I worry about absolute bans absolutely. Not sure how banning our government from purchasing the software would keep any other government from using it…
https://www.cyberscoop.com/house-intelligence-bill-combating-spyware/
Congress goes after spyware purveyors. Will it make a difference?
… The Intelligence Authorization Act, which passed the House Intelligence Committee last week with bipartisan support, includes several spyware provisions. In addition to authorizing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to ban contracts with foreign firms making surveillance tech and allowing the president to impose sanctions on firms targeting the intelligence community (IC) with spyware, the bill also augments funding for investigations into the use of foreign commercial surveillance software.
… “Foreign governments that previously had limited electronic spying capabilities can now purchase a package of tools that may allow them to access, undetected, any information stored on or transiting through a cell phone, tablet or computer connected to the internet,” the spokesperson said. “Nobody is safe from the reach of spyware, and that includes US government officials and Americans.”
… Other experts said that the problem will be challenging to fix, especially since private companies have now overtaken nation-states as manufacturers of the technology.
A model solution for all anti-trust issues? What rules should apply?
UK ‘Love Affair’ With Music Streaming Delivers for Britons: CMA
The music streaming market dominated by a handful of major players is giving consumers a fair shake, the UK’s antitrust watchdog said in a much anticipated report, as it pulled back from a deeper investigation into the likes of Spotify Technology SA and Apple Inc.
“The concentrated” nature of the market dominated by just a handful of players is not “currently causing consumers harm,” and “labels nor streaming services appear to be making sustained excess profits,” the Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement on Tuesday.
A long article worth reading.
‘Hey Siri’: Virtual assistants are listening to children and then using the data
… The VAPAs are continuously listening, recording and processing acoustic happenings in a process that has been dubbed “eavesmining,” a portmanteau of eavesdropping and datamining. This raises significant concerns pertaining to issues of privacy and surveillance, as well as discrimination, as the sonic traces of peoples’ lives become datafied and scrutinized by algorithms.
… There is more being gathered than just uttered statements, as VAPAs and other eavesmining systems overhear personal features of voices that involuntarily reveal biometric and behavioural attributes such as age, gender, health, intoxication and personality.
Information about acoustic environments (like a noisy apartment) or particular sonic events (like breaking glass) can also be gleaned through “auditory scene analysis” to make judgments about what is happening in that environment.
Eavesmining systems already have a recent track record for collaborating with law enforcement agencies and being subpoenaed for data in criminal investigations. This raises concerns of other forms of surveillance creep and profiling of children and families.
… This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Perspective.
https://www.bespacific.com/the-future-of-remote-work-according-to-6-experts/
The future of remote work, according to 6 experts
Vox – Make the case for working remotely — but not so much that your job gets outsourced. “Whether you’re a remote work booster or a skeptic, there are lots of unanswered questions about what happens next for remote work, especially as Covid-19 restrictions continue to fade and as fears of a recession loom. How many people are going to work remotely in the future, and will that change in an economic downturn? Will remote work affect their chances of promotion? What does it mean for where people live and the offices they used to work in? Does this have any effect on the majority of people who don’t get to work remotely? If employees don’t have to work in person to be effective, couldn’t their jobs be outsourced? It turns out there’s a dangerous line between arguing for remote work and arguing yourself out of a job. And since remote work makes employees less visible, they will have to find other ways to let higher-ups know they exist or risk being passed over for pay raises. Remote work will also have long-lasting effects on the built environment, requiring office owners to renovate and allowing employees the potential for a higher quality of living. Finally, what happens during a recession largely depends on whether your company decides to save money by reducing real estate or laying off the employees they never met. One thing that’s clear is that remote work is not going away. There are, however, a number of ways to make it better and more commonplace, and to ensure that it doesn’t harm you more than it helps. To get a better idea of what could be coming, we asked some of the most informed remote work thinkers — people who study economics, human resources, and real estate — to make sense of what to expect in the future of remote work. Their answers, edited for length and clarity, are below…”
(Related) Staffing your criminal enterprise...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/aig-unique-cybercrime-business/
Cyber-mercenaries for hire represent shifting criminal business model
Interesting but I have to ask if there is something we could do to “fix” digital devices to make them more like paper books? What is Kindle doing wrong?
https://www.bespacific.com/paper-books-linked-to-stronger-readers-in-an-international-study/
Paper books linked to stronger readers in an international study
The Hechinger Report: “An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study across approximately 30 countries found that teens who said they most often read paper books scored considerably higher on a 2018 reading test taken by 15-year-olds compared to teens who said they rarely or never read books. Even among students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, those who read books in a paper format scored a whopping 49 points higher on the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA. That’s equal to almost 2.5 years of learning. By comparison, students who tended to read books more often on digital devices scored only 15 points higher than students who rarely read – a difference of less than a year’s worth of learning. In other words, all reading is good, but reading on paper is linked to vastly superior achievement outcomes…”
Birds of a feather find each other on social media.
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-07-26
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