Via FAS – Mail and Wire Fraud: A Brief Overview of Federal Criminal Law Updated, February 11, 2019. “The mail and wire fraud statutes are exceptionally broad. Their scope has occasionally given the courts pause. Nevertheless, prosecutions in their name have brought to an end schemes that have bilked victims out of millions, and sometimes… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: February 2019
CRS – U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress
Via FAS – U.S. Role in the World: Background and Issues for Congress, Updated February 14, 2019. – “…The overall issue for Congress is how to respond to recent developments regarding the U.S. role in the world. Potential key issues for Congress include but are not necessarily limited to the following: Is the U.S. role changing,… Continue Reading
CRS Social Security Primer
Via FAS – Social Security Primer Updated, February 7, 2019 “Social Security provides monthly cash benefits to retired or disabled workers and their family members, and to the family members of deceased workers. Among the beneficiary population, almost 83% are retired or disabled workers; family members of retired, disabled, or deceased workers make up the… Continue Reading
The first library on another celestial body
Arch Mission Foundation: “The Lunar Library™ represents the first in a series of lunar archives from the Arch Mission Foundation, designed to preserve the records of our civilization for up to billions of years. It is installed in the SpaceIL “Beresheet” lunar lander, scheduled to land on the Moon in April of 2019. The Lunar… Continue Reading
How important is your privacy?
Axios: “…A full 81% of consumers say that in the past year they’ve become more concerned with how companies are using their data, and 87% say they’ve come to believe companies that manage personal data should be more regulated, according to a survey out Monday by IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Yes, but: They aren’t… Continue Reading
Researchers break digital signatures for most desktop PDF viewers
ZDNet: “A team of academics from the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany say they’ve managed to break the digital signing system and create fake signatures on 21 of 22 desktop PDF viewer apps and five out of seven online PDF digital signing services. This includes apps such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, and LibreOffice, and… Continue Reading
A true story about smartphone addiction
The New York Times – Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain – “And if you’re anything like me — and the statistics suggest you probably are, at least where smartphones are concerned — you have one, too. I don’t love referring to what we have as an “addiction.” That seems… Continue Reading
Spurring AI Development With a High-Quality Face Dataset
Center for Data Innovation: “NVIDIA has released Flickr-Faces-HQ (FFHQ), a dataset of 70,000 high-resolution images of human faces. The dataset includes faces representing a wide range of ages and ethnicities, and the images also include humans wearing accessories such as eyeglasses, sunglasses, and hats. Researchers can use this dataset for multiple purposes, including training and… Continue Reading
Mapping Segregation in America At Home and Work
Vox: American segregation, mapped at day and night – The racial makeup of neighborhoods changes during the workday. See how yours changes. “…By tracking the dramatic shift in segregation from day to night, the researchers hoped to get a fuller understanding of how and where we encounter people of other races. Because they tracked people… Continue Reading
AAAS: Machine learning ‘causing science crisis’
BBC: “Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong. Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the increased use of such systems was contributing to a “crisis in science”. She warned scientists that if they didn’t improve their techniques they… Continue Reading
Paper – The access-to-justice crisis is bigger than law and lawyers
Access to What? Rebecca L. Sandefur. © 2019 by Rebecca L. Sandefur doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00534 Rebecca l. Sandefur is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign; and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, where she founded and leads the Foundation’s Access to Justice re search initiative.… Continue Reading
FBI’s War Crimes Unit on the Chopping Block
Just Security: “A special unit within the Federal Bureau of Investigation that handles war crimes may be shut down imminently, according to officials familiar with the administration’s decision-making process. The FBI’s International Human Rights Unit takes the lead on investigating individuals within the United States who have been accused of committing international crimes, including war… Continue Reading
