Category «Legal Research»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 1, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Trump has purged government websites; The Wayback Machine is trying to preserve the record; Turn off your read receipts. They’re a security risk; You can now easily remove personal info from Google Search results; Google plans to end SMS verification in favor of QR codes; and Verizon isn’t doing enough to protect customers from robocall scams.

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Email Security, Encryption, Privacy

What Is OpenAI’s Powerful New Deep Research Tool Capable Of? I Use It to Analyze the Legality of President Trump’s Pause of Federal Grants

On February 2, 2025 OpenAI released Deep Research, an AI agent capable of completing multi-step research tasks and synthesizing large amounts of online information. OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil said it can complete complex research tasks in minutes that might take a person many hours or days, according to The New York Times, adding that it should be particularly useful for people in fields such as finance, science and law. Robert Ambrogi created a comprehensive and expertly crafted series of prompts to evaluate Deep Search’s ability to research and analyze the legality of the Trump administration’s temporary pause of federal grant and financial assistance programs, and then to outline the potential legal remedies available to recipients of those grants and financial assistance.

Subjects: AI, Government Resources, Legal Research, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 22, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Musk Ally Demands Admin Access to System That Lets Government Text the Public; How Phished Data Turns into Apple & Google Wallets; Identity is the Breaking Point—Get It Right or Zero Trust Fails; Chase Says Making Payments Over Social Media Is Too Messy, Will Block Zelle Transactions; and FTC Launches Inquiry into Big Tech Censorship Practices.

Subjects: AI, Communications, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Email Security, Encryption, Financial System, Legal Research

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

Research librarian Alejandro Paz and policy scholar Eric Nost, who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and litigation, are working to ensure that data remains available to the public.

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Resources, Legal Research

Book Review: Generative AI For Dummies

Jerry Lawson’s opinion of the new book, Generative AI for Dummies, is that it demystifies the complex world of generative AI for audiences from all walks of life. If you’re after a fast, engaging, and practical introduction to AI—and maybe even a little chuckle or two along the way—this book delivers.

Subjects: AI, Book Reviews, Legal Research

NOAA’s vast public weather data powers the local forecasts on your phone and TV – a private company alone couldn’t match it

Atmospheric scientists Christine Wiedinmyer and Kari Bowen, who is a former National Weather Service forecaster, explain NOAA’s central role in most U.S. weather forecasts. They underscore why the Trump/DOGE plan to eliminate these two critical agencies and replace them with one private company to provide comprehensive weather data in a reliable way that is also accessible to the entire public, is not a reasonable plan.

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law, Government Resources

Climate and DEI Deleted From Government Websites, Federal Workers Fired, Colleges Erase Programs

Since January 20, 2025 America has been catapulted into an unimaginable inflection point. Sabrina I. Pacifici chronicles seismic events in recent weeks which have upended America’s democracy, jeopardized our economy, financial system, national security, science and medical communities, and fractured our national identity, at home and around the world. This is a commentary, and a guide written by a law librarian and former federal employee who was the target of a similar purge by Trump in 2018, to what and who has been targeted and purged, an overview of the process used to do so, and a perspective on the impact of these sweeping, deeply damaging and likely illegal actions.

Subjects: Climate Change, Constitutional Law, CRS Reports, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Digital Archives, Economy, Education, Ethics, Financial System, Government Resources, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 8, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Federal workers: Here’s how to lock down your communications; Why rebooting your phone daily is your best defense against zero-click hackers; EFF – Basics | Surveillance Self-Defense; Even the US government can fall victim to cryptojacking; and Federal immigration officials have extensive technology at their disposal.

Subjects: Communications, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 1, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: UnitedHealth now says 190 million impacted by 2024 data breach; A Tumultuous Week for Federal Cybersecurity Efforts; TikTok took a huge scoop of American users’ data and stored it in China – DeepSeek makes TikTok’s security issues look like child’s play; CVS Is Turning Locked Shelves Into an Excuse to Make You Download Its App; and Backdoor found in two healthcare patient monitors, linked to IP in China.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Email Security, Healthcare, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media