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Daily Archives: January 13, 2019

The Internet of Bodies: A Convenient and Creepy New Platform for Data Discovery

Via Yahoo Finance as posted on ALM Legal Technology News: “In the Era of the Internet of Things, we’ve become (at least somewhat) comfortable with our refrigerators knowing more about us than we know about ourselves and our Apple watches transmitting our every movement. The Internet of Things has even made it into the courtroom in cases such as the hot tub saga of Amazon Echo’s Alexa in State v. Bates and an unfortunate wife’s Fitbit in State v. Dabate. But the Internet of Bodies? Yes, that’s right. It’s gone beyond the mere snooping of a smart TV. Data discovery has entered a new realm, and our bodies are the platform. A January 5 program at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in New Orleans entitled, The Internet of Bodies: Cyborgs and the Law, discussed the legal, regulatory, and societal impact of this new living and breathing platform for data discovery…”

The Federal Government Offers a Case Study in Bad Email Tracking

EFF: “The U.S. government sends a lot of emails. Like any large, modern organization, it wants to “optimize” for “user engagement” using “analytics” and “big data.” In practice, that means tracking the people it communicates with—secretly, thoroughly, and often, insecurely. Granicus is a third-party contractor that builds communication tools to help governments engage constituents online.… Continue Reading

U.S. Government Has Amassed Terabytes of Internal WikiLeaks Data

Gizmodo: “Late last year, the U.S. government accidentally revealed that a sealed complaint had been filed against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. Shortly before this was made public, the FBI reconfirmed its investigation of WikiLeaks was ongoing, and the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice was optimistic that it would be… Continue Reading

(Don’t) Return to Sender: How to Protect Yourself From Email Tracking

EFF: “There are a lot of different ways to track email, and different techniques can lie anywhere on the spectrum from marginally acceptable to atrocious. Responsible tracking should aggregate a minimal amount of anonymous data, similar to page hits: enough to let the sender get a sense of how well their campaign is doing without invading users’… Continue Reading

Shutdown: Dot-gov websites vulnerable to cyberattacks, certificates expiring amid funding pause

Netcraft – .gov security falters during U.S. shutdown: “Dozens of U.S. government websites have been rendered either insecure or inaccessible during the ongoing U.S. federal shutdown. These sites include sensitive government payment portals and remote access services, affecting the likes of NASA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Court of Appeals.  With around 400,000… Continue Reading

Politico – Impeachment Guide

“As talk of the I-word heats up, here’s POLITICO Magazine’s soup-to-nuts answers to all your questions about the politics—and the practical realities—of removing a president. So, what would an impeachment really take in the Washington of 2019, and how would it all go down? To answer these questions, POLITICO interviewed more than two dozen sources,… Continue Reading

Court Strikes Down Iowa’s ‘Ag-Gag’ Law That Blocked Undercover Investigations

NPR – “A federal judge in Iowa says it’s no longer a crime to go undercover at factory farms, slaughterhouses and any other ag-related operations. The 2012 law was a clear violation of the First Amendment, the judge said. The Animal Legal Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs in the case, called the ruling “a… Continue Reading

The Simon Abundance Index: A New Way to Measure Availability of Resources

Cato Institute: “In this paper, we revisit the main points of contention in the debate regarding availability of resources and their relationship with population growth. Using the latest price data for 50 foundational commodities covering energy, food, materials, and metals, we propose a new way of measuring resource availability based on four concepts. First, the… Continue Reading

Patricia Wald, First Woman to Preside Over D.C. Appeals Court, Dies at 90

The New York Times: “Patricia M. Wald, who was the first woman to serve as chief judge of the federal appeals court in Washington and who later wrote seminal rulings while serving in The Hague on the international court for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, died on Saturday at her home in Washington. She… Continue Reading

Washington DC Snowplow Tracker – Montgomery County Winter Storm Portal – Arlington County Snow Removal

Check out the interactive web map to see live traffic cameras and review the latest road treatments / DC Snowplow Tracker – https://www.511portal.com/dc_dpw Winter Storm Information Portal – Montgomery County MD – using your street address, you will see a scheduled time and date for your street to be plowed by the county. ArlingtonVAUS –… Continue Reading