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Daily Archives: November 6, 2024

DataBreach.com Emerges as Alternative to HaveIBeenPwned

PCMag: “Have I Been Pwned has long been one of the most useful ways to learn if your personal information was exposed in a hack. But a new site offers its own powerful tool to help you check if your data has been leaked to cybercriminals. DataBreach.com is the work of a New Jersey company called Atlas Privacy, which helps consumers remove their personal information from data brokers and people search websites. On Wednesday, the company told us it had launched DataBreach.com as an alternative to Have I Been Pwned, which is mainly searchable via the user’s email address. DataBreach.com is designed to do that and more. In addition to your email address, the site features an advanced search function to see whether your full name, physical address, phone number, Social Security number, IP address, or username are in Atlas Privacy’s extensive library of recorded breaches. More categories will also be added over time. Atlas Privacy has been offering its paid services to customers, such as police officers and celebrities, to protect bad actors from learning their addresses or phone numbers. In doing so, the company has also amassed over 17.5 billion records from the numerous stolen databases circulating on the internet, including in cybercriminal forums. As a public service, Atlas is now using its growing repository of stolen records to create a breach notification site, free of charge. DataBreach.com builds off Atlas’s effort in August to host a site notifying users whether their Social Security number and other personal information were leaked in the National Public Data hack. Importantly, Atlas designed DataBreach.com to prevent it from storing or collecting any sensitive user information typed into the site. Instead, the site will fetch a hash from Atlas’ servers, or a fingerprint of the user’s personal information — whether it be an email address, name, or SSN — and compare it to whatever the user is searching for. “The comparison will be done locally,” meaning it’ll occur on the user’s PC or phone, rather than Atlas’s internet server, de Saint Meloir said.”

How the death of cursive is complicating our elections

Fast Company: “The death of cursive has become a problem for voters and election officials. Young people who vote by mail and were never taught cursive risk having their ballots tossed if the signature they sign on their mail-in ballot envelope doesn’t match the signature on file, which the state uses to verify their identity.… Continue Reading

For Teens Online, Conspiracy Theories Are Commonplace

News:iterary Project: News Literacy in America: A survey of teen information attitudes, habits and skills (2024). “American teens spend hours each day scrolling social media platforms, immersing themselves in an often-confusing stream of entertainment, ads, news, rumors and conspiracy theories. Young people need the knowledge, skills and habits of mind to assess the credibility and… Continue Reading

FTC Order Against AI-Enabled Review Platform Sitejabber

“The Federal Trade Commission today charged that Sitejabber, a company offering an AI-enabled consumer review platform, deceived consumers by misrepresenting that ratings and reviews it published came from customers who experienced the reviewed product or service, artificially inflating average ratings and review counts. Under a proposed order settling the agency’s complaint, Sitejabber will be prohibited from… Continue Reading

Canadian legal information database sues company behind AI chatbot

CBA – Lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court alleges that Caseway AI violates CanLII’s terms of service and copyrights: “The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) has taken the makers of an AI chatbot to court over what it says is a violation of its terms of service, due to the chatbot scraping CanLII’s database in… Continue Reading

This Election Should Not Determine the Fate of Libraries

EveryLibrary – (But it Might Have) – “Libraries have never been immune from political and social movements, but we have behaved as if we are somehow a special place, a place apart from these fights. The last three years of censorship and discrimination fights should have been a wake-up call for our library organizations, stakeholders,… Continue Reading

e-Patients White Paper

“The whitepaper, e-Patients: How they can help us heal health care, authored by the late Tom Ferguson, MD, is the foundation for the founding of the Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM). After his 15 year battle with multiple myeloma ended in 2006, the group of advisors Doc Tom had assembled decided to ensure that his… Continue Reading

Freedom to Read Advocates Notch a Legal Victory in Alaska

Publisher’s Weekly: “After a favorable legal ruling in August, freedom to read advocates in Alaska have scored a significant victory in court over would-be book banners. In an October 31 filing, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District in Alaska agreed to pay $89,000 to settle claims that the district improperly removed dozens of books, including several… Continue Reading

Ziff Davis study says AI firms rely on publisher data to train models

Axios: “Leading AI companies such as OpenAI, Google and Meta rely more on content from premium publishers to train their large language models (LLMs) than they publicly admit, according to new research from executives at Ziff Davis, one of the largest publicly-traded digital media companies. Why it matters: Publishers believe that the more they can… Continue Reading