No words…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-russia-hacking-cyber-security

Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats

The Trump administration has publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or critical infrastructure, marking a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments.

The shift in policy could make the US vulnerable to hacking attacks by Russia, experts warned, and appeared to reflect the warming of relations between Donald Trump and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

Two recent incidents indicate the US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cyber security threat.

Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, said in a speech last week before a United Nations working group on cyber security that the US was concerned by threats perpetrated by some states but only named China and Iran, with no mention of Russia in her remarks. Franz also did not mention the Russia-based LockBit ransomware group, which the US has previously said is the most prolific ransomware group in the world and has been called out in UN forums in the past. The treasury last year said LockBit operates on a ransomeware-as-service model, in which the group licenses its ransomware software to criminals in exchange for a portion of the paid ransoms.

(Related)

https://therecord.media/hegseth-orders-cyber-command-stand-down-russia-planning

Exclusive: Hegseth orders Cyber Command to stand down on Russia planning

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth gave the instruction to Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh, who then informed the organization's outgoing director of operations, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Ryan Heritage, of the new guidance, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The order does not apply to the National Security Agency, which Haugh also leads, or its signals intelligence work targeting Russia, the sources said.

While the full scope of Hegseth’s directive to the command remains unclear, it is more evidence of the White House’s efforts to normalize ties with Moscow after the U.S. and international allies worked to isolate the Kremlin over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump has made a series of false statements and demands that align him with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including blaming Ukraine for the war and calling the country’s leader a dictator.

Replacing lawyers with AI?

https://www.lawnext.com/2025/02/legal-ai-tools-show-promise-in-first-of-its-kind-benchmark-study-with-harvey-and-cocounsel-leading-the-pack.html

Legal AI Tools Show Promise in First-of-its-Kind Benchmark Study, with Harvey and CoCounsel Leading the Pack

Are you still on the fence about whether generative artificial intelligence can do the work of human lawyers? If so, I urge you to read this new study.

Published yesterday, this first-of-its-kind study evaluated the performance of four legal AI tools across seven core legal tasks. In many cases, it found, AI tools can perform at or above the level of human lawyers, while offering significantly faster response times.

The Vals Legal AI Report (VLAIR) represents the first systematic attempt to independently benchmark legal AI tools against a lawyer control group, using real-world tasks derived from Am Law 100 firms.

Why do I imagine Trump saying, “Oh yeah? Just watch me!”

https://www.bespacific.com/we-are-in-a-constitutional-crisis/

“We Are in a Constitutional Crisis”

Statement of Law Professors and Law Teachers – American Constitution Society: “The undersigned are professors and teachers of law, dedicated to the rule of law. We believe we are in a constitutional crisis. The President has signed a number of executive orders that are beyond his constitutional or statutory authority. The President cannot change who is a citizen. He does not have unbridled legal authority to stop funds already allocated by Congress, nor can he unilaterally impose new, politically-motivated conditions on government benefits that violate the constitutional rights of the recipient individuals, companies, and institutions. He is not empowered to disband agencies and departments duly created, empowered, and funded by Congress. He is not allowed to give oversight and control over government operations to private individuals unconstrained by law. The government and laws of the United States are not subject to presidential whim. On the contrary, the President is bound to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” And he is bound by oath to “faithfully execute” the office of the president and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” The undersigned have a variety of views on the underlying policies at issue. But we are united in our view that the President has acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally. The illegality of these actions, even when the illegality has been adjudged in federal courts, does not seem to be deterring the President’s actions. Instead, the President and his administration are openly flirting with disobeying judicial rulings against him. In fact, the President has proclaimed, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” We are saddened by the fact that we have to explain to the President this fundamental democratic principle, but we do: a president has the obligation to obey the Constitution as well as court orders enjoining his illegal and unconstitutional efforts. The law is not whatever Mr. Trump says it is. He is not king. In the words of President John F. Kennedy, “Americans are free … to disagree with the law but not to disobey it. For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, … is entitled to defy a court of law.” We stand in support of democracy and the rule of law. We stand as allies to those individuals and institutions targeted by illegal and unconstitutional coercion. Our democracy can survive, but not without law…”

Technology without oversight, what could possibly go wrong?

https://thehackernews.com/2025/02/89-of-enterprise-genai-usage-is.html

89% of Enterprise GenAI Usage Is Invisible to Organizations Exposing Critical Security Risks, New Report Reveals

… The “Enterprise GenAI Data Security Report 2025” by LayerX delivers unprecedented insights into the practical application of AI tools in the workplace, while highlighting critical vulnerabilities. Drawing on real-world telemetry from LayerX’s enterprise clients, this report is one of the few reliable sources that details actual employee use of GenAI.

For instance, it reveals that nearly 90% of enterprise AI usage occurs outside the visibility of IT, exposing organizations to significant risks such as data leakage and unauthorized access.

