Are the Terms of Service sufficient?

https://pogowasright.org/secret-service-admits-it-didnt-check-if-people-really-consented-to-being-tracked/

Secret Service Admits It Didn’t Check if People Really Consented to Being Tracked

Joseph Cox reports:

The Secret Service never actually checked whether people gave proper consent to be tracked by a mobile phone location monitoring tool, despite claiming the data was collected with peoples’ permission, the agency admitted in an email obtained by 404 Media.

The email undermines the Secret Service’s and other U.S. federal agencies’ justification that monitoring the movements of phones with commercially available location data without a warrant is possible because people allegedly agreed to the terms of services of ordinary apps that may collect it. The news also comes after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned Venntel, the company that provided the underlying dataset for the surveillance tool used by the Secret Service, from selling sensitive location data, and alleged that it did not obtain that consent in multiple cases. The tool used by the Secret Service is called Locate X, which is made by a company called Babel Street.

In the 2022 email, the office of Senator Ron Wyden asked the Secret Service what steps it had taken to verify that the location data it purchased from Babel Street was obtained from consumers who consented to “the onwards sale and sharing of the data.” Venntel collates location data from a variety of sources, including apps installed on peoples’ phones such as weather or navigation tools. The Secret Service’s one word response to that question read “None,” according to a copy of the email Wyden’s office shared with 404 Media.

Read more at 404 Media, while I go look for my shocked face.

Holiday reading?

https://www.bespacific.com/a-whole-mess-of-tiktok-trial-briefs/

A whole mess of TikTok trial briefs

The Verge: “The Supreme Court will consider TikTok’s case against a divest-or-ban law early next year, and a wave of filings has hit the docket this afternoon — from the parties involved as well as numerous institutions and public figures, including President-elect Donald Trump. If you want a firsthand look, the full list is linked below.” Supreme Court [www.supremecourt.gov]

• See also CNN – Trump asks Supreme Court to pause TikTok ban, while Biden admin says app poses ‘grave’ threat

Nothing shocking…

https://www.ft.com/content/ac44e3a5-36ee-4cf8-af57-06a1ba51baa4

Forecasting the world in 2025

FT writers’ predictions for the new year, from the likelihood of peace in Ukraine to whether the Trump-Musk friendship will endure and the chances of a CD revival

Some value identifying ‘known associates?’

https://www.bespacific.com/the-network-of-time/

The Network of Time

“The Network Of Time is an idea proposed on this website: the largest network of people who appear together in photos that currently exist which can be connected through peoples’ recurring appearances in different photos.  This website, currently in a beta stage, represents the beginnings of a visualization of the Network. Match any two people on the front page and you will see how they have “met” through a series of (sometimes nonlinear in time) meetings or chance appearances, in the fewest number of photos possible based on our database. While the idea that all people have no more than six degrees of separation has been widely studied, this website is the first (public) project to visualize the effect exclusively through evidence of actual meetings in physical space and not other documentation of associations. If you have ever appeared in a photo with anyone who has appeared as an option on the lists on the front page of this site, or with anyone who has appeared in a photo with anyone as an option on these lists to X degrees – you are on the Network. (You probably still do not appear on the representation shown here, but you can submit photos to join!)”

Interesting to a former auditor and security manager…

https://thehackernews.com/2024/12/new-hipaa-rules-mandate-72-hour-data.html

New HIPAA Rules Mandate 72-Hour Data Restoration and Annual Compliance Audits

The United States Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has proposed new cybersecurity requirements for healthcare organizations with an aim to safeguard patients' data against potential cyber attacks.

… To that end, the proposal, among other things, requires organizations to conduct a review of the technology asset inventory and network map, identify potential vulnerabilities that could pose a threat to electronic information systems, and establish procedures to restore the loss of certain relevant electronic information systems and data within 72 hours.

Other notable clauses include carrying out a compliance audit at least once every 12 months, mandating encryption of ePHI at rest and in transit, enforcing the use of multi-factor authentication, deploying anti-malware protection and removing extraneous software from relevant electronic information systems.

Opinion. (Negative)

https://coloradosun.com/2024/12/29/artificial-intelligence-nightmare-peter-moore-cartoon-colorado-law/

Peter Moore: A.I. in, garbage out

Are you terrified by artificial intelligence? So are our state legislators, who passed Senate Bill 205, the nation’s first attempt to regulate robo brains. They enacted A.I. controls in employment, lending, financial and legal services, insurance, health, housing and — redundancy alert! — in government.

Feel better now? Don’t!

Note that Google, IBM, and Microsoft visited our statehouse to support the bill. How good could it possibly be? Even our high-tech gov, who made his second and third fortunes selling greeting cards and flowers online, signed Senate Bill 205 only reluctantly because he thought the law needed serious tweaking. The problem: The data sets that A.I. depends on are corrupted by human foibles, which A.I. algorithms then concentrate and amplify. Be very afraid! And the law doesn’t even take effect until 2026! If we survive that long!