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Category Archives: E-Records

Securing your digital life, part one: The basics

Ars Technica – Sean Gallagher: “I spend most of my time these days investigating the uglier side of digital life—examining the techniques, tools, and practices of cyber criminals to help people better defend against them. It’s not entirely different from my days at Ars Technica, but it has given me a greater appreciation for just… Continue Reading

Here’s the FBI’s Internal Guide for Getting Data from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon

Vice: “The newly obtained document shows in granular detail the sort of data that the country’s carriers keep, and for how long. Much of the information reiterates what we already knew about law enforcement access to telecommunications data—how officials can request location data from a telecom with a warrant or use court orders to obtain… Continue Reading

Brave ditches Google for its own privacy-centric search engine

Bleeping Computer: “Brave Browser has replaced Google with its own no-tracking privacy-centric Brave Search as the default search engine for new users in five regions. Brave is an open-source Chromium-based browser that focuses on user privacy by automatically blocking ads and tracking scripts and removing the privacy-invasive functions built into Chromium. Historically, Brave used Google… Continue Reading

Face Recognition Technology: Commonly Used Terms

EFF: “As face recognition technology evolves at a dizzying speed, new uses and terminologies seem to develop daily. On this page, we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms.  For more information on government use of face recognition and how to end it in your community, visit EFF’s About Face… Continue Reading

PacerPro Expands Into State Courts

LawSites: PacerPro Expands Into State Courts, Hires Silicon Valley Veteran As CTO: “Multiple pieces of news today from PacerPro, a company that enables law firms to automate the workflow around distributing and capturing federal court filings. The company, which until now specialized in helping law firms manage federal court PACER filings, said it is expanding… Continue Reading

Cisco 2021 Consumer Privacy Survey

Cisco Secure – Building Consumer Confidence Through Transparency and Control: “Protecting privacy continues to be a critical issue for individuals, organizations, and governments around the world. Eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, our health information and vaccination status are needed more than ever to understand the virus, control the spread, and enable safer environments for… Continue Reading

You’re one of 125,698,496 people pwned in the LinkedIn Scraped Data data breach

“You signed up for notifications when your account was pwned in a data breach and unfortunately, it’s happened. Here’s what’s known about the breach: Education levels, Email addresses, Genders, Geographic locations, Job titles, Names, Social media profiles. During the first half of 2021, LinkedIn was targeted by attackers who scraped data from hundreds of millions… Continue Reading

These systems are facing billions of attacks every month as hackers try to guess passwords

CNET – “Computer networks are being aggressively bombarded with billions of password-guessing attacks as cyber criminals attempt to exploit the growth in remote desktop protocol (RDP) and other cloud services in corporate environments.  Cybersecurity researchers at ESET detected 55 billion new attempts at brute-force attacks between May and August 2021 alone – more than double the… Continue Reading

Companies are hoarding personal data about you

Washington Post – Here’s how to get them to delete it [many caveats here…this may not be possible even in a limited manner] – “Companies are hoarding personal data about you. Here’s how to get them to delete it. Data deletion is complicated, and some companies mishandle requests. But it doesn’t hurt to ask…” Continue Reading

A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink their lesson plans

The Verge – File Not Found: “Catherine Garland, an astrophysicist, started seeing the problem in 2017. She was teaching an engineering course, and her students were using simulation software to model turbines for jet engines. She’d laid out the assignment clearly, but student after student was calling her over for help. They were all getting… Continue Reading

A web tool that converts PDF scientific papers into HTML

Boing Boing: “The folks at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence just released an intriguing tool — “Paper to HTML”, which lets you upload a scientific paper and it turns it into an HTML web page. The goal, as they wrote in their email, is to improve accessibility: Screen-readers and accessibility tech usually finds it a… Continue Reading

Americans have little trust in online security: AP-NORC poll

AP:  “Most Americans don’t believe their personal information is secure online and aren’t satisfied with the federal government’s efforts to protect it, according to a poll. The poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MeriTalk shows that 64% of Americans say their social media activity is not very or not at… Continue Reading