Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, October 7, 2023 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Privacy
Hackers selling data of millions lifted from 23andMe’s genetic database
The Verge: “23andMe posted a blog yesterday saying that data from users of its genetic testing and analysis platform has been circulating on dark web forums after hackers used recycled logins to gain access to get into accounts. BleepingComputer wrote on Thursday that a hacker leaked what they said was “1 million lines of data”… Continue Reading
A primer on some key issues in U.S. v. Google
An ongoing case, U.S. v. Google, promises to be the most significant technology antitrust trial in the U.S. in decades. The case involves allegations that Google violated a prohibition on using exclusionary practices to maintain a monopoly under the Sherman Act. These allegations center on Google’s browser agreements with Apple and Mozilla, under which Google… Continue Reading
3 Chatbot Privacy Risks and Concerns You Should Know About
MakeUseOf: “Chatbots have been around for years, but the rise of large language models, such as ChatGPT and Google Bard, has given the chatbot industry a new lease of life. Millions of people now use AI chatbots worldwide, but there are some important privacy risks and concerns to keep in mind if you want to… Continue Reading
Your Online Account May Have Been Breached? Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.
WSJ via MSN: “How do consumers respond when their online accounts are exposed to hackers? Many of them simply don’t. Data breaches at major firms have become all too common, with more than 110 million user accounts exposed in just the second quarter of 2023. Yet our research found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers… Continue Reading
GAO Report Shows Government Uses Face Recognition with No Accountability, Transparency, or Training
EFF: “…The government watchdog issued yet another report – Facial Recognition Services: Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Should Take Actions to Implement Training, and Policies for Civil Liberties this month about the dangerously inadequate and nonexistent rules for how federal agencies use face recognition, underlining what we’ve already known: the government cannot be trusted with this flawed… Continue Reading
Delete your digital history from dozens of companies with this app
Washington Post: “A new iPhone and Android app [does not work on Mac or PC) called Permission Slip makes it super simple to order companies to delete your personal information and secrets. Trying it saved me about 76 hours of work telling Ticketmaster, United, AT&T, CVS and 35 other companies to knock it off.Did I… Continue Reading
Can Sensitive Information Be Deleted From LLMs?
Can Sensitive Information Be Deleted From LLMs? Objectives for Defending Against Extraction Attacks. Vaidehi Patil, Peter Hase, Mohit Bansal: “Pretrained language models sometimes possess knowledge that we do not wish them to, including memorized personal information and knowledge that could be used to harm people. They can also output toxic or harmful text. To mitigate… Continue Reading
September 2023 Issue of LLRX
LLRX Articles and Columns for September 2023 Adding a ‘Group Advisory Layer’ to Your Use of Generative AI Tools Through Structured Prompting: The G-A-L Method – The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) in legal research signifies a transformative shift – Dennis Kennedy Keeping Up With Generative AI in the Law – Rebecca Fordon AI in… Continue Reading
How to go incognito on these 6 popular apps
PopSci – “Going incognito in your browser and favorite apps has its benefits, even though it may not be as private as you think. Also known as private mode, this feature temporarily pauses tracking of your browsing or viewing history and doesn’t save data you input, such as login credentials and personal details. We don’t… Continue Reading
Don’t Let Zombie Zoom Links Drag You Down
Krebs on Security: “Many organizations — including quite a few Fortune 500 firms — have exposed web links that allow anyone to initiate a Zoom video conference meeting as a valid employee. These company-specific Zoom links, which include a permanent user ID number and an embedded passcode, can work indefinitely and expose an organization’s employees,… Continue Reading
Cities Should Act NOW to Ban Predictive Policing
EFF: “Sound Thinking, the company behind ShotSpotter—an acoustic gunshot detection technology that is rife with problems—is reportedly buying Geolitica, the company behind PredPol, a predictive policing technology known to exacerbate inequalities by directing police to already massively surveilled communities. Sound Thinking acquired the other major predictive policing technology—Hunchlab—in 2018. This consolidation of harmful and flawed… Continue Reading
