we use them? A: Everywhere.
https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/09/the-ambient-intelligence-decade/
The ambient intelligence decade
Technology zoomed ahead in 2020 and 2021, spurred in large part by the global pandemic. Companies embraced digital transformation and AI, driven by a need to connect remote workers, improve efficiency, and offer new online services. This surge of adoption has also added renewed focus on a variety of technologies including augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, and the rollout of 5G communication networks. We have indeed entered an age of acceleration.
In turn, these developments are leading to new innovations such as the metaverse. First envisioned in the 1990s, the same underlying technologies to make the metaverse concept a fully immersive and seamless experience are now approaching maturity. Over the next several years and certainly by the end of the decade, the metaverse will be very much a regular part of our digital lives.
… That said, technology adoption is always a double-edged sword. Issues of ethics around data privacy and the appropriate uses of facial and other biometric recognition continue to be sources of concern and widespread debate. In a Fortune article, Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute, warns there are societal dangers of ever-present computing, constantly gathering and analyzing people’s behaviors in the physical world. As much as the technology constraints, navigating these ethical challenges will also inhibit the realization of an ambiently intelligent world.
Lots of AI doing lots of things simultaneously.
https://thenextweb.com/news/metaverse-good-bad-ugly-sides-of-people-syndication
The metaverse could bring out the good, bad, and ugly sides of people
The metaverse is an immersive virtual reality version of the internet where people can interact with digital objects and digital representations of themselves and others, and can move more or less freely from one virtual environment to another. It can also involve augmented reality, a blending of virtual and physical realities, both by representing people and objects from the physical world in the virtual and conversely by bringing the virtual into people’s perceptions of physical spaces.
… As terrorism researchers at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center in Omaha, Nebraska, we see a potential dark side to the metaverse. Although it is still under construction, its evolution promises new ways for extremists to exert influence through fear, threat and coercion. Considering our research on malevolent creativity and innovation, there is potential for the metaverse to become a new domain for terrorist activity.
To be clear, we do not oppose the metaverse as a concept and, indeed, are excited about its potential for human advancement. But we believe that the rise of the metaverse will open new vulnerabilities and present novel opportunities to exploit them. Although not exhaustive, here are three ways the metaverse will complicate efforts to counter terrorism and violent extremism.
Not a concern for the little investor who is not offered an investment opportunity, why should we worry about large investors or institutions who should be able to assess the risks themselves?
SEC Pushes for More Transparency From Private Companies
… Private capital markets have become an increasingly popular way for companies to raise money in the U.S. in recent decades, allowing firms to acquire funding from institutions and wealthy individuals without the regulatory burdens of going public. The number of so-called unicorns—private companies valued at $1 billion or more—has continued to grow even amid the recent boom in initial public offerings.
I probably have enough handouts, notes, or answers to student questions to publish an ebook or six in math, computer security or a few other topics I taught.
https://www.makeuseof.com/steps-to-write-publish-ebooks/
6 Steps to Writing and Publishing Ebooks as a Professional
Books are for exchanging stories and different kinds of knowledge. If you’re a professional trying to make a good impression, putting your expertise down on paper, whether real or digital, is a great move.
Since it’s simpler and cheaper to publish ebooks, let’s look at how to produce one that turns heads and reflects your business in a positive way. Take the time to think about what you want to share and how.
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