Bloomberg – The energy transition will falter unless consumers feel more comfortable about buying a used battery-powered vehicle. “You need at least £79,000 ($99,000) to buy a new electric Porsche Taycan in the UK; higher-specification versions of these sporty sedans cost tens of thousands more. However, three-year old Taycans are now available for less than… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Buying Spying: How the commercial surveillance industry works and what can be done about it
Google: “Spyware is typically used to monitor and collect data from high-risk users like journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents and opposition party politicians. These capabilities have grown the demand for spyware technology, making way for a lucrative industry used to sell governments and nefarious actors the ability to exploit vulnerabilities in consumer devices. Though the… Continue Reading
Is your medication out of stock? Here’s how to get it anyway
Vox: “..Before you do too much work, it’s worth seeing whether an independent pharmacy in your area can locate a supply of the drug you need. They’re less likely to just say “We’re out of stock — we can’t get it,” says Beckner. “They’re going to explore other means to try to obtain that drug.”… Continue Reading
New tool to automatically remove your personal information from data broker sites
Introducing Mozilla Monitor Plus – “Today, Mozilla Monitor (previously called Firefox Monitor), a free service that notifies you when your email has been part of a breach, announced its new paid subscription service offering: automatic data removal and continuous monitoring of your exposed personal information…“When we launched Monitor, our goal was to help people discover… Continue Reading
How Long Will Trump’s Immunity Appeal Take? Analyzing the Alternative Timelines
Just Security: “This updated article provides an overview of the potential procedural pathways for former President Donald Trump’s ongoing appeal of his federal prosecution for election interference by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Now that the DC Circuit issued its opinion on Tuesday, Feb. 6 [see link below], we lay out the possible paths forward for… Continue Reading
Data Is What Data Does: Regulating Based on Harm and Risk Instead of Sensitive Data
Data Is What Data Does: Regulating Based on Harm and Risk Instead of Sensitive Data, 118 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1081 (2024). “Heightened protection for sensitive data is becoming quite trendy in privacy laws around the world. Originating in European Union (EU) data protection law and included in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, sensitive… Continue Reading
Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Claim of Absolute Immunity
The New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he was immune from prosecution on charges of plotting to subvert the results of the 2020 election, ruling that he must go to trial on a criminal indictment accusing him of seeking to overturn his loss to… Continue Reading
Study ‘Category 5’ was considered the worst hurricane. There’s something scarier
USA Today: “As fearsome as Category 5 hurricanes can be for people living in harm’s way, a new study reports global warming is supercharging some of the most intense cyclones with winds high enough to merit a hypothetical Category 6. The world’s most intense hurricanes are growing even more intense, fueled by rising temperatures in… Continue Reading
Data Index Tool Offers Glimpse at School Success Boundaries
GovTech: “Federal data can be difficult to wrangle, but a new tool created by a nonprofit aims to remove some of the heavy lifting to help create a clear picture of communities socioeconomic needs — specifically within school attendance boundaries. The National Academy Foundation (NAF), an education nonprofit, collaborated with the NYU Marron Institute of… Continue Reading
Israel Privately Estimates as Many as 50 Hostages Could Be Dead
“As many as 50 hostages whom Hamas abducted during its Oct. 7 attack could be dead, Israel said privately. The figure, presented during recent talks in Cairo, according to Egyptian officials, has been key in negotiating the release of hostages—alive and dead (🔐 read for free). Israel has publicly acknowledged 29 deaths. If the private… Continue Reading
Pluralistic: How I got scammed
“How I got scammed (permalink) I wuz robbed. More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a… Continue Reading
FAA Aviation Maps
Kottke: “On Beautiful Public Data, Jon Keegan highlights the extremely information-rich flight maps produced by the Federal Aviation Administration that pilots use to find their way around the skies. Among all of the visual information published by the U.S. government, there may be no product with a higher information density than the Federal Aviation Administration’s… Continue Reading
