Articles and Columns for July 2020

• Student Research Resources 2020 – This timely and extensive guide by Marcus Zillman includes resources for students, teachers and parents who together begin this school year with most, or in many cases, all of their courses conducted via online distance learning. The guide includes a wide range of links to augment and expand your current toolkit, including: open textbooks and learning resources for all subjects; free online courses; tutorial resources; educational search engines; video lectures and talks; tools to capture and organize ideas; comparing prices on new an used textbooks; and strategies for organizing notes for comprehensive exams.
• How to hide from a drone – the subtle art of ‘ghosting’ in the age of surveillance – Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, Prof. Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick documents a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in his new book, “The Good Drone.” and shows that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance.
• Private browsing: What it does – and doesn’t do – to shield you from prying eyes on the web – Prof. Lorrie Cranor, Carnegie Mellon University and Hana Habib, Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University, highlight their research on how many people who use private browsing have misconceptions about what protection they’re gaining. A common misconception is that these browser modes allow you to browse the web anonymously, surfing the web without websites identifying you and without your internet service provider or your employer knowing what websites you visit. The tools actually provide much more limited protections.
• The Sticky Service Challenge for Law Libraries – As a law librarian, law and technology expert, professor, writer and speaker, with significant work experience in multiple sectors, David Whelan is uniquely positioned to discuss the critical question – What does it take to make a service sticky enough for people to stay?
• Research on voting by mail says it’s safe – from fraud and disease – As millions of Americans prepare to vote in November – and in many cases, primaries and state and local elections through the summer as well – lots of people are talking about voting by mail. Prof. Edie Goldenberg explains why it is a way to protect the integrity of the country’s voting system and to limit potential exposure to the coronavirus, which continues to spread widely in the U.S.
• Doing Deals Better with Diagrams – Ron Friedmann discusses how transaction lawyers who routinely rely on dense text to understand complicated ideas can benefit from using the release of StructureFlow to diagram and track complex deals.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 26, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Your Genetic Data Isn’t Safe; Sustaining large-scale, long-term remote telework security; Issue with Cloudflare’s DNS service shuts down half the web; and Most Dedicated VPN IP-addresses Are Not Anonymous.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 18, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Google Sued for Allegedly Tracking App Users After They Opt Out; Twitter hack reveals national security threat as election approaches; EFF Launches Searchable Database of Police Agencies and the Tech Tools They Use to Spy on Communities; Utility company calling? Don’t fall for it.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 12, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Your Smart Speaker Is Listening When It Shouldn’t; The U.S. is ‘looking at’ banning TikTok, cites Chinese surveillance; How Google Docs became the social media of the resistance; and Google Maps Launches New Features To Help People Navigate Coronavirus Hotspots.
• Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 5, 2020 – Four highlights from this week: Industry Calls on Government to Invest Billions for Developing Secure 5G Networks; Enterprise IT concerns – quarantined workers breaking company policy could expose enterprise systems and data; What is a credit bureau?; and Key questions about enforcement of California’s privacy law.

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