Category «Other»

Here’s how machine learning can violate your privacy

Jordan Awan, Assistant Professor of Statistics, Purdue University explains how machine learning has pushed the boundaries in several fields, including personalized medicine, self-driving cars and customized advertisements. Research has shown, however, that these systems memorize aspects of the data they were trained with in order to learn patterns, which raises concerns for privacy.

Subjects: AI, Big Data, Privacy

Mortgage Brokers Sent People’s Estimated Credit, Address, and Veteran Status to Facebook

When someone applies for a mortgage, they trust a home loan lender or mortgage broker with some of the most sensitive information they have: information about their credit, their home, and the personal details of their lives. Unbeknownst to those prospective homeowners, they may also be sharing that information with Facebook. The Markup tested more than 700 websites that offer loans for people looking to purchase or refinance a home, from major online brokers to lesser-known regional lenders, and found that more than 200 of them share some amount of user data with Facebook. On their sites, these companies embedded the Meta Pixel, a small piece of tracking software that shares visitors’ information with Facebook. As users filled out mortgage applications or requested quotes for mortgage rates, the pixel tracked information about their credit, veteran status, occupation, the specific homes they wanted, and more. Experts told Colin Lecher and Ross Teixeira of The Markup that it might be against the law for mortgage lenders to feed this kind of information to Facebook.

Subjects: Business Research, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 15, 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: Want free and anonymous access to AI chatbots? DuckDuckGo’s new tool is for you; Windows Recall is changing in 3 key aspects after user backslash; Harvard, MIT and Wharton research reveals pitfalls of relying on junior staff for AI training; AI in law enforcement is risky, but holds promise; and The NSA’s guide to keeping your phone and yourself safe.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Education, Legal Research, Privacy, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 8, 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. Four highlights from this week: The Ticketmaster Data Breach May Be Just the Beginning; The Snowflake Attack May Be Turning Into One of the Largest Data Breaches Ever; You Should Browse With Incognito More Often: Here’s Why; and How algorithms, influencers, and users work together to spread misinformation.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 31, 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. Four highlights from this week: The NSA advises you to turn your phone off and back on once a week – here’s why; HHS targets single points of failure in healthcare cybersecurity; Google Researchers Say AI Now Leading Disinformation Vector; and New Tech Locates Cell Phones of Lost Hikers.

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Healthcare, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 18, 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. Four highlights from this week: Librarians Are Waging a Quiet War Against International “Data Cartels”; Why car location tracking needs an overhaul; How to find out if an AirTag is tracking you; and New mailing list aims to share hacking attempts on open-source projects.

Subjects: Communications, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, KM, Law Librarians, Privacy, Travel

The Federal Reserve Banks’ New Transparency and Accountability Policy

Michael Ravnitzky is an attorney and former journalist who has more than 25 years of experience in using the Freedom of Information Act and state public records laws. On December 21, 2023, the Federal Reserve Banks each announced the adoption of a uniform Transparency and Accountability Policy (TAP). The Banks have begun responding to public records requests under that policy. Following implementation of the new policy, Ravnitzky initiated several records requests directed at individual Fed Banks, utilizing the provisions of the TAP. His extensively documented evaluation of the new process is that TAP is a good start but it has some shortcomings.

Subjects: Congress, Financial System, Freedom of Information, Government Resources, Legal Research, Legislative

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 18, 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. Four highlights from this week: Google Accidentally Deleted $125 Billion Pension Fund’s Account; Generating Harms: Generative AI’s New & Continued Impacts; What I wish I’d known before my smartphone was snatched; and Mortgage Brokers Sent People’s Estimated Credit, Address, and Veteran Status to Facebook.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 11, 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. Four highlights from this week: Bank scammers using genuine push notifications to trick their victims; How VISA is using generative AI to battle account fraud attacks; War Zone Surveillance Technology Is Hitting American Streets; and Negating all VPNs may have been possible since 2002.

Subjects: AI, AI in Banking and Finance, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, May 4, 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: 9 Disturbing Stories From People Who Say They Found Cameras in Their Airbnb; Stop Using Your Face or Thumb to Unlock Your Phone; How Netflix and Other Streaming Services Charge You Forever; Kaiser gave 13.4M people’s data to Microsoft, others; and Huawei has been investing in US research despite being banned.

Subjects: AI, Cyberlaw, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Government Resources, Healthcare, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media