Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 27, 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: Sen. Wyden Releases Documents Confirming the NSA Buys Americans’ Internet Browsing Records; Inside a Global Phone Spy Tool Monitoring Billions; AT&T is trying to kill all landlines in California, which would have devastating effects; and the Continued Threat to Personal Data: Key Factors Behind the 2023 Increase.

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Subjects: AI, Copyright, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Healthcare, Internet Trends, Legal Research, Legislative, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media

Introducing AI Prompt Worksheets for the Legal Profession

Jennifer (Greig) Wondracek identified that her AI results are much better when she stops and thinks them through, providing a high level of detail and a good explanation of what she want the AI system to produce. So, good law librarian that she is, she created a new form of plan for those who are learning to draft a prompt. And the result is the AI prompt worksheets she shares in this article.

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Subjects: AI, Continuing Legal Education, Law Librarians, Legal Research, Legal Technology

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 20, 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: More Police Are Using Your Cameras for Video Evidence; How to Opt Out of Comcast’s Xfinity Storing Your Sensitive Data; The worst privacy washing of 2023 and trends to expect in 2024; and Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies.

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Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Email Security, Privacy, Social Media

January 1, 2024 Was Public Domain Day

Duke Law School Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Director Jennifer Jenkins heralds that on January 1, 2024 thousands of copyrighted works from 1928 entered the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1923. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. This year’s highlights include Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman and Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It, and a trove of sound recordings from 1923. And, of course, 2024 marks the long-awaited arrival of Steamboat Willie – featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse – into the public domain. That story is so fascinating, so rich in irony, so rife with misinformation about what you will be able to do with Mickey and Minnie now that they are in the public domain that it deserved its own article, “Mickey, Disney, and the Public Domain: a 95-year Love Triangle.” Why is it a love triangle? What rights does Disney still have? How is trademark law involved? Here is just a handful of the works that will be in the US public domain in 2024.  They were first set to go into the public domain after a 56-year term in 1984, but a term extension pushed that date to 2004. They were then supposed to go into the public domain in 2004, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit another 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years. Now the wait is over.

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Subjects: Copyright, Education, Legal Research, Libraries & Librarians

AI in Finance and Banking January 15, 2024

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO 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: The Macroeconomics of Artificial Intelligence; AI Tool Helps Fix Faulty Trades Amid Shift to Faster Settlement Times; Scenario Planning for an A(G)I Future; and Are ChatGPT and GPT-4 General-Purpose Solvers for Financial Text Analytics? A Study on Several Typical Tasks.

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Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Financial System, Securities Law

Buried under the rubble: Haunted reflections at the turn of the year

The buried children have been haunting Catherine Morris. She states it’s difficult to celebrate the turning of the year while thousands of children remain lost in the rubble of humanitarian catastrophes caused by disasters, political turmoil, and armed conflicts around the world. In 2023, apocalyptic stories of children and families lost through earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, atrocities, and war crimes filled the news. The Middle East and Ukraine dominated headlines while Afghanistan, Myanmar, and other places were pushed from attention. An insistent question began to intrude. “What if it was your kids under the rubble?” In late November 2023 this question suddenly came close to my family.

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Subjects: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, International Legal Research, Legal Research, Refugees, Terrorism

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 13, 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: Swatting: The new normal in ransomware extortion tactics; EFF Unveils Its New Street Level Surveillance Hub; IRS has ‘unconscionable delays’ in helping identity theft victims, taxpayer advocate says; and Outlook is Microsoft’s new data collection service.

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Subjects: AI, Criminal Law, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Financial System, Healthcare, Privacy

Jan. 6 was an example of networked incitement

The shocking events of Jan. 6, 2021, signaled a major break from the nonviolent rallies that categorized most major protests over the past few decades. What set Jan. 6 apart was the president of the United States using his cellphone to direct an attack on the Capitol, and those who stormed the Capitol being wired and ready for insurrection. Joan Donovan and her co-authors, a media and disinformation scholar, call this networked incitement: influential figures inciting large-scale political violence via social media. Networked incitement involves insurgents communicating across multiple platforms to command and coordinate mobilized social movements in the moment of action.

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Subjects: Communications, Congress, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Government Contracts, Leadership, Legal Research, Social Media, Terrorism, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 6, 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: Delete your digital history from dozens of companies with this app; How hackers can ‘poison’ AI; Meet ‘Link History,’ Facebook’s New Way to Track the Websites You Visit; and Google Groups is ending support for Usenet to combat spam.

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Subjects: AI, Big Data, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Commerce, Privacy, Social Media
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