ACM TechNews <[email protected]> Wed, 22 Nov 2023 10:48:11 -0500 (EST)

Georgia Tech Research, 17 Nov 23). via ACM TechNews A majority of the world’s most popular websites are putting users and their data at risk by failing to meet minimum password requirement standards, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). The researchers analyzed 20,000 randomly sampled websites from the Google Chrome User Experience Report, a database of 1 million websites and pages. Using a novel automated tool that can assess a website’s password creation policies, they found that many sites permit very short passwords, do not block common passwords, and use outdated requirements like complex characters. Georgia Tech’s Frank Li said security researchers have “identified and developed various solutions and best practices for improving Internet and Web security. It’s crucial that we investigate whether those solutions or guidelines are actually adopted in practice to understand whether security is improving in reality.”

NB see also: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/presentation/al-roomi

Kids who spend hours on their phones scrolling through social media are showing more aggression, depression and anxiety, say Canadian researchers.Emma Duerden holds the Canada Research Chair in neuroscience and learning disorders at Western University, where she uses brain imaging to study the impact of social media use on children’s brains.

She and others found that screen time has fallen just slightly from the record 13 hours a day some Canadian parents reported for six- to 12-year-olds in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re seeing lots of these effects. Children are reporting high levels of depression and anxiety or aggression. It really is a thing.”

When parents said their children spend more time on screens and the grownups are stressed, then anxiety and depression scores in the kids also increase. “Absolutely, I think this is a public health issue,” Duerden said when asked about her findings and those of others.

Just as serotonin dips when we’re hangry — hungry and angry at the same time — screen time can also strongly influence the brain’s reward system that is key to decision-making. “It could be that there’s an actual depletion in serotonin,” Duerden explained. “There’s this imbalance and that’s how it could be mediating aggression in children.” Levels of other neurotransmitters like dopamine also matter.

Struggle to focus…Constant stimulation – “They can’t focus during exams because they’re so used to scrolling on TikTok or looking through their phone,” Kent said. “They’re so used to having that constant stimulation that when it comes to focus, they really struggle.”

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