Tools & Techniques. But is it trustworthy?

https://thenextweb.com/news/bliro-ai-app-offers-privacy-first-transcriptions

AI app that transcribes without recording audio or video promises to safeguard your privacy

… Bliro uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to extract relevant information from in-person or virtual conversations. It then generates structured meeting notes and automates follow-up tasks. So far, pretty standard.

However, unlike popular transcription tools like Otter, Fireflies, or Notta, Bliro isn’t a bot that hops onto your call, records an audio file, and then transcribes it. Instead, the platform transcribes in real-time, ensuring that no audio recordings of conversations are ever created.

This guarantees compliance with strict privacy and security requirements like GDPR, the company said. That also means you don’t need the other party’s consent to record, streamlining the note-taking process.

Keeping abreast of challenges is challenging.

https://www.bespacific.com/trumps-legal-battles/

Trump’s Legal Battles

Trump’s Legal Battles – UPDATED Feb. 25, 2025 — States, federal employee unions, various advocacy groups and several individuals have filed over 80 lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s implementation of executive orders and other initiatives. Law360 has created a database of those lawsuits, separated into categories based on their subject matter.

Also remember Lawfare’s Trump Administration Litigation Tracker [updated February 25, 2025]  –  The table below tracks legal challenges to the Trump administration’s executive orders, as well as cases on behalf of the Trump administration to enforce them. You can sort the table by clicking the column titles and query keywords using the search box in the top left of the table.  The table includes the case name, what executive action is being challenged, the status of the case, and a summary of the litigation being brought. View an explanation of the statuses here. For real-time updates on the latest filings, follow @trumplitigation.bots.law on Bluesky or @trumplitigation on X, curated by Anna Hickey and Tyler McBrien and published in collaboration with the Free Law Project.

It is better to look secure than to be secure?

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-rnc-hack-us-election-48890e7b?st=ZMUBpd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

GOP Email System Infiltrated by Chinese Hackers Last Summer, New Book Reveals

The previously unreported intrusion came as the Trump campaign was hacked by Iranian operatives

… After learning of the hack, top RNC officials and Trump campaign co-chair Chris LaCivita decided not to alert the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the breach because they were concerned the information would be leaked to the media, the people said.

Unexpected. Companies serious about security?

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/26/signal_will_withdraw_from_sweden/

Signal will withdraw from Sweden if encryption-busting laws take effect

Experts warned the UK’s recent 'victory' over Apple would kickstart something of a domino effect

Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker says her company will withdraw from countries that force messaging providers to allow law enforcement officials to access encrypted user data, as Sweden continues to mull such plans.

Whittaker said Signal intends to exit Sweden should its government amend existing legislation essentially mandating the end of end-to-end encryption (E2EE), an identical position it took as the UK considered its Online Safety Bill, which ultimately did pass with a controversial encryption-breaking clause, although it can only be invoked where technically feasible.

She made the claims in an interview with Swedish media SVT Nyheter which reported the government could legislate for a so-called E2EE backdoor as soon as March 2026. It could bring all E2EE messenger apps like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, and others into scope.

Whittaker said there is no such thing as a backdoor for E2EE "that only the good guys can access," however. 

Perspective.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-laureate-on-the-economics-of-artificial-intelligence/

A Nobel laureate on the economics of artificial intelligence

For all the talk about artificial intelligence upending the world, its economic effects remain uncertain. But Institute Professor and 2024 Nobel winner Daron Acemoglu has some insights.

Despite some predictions that AI will double US GDP growth, Acemoglu expects it to increase GDP by 1.1% to 1.6% over the next 10 years, with a roughly 0.05% annual gain in productivity. This assessment is based on recent estimates of how many jobs are affected—but his view is that the effect will be targeted.

“We’re still going to have journalists, we’re still going to have financial analysts, we’re still going to have HR employees,” he says. “It’s going to impact a bunch of office jobs that are about data summary, visual matching, pattern recognition, etc. And those are essentially about 5% of the economy.”

He does think the technology has more potential, but he’s concerned that AI companies so far have focused on innovations that could replace human workers at the expense of those that could make them more productive. “My argument is that we currently have the wrong direction for AI,” Acemoglu says. “We’re using it too much for automation and not enough for providing expertise and information to workers.”

(Related)

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/u-s-workers-are-more-worried-than-hopeful-about-future-ai-use-in-the-workplace/

U.S. Workers Are More Worried Than Hopeful About Future AI Use in the Workplace

About a third of workers say AI use will lead to fewer job opportunities for them in the long run; chatbots seen as more helpful for speeding up work than improving its quality

It’s not just at intersections any more… (Human in the loop?)

https://www.zdnet.com/article/texting-while-driving-ai-traffic-cameras-are-watching-you-in-these-5-states/

Texting while driving? AI traffic cameras are watching you in these 5 states

… "Heads Up" cameras from Australia-based Acusensus take a picture of every driver that passes by – both the license plate and the front seat. Cameras can either be fixed in a permanent location or attached to a mobile trailer and work in almost any light or weather condition.

