TechCrunch: “Starting today, users of the social magazine app Flipboard can follow any federated accounts, meaning those that participate in the social network of interconnected servers known as the fediverse..this now includes Threads accounts in addition to Mastodon accounts and others. With the update, which deepens Flipboard’s connection with the ActivityPub social graph, any Flipboard… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Legal Research
Who Has Your Face
EFF – Who Has Your Face – “Law enforcement and government agencies have access to over 641 million photos for facial recognition purposes—photos of more than half of Americans. Knowing which agencies can access these images is necessary to fight back against this invasion of privacy. Learn more below. Table of Contents State Licenses/IDs Passports,… Continue Reading
De-Google your life: How to delete all photos from Google Photos
Proton Blog: “Using Google Photos to store and share your pictures means allowing the company to see, analyze, and process them. Many people concerned about their privacy have taken steps to move away from the Google ecosystem, despite the company’s efforts to hide its surveillance-based business model. Apart from privacy concerns, Google made promises about… Continue Reading
In November 2024, everything is at stake
“The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate. That’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson, and it’s super-relevant to our situation today. Our schools aren’t doing enough to create an educated electorate, and most of our journalists are doing a terrible job. This is terrifying, because the 2024 elections could be the… Continue Reading
Thousands of Corporate Secrets Were Left Exposed. This Guy Found Them All
Wired – Security researcher Bill Demirkapi found more than 15,000 hardcoded secrets and 66,000 vulnerable websites—all by searching overlooked data sources [unpaywalled]: “If you know where to look, plenty of secrets can be found online. Since the fall of 2021, independent security researcher Bill Demirkapi has been building ways to tap into huge data sources,… Continue Reading
The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI
Cooper, A. Feder and Grimmelmann, James and Grimmelmann, James, The Files are in the Computer: On Copyright, Memorization, and Generative AI (April 22, 2024). Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper Forthcoming, Chicago-Kent Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4803118 – “The New York Times’s copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft alleges that OpenAI’s GPT models have… Continue Reading
The mining of the public domain
Jessamyn West, Librarian.net – “Public.work is a search engine for public domain content.” The site claims to have over 100,000 public domain images. This in and of itself is not that special, but the interface is. It’s gorgeous, a fun and engaging discovery layer where every search becomes a URL that can be shared [example]… Continue Reading
Evaluating People Search Site Removal Services
New Report: Data Defense: Evaluating People-Search Site Removal Services – “Seven years ago, I typed my own name into a search engine and was horrified to learn that my name, age, home address, and phone number were publicly posted by multiple people-search sites without my knowledge, let alone consent. Shortly after finding my own data… Continue Reading
Trump presidential library?
Via Ben Amata: A Trump presidential library exists and appears to be only digital – The Donald J. Trump Presidential records are governed by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). Under the provisions of the PRA, Trump Presidential records are not available to public access requests for the first five years after the end of the… Continue Reading
Greedflation Report
“U.S. Sen. Bob Casey released his latest “greedflation” report on Wednesday, and this time it takes aim at popular streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and more. This time, Casey is highlighting what he calls “streamflation,” which happens when streaming platforms hike their profits by charging higher prices, despite offering less content and… Continue Reading
Public records data must be off-limits for AI
The Hill – “Companies are looking for innovative ways to collect data to feed their data-hungry artificial intelligence systems and create innovative applications. Fortunately, some do not have to go too far. Then, there are the companies that collect data from public records to share on the internet and run analytics. There are many compelling… Continue Reading
OpenAI says its latest GPT-4o model is ‘medium’ risk
The Verge: “OpenAI has released its GPT-4o System Card, a research document that outlines the safety measures and risk evaluations the startup conducted before releasing its latest model. GPT-4o was launched publicly in May of this year. Before its debut, OpenAI used an external group of red teamers, or security experts trying to find weaknesses… Continue Reading
