Articles and Columns for February 2024

• Scam Baiting: An Innovative Approach to Combating Online Fraud – The thesis of Kyra Strick’s instructive paper promotes a proactive approach to a rapidly increasing online security crisis. Strick states that in the dynamic landscape of cybersecurity, scam baiting has emerged as a captivating and unconventional approach to combating online fraud. Scam baiting is the practice of engaging with scammers to expose their tactics and disrupt their operations. It serves as an offensive and a defensive measure, safeguarding individuals from falling prey to scams, promoting data protection education, and empowering individuals to protect their digital security.
• AI in Banking and Finance, February 29, 2024 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, 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: How businesses are actually using generative AI; The Age of Uncertainty—and Opportunity: Work in the Age of AI; Financial Stability Board To Focus on Asset Tokenization and AI, Chair Says; and Bankers Will See AI Transform Three-Quarters of Day, Study Says.
• Toward a durable, dictator-proof Washington Post – David H. Rothman’s timely, outside the box commentary addresses the growing wave of news outlets abruptly closing down their websites, laying off staff, and in some cases, eliminating access to their respective archives. Rothman proposes an alternative to “how do I charge them enough” to stem the tide of closures, an avenue he prompts billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, to consider. A good-sized trust or corporate equivalent would enable the Washington Post to be run as a sustainable enterprise in the public interest, rather than as a mere profit generator.
• What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt? – In 2021, a company specializing in collecting and selling location data called Near bragged that it was “The World’s Largest Dataset of People’s Behavior in the Real-World,” with data representing “1.6B people across 44 countries.” Last year the company went public with a valuation of $1 billion (via a SPAC). Seven months later it filed for bankruptcy and has agreed to sell the company. Jon Keegan highlights the ramifications to the public.
• Publishing for Profit: Selecting the Best Publisher – Jerry Lawson offers his expert advise on how lawyers (and other ambitious people) can profit by publishing. One method is to begin by focusing on your desired result. What are the best publishers for you and your work product? Lawson offers a couple of ways to identify the potential publishers likely to provide the most benefit.
• AI in Banking and Finance, February 15, 2024 – This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government reports, NGO/IGO papers, 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. Six highlights from this post: SEC Chair: Existing financial law can be applied to AI regulatory debate; Generative AI financial scammers are getting very good at duping work email; The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Algorithms; How Learning About Harms Impacts the Optimal Rate of Artificial Intelligence Adoption; Fighting Financial Crime With AI Is Not A Trend—It’s A Necessity; and NIST establishes Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC).
• Advocate, advise, and accompany – Jordan Furlong advocates the position that three essential roles – to advocate, to advise, and to accompany – will be of critical importance in the post-AI era and lawyers need to start preparing legal education, lawyer licensing, and law practices to adapt and modify their client engagement.
• Violence Against Women and International Law – Updated February 2024 – Sabrina I. Pacifici is identifying and documenting pertinent sources for researchers on the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack and violence against women and girls. The guide was originally published on November 23, 2023 – link here, and had 8 pertinent sources on this topic comprising government reports, academic papers, reviews of UN/NGO programs, news, databases, analysis and commentary. Part 2 of this series, published December 31, 2023 – link here, expanded the original guide with more than a dozen new sources. This update comprises primary government sources and secondary news sources along with extensive video footage and eye witness testimony to facilitate accurate research about the atrocities committed on October 7, 2023. It includes links and abstracts to more than a dozen additional sources from interviews, reports, and ongoing investigations identifying critical facts about the planning and systemic use of violence against women and girls during, and subsequent to, the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks.
• DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies – Professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson discusses how predictive policing has been shown to be an ineffective and biased policing tool. Yet, the Department of Justice has been funding the crime surveillance and analysis technology for years and continues to do so despite criticism from researchers, privacy advocates and members of Congress. Guthrie’s research reveals an entire ecosystem of how technology companies, police departments and academics benefit from the flow of federal dollars for these surveillance technologies.
• Plagiarism Detection Tools Offer a False Sense of Accuracy – Investigative Reporter Tara García Mathewson discusses how the the tools that likely brought down Harvard president Claudine Gay are improperly used on students all the time.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 24, 2024 – Four highlights from this week: As AI Looms Large, FTC Says Big Tech Can’t Feed it Your Data Without Your Permission; Protect Yourself from Identity Thieves; Survey Finds Workers are Putting Businesses at Risk by Oversharing with GenAI Tools; and Meet the shady companies helping governments hack citizens’ phones.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 17, 2024 – Four highlights from this week: Inside the Underground Site Where ‘Neural Networks’ Churn Out Fake IDs; 5 Steps to Improve Your Security Posture in Microsoft Teams; Drone surveillance case in Michigan Supreme Court tests privacy rights; and ‘AI Washing’ Is a Risk Amid Wall Street’s Craze, SEC Chief Gesler Says.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 11, 2024 – Four highlights from this week: How to detect poisoned data in machine learning datasets; Using Google Search to Find Software Can Be Risky; UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges; and How U.S. health care providers deal with hundreds of data breaches every year.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 3, 2024 – Four highlights from this week: How to lock out your ex-partner from your smart home; Google is Still Failing to Protect Privacy of Abortion Seekers; Citibank fails to protect customers from fraud, N.Y. AG’s lawsuit contends; and Listening to LLM responses through leaked GPU local memory.

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