Vort3x | Cybersalon | January 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
Join us for our annual Watch Party for Art’s Birthday!
Friday 17th 6.30-7.30 pm GMT.
New music from DJ Horsley, live coding from Simon S, Icelandic ambient folk from “Miss Naivety”, superb orchestral Korean Folk (Ben Greenaway, Northampton Orchestra) + intro to a new sci-fi book about Villain Billionaires (Stefen Oram) + a bonus: tips on making your VR avatar super special -from Stefan Lutschinger (Middlesex University).
Join in Spatial.io, via Desktop, Mobile or your VR headset (Spatial.io Event in Cyberia Café, address and tips on the invite)
NEWS
Bad News: US Court Overturns Network Neutrality
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The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down US network neutrality rules on the basis that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to impose them on ISPs, Lauren Feiner reports at The Verge. The FCC had tried to classify ISPs as common carriers. In 2024, the Supreme Court overturned the “Chevron deference”, which instructed courts to defer to the expertise of regulatory agencies, opening the way to challenges like this one.
Very Bad News: Copyright Industries Want Core Router Access
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The Brazilian telecoms regulator, Anatel, is testing using direct access to core Internet routers in order to block copyright-infringing sites, bypassing the courts, Andy Maxwell reports at TorrentFreak. At Techdirt, Glyn Moody calls this a “terrible precedent” and warns the idea is likely to spread across the world.
This could get ugly: Kenyan Content Moderators Sue Meta
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Almost 190 former Facebook content moderators are suing Meta and the outsourcing company Samasource Kenya claiming intentional infliction of mental harm, unfair employment practices, human trafficking and modern slavery, and unlawful redundancy, Robert Booth reports at the Guardian. Medical reports indicate that 144 of the moderators (100% of those tested) have PTSD.
Hodl or die: IMF to bribe El Salvador pushing the President to Scale Back on Bitcoin
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El Salvador has agreed to scale back its bitcoin policies in order to secure a $1.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, Helen Partz reports at Cointelegraph. El Salvador will drop the requirement that businesses accept bitcoin. At Reuters, Nelson Renteria reports that a day later El Salvador said it would keep buying bitcoin and that it would remain legal tender within the country.
From ashes to surfing AI wave: “AI Company” Britannica Group Mulls IPO
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Now an “AI company” known as Britannica Group, Encyclopaedia Britannica is considering going public, Michael J. de la Merced reports at the New York Times. It has been owned by Swiss financier Jacob E. Safra since 1995, loads 7 billion page views to users in more than 150 countries every year. Britannica bought the AI agent software company Melingo in 2000, and is working on a variety of educational technology projects. Late to the party but ownership of training data is giving them an edge
FEATURES & ANALYSIS
How safe are your Digital Number Plates? Privacy Risks and Modern Cars
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In this article at 404 Media, Jason Koebler analyzes the privacy risks of modern cars as demonstrated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who unlocked the exploded cybertruck in Las Vegas so law enforcement could follow where it had gone, including video from charger stations, without waiting for a warrant or court order. At Techdirt, Tim Cushing discovers that images captured by a Google Street View car helped solve a year-old murder case in northern Spain. Finally, Andy Greenberg reports at Wired that security researchers have been able to hack the digital license plates that are now legal to buy in some US states to change their number at will to avoid tickets, tolls, and law enforcement.
Spotify Promotes Fake Artists, Netflix makes TV for people who are barely watching
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In this article at Harper’s Magazine, Liz Pelly publishes an excerpt from her new book, Mood Machine, on the “fake music” Spotify now uses to populate playlists aimed at providing background music. The result is higher profits for the company but opportunity and cultural costs for the rest of us. At n+1, Will Tavlin tells a similar story about Netflix, which has settled into producing content for people who are barely watching. By contrast, at the Guardian, James Tapper chronicles the development of a popular musical on TikTok that involved fan participation in everything from song motifs to auditions, and the arrival on Broadway of another that started as an obscure album was surfaced by Spotify’s algorithm.
Tech used to help us, now Data Centers Threaten your local Electricity Supply
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Leonardo Nicoletti, Naureen Malik and Andre Tartar (Bloomberg) study the impact of data centers on ordinary Americans’ electricity supply. Power distortions are more common near data centers, and, as AI ramps up the amount of power they consume, the electric grid is at risk of brownouts, blackouts, and voltage surges. At his blog, Ed Zitron writes about the “Rot Economy” and its destruction of the technological services and mechanisms that for a time changed many people’s lives for the better.
Influencers for Presidents? Enter Asian Politics
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In this article at Rest of World, Michelle Anindya mulls the changes in Indonesian politics as dozens of social media influencer begin running for office. More than 20 succeeded in gaining election to the parliament in February 2024. A similar pattern is developing across southeast Asia.
Not their first rodeo- Meta Drops Fact-Checking and moves moderators to Texas
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In this article at TechDirt, Mike Masnick analyzes Meta’s announced changes to its content moderation policies, which include dropping fact-checking, removing some prior restrictions, and moving both content moderation and trust and safety from California to Texas. At the Guardian, Robert Booth, Dan Milmo, and Jennifer Rankin consider the likely collision between Meta’s changes and the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Markets Act.
DIARY
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February 1-2, 2025
Brussels, Belgium
FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels. You don’t need to register. Just turn up and join in!
State of Open Con 2025 – IMPORTANT (DM us for Travel Budget if you’re planning to attend)
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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 11, 2025
Washington, DC, US
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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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.
