Vort3x | Cybersalon | April 15, 2022
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.
Cybersalon Events
=============
————————————————————–
May 10, 2022, 7pm-9pm
Newspeak House, London, Shoreditch
Post-election cross-party panel discussion about Democracy Now and in 2030 with Kian Richardson (Labour Party candidate for Regents Park branch, London); Green Party and Independent candidates;
Voter Registration Week campaigners; Dr Richard Barbrook (Westminster University); Phil Mullan (Via Zoom) Chair – Eva Pascoe (Cybersalon.org)
NEWS
=====
UK introduces Online Safety bill
———————————————————————-
On March 17 the UK introduced its long-expected Online Safety bill, Amy Barrett reports at BBC Science Focus. The bill is intended to protect children from exposure to harmful content and limit everyone’s exposure to illegal content while protecting free speech. At Cyberleagle, Graham Smith provides a legal analysis of the bill and its background, and concludes that it upends hundreds of years of fundamental procedural protections for speech, most notably by imposing monitoring requirements that overturn the centuries-old presumption against prior restraint, which is still part of human rights law. At IPtegrity, Monica Horten examines numerous aspects of the bill: its £2 billion cost to British businesses, the unprecedented power its grants ministers over speech, its favouritism toward large media companies, and its unclear plans for encrypted messaging. At Thompson Reuters Foundation, Ruth Davison, the CEO of Refuge, calls the bill a missed opportunity to protect women and girls. Finally, in an episode of the Lawfare podcast, Ellen Judson, a researcher at Demos, explains the obligations the bill introduces, and notes how many of its provisions remain “to be defined later”.
Belarus detains Wikipedia editors over Russian invasion articles
———————————————————————-
The Belarusian authorities have detained two long-serving Wikipedia editors who have worked on articles about both the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Belarusian opposition politicians and president Alexander Lukashenka’s regime, Mikhail Poloznyakov reports at Open Democracy. The Belarusian communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has also warned the encyclopedia that a Russian-language article about the invasion contains “prohibited information” and “unreliable publicly significant materials”, and threatened to block the entire site.
Google and Amazon finance “astroturf” lobbying organization
———————————————————————-
Google and Amazon have set up a Washington, DC-based “astroturf” campaign group, the Connected Commerce Council, that purports to represent small business owners but in reality lobbies on the two platforms’ behalf, Eamon Javers and Meghna Mararishi report at CNBC. Some of the small businesses listed as members on 3C’s website say they’ve never heard of the organization, and Block (formerly Squire), which is listed as a “partner” also disclaimed involvement. 3C’s lobbyists are active in campaigning, however, meeting with Congressional representatives, testifying, and filing comments with regulatory agencies. At the Washington Post, Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell report that Facebook paid the Republican consulting firm Targeted Victory to use tactics familiar from US politics to orchestrate a nationwide campaign to undermine uprising competitor TikTok.
Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse workers vote to unionize
———————————————————————-
Workers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse, its largest in New York, have voted to unionize, Annie Palmer reports at CNBC. The vote follows years of failed attempts to establish unions among Amazon’s workforce. The move could lead to a challenge to the company’s current labor practices, which form the backbone of the two-day shipping promised by Amazon Prime. At Engadget, A. Khalid reports that the National Labor Relations Board, which certifies such votes, has given Amazon until April 22 to back up its challenge to the vote, which claims that union organizers pressured workers to secure their votes. NLRB had previously accused the company of similar behavior. At Vice, Laruen Kaori Gurley reports that small Amazon delivery service companies are being forced into tens of thousands of dollars of debt because of Amazon’s unilateral control over nearly every aspect of their businesses and its ability to change the rules without notice.
SEC rules Meta must allow shareholder vote on building the metaverse
———————————————————————-
The Securities and Exchange Commission has ruled that Meta (previously known as Facebook) must give investors a chance to consider and vote on a shareholder proposal from Arjana Capital that asks for a third-party evaluation of the potential psychological, civil, and human rights harms of the metaverse it is planning to build, Jeff Green and Aijel Kishan report at Bloomberg. Meta, which will now include the proposal in its annual general meeting, tried to quash the proposal by arguing that building the metaverse was part of ordinary business matters, which are excluded from shareholder votes. The proposal has little chance of passage, since CEO Mark Zuckerberg retains a controlling percentage of voting shares. Green and Kishan note that the SEC is increasingly rejecting company requests to exclude shareholder resolutions relating to environmental and social issues.
