Vort3x | Cybersalon | August 15, 2024
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
Cybersalon Events
Newspeak House 15th August 7pm (East London)
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Campaign Lab – Post -Election results evaluation with Newspeak House experts
- Paula Surridge, Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol
- Christabel Cooper, Director of Research at Labour Together
Free but space limited, please sign up here
“All Tomorrow’s Futures” podcast with extra material on “AI in Crime and Policing”, picking up on what is not known about AI potential in lawmaking and detective work
NEWS
EncroChat (criminal gangs’ comms channel of choice) Ruling Risks Allowing Bulk Surveillance
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Lawyers have told a UK court that a decision by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal that an international police operation to harvest bulk encrypted messages from the EncroChat phone network has opened the way to bulk surveillance of other encrypted messaging system such as WhatsApp and Signal, Bill Goodwin reports at Computer Weekly. The lawyers, who represent 11 defendants including are seeking leave to appeal the ruling. Bulk interception is a breach of privacy rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.
US Court Rules Google Is a Monopolist
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In the first judgment of its kind in the US since Microsoft in 1996, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of the Justice Department and multiple US states that Google has abused its monopoly over search to dominate the market for online advertising, David McCabe reports at the New York Times. The prosecution argued that Google illegally cemented its dominance by paying companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to set its search engine as the default. Mehta will next decide on remedies. At Ars Technica, Michael Acton considers the likely impact on Apple, to which Google paid $20 billion in 2022. At 404 Media, Emanuel Maiberg reports that thanks to an exclusive deal Google is now the only search engine that has access to current Reddit postings. At the Guardian, Tom Faber finds that Google’s search engine is becoming less reliable, vulnerable to spam, and full of clutter, all likely to get worse as the company adds AI summaries.
Elon Musk Sues Advertisers Over X Boycott
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Elon Musk has filed suit against the World Federation of Advertisers’ Global Alliance for Responsible Media initiative along with Unilever, Mars, CVS, and Ørsted for boycotting his X platform, Jon Brodkin reports at Ars Technica. In an open letter, CEO Linda Yaccarino called the boycott “illegal” and a “stain on a great industry”. Two days later, Business Insider reported that WFA is shutting down GARM, which was set up to bring standards and transparency to content moderation, because as a non-profit it has limited resources. At CNBC, Brian Schwartz reports that the America Political Action Committee set up by Musk and other tech executives is running an ad campaign pushing people to register to vote, but when residents of swing states click to register the site just collects a mass of personal detail without helping them register. The ads appeared on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
New Tool Detects Fake Scientific Papers
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Ahmed Abdeen Hamed, a visiting research fellow at Binghamton University, has developed a machine learning algorithm called xFakeSci that detects bogus papers with an accuracy rate of 94%, Chris Koher reports at Techxplore. At Science, Christie Wilcox reports on the case of Larry Richardson, a cat with an enviable citation profile on Google Scholar. Reese Richardson, who created Larry’s profile, blames a combination of flaws in Google Scholar and academia’s obsession with numbers for making this possible.
Digital Services Act Forces Tiktok to Withdraw Feature
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TikTok has agreed to withdraw a rewards feature that the European Commission warned would make the service addictive to children and violate the new Digital Services Act, which took effect in February, AP reports. TikTok Lite, a low-bandwidth version of the app released in Spain and France, offered points that could be exchanged for vouchers on Amazon or gift cards on Paypal for liking contents, inviting friends, and following creators. Both time on the app and rewards had daily caps, but the EC argued that the app did not have an effective mechanism for age verification to ensure users were over 18.
FEATURES & ANALYSIS
Reimagining Local Public Spaces
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In this article at Nieman Lab, Sophie Culpepper profiles work by Eli Parise and Deepti Doshi at the non-profit New_ Public to reimagine public spaces to fill the void left by the death of local newspapers and support local communities and make them more resilient and sustainable. They seek to build spaces with less conflict by supporting moderators, creating shared expectations, and proactively establishing norms.
Researchers Find reCAPTCHA Is Ineffective
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In this article at The Register, Thomas Claburn finds that according to researchers at UC Irvine Google’s reCAPTCHA v2, still widely used as challenge-response authentication even though it’s been superseded by v3, should be jettisoned because users hate it, it’s resource-intensive, and vulnerable to bots. Its main usefulness is to harvest user information and labor from websites.V3, released in 2018, is only a little better.
Amazon Loses $25 Billion on Alexa Devices
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In this article at Ars Technica, Scharon Harding finds, based on a Wall Street Journal report, that the business unit that focuses on Alexa gadgets cost Amazon $25 billion between 2017 and 2021. Amazon is known to have sold Echo speakers at cost or at a loss in the belief it would make money from them in other ways – but users typically just use them for free services like checking the weather or time. Amazon now hopes to gain profits by releasing a subscription-based generative AI Alexa.
The Growing Threats to Undersea Communications Cables
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In this article at the Guardian, Jonathan Yerushalmy considers the many risks to the more than 500 undersea cables around the world that carry Internet traffic. Sharks, human error, sabotage, and spies all pose threats, but even more important is the uneven spread that leaves some nations more vulnerable to outages than others.
Tracking the Spread of Internet Lies
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In this episode of the Flux podcast, Matthew Sheffield interviews Renée DiResta, until recently the technical director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, about her new book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. DiResta, talks about the pro-vaccination campaign that opened her eyes to the spread of misinformation and disinformation online, and discusses strategies for countering it.
DIARY
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September 6-8, 2024
Nairobi, Kenya and online
State of the Map 2024 will bring together passionate mappers, data enthusiasts, technologists, and community members from all corners of the globe to celebrate the spirit of collaboration and open mapping. Building on the valuable lessons and experiences from the previous events, SotM is committed to making this edition even more accessible to everyone who wishes to partake in this grand celebration of open mapping, sharing passionate voices with the entire community.
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November 5, 2024
London, UK and online
This year’s IGF will include a range of fascinating keynotes on topical issues and panel discussions which will explore questions regarding digital inclusion, digital governance, the impact of misinformation and disinformation on democraccy, and ethical AI.
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November 8-11, 2024
Brussels, Belgium
Freedom not Fear (FNF) is an annual self-organised conference on privacy and digital rights. People from all across Europe meet and work towards more freedom in the digitalised world, plan actions against increasing surveillance and other attacks on civil rights.
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December 15-19, 2024 and online
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The 19th IGF, “Building Our Multistakeholder Digital Future”, will focus on four main themes: harnessing innovation and balancing risks in the digital space; enhancing the digital contribution to peace, development, and sustainability; advancing human rights and inclusion in the digital age; and improving digital governance for the Internet We Want.
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December 27-30, 2024
Hamburg, Germany
The 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) is Europe’s largest hacker gathering, featuring lectures, workshops, and other events relating to security, privacy, freedom of expression, and cryptography.
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February 4-5, 2025
London, UK
The third annual State of Open Con will focus on Open Technology including open source software, open hardware, open data, open innovation, open standards, and the value that the open community brings to the UK and its digital economy. Alongside a diverse range of topics, the event promises to include a diverse range of speakers and participants.
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February 24-27, 2025
Taipei, Taiwan and online
Each edition of RightsCon convenes business leaders, policy makers, general counsels, government representatives, technologists, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates from around the world to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of human rights and technology. RightsCon is where the global community comes together to build strategies and drive forward change toward a more free, open, and connected world. Proposals for sessions are due June 2, 2024.
