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Signal President Meredith Whittaker calls out agentic AI as having ‘profound’ security and privacy issues

TechCrunch: “Signal President Meredith Whittaker warned Friday that agentic AI could come with a risk to user privacy. Speaking onstage at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the advocate for secure communications referred to the use of AI agents as “putting your brain in a jar,” and cautioned that this new paradigm of computing — where… Continue Reading

European word translator

Translate any word into over 30 languages. Enter one or two lower-case English words to see translations from Google Translate.  A few things to keep in mind: Translations are generated by Google Translate. Some may be inaccurate or use non-European (e.g. Brazilian Portuguese) words. Just one translation is provided for each word; watch out for… Continue Reading

Judicial Secrecy

Rowe, Elizabeth A., Judicial Secrecy (December 01, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5154667 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5154667  – “This Article examines the growing phenomenon of over-sealing court records and its implications for judicial transparency. While intended to protect compelling interests such as trade secrets and other confidential information, this practice has expanded to include sealing of basic legal arguments,… Continue Reading

National Parks Staff Purged – Impact to National Capital Area

Axios: “More than 750 national park workers have been fired amid the Trump administration’s purge of federal employees, per an unofficial tally shared with Axios by a park ranger. Why it matters: Our region is home to over 70 national parks that draw millions of visitors each year, from the National Mall to Shenandoah —… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 8, 2025

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 8, 2025. 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 and… Continue Reading

We Compared Eight AI Search Engines. They’re All Bad at Citing News.

Columbia Journalism Review: “AI search tools are rapidly gaining in popularity, with nearly one in four Americans now saying they have used AI in place of traditional search engines. These tools derive their value from crawling the internet for up-to-date, relevant information—content that is often produced by news publishers.  Yet a troubling imbalance has emerged:… Continue Reading

Executive Order Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP

Unprecedented attack by the White House on a law firm with past and current representation of  clients who are “adversaries” of Donald Trump. The pretext for this attack is that Perkins Coie implemented eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP. Executive Order, March 6, 2025. “Section 1. Purpose. The dishonest… Continue Reading

How popular is Donald Trump?

Silver Bulletin approval ratings for President Trump — and all presidents since Truman. “We’ve just launched this landing page, where we’ll update President Trump’s approval ratings several times per week. Sometimes, you’ll find a quick note here analyzing the latest trends. And sometimes, approval ratings can be pretty boring, so we won’t have much to… Continue Reading

DOGE Is the Deep State

Wired: “A shadowy group of unelected figures reshaping the federal government to their own benefit from the inside? Sounds familiar! The “deep state” is a top-tier conservative bogeyman, right up there with DEI and George Soros. But it seems fair to ask: If a bunch of shadowy, unelected figures, many with shared business interests and… Continue Reading