FEATURES AND ANALYSIS
====================
Nokia’s Russian exit leaves behind connected surveillance system
———————————————————————-
In this article at the New York Times, Adam Satariano, Paul Mozur and Aaron Krolik explore a hidden consequence of Nokia’s departure from the Russian telecoms market: the hardware and software left behind, which connects the government’s most powerful digital surveillance tool to the country’s largest telecommunications network. The writers go on to examine documents dated between 2008 and 2017 that map in detail how Nokia’s system worked – and make clear that it knew it was enabling a Russian surveillance system. A bill passed by the US Congress in February grants the Department of Commerce the power to block companies from selling technology to authoritarian governments.
British Treasury plans NFT sale
———————————————————————-
British chancellor Rishi Sunak has asked the Royal Mint to create a non-fungible token to be issued by the summer of 2022 in order, the Treasury said, to demonstrate Britain’s “forward-looking approach to cryptoassets”, Richard Partington reports at the Guardian. Sunak said he aims to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology. At Open Democracy, Simon Youel objects that NFTs will do nothing to solve the cost of living crisis or help the millions falling into poverty as a result of the chancellor’s policies, and warns that the announcement should be viewed in the context of the UK’s deregulatory agenda for financial services. At Wired, Gilad Edelman discusses the US’s ECASH Act, which would direct the US government to experiment with issuing surveillance-proof digital dollars that are stored on hardware and can be used without an Internet connection. Anonymity, which was built into the earliest proposals for digital cash, has been largely abandoned in the development of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.
UK House of Lords report calls for overhaul of UK police use of AI
———————————————————————-
In this article at Computer Weekly, Sebastian Klovig Skelton discusses the report from a just-concluded House of Lords inquiry that finds that an overhaul of UK police use of artificial intelligence is needed to prevent the systems from undermining human rights and the rule of law and exacerbating existing inequalities. The Home Affairs and Justice Committee warns particularly against “predictive policing”, facial recognition, and says the police lack the technical ability and safeguards to ensure that the technology deployed is accurate, reliable, suitable, or proportionate.
Kentucky seeks to become bitcoin mining hub
———————————————————————-
In this feature at Thomson Reuters explores the bitcoin mining operations opening up in Kentucky that has adopted tax incentives to encourage construction in the hope of replacing the thousands of lost coal mining jobs. However, bitcoin mining requires far fewer workers, critics are concerned that it won’t solve Kentucky’s endemic problems such as its areas with poverty rates as high as 30%, and environmentalists are concerned about the resulting emissions and pressure on the state’s energy grid.
Designing AI to meet human needs
———————————————————————-
In this video clip from the Center for Data Innovation, University of Maryland professor Ben Shneiderman discusses his new book, Human-Centered AI with policy analyst Hodan Omaar. Shneiderman studies designing computers to meet human needs; in the talk he explains how to ensure that AI systems place users at the center, ensure human control while increasing automation, all while bearing in mind the malicious actors who pose a threat at every point. At Wired, Joanna Bryson argues that the EU is in danger of excluding intelligent systems from oversight in its proposed legislation because it is using the wrong definition of “AI”.
Study finds prominent women abused and harassed via Instagram DMs
———————————————————————-
In this article at Input, Chris Stokel-Walker examines the findings of a study from the Center for Digital Hate that examined 8,700 direct messages sent via Instagram to five women with a combined following of nearly 5 million people. The researchers found that one in 15 text and one in seven voice notes contained abuse and harassment that broke the site’s rules, even though Instagram is usually thought to be the friendliest of the social media sites. Reclaim These Streets founder Jamie Klingler calls the abuse “the tax you pay for speaking up”. The study concludes that Instagram’s approach to handling abuse via DM is sorely lacking. At Vice, Samantha Cole reports that requests for eight months of police records mentioning Apple Air Tags show that women are reporting that the technology is being used to stalk and harass them, mostly by angry exes.
DIARY
==============
In light of the coronavirus outbreak, please check links to events listed below for participation restrictions and updates as to whether events will go ahead.
ONE-OFF EVENTS
Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection
——————–
May 23-25, 2022
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. The theme of the 2022 conference is “data protection and privacy in transitional times”.
Privacy Law Scholars Conference
——————–
June 2-3, 2022
Boston, MA, USA
PLSC is the oldest and largest gathering of privacy scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the world. Run as a paper workshop, PLSC incubates and critiques scholarship at the vanguard of the field of law and technology.