AI analyzes the photos to see if drivers are looking at their phones or not wearing seat belts; it then assigns a confidence level regarding how certain it is that there's a violation. (If you're concerned about privacy issues surrounding a stockpile of photos, the company says that all images are deleted after 15 minutes if authorities don't take action.)

Human discretion is still a part of the process, however, and tickets aren't sent automatically. If the AI flags an image, an alert pops up on an officer's computer screen. The officer reviews the image to determine whether or not an offense has occurred.

If they decide the driver was distracted, officers will either mail the vehicle's registered owner a ticket or pull over the vehicle and issue a citation.

If this is the norm for businesses…

https://www.bespacific.com/your-boss-is-watching/

Your boss is watching

MIT Technology Review [unpaywalled]: “…A New York Times investigation in 2022 found that eight of the 10 largest private companies in the US track individual worker productivity metrics, many in real time. Specialized software can now measure and log workers’ online activities, physical location, and even behaviors like which keys they tap and what tone they use in their written communications—and many workers aren’t even aware that this is happening. What’s more, required work apps on personal devices may have access to more than just work—and as we may know from our private lives, most technology can become surveillance technology if the wrong people have access to the data. While there are some laws in this area, those that protect privacy for workers are fewer and patchier than those applying to consumers. Meanwhile, it’s predicted that the global market for employee monitoring software will reach $4.5 billion by 2026, with North America claiming the dominant share. AI advances are rapidly speeding up the process of training robots, and helping them do new tasks almost instantly. Working today—whether in an office, a warehouse, or your car—can mean constant electronic surveillance with little transparency, and potentially with livelihood-­ending consequences if your productivity flags. What matters even more than the effects of this ubiquitous monitoring on privacy may be how all that data is shifting the relationships between workers and managers, companies and their workforce. Managers and management consultants are using worker data, individually and in the aggregate, to create black-box algorithms that determine hiring and firing, promotion and “deactivation.” And this is laying the groundwork for the automation of tasks and even whole categories of labor on an endless escalator to optimized productivity. Some human workers are already struggling to keep up with robotic ideals. We are in the midst of a shift in work and workplace relationships as significant as the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And new policies and protections may be necessary to correct the balance of power… In 2024, a report from a Senate committee led by Bernie Sanders, based on an 18-month investigation of Amazon’s warehouse practices, found that the company had been setting the pace of work in those facilities with black-box algorithms, presumably calibrated with data collected by monitoring employees. (In California, because of a 2021 bill, Amazon is required to at least reveal the quotas and standards workers are expected to comply with; elsewhere the bar can remain a mystery to the very people struggling to meet it.) The report also found that in each of the previous seven years, Amazon workers had been almost twice as likely to be injured as other warehouse workers, with injuries ranging from concussions to torn rotator cuffs to long-term back pain…”

(Related) ...perhaps this should not come as a surprise.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/federal-workers-agencies-push-back-elon-musks-email-ultimatum-rcna193439

DOGE will use AI to assess the responses of federal workers who were told to justify their jobs via email

… But in response to a tweet about the usage of LLMs, Musk wrote on X that they were not “needed here,” and “this was basically a check to see if the employee had a pulse and was capable of replying to an email.”

Tools & Techniques. Looking to compete with the free office suites?

https://beebom.com/microsoft-free-ad-supported-office-quietly-launched/

Microsoft Quietly Launched a Free Ad-Supported Office App, and No One Noticed

Did you know that Microsoft officially offers the desktop version of Microsoft Office (rebranded as Microsoft 365 Copilot after Microsoft 365) for free? And no, I am not talking about the web version of Office. In a significant move, Microsoft has quietly introduced an ad-supported version of the desktop Office app, allowing users to access MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint without paying any subscription fee.

Perspective.

https://archive.ph/2025.02.21-194022/https://www.ft.com/content/1511aa42-a9ad-4952-99c8-98bea07d0414

America has turned on its friends

Winston Churchill is credited with saying that America does the right thing after exhausting the alternatives. Donald Trump has turned that aphorism on its head. In the past 10 days, he has all but incinerated 80 years of postwar American leadership. Those who thought America was a friend or ally, notably Ukraine and Nato, are dropping once safe assumptions to cope with a world in which America is an unabashed predator. Countries that were treated by Washington as adversaries, notably Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are suddenly America’s friend.

Can we reliably predict?

https://lawjournals.celnet.in/index.php/jiprl/article/view/1747

The Future of Intellectual Property in the AI Era

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is redefining the innovation landscape by autonomously generating patents, literature, music, and artistic works. However, intellectual property laws worldwide, including in India, remain grounded in human-centric frameworks. This paper examines how AI challenges traditional patent and copyright laws, focusing on India's intellectual property (IP) regime while incorporating global case studies. It explores legal ambiguities, ethical dilemmas, and potential policy reforms to address AI-driven creativity and innovation.