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March 25-27, 2025
Munich, Germany
The ACM Symposium on Computer Science and Law is a leading venue for cross-disciplinary scholarship at the intersection of computer science and law. Computer scientists have often interpreted law as though it can be reduced purely to a finite set of rules about which the only meaningful computational questions are those of decidability and complexity. Legislators and policy makers have often advocated general, imprecisely defined requirements and assumed that the tech industry could solve whatever problems arose in designing and implementing products and services to conform to those requirements. Central to the study of “computer science and law” is the replacement of these limited, disciplinary approaches with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research and development. Existing work on privacy, fairness, freedom of expression, and other essential social values demonstrates the importance of crossing disciplines and provides examples of both success and failure.
Cambridge Disinformation Summit
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April 23-24, 2025
Cambridge, UK
The 2025 Cambridge Disinformation Summit is designed to convene global thought leaders to discuss research regarding the efficacy of potential interventions to mitigate the harms from disinformation.
Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
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May 21-23, 2025
Brussels, Belgium
CPDP is a non-profit platform carried by 20 academic centers of excellence from the EU, the US and beyond. As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference, CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic, and technological development in privacy and data protection, gathering academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, industry and civil society from all over the world in Brussels 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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May 29-30, 2025
Los Angeles, California, US
PLSC started in 2008 to bring privacy law scholars and practitioners from around the world together to discuss current issues in information privacy law and policy. The conference is, first and foremost, a paper workshop. Authors, commentators, and participants all work together to discuss ideas contained in the drafts. PLSC is conducted under the Chatham House Rule.
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May 12-14, 2025
Strasbourg, France
EuroDIG is a platform for discussion and the exchange of ideas on emerging issues and challenges concerning the Internet. All stakeholders are invited to shape the agenda jointly and take part in the discussion. The inclusive and continuous dialogue, which culminates in an annual event, has taken place in a different European country every year since its inception in 2008. The resulting “Messages” are forwarded to policy makers and fed into the annual global UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
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May 26-28, 2025
Berlin, Germany
The motto for the 2025 festival for digital society is “Generation XYZ”. The program will once again bring the most important topics relating to the Internet and its communities, and the opportunities and challenges that lie in the digitalization of society to the stages.
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June 10-11, 2025
Mechclen, Belgium, and online
TICTeC 2025 will bring together people working on defensive technology against threats to democracy, and those who are using technologies constructively to enrich and strengthen the heartbeat of civic and democratic life. With a distinctive mix of tech practitioners, civil society leaders, and academic researchers, TICTeC isn’t just about showcasing cutting-edge pro-democracy tech innovations, at TICTeC you can learn about everything from combating corruption and misinformation to empowering communities and enhancing civic participation. It is a unique platform where attendees connect and collaborate.
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June 19-21, 2025
Boston, MA, USA
State of the Map US is the largest gathering of OpenStreetMap community members from across the country. In 2025 we will spotlight the successes and challenges of mobility mapping with the theme “Charting the Course”. The event will connect mappers, businesses, academics, government agencies, and nonprofits, who all collaborate around the free and editable map of the world.
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June 12-15, 2025 (TBC)
Athens, Greece
The eighth annual ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency will have a cross-disciplinary focus that brings together researchers and practitioners interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems.
Workshop on the Economics of Infosecurity
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June 24-25, 2025
Tokyo, Japan
For more than 20 years, WEIS has been the leading forum for interdisciplinary scholarship on information security and privacy, combining expertise from the fields of economics, social science, business, law, policy, and computer science.
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July 8-11, 2025
Geneva, Switzerland
Organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in partnership with 40 UN sister agencies and co-convened with the government of Switzerland, the AI for Good Global Summit is the leading UN event on AI. It brings together top names in AI with a high-level lineup of global decision makers. Our goal is to identify practical applications of AI, accelerate progress towards the UN SDGs and scale solutions for global impact.
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July 21-23, 2025
San Francisco, CA, USA
TrustCon is the global conference dedicated to trust and safety professionals who are responsible for the challenging work of keeping our platforms and communities safe. This conference will create an enduring and supportive community; offer workshops and presentations focused on the practice of trust and safety; and explore successes, lessons learned, and the future of the field. Attendees have the opportunity to collaborate, hear from trust and safety thought leaders, and connect with peers from all over the world.
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July 31-August 3, 2025
Portland, OR, USA
Software Freedom Conservancy hosts Free and Open Source Software Yearly to focus on the creation and impact of free and open source software. The event includes community-led tracks with talks and workshops over four days. Previous topics have included community building, education, development and legal and licensing issues. We will use free software to run our conference and reduce the amount of proprietary software that is treated as default.
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August 7-9, 2025
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Since 2006, Netroots Nation has hosted the largest annual conference for progressives, drawing thousands of attendees from around the country and beyond.
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August 06-09, 2025
Nairobi, Kenya, and online
Wikimania is the annual celebration of all the free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation with four 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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August 7-10, 2025
Las Vegas, Nevada, US
Def Con is one of the world’s largest hacker conventions.
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August 15-17, 2025
New York, NY, USA
HOPE 16 will welcome hackers of all types: makers,
artists, educators, experimenters, tinkerers, and more – anyone who is interested in playing with technology, coming up with new ideas, learning from others, and sharing knowledge. Now an annual event.
JOBS
New company ‘MindGuard’ based in London looking for Cybersecurity/AI Researcher
A new spin off from UK University, join the team that is aiming to protect systems from AI-led hacks
