Speech
does not have to be logical, software does.
https://www.makeuseof.com/gettr-got-hacked/
GETTR,
the Pro-Trump Social Media Platform, Got Hacked
Donald
Trump has had issues with staying online in the past, and it seems
those problems aren't going away.
As
reported on Business
Insider,
GETTR was launched during Independence Day. GETTR is a social media
platform with a pro-Trump focus after the ex-president ran afoul of
issues on other websites.
However,
it appears this new website has its own fair share of problems. In
the wee hours of the morning after the launch, several high-ranking
profiles had been successfully hacked.
An
evil (or at least paranoid) thought. Suppose the bad guys say they
will only decrypt the data of the first X percent of victims to
settle. (Or the top X bidders.) Everyone else will have to live
without their help.
https://www.databreaches.net/some-kaseya-victims-privately-negotiating-with-revil/
Some
Kaseya victims privately negotiating with REvil
While
the headlines blare about REvil
offering to decrypt all victims of the Kaseya attack if they are paid
$70 million,
some companies have apparently already taken to individual
negotiations with the threat actors.
Over
on SuspectFile,
Marco A. De Felice is careful not to name the victim, but describes
one such set of negotiatons going on. The chat logs he observed
suggest that there is a lot of confusion with perhaps more than one
set of negotiations going on for the same victim. There is also
inconsistency in the ransom demands being made for an individual
company, with it variously being listed as $550,000 but settling for
$225,000, and in another place it appeared to be less than $50,000.
But
Marco also raises the question: who is uploading and pointing people
to these negotiations and chats on threat actors’ servers? Marco
hypothesizes that it is the threat actors themselves. It’s an
interesting hypothesis, but I’d still be more inclined to believe
that it is an employee of a firm with knowledge of the attack(s).
But do read
his post and
see what you think of it all.
Kaseya’s
updates can be found here.
Another update is due today between 8:00 am and noon EDT. Although
early reports suggested that malware was pushed out after being
injected into the codebase, the firm later stated that this was a
direct
attack on victims by use of a 0-day.
The number of victims seems to vary wildly from source to source and
report to report, but remember that each single victim/client of
Kaseya may have downstream clients, so the total number of companies
impacted may be quite large.
(Related)
https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/05/cyber_insurance_report/
The
cost of cyber insurance increased 32 per cent last year and shows no
signs of easing
The
cost of insurance to protect businesses and organisations against the
ever-increasing threat of cybercrimes has soared by a third in the
last year, according to international insurance brokers Howden.
It
found that global cyber insurance pricing has increased by an average
of 32 per cent in the year to June.
Not
only are premiums going through the roof, insurers
are also attaching more strings to their policies,
demanding ever more assurances that firms taking out cover have the
necessary systems and processes in place to prevent a cyber mishap.
According
to Howden's Cyber
Insurance: A Hard Reset the
upward squeeze on premiums shows no sign of easing, which, in turn,
is putting more strain on the sector.
… Last
week, a report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) –
Cyber
Insurance and the Cyber Security Challenge –
warned that the spike in ransomware attacks had led
to some insurers wondering if they should pull out of the market.
So
where should we draw the line? And is the police department the best
monitor of social media?
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-helps-police-monitor-social-media-go-too-far/
This
AI Helps Police Monitor Social Media. Does It Go Too Far?
SINCE
2016, CIVIL liberties groups have
raised alarms about
online
surveillance of
social media chatter by city officials and police departments.
Services like Media Sonar, Social Sentinel, and Geofeedia analyze
online conversations, clueing in police and city leaders to what
hundreds of thousands of users are saying online.
Zencity,
an Israeli data-analysis firm that serves 200 agencies across the US,
markets itself as a less invasive alternative, because it offers only
aggregate data and forbids targeted surveillance of protests. Cities
like Phoenix, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh say they use the service to
combat misinformation and gauge public reaction to topics like social
distancing enforcement or traffic laws.
What’s
real in AI? Real enough to patent?
https://www.bespacific.com/artificial-intelligence-patent-dataset/
Artificial
Intelligence Patent Dataset
“To
assist researchers and policymakers focusing on the determinants and
impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) invention, OCE released two
data files, collectively called the Artificial Intelligence Patent
Dataset (AIPD). The first data file identifies United States (U.S.)
patents issued between 1976 and 2020 and pre-grant publications
(PGPubs) published through 2020 that contain one or more of several
AI technology components (including machine learning, natural
language processing, computer vision, speech, knowledge processing,
AI hardware, evolutionary computation, and planning and control).
