Articles and Columns for September 2022

• Fenced-off culture, the privatized Internet, and why book publishers lean on a 30-year-old doctrine – The Internet Archive (IA) “is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 624 billion archived web pages.” The IA offers users unrestricted access to its expansive ecosystem of knowledge and educational resources from the public domain. Andy Oram, prolific author, editor, publisher, and technical expert on all aspects of computing, undertook an extensive examination of a game changing case, Hachette v. Internet Archive, that may dismantle this unique, invaluable digital library. In this article Oram examines what the publishers are trying to protect and why they have to wield a large and heavy cudgel to protect it. His inquiry leads to a look at how culture has been privatized as it has become digitized—an effect quite opposed to the hopes of most public advocates who maintain the view that the Internet and the World Wide Web should remain focused on public access, not private sector monetization.
• After the Ivory Tower Falls: A Book Review – Among the main strengths of this important, highly readable book, says David H. Rothman, is its history of how we got into the mess in the first place. We blew our chance by not making higher education more of a tax-supported public good with academic values prevailing over commercial ones. The GI Bill and other measures helped, but what if the aid had been even more extensive with far less reliance on the marketplace? Even elite Ivy schools got caught up in the mania—wildly overpaying administrators and indulging in ever-more-expensive dorms and gyms and other luxuries to compete for the students from well-off families most likely to donate. So much for the poor and middle class, even with scholarships. The result was that America squandered brainpower.
• What is proof-of-stake? A computer scientist explains a new way to make cryptocurrencies, NFTs and metaverse transactions – Prof. Scott Ruoti briefs us on yet another new component in Digital Ledger Technology. Proof-of-stake is a mechanism for achieving consensus on a blockchain. Blockchain is a technology that records transactions that can’t be deleted or altered. It’s a decentralized database, or ledger, that is under no one person or organization’s control. Since no one controls the database, consensus mechanisms, such as proof-of-stake, are needed to coordinate the operation of blockchain-based systems.
• Using an Infographic to Encourage Deep Reading – Prof. Cindy Guyer, Senior Law Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor Law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has been experimenting with incorporating infographics in her teaching to present information and knowledge visually, using graphs, flowcharts, timelines, and diagrams, which are components of instructional design.
• What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet? It’s losing ice faster than forecast and now irreversibly committed to at least 10 inches of sea level rise – As a field glaciologist, Alun Hubbard has worked on ice sheets for more than 30 years. In that time, he has witnessed some gobsmacking changes. The past few years in particular have been unnerving for the sheer rate and magnitude of change underway. His revered textbooks taught him that ice sheets respond over millennial time scales, but that’s not what we’re seeing today. A study published Aug. 29, 2022, demonstrates – for the first time – that Greenland’s ice sheet is now so out of balance with prevailing Arctic climate that it no longer can sustain its current size. It is irreversibly committed to retreat by at least 59,000 square kilometers (22,780 square miles), an area considerably larger than Denmark, Greenland’s protectorate state.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 24, 2022 – Four highlights from this week: Lens reflections may betray your secrets in Zoom video calls; Multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue; How Pig Butchering Scams Work; and Crypto giveaway scams continue to escalate.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 17, 2022 – Four highlights from this week: Consumer Data: Increasing Use Poses Risks to Privacy; Border Agents Surveil Americans’ Phones Without Warrants: Wyden; Social Media Execs Submit to Time-Honored Public Lashing Before Congress; and You should know that most websites share your in-site search queries with third parties.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 10, 2022 – Four highlights from this week: U.S. bank regulator warns of crisis risk from fintech proliferation; Supply chain risk is a top security priority as confidence in partners wanes; FBI Warns Individuals Employed in the Healthcare Industry of the Ongoing Scam Involving the Impersonation of Law enforcement and Government; and IST to launch new guidance on security risks of telehealth and smart home integration.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 3, 2022 – Four highlights from this week: Why your organization should plan for deepfake fraud before it happens; FTC Sues Broker Kochava Over Geolocation Data Sales; Google Chrome Bug Lets Sites Silently Overwrite System Clipboard Content; and Chrome extensions with 1.4 million installs steal browsing data.