Category «Legal Research»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 1, 2024

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

Fake papers are contaminating the world’s scientific literature, fueling a corrupt industry and slowing legitimate lifesaving medical research

Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research, undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human live. To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, Frederik Joelving, contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France’s Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and Cyril Labbé , and Guillaume Cabanac, Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications – spent six months investigating paper mills.

Subjects: Education, Health, Healthcare, KM, Medical Research, Technology Trends

Deferred Resignation Email to Federal Employees, January 28, 2025

Effort to force federal civil service employees to resign uses format and statement Elon Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 asking them to pledge to being “extremely hardcore” or resign.”

Subjects: Constitutional Law, Email Security, Government Resources, Legal Research, Privacy

Career civil service across the government fired, programs suspended – list continues to grow

Democracy, the Constitution, the Federal Government – All At Risk. Since his inauguration on January 20, 2025 Donald Trump has rapidly implemented key recommendations of Project 2025 using actions executed by non career government personnel as well conservative public policy think tank members to create chaos, instill fear in the workforce, and freeze the delivery of health and medical services, food and nutrition programs, critical scientific and medical research, and the security of our homeland. In light of the ongoing issuance of directives, orders, firings, freezes to government funding, immigration raids, threats of action against specific groups and communities, and the list goes on, this report by Sabrina I. Pacifici will be published in several parts, with updates added to include new documents, actions by courts and Congress, and additional details on programs impacted.

Subjects: Congress, CRS Reports, Economy, Financial System, Government Resources, Leadership, Legal Research, Management, Telecommuting

Automakers are collecting sensitive data and selling it without your permission

The public is increasingly familiar with the scale of data collection, surveillance, marketing and sale, and privacy violations that routinely occur when using apps, browsers, social media, the internet, and cell phones. But extensive data collection and privacy violations also routinely occurs when we use cars and trucks [regardless of manufacturer], much if not all of it likely without our knowledge or consent. Sabrina I. Pacifici’s article will inform you about how, where, when and by whom your transportation data is collected, and ways in which is it used, including sale by data brokers.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Privacy, Spyware, Technology Trends, Travel

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 18, 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: Apps That Are Spying on Your Location; AI-supported spear phishing fools more than 50% of targets; Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), once celebrated as an unbreakable defense, is crumbling under the weight of its outdated technology; NSA Warns iPhone And Android Users – Disable Location Tracking; and Chinese Innovations Spawn Wave of Toll Phishing Via SMS.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Email Security, Financial System, Privacy

Even 1 drink a day elevates your cancer risk – an expert on how alcohol affects the body breaks down a new government report

The past few decades, mounting scientific evidence has shown that as little as 1-2 alcoholic drinks per day can lead to increases in the likelihood of several cancers. This prompted the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, to release a new Surgeon General Advisory on Jan. 3, 2025, warning about the link between alcohol and cancer. Nikki Crowley, Professor of Biology, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology at Penn State highlights the evidence and associated with the call for new cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages.

The association between alcohol and cancer isn’t new news – scientists have been trying to determine the link for decades – yet most people aren’t aware of the risks and may only associate drinking with liver disease like cirrhosis. In a 2019 survey from the American Institute for Cancer Research, less than half of Americans identified alcohol as a risk factor for cancer.

Subjects: Government Resources, Healthcare