Yahoo Finance: “Equifax used the word “admin” as both password and username for a portal that contained sensitive information, according to a class action lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia. The ongoing lawsuit, filed after the breach, went viral on Twitter Friday after Buzzfeed reporter Jane Lytvynenko came across the detail. “Equifax… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: E-Records
DHS has FOIA backlog in excess of 50,000 requests
Freedom of Information Act: DHS Needs to Reduce Backlogged Requests and Eliminate Duplicate Processing, GAO-20-209T: Published: Oct 17, 2019. Publicly Released: Oct 17, 2019. “The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires federal agencies to provide the public with access to government records. The Department of Homeland Security continues to receive the largest number of FOIA… Continue Reading
Computers have an unlikely origin story: the 1890 census
FastCompany – David Lindsay Roberts – “The inventor of punched cards, which led to the first computers and companies like IBM, was aiming to solve a gnarly problem at the time: data collection for the census…The U.S. Constitution requires that a population count be conducted at the beginning of every decade. This census has always been charged… Continue Reading
How Amazon.com moved into the business of U.S. elections
Reuters: “The expansion by Amazon Web Services into state and local elections has quietly gathered pace since the 2016 U.S. presidential vote. More than 40 states now use one or more of Amazon’s election offerings, according to a presentation given by an Amazon executive this year and seen by Reuters. So do America’s two main… Continue Reading
Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free
ProPublica – Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy, and created its multi-billion-dollar franchise. “…Intuit’s QuickBooks accounting product remains a steady moneymaker, but in the past two decades TurboTax, its tax preparation product, has driven the company’s steadily growing… Continue Reading
Census Bureau asks states for driver’s license records to produce citizenship data
WHYY – “The Census Bureau is asking states to voluntarily share driver’s license records as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to produce detailed data about the U.S. citizenship status of every person living in the country. According to a statement the bureau released Tuesday, the requests are in response to an executive order President… Continue Reading
What Your Personal Information is Worth to Cybercriminals
Bleeping Computer -“Cybercriminals have multiple markets to get illicit goods and prices on these underground forums are likely driven by supply and demand, just like in the legal economy. Offerings found on deep and dark web (DDW) markets include anything that can be monetized in one way or another. Common goods cover any financial information that… Continue Reading
Google introducing auto-delete controls for your Location History and activity data
Google Blog – “Whether you’re looking for the latest news or the quickest driving route, we aim to make our products helpful for everyone. And when you turn on settings like Location History or Web & App Activity, the data can make Google products more useful for you—like recommending a restaurant that you might enjoy,… Continue Reading
Google’s new voice recorder app transcribes in real time, even when offline
TechCrunch: “At Google’s hardware event this morning, the company introduced a new voice recorder app for Android devices, which will tap into advances in real-time speech processing, speech recognition and AI to automatically transcribe recordings in real time as the person is speaking. The improvements will allow users to take better advantage of the phone’s… Continue Reading
Here’s how you make your Google Docs secure
The Next Web: “Google Docs is one of the few online applications that I’m deeply dependent on for my everyday work. Like millions of other people, I use it to write, edit, collaborate, and to archive my documents. There’s no arguing on the convenience that Google Docs provides, whether you’re a professional writer, an account… Continue Reading
Shedding Some Light on the Dark Web for Legal Researchers
Legal Executive Institute – “…What makes the Dark Web “dark,” are not the nefarious things that sometimes occur there; rather, it is the anonymity it offers. Most search engines keep a very close eye on who you are and what you are searching for. Plenty of ad trackers also want to eavesdrop on your Web… Continue Reading
The U.S. Government Keeps Too Many Secrets
The Atlantic – American officials classify too much information, from the trivial to the politically inconvenient. The overreliance on secrecy invites abuse. “That the U.S. government has a problem with classifying information—the process of identifying and protecting documents and discussions that must be kept secret to preserve national security—was established long before President Donald Trump’s… Continue Reading
