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Daily Archives: March 29, 2020

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues March 28, 2020

Via LLRXPete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues March 28, 2020 – Privacy and security issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: The battle against disinformation is global; Report: “‘Zoombombing’: When Video Conferences Go Wrong”; Could President Trump end lockdowns? Three legal issues; Putin’s Secret Intelligence Agency Hacked: Dangerous New ‘Cyber Weapons’ Now Exposed; and AG Shapiro: Amazon, Facebook, Ebay, Walmart, Craigslist Must Stop Site Price Gouging by Online Sellers.

Shortages of COVID-19 Emergency Equipment in U.S. Cities

US Conference of Mayors – “The survey described in this report illustrates the scope and severity of the need for COVID-19 emergency equipment in this nation’s cities.  It shows that, despite their best efforts, most cities do not have and cannot obtain adequate equipment and supplies needed to protect their residents.  This is a life-threatening crisis… Continue Reading

New Website Provides Acquisition-Related Coronavirus Information

JD Supra – “If you’re looking for a single place to find information concerning the federal government’s response to the coronavirus that impacts contractors, the General Services Administration (GSA) recently uploaded a webpage on the acquisition.gov website that aims to deliver: https://www.acquisition.gov/coronavirus. While it is not a comprehensive source, the site includes selected links to… Continue Reading

CRS – Federal Reserve Emergency Lending

CRS Report – Federal Reserve: Emergency Lending, Updated March 27, 2020. “The 2007-2009 financial crisis led the Federal Reserve (Fed) to revive an obscure provision found in Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act (12 U.S.C. 344) to extend credit to nonbank financial firms for the first time since the 1930s.” See also CRS Report… Continue Reading

COVID-19: State and Local Shut-Down Orders and Exemptions for Critical Infrastructure

EveryCRSReport – COVID-19: State and Local Shut-Down Orders and Exemptions for Critical Infrastructure, March 26, 2020 – “Since the onset of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States, public officials have issued numerous emergency directives closing non-essential businesses and facilities and instructing non-essential workers to stay home. However, these directives have generally… Continue Reading

NYT Sharing Coronavirus Case Data for Every U.S. County

The New York Times – We’re Sharing Coronavirus Case Data for Every U.S. County – “With no detailed government database on where the thousands of coronavirus cases have been reported, a team of New York Times journalists is attempting to track every case. As the coronavirus has spread across the United States, killing hundreds of… Continue Reading

The Fate of the News in the Age of the Coronavirus

The New Yorker – Can a fragile media ecosystem survive the pandemic? – “The shift to paywalls has been a boon for quality journalism. Instead of chasing trends on search engines and social media, subscription-based publications can focus on producing journalism worth paying for, which has meant investments in original reporting of all kinds. A small… Continue Reading

Social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 epidemic

Social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 epidemic – “The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is straining healthcare resources worldwide, prompting social distancing measures to reduce transmission intensity. The amount of social distancing needed to curb the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the context of seasonally varying transmission remains unclear. Using a mathematical model, we assessed that one-time interventions will be… Continue Reading

Zoombombing, data privacy, webcam backdrop, virtual town hall

CVUSD meeting falls victim to “Zoombombing” Vice – Zoom Removes Code That Sends Data to Facebook – The change comes after Motherboard found the Zoom iOS app was sending analytics information to Facebook when users opened the apps See also The Web Around [I do not have one but it may be of interest] –… Continue Reading

Opinion – A Silent Spring Is Saying Something

Roger Cohen’s essay in the NYT: A Silent Spring Is Saying Something – The eerie inhumanity of Donald Trump. “This is the silent spring. The planet has gone quiet, so quiet you can almost hear it whirling around the sun, feel its smallness, picture for once the loneliness and fleetingness of being alive.This is the spring… Continue Reading