Articles and Columns for December 2023

• Violence Against Women and International Law – Updated December 2023 – Sabrina I. Pacifici is curating sources for their relevance and relationship to this site’s Israel-Hamas War Project articles. The first article on this subject can be read here. Until recent weeks there was a dearth of publicly available information about the scope of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas. But a New York Times article headline dated December 28, 2023 – “How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” – focused public attention on the facts. My updated article includes links and abstracts to 13 additional sources that provide corroborating testimonies, some in graphic detail, of the sexual violence committed against the initial victims, as well as against released hostages who have shared their experiences from their time in captivity.
• AI in Banking and Finance, December 31, 2023 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Four highlights from this post: The AI advantage: How artificial intelligence is revolutionising commercial finance; Proposed Rule: Conflicts of Interest Associated with the Use of Predictive Data Analytics by Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisers; Using generative artificial intelligence as a financial tool; and Enhancing AI in Finance Through Regulatory Sandboxes.
• AI and the Organized Bar: Lessons from the eLawyering Project – The Internet changed the way lawyers communicate, but it otherwise made only modest changes in the nature of legal work. Generative AI will be a tsunami. Can or should the American Bar Association and other bar associations attempt to influence the development and regulation of AI, to steer it in particular directions? Since the past can be prologue, it’s worth considering a previous attempt by the organized bar to grapple with another revolutionary technology. Jerry Lawson benchmarks this discussion using his participation in the American Bar Association’s eLawyering project that attempted to help lawyers use the Internet to achieve social benefits. The project tried to influence various governmental entities as well as the actions of lawyers. How well did these efforts work? How can the organized bar better steer the use of AI to benefit society?
• Where Did the Open Access Movement Go Wrong?: An Interview with Richard Poynder – Noted journalist and scholarly communication observer Richard Poynder explains why he has given up on the open access movement. This email interview was conducted by Rick Anderson.
• Fact Check Resources Miniguide 2024 – Fact checking is a critical component to subject matter research regardless of customer, client, user sector or discipline. With the rapidity of information exchange on social media, it is increasingly important to identify and remove errors, misinformation, disinformation and untruths from any and all research that is delivered. Marcus P. Zillman’s guide includes actionable sources for professionals and students that are even more useful with the proliferation of AI as they assist researchers to validate the authority and purpose of the sources they use.
• AI in Banking and Finance, December 16, 2023 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government reports, industry white papers, academic papers and speeches on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Each entry includes the publication name, date published, article title and abstract. Four highlights from this post: Predicting the Law: Artificial Intelligence Findings from the IMF’s Central Bank Legislation Database; The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Annual Report 2023; The Macroeconomics of Artificial Intelligence; and A lot of people aren’t happy with Europe’s new AI Act.
• Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching – Mohamed Al Elew and Gabriel Hongsdusit describe how to turn off “automated content recognition,” the Shazam-like software on smart TVs that tracks what you’re watching.
• Facebook Watches Teens Online As They Prep for College – An investigation by The Markup’s Colin Lecher and Ross Teixeira found Meta’s pixel tracking students from kindergarten to college.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 30, 2023 – Four highlights from this week: Google brings privacy washing to Android; Xfinity discloses data breach after recent Citrix server hack; How to Check If Something Online Was Written by AI; and Artificial intelligence can find your location, alarming privacy experts.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 23, 2023 – Four highlights from this week: AI Guide for Government, A Living and Evolving Guide to the Application of Artificial Intelligence for the U.S. Federal Government; The A.I. Dilemma: Growth versus Existential Risk; The world is locked in a race, and competition, over dominance in AI; and Nontraditional Data, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing in Macroeconomics.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 16, 2023 – Four highlights from this week: How QR codes work and what makes them dangerous – a computer scientist explains; Without a Trace: How to Keep Your Phone Off the Grid; Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching; and Verizon fell for fake “search warrant,” gave victim’s phone data to stalker.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 9, 2023 – Four highlights from this week: Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms; A Bold New Plan for Preserving Online Privacy and Security; Automakers’ data privacy practices “are unacceptable”; and Gmail is now much better at detecting spam following major upgrade.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 4, 2023 – Four highlights from this week: How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private; OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets; Inside the Operation to Bring Down Trump’s Truth Social; and Hamas-Linked Group Revives SysJoker Malware, Leverages OneDrive.

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