Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Daily Archives: February 10, 2019

Microsoft really doesn’t want you to use Internet Explorer anymore

The Verge: “Microsoft killed off the Internet Explorer brand nearly four years ago, choosing Edge as its modern browser for Windows 10. Internet Explorer lived on as plumbing for Windows and for business compatibility, but Microsoft isn’t supporting it with new web standards – it’s legacy code. Chris Jackson, a cybersecurity expert in Microsoft’s Windows division, has now outlined what he calls the “perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser.” While most consumers are likely using Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, a number of businesses still rely on Internet Explorer for older web apps that haven’t been modernized. Microsoft has tried many different ways to push businesses to improve their older web apps, but IT admins have naturally taken the easy route of using Internet Explorer and its various compatibility modes over the years. In Windows 10, Internet Explorer 11 uses an Enterprise Mode so that IT admins have to add the sites they want to use old versions of web standards with…”

Sherlock at scale: Law enforcement enters the connected age

GNC: “Crime is common,” Sherlock Holmes said in the 1892 novel, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. “Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.” Holmes famously used his intellect to make deductions about crimes and solve them. For him, logic was the linchpin, helping… Continue Reading

How America uses its land

Bloomberg: “There are many statistical measures that show how productive the U.S. is. Its economy is the largest in the world and grew at a rate of 4.1 percent last quarter, its fastest pace since 2014. The unemployment rate is near the lowest mark in a half century. What can be harder to decipher is… Continue Reading

Why data, not privacy, is the real danger

NBCNews: “While it’s creepy to imagine companies are listening in to your conversations, it’s perhaps more creepy that they can predict what you’re talking about without actually listening…First, understand that privacy and data are separate things. Your privacy — your first and last name, your Social Security number, your online credentials — is the unit… Continue Reading

Want to Really Block the Tech Giants? Here’s How

Gizmodo: “Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple move more money than many medium-sized nations. Their extraordinary profits are won through extraordinary reach—this is not a secret. That a few companies are afforded unprecedented and shamefully unregulated access into our homes is now an unremarkable fact of living with tiny computers everywhere. When Gizmodo reporter Kashmir… Continue Reading

Bribery, Kickbacks, and Self-Dealing: An Overview of Honest Services Fraud and Issues for Congress

CRS report via FAS – Bribery, Kickbacks, and Self-Dealing: An Overview of Honest Services Fraud and Issues for Congress, January 30. 2019. “As the trials of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos illustrate, corruption among high-profile public officials continues to be a concern in the United States. Likewise, recent examples abound of powerful executives in the… Continue Reading

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data

and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country – via Motherboard: “…Motherboard’s investigation shows just how exposed mobile networks and the data they generate are, leaving them open to surveillance by ordinary citizens, stalkers, and criminals,… Continue Reading

Sometimes Google Books scans pictures of human hands along with the book pages

Wired: “Google Books contains more than 25 million volumes, disembodied like spirits from their spines. The individual titles are digitized by data entry workers who flip the pages for machines, working so quickly their hands and fingers sometimes get caught by the scans. These glitches, collected in Andrew Norman Wilson’s Scan Ops, reveal the old-school… Continue Reading

U.S. wealth concentration returns to levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties

NBER Working Paper Series: Global Wealth Inequality , Gabriel Zucman, Working Paper 25462, January 2019. “This article reviews the recent literature on the dynamics of global wealth inequality. I first reconcile available estimates of wealth inequality in the United States. Both surveys and tax data show that wealth inequality has increased dramatically since the 1980s,… Continue Reading

New Library Bill of Rights Provision Recognizes and Defends Library Users’ Privacy

American Library Association – “The Library Bill of Rights — first adopted in 1939 and last amended in 1980 — has been updated to include an article focused on the concept of ensuring privacy and confidentiality for library users.The new article of the Library Bill of Rights, Article VII, states: “All people, regardless of origin, age,… Continue Reading