OCE generated this data file using a machine learning (ML) approach
that analyzed patent text and citations to identify AI in U.S. patent
documents (Abood and Feltenberger 2018; Toole et al. 2020). OCE’s
approach is based on the methodology of Abood and Feltenberger
(2018), but also includes an analysis of patent claims to better
identify AI contained in the technical and legal scope of the
invention. The second data file contains the patent documents used
to train the ML models.
A
working paper describing the dataset is available and can be cited
as Giczy, A., Pairolero, N., and Toole, A. 2021. Identifying
artificial intelligence (AI) invention: A novel AI patent dataset.
USPTO Economic Working Paper Series No. 2021-2. Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3866793.
This
effort was made possible through cross business unit collaboration
among OCE, the Office of Policy and International Affairs, the
Patents Business Unit, and the Office of the Chief Information
Officer. The AIPD was used in the USPTO report “Inventing
AI: Tracing the diffusion of artificial intelligence with U.S.
patents.”
(Related)
Mr. Zillman always seems to list everything related to
his topic.
https://www.llrx.com/2021/06/artificial-intelligence-resources-on-the-internet-2021/
Artificial
Intelligence Resources on the Internet 2021
Articles,
studies, reports and investigations abound on how AI is impacting all
aspects of our lives inclusive of privacy, social media, healthcare,
the economy, the financial system, education, communications, law,
the courts and technology. This is a timely, broad overview of
resources, sites and applications that span subject matter and
disciplines and the many permutations of the technologies that drive
artificial intelligence.
Some
examples…
https://venturebeat.com/2021/07/05/ai-legislation-needs-to-broaden-its-focus-from-rd-to-address-bias-in-algorithmic-decision-making-systems/
AI
legislation must address bias in algorithmic decision-making systems
In
early June, border officials “quietly
deployed”
the mobile app CBP One at the U.S.-Mexico border to “streamline
the processing”
of asylum seekers. While the app will reduce manual data entry and
speed up the process, it also relies on controversial facial
recognition technologies and stores sensitive information on asylum
seekers prior to their entry to the U.S. The issue here is not the
use of artificial intelligence per se, but what it means in relation
to the Biden administration’s pre-election
promise of
civil rights in technology, including AI bias and data privacy.
… “The
current state of AI
legislation in
the U.S. is disappointing, [with] a majority of AI-related
legislation focused almost solely on investment, research, and
maintaining competitiveness with other countries, primarily China,”
Winters said.
But
there is some promising legislation waiting in the wings. The
Algorithmic
Justice and Online Platform Transparency bill,
introduced by Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Doris Matsui in May, clamps
down on harmful
algorithms,
encourages transparency of websites’ content amplification and
moderation practices, and proposes a cross-government investigation
into discriminatory algorithmic processes throughout the economy.
Some
thoughts on the HR-bot.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=839a1a78-2192-4ca4-a88e-3bf02f40a6ba
Artificial
intelligence and algorithms in the workplace
Is
removing subjective human choice from HR decisions going to create
more problems than it solves?
… In
May 2021, the TUC and the AI Consultancy published a report -
Technology
Managing People - the legal implications -
highlighting exactly these sorts of issues and calling for legal
reform.
… For
employers looking for ideas on good practice in this area, the policy
paper published by ACAS - My
boss the algorithm: an ethical look at algorithms in the workplace
-
is a good starting point, although it should be noted this is not
ACAS guidance.
Bias
is people making choices. Bias goes both ways? Some day, none of
this will matter.
https://businessden.com/2021/07/06/du-trial-advocacy-program-director-accuses-law-school-of-gender-bias/
DU
law professor accuses law school of gender bias
… Schott
indicates in the lawsuit that the problems began in the summer of
2016 when, during a meeting with Moffat, he claims she said she “did
not want to see white men teaching anymore in the Center for
Advocacy.”
A
new (to me) resource.
https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-find-the-documents-behind-big-legal-cases/
How
to find the documents behind big legal cases
The
Verge / Adi Robertson:
“Earlier this year, I spent a month covering the trial for a
dispute between Apple and Epic. The case was one of the biggest
antitrust suits in recent memory, and it brought
to light revelations about
both companies and the larger tech industry, often in the form of
legal filings. I (and other reporters) try to pick out the most
relevant details from these filings for readers. But sometimes, the
documents are worth checking out in their own right. A site called
CourtListener
makes
that easier than it might sound — if you know how to look….
Maintained
by the nonprofit Free Law Project, CourtListener hosts a
free and open archive of millions of filings.
It contains court opinions, audio of oral arguments from trials, and
something called the
RECAP archive —
which is where you’ll find a lot of the most interesting material.
That includes the
long back-and-forth between Apple and Epic,
government allegations like the cryptocurrency
fraud claims against
late
antivirus tycoon John
McAfee, and important
legal decisions like
a judge tossing the aforementioned Facebook
antitrust suit …”
