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Submission + - The Challenges of Moderating User Content on the Internet (and a Bit of History) (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: I increasingly suspect that the days of large-scale public distribution of unmoderated UGC (User Generated Content) on the Internet may shortly begin drawing to a close in significant ways. The most likely path leading to this over time will be a combination of steps taken independently by social media firms and future legislative mandates ...

Submission + - SPAM: Recommendation: Don't Install/Use Centralized COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Without getting into deep technical details here, there are basically two kinds of these contact tracing apps. The first is apps that send your location or other contact-related data to centralized servers (whether the data being sent is claimed to be “anonymous” or not). Regardless of promised data security and professed limitations on government access to and use of such data, I do not recommend voluntarily choosing to install and/or use these apps under any circumstances.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Coronavirus Reactions Creating Major Internet Security Risks (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: As vast numbers of people are suddenly working from home in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, doctors switch to heavy use of video office visits, and in general more critical information than ever is suddenly being thrust onto the Internet, the risks of major security and privacy disasters that will long outlast the pandemic are rising rapidly.

Submission + - Iowa Screams: Don't Trust High-Tech Elections! (vortex.com) 1

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: For years — actually for decades — those of us in the Computer Science community who study election systems have with almost total unanimity warned against the rise of electronic voting, Internet voting, and more recently smartphone/app-based voting systems. I and my colleagues have written and spoken on this topic many times. Has anyone really been listening? Apparently very few!

Submission + - How Some Software Designers Don't Seem to Care About the Elderly (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: One of the most poignant ironies of the Internet is that at the very time that it’s become increasingly difficult for anyone to conduct their day to day lives without using the Net, some categories of people are increasingly being treated badly by many software designers. The victims of these attitudes include various special needs groups — visually and/or motor impaired are just two examples — but the elderly are a particular target.

Comment Re:Probability: 0% ! (Score 2) 292

by Lauren Weinstein (#59163552) Attached to: Why California May Go Nuclear
It's not gonna happen. Every accident sets the industry back a decade at least, and the accidents are going to keep coming at intervals sufficient to scare investors and taxpayers off. The critical predicate to anything nuclear power related is dealing with the waste. And that's getting nowhere fast, just as it's been since the dawn of the industry, despite endless promises to the contrary. The spent fuel is still filling the pools at the plants (in some cases almost to overflowing), as the plants rot around them. People know that the nuclear power industry cuts safety corners whenever they can, and don't trust government oversight in a time of limited budgets.

Comment Probability: 0% ! (Score 1, Insightful) 292

by Lauren Weinstein (#59162994) Attached to: Why California May Go Nuclear
Total and complete nonsense. Probability of that scenario occurring: 0%. Between earthquake risks, construction and operating costs, nuke waste piling up in the facility storage ponds with nowhere to go, lawsuits, and recent nuke accidents (forgotten Japan already?) these wet dreams about nuclear are just that -- utterly ridiculous -- especially here in California. The nuclear power industry knows that solar is going to wipe it out in the long run, and natural gas is killing it in the shorter run. They're desperate.

Submission + - The Right (and Left's) Insane Internet Content Power Grab (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Rumors are circulating widely — and some news sources claim to have seen actual drafts — of a possible Trump administration executive order aimed at giving the government control over content at large social media and other major Internet platforms.

This effort is based on one of the biggest lies of our age — the continuing claims mostly from the conservative right (but also from some elements of the liberal left) that these firms are using politically biased decisions to determine which content is inappropriate for their platforms. That lie is largely based on the false premise that it’s impossible for employees of these firms to separate their personal political beliefs from content management decisions.

Submission + - Another Breach: What Capital One Could Have Learned from Google's "BeyondCorp" (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Firewalls can be notoriously and fiendishly difficult to configure correctly, and often present a target-rich environment for successful attacks. The thing is, firewall vulnerabilities are not headline news — they’re an old story, and better solutions to providing network security already exist.

In particular, Google’s “BeyondCorp” approach (https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp) is something that every enterprise involved in computing should make itself familiar with. Right now!

Submission + - YouTube's Public Videos Dilemma (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: This leads us to another question. YT channel owners already have the ability to set their channel default privacy settings and the privacy settings for each individual video.

Currently those YT defaults are initially set to public.

Should YT’s defaults be private rather than public?

Submission + - Could AI Help Prevent Mass Shootings? (vortex.com) 1

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Could machine learning/AI techniques help to prevent mass shootings or other kinds of terrorist attacks? That’s the question. I do not profess to know the answer — but it’s a question that as a society we must seriously consider.

Submission + - Pressuring Google's AI Advisory Panel to Wear a Halo Is Very Dangerous (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: Controversy immediately erupted both inside and outside of Google, particularly relating to the presence of prominent right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation president Kay Cole James. Another invited member — behavioral economist and privacy researcher Alessandro Acquisti — has now pulled out from ATEAC, apparently due to James’ presence on the panel and the resulting protests.

This is all extraordinarily worrisome.

Submission + - Don't Blame YouTube and Facebook for Hate Speech Horrors (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: But frankly, those major platforms — who are putting enormous resources into these efforts and trying to remove as much hate speech and associated violent content as possible — are not the real problem.

Don’t be fooled by the politicians and “deep pockets”-seeking regulators who claim that through legislation and massive fines they can fix all this.

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