WSJ.com [article is paywalled but the 5 minute accompanying video is not, and well worth listening for the specificity of the explanation] “In a rare bipartisan achievement, Congress has moved to combat the scourge of robocalls inundating Americans. Just don’t stop the calls to stop coming any time soon..” Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Records
KKR investment firm to buy OverDrive, biggest library ebook company
TeleRead – David Rothman – “Toxic for libraries? The KKR investment firm is buying none other than OverDrive—the biggest library ebook company, providing ebooks and audiobooks to 43,000+ libraries and schools in 75 countries. The seller is Rakuten, also owner of the Kobo ereader, audiobook and ebook business. “The two sides did not provide a… Continue Reading
Smart Home Tech, Police, and Your Privacy: Year in Review 2019
EFF: “If 2019 confirmed anything, it is that we should not trust the microphones and cameras that large corporations sell us to put inside and near our homes. Thanks to the due diligence of reporters, public records requesters, and privacy researchers and activists, consumers have been learning more and more about how these “smart” home… Continue Reading
The privacy worries with smart cities
Axios – Momentum for smart cities projects, which has been fed by big promises from industry and big hopes in government, is slowing down in the face of a wave of public skepticism. Driving the news: Alphabet-owned Sidewalk Labs, which has proposed a futuristic smart-city development for Toronto’s waterfront, has pledged not to sell personal… Continue Reading
Those UFO videos are real, the Navy says
but please stop saying ‘UFO’…The Washington Post – [watch this Christmas Eve in full screen mode – stay focused and read the text that that explains the event] “In December 2017, two videos emerged that showed Navy pilots encountering mysterious spherical objects that appeared, at first glance, to move through the air in ways that… Continue Reading
Your email problem isn’t your fault
Quartz at Work: “Checking email, responding to it, and remembering what’s been dealt with and what hasn’t creates a huge drag on many of our days. It also makes for an almost-constant distraction if an email client is open alongside other work windows, or if alerts are enabled. The people who felt most stressed shared… Continue Reading
What does your car know about you?
Washington Post – “Our privacy experiment found that automakers collect data through hundreds of sensors and an always-on Internet connection. Driving surveillance is becoming hard to avoid…Cars have become the most sophisticated computers many of us own, filled with hundreds of sensors. Even older models know an awful lot about you. Many copy over personal… Continue Reading
An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry from Times Opinion
The New York Times – Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy – By Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel, December 19, 2019. “Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and… Continue Reading
The dark side of Alexa, Siri and other personal digital assistants
The Conversation: “Digital assistants can be found in your office, home, car, hotel, phone and many other places. They have recently undergone massive transformation and run on operating systems that are fuelled by artificial intelligence (AI). They observe and collect data in real-time and have the capability to pull information from different sources such as… Continue Reading
WaPo – House vote on two articles creates indelible mark on Trump’s presidency
After 11 hours of fierce argument, lawmakers voted almost entirely along party lines to impeach the president on charges that he abused his office and obstructed Congress Pelosi does not rule out not sending impeachment articles to Senate The New York Times – President Trump is the third president in history to be charged with… Continue Reading
Surveillance Net Blankets China’s Cities Giving Police Vast Powers
The New York Times – The authorities can scan your phones, track your face and find out when you leave your home. “One of the world’s biggest spying networks is aimed at regular people, and nobody can stop it. China is ramping up its ability to spy on its nearly 1.4 billion people to new… Continue Reading
UK CMA lifts the lid on digital giants
“The UK Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) has published an update in its examination of online platforms and digital advertising, uncovering new detail about how the sector’s biggest names operate. The CMA’s interim report [12/18/19] has found that: Last year, Google accounted for more than 90% of all revenues earned from search advertising in the… Continue Reading
