Truthout: “A group of senators led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) has introduced a bill to combat the Supreme Court’s seismic pro-corporate decision last month to overturn a precedent known as Chevron deference that has enabled federal agencies to issue regulations for decades. Ten senators joined Warren on Tuesday in introducing the bill that would… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Meta releases its biggest ‘open’ AI model yet
TechCrunch: “Meta’s latest open source AI model is its biggest yet. Today, Meta said it is releasing Llama 3.1 405B, a model containing 405 billion parameters. Parameters roughly correspond to a model’s problem-solving skills, and models with more parameters generally perform better than those with fewer parameters. At 405 billion parameters, Llama 3.1 405B isn’t… Continue Reading
Ryanair Wins Legal Case Against Booking.Com Over Screen Scraping & Reselling Tickets
Bloomberg via MSN: “Ryanair, a major player in European aviation, has won a case in the US court against Booking.com, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies. The US court has ruled that the Dutch agency violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing the Ryanair website without permission. Court documents identified that… Continue Reading
New York Times, Washington Post compete with meme accounts for chance to be first with big headline
NiemanLab: “The ways people hear about big news these days; “into a million pieces,” says source. It’s not often that massive political news breaks on a Sunday afternoon — especially one in steamy late July, the leading edge of the Greater August vacation season. But break news Joe Biden most certainly did with this tweet… Continue Reading
NewsGuard Launches 2024 Paris Olympics Misinformation Tracking Center
“…To date, NewsGuard’s team has identified and is tracking 14 misinformation narratives relating to the 2024 Paris Olympics in 13 languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. The claims have spread on social media as well as on 31 unreliable news and information websites. Sixteen of the 31 sites have… Continue Reading
How data brokers sell our location data and jeopardise national security
Netzpolitic.org: “The AdTech industry is torpedoing the privacy of millions of people in Germany and is a threat to national security. But the underlying problem is global: databrokers sell location data without sufficient control. This is the summary of a joint research by netzpolitik.org and BR. Our investigation with BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk) shows for the… Continue Reading
Massive IT outage spotlights major vulnerabilities in the global information ecosystem
Via LLRX – Professor Richard Forno highlights the fragility of our enterprise IT systems against the backdrop of the global information technology outage on July 19, 2024 that paralyzed organizations ranging from airlines to hospitals and the delivery of uniforms for the Olympic Games, representing a growing concern for cybersecurity professionals, businesses and governments. Continue Reading
Academic authors ‘shocked’ after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI
The Bookseller: “Authors have expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft—a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year. The agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update… Continue Reading
Donald Trump wants to reinstate a spoils system in federal government by hiring political loyalists regardless of competence
Via LLRX – Donald Trump wants to reinstate a spoils system in federal government by hiring political loyalists regardless of competence – If elected to serve a second term, Donald Trump says he supports a spoils system, a plan that would give him the authority to fire as many as 50,000 civil servants and replace them… Continue Reading
UN Cybercrime Draft Convention Dangerously Expands State Surveillance Powers
EFF –This is the third post in a series highlighting flaws in the proposed UN Cybercrime Convention. Check out Part I, our detailed analysis on the criminalization of security research activities, and Part II, an analysis of the human rights safeguards. “As we near the final negotiating session for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, countries… Continue Reading
Font Interceptor downloads all fonts in use on a target website
Font Interceptor – Will you use it? Should you steal fonts? Should you buy fonts? Reasons to buy a font always override reasons to steal a font. Q: What’s the font used on this site? A: Group by Group Font. We bought it. Continue Reading
Tell Congress: Don’t Let Anyone Own The Law
EFF: “Court after court has recognized that no one can own the text of the law. But the Pro Codes Act is a deceptive power grab that will help giant industry associations ration access to huge swaths of U.S. laws. Tell Congress not to fall for it. A large portion of the regulations we all… Continue Reading
