Digital Literacy for St. Cloud State University
https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news
more on conspiracy theories in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=conspiracy
+++++Under EU law, citizen can demand a copy of all personal data that companies hold about them. However, more than one year after implementation of the new law, most Android and iPhone apps still completely ignore this right, a new study has found. from r/iphone
https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3407023.3407057
Besides a general lack of responsiveness, the observed problems range from malfunctioning download links and authentication mechanisms over confusing data labels and le structures to impoliteness, incomprehensible language, and even serious cases of carelessness and data leakage. It is evident from our results that there are no well-established and standardized processes for subject access requests in the mobile app industry. Moreover, we found that many vendors lack the motivation to respond adequately. Many of the responses we received were not only completely insucient, but also deceptive or misleading. Equally worrisome are cases of unsolicited dissolution of personal data, for instance, due to the
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New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they’re not even in use? from r/technology
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more on privacy data in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy+data
WhatsApp now lets you post ephemeral messages that disappear after 7 days
Ephemerality has been one of the most radical and sticky features in messaging in years — it has now been around for close to a decade. And it has arguably been the defining feature for one of the runaway, viral hits of the genre, Snapchat — so much so that clones of the feature have popped up in a number of other apps, from those focused first and foremost on privacy like Signal and Telegram, through to those that are aimed at more casual consumer audiences, like WhatsApp today.
And there could be signs that Facebook is may be looking to roll this out in other apps in its stable, too. Earlier this year it tested disappearing messages in Instagram, which now works officially.
As with the storage changes, the new disappearing feature will not be switched on for users by default: you have to proactively change the settings.
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more on Whatsapp in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=whatsapp
Court records in an arson case show that Google gave away data on people who searched for a specific address.
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-is-giving-data-to-police-based-on-search-keywords-court-docs-show
Recently unsealed court document found that investigators can request such data in reverse order by asking Google to disclose everyone who searched a keyword rather than for information on a known suspect.
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
The Great Hack (2019) – Exploring how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolise the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as uncovered by journalist Carole Cadwalladr. [01:54:00] from r/Documentaries
https://www.netflix.com/title/80117542
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Former Cambridge Analytica chief receives seven-year directorship ban from r/worldnews
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/24/cambridge-analytica-directorship-ban-alexander-nix
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more on Cambridge Analytica in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cambridge
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A financial link between a virtual classroom platform and the University of California system is raising eyebrows
Instructure has made it clear through their own language that they view the student data they aggregated as one of their chief assets, although they have also insisted that they do not use that data improperly. My note: “improperly” is relative and requires defining.
Yet an article published in the Virginia Journal of Law and Technology, titled “Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data,” pointed out that there is “an overall lack of transparency in the student information commercial marketplace and an absence of law to protect student information.” As such, some students at the University of California are concerned that — despite reassurances to the contrary — their institution’s new financial relationship with Thoma Bravo will mean their personal data can be sold or otherwise misused.
The students’ concerns over surveillance and privacy are not unwarranted. Previously, the University of California used military surveillance technology to help quell the grad student strikes at UC Santa Cruz and other campuses
No cookie consent walls — and no, scrolling isn’t consent, says EU data protection body from r/programming
No cookie consent walls — and no, scrolling isn’t consent, says EU data protection body
unambiguous message from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), which has published updated guidelines on the rules around online consent to process people’s data.
The regional cookie wall has been crumbling for some time, as we reported last year — when the Dutch DPA clarified its guidance to ban cookie walls.
as the EDPB puts it, “actions such as scrolling or swiping through a webpage or similar user activity will not under any circumstances satisfy the requirement of a clear and affirmative action”
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more on privacy on this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy
Privacy analysis of Tiktok’s app and website
byu/iamkeyur inprogramming
https://rufposten.de/blog/2019/12/05/privacy-analysis-of-tiktoks-app-and-website/
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/tiktok-ueberwachung-daten-kritik-1.4709779
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more on TikTok in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=tik+tok
AI is coming to a laptop near you https://t.co/MRoWy0PpOg
— CNET (@CNET) November 14, 2019
https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-will-build-ai-brains-into-your-laptop-for-tomorrows-speed-boost/
AI computing involves two phases: training and inference. Training requires computers that can process enormous amounts of data. For example, getting an AI system to recognize what’s in photographs requires a computer to sort through billions of labeled photos to create a model. That model is used in the second step to infer, or identify, what’s in a specific photo.
Intel already sells its Nervana chips for training and inference to data centers packed with servers, computing infrastructure that often powers services at AI-heavy companies such as Google and Facebook. Intel is now shipping its larger, more expensive and power-hungry Nervana NNP-T chips for training and its smaller NNP-I chips for inference, the chipmaker announced.
APRIL 21, 2019 Zeynep Tufekci
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/opinion/computational-inference.html
http://trendingpress.com/think-youre-discreet-online-think-again/
Because of technological advances and the sheer amount of data now available about billions of other people, discretion no longer suffices to protect your privacy. Computer algorithms and network analyses can now infer, with a sufficiently high degree of accuracy, a wide range of things about you that you may have never disclosed, including your moods, your political beliefs, your sexual orientation and your health.
There is no longer such a thing as individually “opting out” of our privacy-compromised world.
In 2017, the newspaper The Australian published an article, based on a leaked document from Facebook, revealing that the company had told advertisers that it could predict when younger users, including teenagers, were feeling “insecure,” “worthless” or otherwise in need of a “confidence boost.” Facebook was apparently able to draw these inferences by monitoring photos, posts and other social media data.
In 2017, academic researchers, armed with data from more than 40,000 Instagram photos, used machine-learning tools to accurately identify signs of depression in a group of 166 Instagram users. Their computer models turned out to be better predictors of depression than humans who were asked to rate whether photos were happy or sad and so forth.
Computational inference can also be a tool of social control. The Chinese government, having gathered biometric data on its citizens, is trying to use big data and artificial intelligence to single out “threats” to Communist rule, including the country’s Uighurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic group.
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https://www.centreforideas.com/article/zeynep-tufekci-and-seth-stephens-davidowitz-privacy-over
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more on privacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=privacy