After the Ivory Tower Falls: A Book Review

Among the main strengths of this important, highly readable book, says David H. Rothman, is its history of how we got into the mess in the first place. We blew our chance by not making higher education more of a tax-supported public good with academic values prevailing over commercial ones. The GI Bill and other measures helped, but what if the aid had been even more extensive with far less reliance on the marketplace? Even elite Ivy schools got caught up in the mania—wildly overpaying administrators and indulging in ever-more-expensive dorms and gyms and other luxuries to compete for the students from well-off families most likely to donate. So much for the poor and middle class, even with scholarships. The result was that America squandered brainpower.

Read more

Subjects: Book Reviews, Economy, Education, Financial System, KM

What is proof-of-stake? A computer scientist explains a new way to make cryptocurrencies, NFTs and metaverse transactions

Prof. Scott Ruoti briefs us on yet another new component in Digital Ledger Technology. Proof-of-stake is a mechanism for achieving consensus on a blockchain. Blockchain is a technology that records transactions that can’t be deleted or altered. It’s a decentralized database, or ledger, that is under no one person or organization’s control. Since no one controls the database, consensus mechanisms, such as proof-of-stake, are needed to coordinate the operation of blockchain-based systems.

Read more

Subjects: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Economy, Energy, Financial System, Legal Research, Technology Trends

Using an Infographic to Encourage Deep Reading

Prof. Cindy Guyer, Senior Law Librarian and Adjunct Assistant Professor Law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has been experimenting with incorporating infographics in her teaching to present information and knowledge visually, using graphs, flowcharts, timelines, and diagrams, which are components of instructional design.

Read more

Subjects: Communications, Education, Legal Education, Legal Research

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 24, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, 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: Lens reflections may betray your secrets in Zoom video calls; Multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue; How Pig Butchering Scams Work; and Crypto giveaway scams continue to escalate.

Read more

Subjects: Cryptocurrency, Cybersecurity, Gadgets, Gadgets/Gizmos, Legal Research, Privacy, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 17, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, 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: Consumer Data: Increasing Use Poses Risks to Privacy; Border Agents Surveil Americans’ Phones Without Warrants: Wyden; Social Media Execs Submit to Time-Honored Public Lashing Before Congress; and You should know that most websites share your in-site search queries with third parties.

Read more

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Government Resources, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media, Travel, United States Law

What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet? It’s losing ice faster than forecast and now irreversibly committed to at least 10 inches of sea level rise

Alun Hubbard is a field glaciologist who has worked on ice sheets for more than 30 years. The past few years in particular have been unnerving for the sheer rate and magnitude of change underway. Current teachings that ice sheets respond over millennial time scales is definitely not what we’re seeing today. If every year were like 2012, when Greenland experienced a heat wave, that irreversible commitment to sea level rise would triple. That’s an ominous portent given that these are climate conditions we have already seen, not a hypothetical future scenario.

Read more

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 10, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, 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: U.S. bank regulator warns of crisis risk from fintech proliferation; Supply chain risk is a top security priority as confidence in partners wanes; FBI Warns Individuals Employed in the Healthcare Industry of the Ongoing Scam Involving the Impersonation of Law enforcement and Government; and IST to launch new guidance on security risks of telehealth and smart home integration.

Read more

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Economy, Email Security, Healthcare, Privacy, Social Media

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 3, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, 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: Why your organization should plan for deepfake fraud before it happens; FTC Sues Broker Kochava Over Geolocation Data Sales; Google Chrome Bug Lets Sites Silently Overwrite System Clipboard Content; and Chrome extensions with 1.4 million installs steal browsing data.

Read more

Subjects: Computer Security, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Financial System, Internet Trends, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media, Spyware, Technology Trends

LLRX August 2022 Issue

Articles and Columns for August 2022 Data Mining Resources 2022 – Data mining and knowledge discovery is a quickly evolving field that is part of the portfolio of CI, BI and KM professionals, law librarians, research analysts, infopros, data scientists, data journalists and students in college and graduate programs. This expansive bibliography by Marcus P. …

Read more

Subjects: KM

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, August 27, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, 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: Video scans of students’ rooms during online tests ruled unconstitutional; TikTok’s In-App Browser Includes Code That Can Monitor Your Keystrokes, Researcher Says; Google Flagged Parents’ Photos of Sick Children as Sexual Abuse; Third-party app attacks: Lessons for the next cybersecurity frontier; and Russia’s ‘Oculus’ to use AI to scan sites for banned information.

Read more

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, KM, Privacy, Social Media
➤