Vort3x | Cybersalon | October 15, 2023
Vort3x | Cybersalon | October 15, 2023
Vort3x, published on the 15th of each month, aims to pick out significant developments in the intersection of computers, freedom, privacy, and security for friends near and far. The views expressed in these stories do not necessarily reflect those of Cybersalon, either individually or collectively.
Prepared by Wendy M. Grossman.
Contents: Cybersalon events | News | Features | Diary
NEWS
Talk of the month: “We are all ‘Flash’ developers” – Emad Mostaque on Future of AI and what is left to do for humans – speaking at CogX in London (Sept 2023)
Crime Prediction Software Fails to Predict Crime
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The success rate of Geolitica (formerly PredPol), software that analyzes crime incident reports and predicts where and when future crimes are likely to take place, is less than half a percent, Aaron Sankin and Surya Mattu report at The Markup, based on its study of 23,631 predictions for the Plainfield, New Jersey Police Department between February and December 2018. The Plainfield PD scrapped the software. Geolitica will cease operations at the end of this year and its customers will be transitioned to the platform of its acquirer, SoundThinking (formerly ShotSpotter).
DHS, CBP, and ICE Illegally Purchase and Use Location Data
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According to a report from the Department of Homeland Security, the US Customs and Border Patrol, the Secret Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement all illegally used smartphone location data they bought from commercial suppliers, Joseph Cox reports at 404 Media. The report finds the agencies had few rules or policies and little oversight and that the data was often collected without user consent. CBP says it has discontinued access to the location data.
SEC Investigates Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover
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The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Elon Musk broke federal securities laws in 2022 in the period leading up to his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the Guardian reports. The SEC is suing Musk to force him to testify after he reneged on a promise to do so.
Stalled Autonomous Vehicles Block San Francisco First Responders
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According to the San Francisco Fire Department, a person has died after two stalled Cruise autonomous vehicles and an empty police car blocked an ambulance from leaving the scene of a crash, Ariana Bindman reports at SFGate. At a public meeting on August 7, Fire Department chief Jeanine Nicholson said her department had recorded 55 incidents in which autonomous vehicles drove dangerously close to first responders, obstructed travel, or blocked stations. The Washington Post analyzes the last 11 seconds of a Tesla Autopilot crash to show the interaction of human error and new technology.
Kids Online Safety Act Endangers All Internet Users’ Rights
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The Kids Online Safety Act is fundamentally flawed and endangers the rights of all Internet users, Joe Mullin reports at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Despite amendments, the bill, which has bipartisan support, remains a censorship bill. EFF instead wants to ban behavioral advertising for all ages, limit tracking, and protect privacy. In addition, Mike Masnick suggests at TechDirt, Congress should empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce safer product design, mandate better user tools, and encourage standards to support interoperability. At Scientific American, Lauren Leffer suggests content rating systems for social media and involving young people in formulating regulations and safety strategies. Finally, at Balkan Insight, Giacomo Zandonini, Apostolis Fotiadis and Luděk Stavinoha investigate the role of Thorn, a charity founded by actors Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore that sells software tools for detecting child sexual abuse images, video, and speech, in pushing the EU to adopt legislation mandating client-side scanning.
FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
XL Bully Dogs Were Bred by Get Rich Quick Internet Economics
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In this article at New Statesman, Will Dunn finds that the Internet played an important role in the rapid spread of XL Bully dogs by fostering the idea of breeding the dogs as a get-rich-quick scheme. The failure to understand this process, he argues, explains the political failure to control and regulate their spread.
Monica Lewinsky and Taylor Lorenz Compare Internet Eras
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In this article at the Guardian, Hannah Marriott listens while Monica Lewinsky and Taylor Lorenz, author of the new book Extremely Online, compare their different eras of Internet fame. While today’s Internet has its toxic side, they agree that individual creators’ fan bases also provide support that was unavailable in 1998 when Lewinsky woke up to find she was being globally shamed. They go on to discuss online bullying, the persistence of misogyny, and the need to built a better Internet.
Silicon Valley Ageism Misses Business Opportunity
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In this article at the New York Times, Farhad Manjoo finds that unlike other industries, which have adapted to the aging of the population, Silicon Valley remains profoundly ageist and focused on young people. Given that the largest part of the future is greying rapidly, Manjoo argues that technology companies should be finding new ways to enable older users, from providing accommodations for slower reflexes in games to helping those with impaired mobility to achieve some liberation via VR and using robotics and AI to make elder seniors’ lives easier.
The Hidden Work of Webcam Models’ Monitors
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In this article at Rest of World, Sophie Foggin and Vittoria Elliott profile monitors who provide back end services such as direction, assistance, promotion, translation, and training to Colombia’s studio webcam models. Monitors, who often bring skills learned in other industries, make up about 10% of the camming industry workforce, and play an essential role, since models are not trained otherwise. A former monitor describes the work as “like playing The Sims, but with real people”.
