Data is Plural: Western water rights. Matthew D. Lisk et al. have compiled and standardized a dataset of water rights records — key documents in the allocation of the scarce resource — in the Western United States. Drawing on raw data collected from 11 states, the harmonized dataset “provides consistent unique identifiers for each spatial… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Search Engines
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
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
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024
Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 9, 2024 – 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
It’s not worth paying to be removed from people-finder sites
Ars Technica: “If you’ve searched your name online in the last few years, you know what’s out there, and it’s bad. Alternately, you’ve seen the lowest-common-denominator ads begging you to search out people from your past to see what crimes are on their record. People-search sites are a gross loophole in the public records system,… Continue Reading
Why you should use a VPN on your mobile device
ProtonVPN: “Growing public awareness about the threat posed to our fundamental right to privacy by online trackers has fueled a surge(new window) in VPN adoption, a trend that has been boosted thanks to people spending more time online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although VPN use is at an all-time high, many people still associate… Continue Reading
Google is finally taking action to curb non-consensual deepfakes
MIT Technology Review [unpaywalled]: “…Last week Google said it is taking steps to keep explicit deepfakes from appearing in search results. The tech giant is making it easier for victims to request that nonconsensual fake explicit imagery be removed. It will also filter all explicit results on similar searches and remove duplicate images. This will prevent… Continue Reading
‘Google Is a Monopolist’ in Online Search, Ruling Says
The New York Times [unpaywalled]: “Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, a federal judge ruled on Monday, a landmark decision that strikes at the power of tech giants in the modern internet era and that may fundamentally alter the way they do business. Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court… Continue Reading
Climate and health data website launched
“A new website of data resources, tools, and training materials that can aid researchers in studying the consequences of climate change on the health of communities nationwide is now available. At the end of July, NIEHS launched the Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems (CHORDS) website, which includes a catalog of environmental and health… Continue Reading
How Long to Read – Find reading times for millions of books
“How Long to Read is a book search engine that helps you find out how long it will take to read books and provide reading time data that is tailored to you. With our simple WPM (words per minute) test you can find out how long it will take you to read almost anything, and… Continue Reading
DOE Public Database Featuring Intellectual Property from DOE National Labs and Sites
“Thousands of the treasures developed by scientists working for the Department of Energy—ideas, methods and software created to address some of the world’s biggest challenges—are now available in one place for entrepreneurs, researchers and others interested in learning more and developing them for commercialization. DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) has created the Visual Intellectual… Continue Reading
