Vice: “Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring has fired employees for improperly accessing Ring users’ video data, according to a letter the company wrote to Senators and obtained by Motherboard. The news highlights a risk across many different tech companies: employees may abuse access granted as part of their jobs to look at customer data… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2020
Online Dispute Resolution
Brand, Ronald A., Online Dispute Resolution (December 18, 2019). A paper based on the author’s presentation at the Summer School in Transnational Commercial Law & Technology, Verona, Italy, May 30-June 1, 2019 – (scheduled for publication by the University of Verona School of Law, Marco Torsello, editor) ; U. of Pittsburgh Legal Studies Research Paper… Continue Reading
The Case for an Institutionally Owned Knowledge Infrastructure
Inside Higher Education: The many bottlenecks that the commercial monopoly on research information has imposed are stimulating new strategies, write James W. Weis, Amy Brand and Joi Ito. “Science and technology are propelled forward by the sharing of knowledge. Yet despite their vital importance in today’s innovation-driven economy, our knowledge infrastructures have failed to scale… Continue Reading
Introducing the CC Search Browser Extension
Creative Commons: “Creative Commons (CC) is working towards providing easy access to CC-licensed and public domain works. One significant step towards achieving that goal was the release of CC Search in 2019. Through this search and indexing tool, we’re making a plethora of CC-licensed images accessible in one place. As CC Search expands to include… Continue Reading
Bots Are Destroying Political Discourse As We Know It
The Atlantic: “Text-generation software is already good enough to fool most people most of the time. It’s writing news stories, particularly in sports and finance. It’s talking with customers on merchant websites. It’s writing convincing op-eds on topics in the news (though there are limitations). And it’s being used to bulk up “pink-slime journalism”—websites meant… Continue Reading
ProPublica Database to Investigate Professors’ Conflicts of Interest
ProPublica: “When professors moonlight, the income may influence their research and policy views. Although most universities track this outside work, the records have rarely been accessible to the public, potentially obscuring conflicts of interests. That changed last month when ProPublica launched Dollars for Profs, an interactive database that, for the first time ever, allows you… Continue Reading
Facebook Says It Will Ban ‘Deepfakes’
The New York Times – The company said it would remove videos altered by artificial intelligence in ways meant to mislead viewers. “Facebook says it will ban videos that are heavily manipulated by artificial intelligence, the latest in a string of changes by the company to combat the flow of false information on its site.… Continue Reading
How to use your phone to spot fake images surrounding the U.S.-Iran conflict
Poynter: “Military conflicts — like the one that is sparking between the United States and Iran — are usually surrounded by false images and outdated videos that go viral on social media. It happened in Turkey the other day. To avoid that misinformation scenario, the International Fact-Checking Network developed a step-by-step guide to teach citizens… Continue Reading
Firefox 72 arrives with fingerprinting blocked by default Picture-in-Picture on macOS and Linux
VentureBeat: “Mozilla today launched Firefox 72 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Firefox 72 includes fingerprinting scripts blocked by default, fewer annoying notifications, and Picture-in-Picture video on macOS and Linux. There isn’t too much else here, as Mozilla has now transitioned Firefox releases to a four-week cadence (from six to eight weeks). You can download… Continue Reading
Will Artificial Intelligence Eat the Law? The Rise of Hybrid Social-Ordering Systems
Wu, Tim, Will Artificial Intelligence Eat the Law? The Rise of Hybrid Social-Ordering Systems (August 25, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3492846 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3492846 “Software has partially or fully displaced many former human activities, such as catching speeders or flying airplanes, and proven itself able to surpass humans in certain contests, like Chess and Jeopardy. What… Continue Reading
Elite Law Firms Are Quietly Outsourcing High-Value Functions
The American Lawyer: “Sullivan & Cromwell spends millions of dollars on technology, ensuring its equipment is accessible to its lawyers around the globe and that its digital security can keep clients safe. Chairman Joe Shenker, citing bank surveys, says the Wall Street firm’s tech costs per lawyer are higher than any of its peers. Still,… Continue Reading
Judge backs Reveal’s suit to end secrecy around Silicon Valley’s diversity
Reveal: “A federal judge on Tuesday struck down attempts by the U.S. Department of Labor and several major Silicon Valley firms to keep companies’ staff diversity numbers secret, siding with the argument made by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting that the records are not confidential business information. Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore of… Continue Reading