Chinese Feminism Spreads Online
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Online communities are inspiring Chinese women to question traditional ideas about gender and women’s roles and use social media to accuse powerful men of sexual assault in their own #MeToo movement, Wanqing Zhang reports at Rest of World.
Marriage and birth rates are at historic lows, and the rising divorce rate only stalled when the government made it harder for couples to split up in 2021. Government efforts have succeeded in silencing the largest activists campaigns and voices, but have failed to stop the rise of feminism across social media. Also at Rest of World, Barkha Dutt reports that even though the Indian government has passed a law reserving a third of the seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, the digital gender divide remains substantial. Only 31% of Indian women have mobile phones compared to 60% of men, and rural villages prioritize educating boys over educating girls.
DIARY
Please check links to events listed below for participation restrictions and updates as to what protocols may be in place.
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November 1-3, 2023
Exeter, UK
The IEEE TrustCom-2023 (22nd IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications) is a forum for presenting leading works on trusted computing and communications, with regard to trust, security, privacy, reliability, dependability, survivability, availability, and fault tolerance aspects of computer systems and networks.
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January 24, 2024
Brussels, Belgium
Privacy Camp brings together digital rights advocates, activists as well as academics and policy-makers from all around Europe and beyond to discuss the most pressing issues facing human rights online. It is jointly organised by EDRi, VUB-LSTS, Privacy Salon vzw and the Institute for European Studies at USL-B. The 2024 edition invites investigations into systems that shape the field of privacy and digital rights. We also invite discussions and propositions about what systemic and transformative change can look like.
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February 6-7, 2024
London, UK
The UK’s open technology conference – open source software, open hardware, and open data.
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February 12, 2024
Washington, DC, USA
The State of the Net Conference Series is hosted by the Internet Education Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public and policymakers about the potential of a decentralized global Internet to promote communications, commerce and democracy. Annually attracting over 600 attendees, the State of the Net Conference provides unparalleled opportunities to network and engage on key policy issues. It is also the only Internet policy conference with over 50 percent of Congressional staff and government policymakers in attendance, making it the perfect setting to explore important, emerging trends.
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March 2024
Boston, Massachusetts, USA and online
LibrePlanet provides an opportunity for activists, hackers, law professionals, artists, educators, students, developers, policymakers, tinkerers, and anyone looking for technology that respects the users freedom to come together in order to discuss current issues in technology and ethics. For 2024, the theme will be “Cultivating Community”.
Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
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May 22-24, 2024
Brussels, Belgium
CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP gathers academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry and civil society from all over the world in Brussels, offering them an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. This unique multidisciplinary formula has served to make CPDP one of the leading data protection and privacy conferences in Europe and around the world.
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Summer 2024
Krakow, Poland
Wikimania is the annual conference celebrating all the free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation with days of conferences, discussions, meetups, training, and workshops. Hundreds of volunteers and Free Knowledge leaders from around the world gather to discuss issues, report on new projects and approaches, and exchange ideas.
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June 17-19, 2024
Vilnius, Lithuania
The European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) is an open multi-stakeholder platform to exchange views about the Internet and how it is governed. First organised in 2008 by several organisations, government representatives and experts, it fosters dialogue and collaboration with the Internet community on public policy for the Internet – culminating in an annual conference that takes place in a different European city every year. EuroDIG ‘Messages’ are prepared and presented to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
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July 11-13, 2024
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Since 2006, Netroots Nation has hosted the largest annual conference for progressives, drawing up to 4,000 attendees from around the country and beyond. The annual event brings together diverse voices from around the country and beyond.
Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford
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HAI’s series of events covers AI-related topics such as upcoming regulation, issues with algorithms, health, and AI and society.
Legal Frontiers in Digital Media
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The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology’s online seminars on emerging legal issues at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech, and law include AI, privacy law, technology law as a vehicle for anti-racism, and a look ahead to the next telecommunications act.
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The London Futurists group, led by former Psion and Symbian architect David Wood, is presenting near-weekly speaker-led events focusing on potential radical transformations of humanity and society. Upcoming topics include anticipating future pandemics and a discussion of Michael Baxter’s new book, Living in the Age of the Jerk. Event recordings are made available soon after meetings conclude.
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The Open Rights Group and its local offshoots are running frequent online presentations and discussions of digital privacy, democracy, and data exploitation. Recent topics have included the launch of ORG’s data and democracy report, a proposed law to ensure that contact-tracing apps are surrounded with privacy-protecting safeguards, and the effect of the pandemic on democratic institutions.