RightsCon
——————–
June 6-10, 2022
Online
Hosted by Access Now, RightsCon is the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age, drawing thousands of activists, academics, and policy makers. The 11th RightsCon will be a platform where stakeholders across regions and sectors can come together to address the most pressing human rights and technology issues.
Workshop on the Economics of Information Security
——————–
June 21-22, 2022
Tulsa, OK, USA
The Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS) is 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. Prior workshops have explored the role of incentives between attackers and defenders of information systems, identified market failures surrounding internet security, quantified risks of personal data disclosure, and assessed investments in cyber-defense. The 2022 workshop will build on past efforts using empirical and analytic tools not only to understand threats, but also to strengthen security and privacy through novel evaluations of available solutions.
——————–
June 21-24, 2022
Seoul, South Korea and online
The fifth annual ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (formerly FAT*) brings together researchers and practitioners interested in fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems. The online version of the conference – including both live-streamed elements of the in-person conference, and online-only content – will also begin on June 21, with content and discussion available for two weeks from that date, and a library of content available subsequently.
——————–
July 22-24, 2022
New York, NY, USA
Four years after the last edition of the New York-based hacker conference, A New HOPE promises to be transformational for the hacker community and the first in its new venue at Brooklyn’s St. John’s University.
——————–
August, 2022 (TBC)
Online
The seventeenth Wikimedia conference will be a virtual event organized by a diverse group of global volunteers with distributed in-person events if local and global circumstances allow.
——————–
August 11-14, 2022
Las Vegas, NV, USA
The largest hacking conference presents its 30th edition.
ONGOING
—————————————-
London’s Ada Lovelace Institute, founded in 2019 to ensure the ethical use of AI, is running a series of events on the issues surrounding the use of technologies in response to the pandemic. Late-2020 events included discussions of regulating for algorithm accountability and “almost-future” AI.
—————————————-
Recent webinars sponsored by Bace Security include a “fireside” discussion with prominent women in security, security problems in online voting, methods for privacy-protecting digital contact tracing, advanced botnet researcher, and using marketing techniques to improve cybersecurity communication.
—————————————-
The Benchmark Initiative is running regular events on topics such as the use of location data to end the global sanitation crisis, the safe use of location data in human migration; data, power, and the pandemic; and managing social distancing in public spaces. All events are posted on Vimeo soon after they conclude.
—————————————-
The Communication and Media Institute (CAMRI) at London’s University of Westminster hosts a series of online events presenting the work of sociologists, historians, economists, and activists studying online developments around the world. Spring 2021 offerings include a reassessment of the 2010 Arab Spring and studies of internal communication connections within the Global South, the changing role of public service media, decolonizing the curriculum, and using Facebook to reduce polarization.
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
—————————————-
The Carnegie Council runs frequent events on topics such as illiberal threats to democracy, the societal limits of AI ethics, AI and ethics in Africa, and inclusion. The Council posts audio and a transcript after each event.
—————————————-
Ongoing series of events on topics such as new legislation, using data to combat counterfeit goods, and trends in online advertising.
—————————————-
Data & Society has moved its weekly Databites and Network Power Hours programs into online interactive formats. Its first event for 2021 examines digital technology and democratic theory.
—————————————-
The Research Group on Data, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Law & Society is presenting a series of discussions on topics such as robotics (Frank Pasquale, April 1), rights, technology, and society (Anne-Sophie Hulin, May 19), and justifiability and contestability of algorithmic decision systems (Daniel Le Métayer, June 1).
—————————————-
EFF and its local counterparts in the Electronic Frontier Alliance are running numerous events on subjects such as technology education, open source, voting security, and content moderation.
—————————————-
Frequent events on topics such as cybersecurity, digital tax, online content moderation, and upcoming EU legislation.
—————————————-
Future in Review is running a series of online “FiReSide” events. Recent topics include Chinese-US relations after the presidential election, and the future technology struggle.
—————————————-
The Geneva Internet Platform (GIP), a Swiss initiative run by DiploFoundation is organizing monthly briefings on internet governance, providing updates and news and projections of how they will influence future developments.
Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford
—————————————-
HAI’s series of events covers AI-related topics such as upcoming regulation, issues with algorithms, health, and AI and society.
—————————————-
Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at St John’s University School of Law who specializes in online speech and governance, and Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and co-founder and chief editor of Lawfare, hold a nightly discussion of current affairs, law, politics, and digital media with invited guests. Daily at 5pm Eastern Time.
Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2020
—————————————-
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.
—————————————-
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.
—————————————-
The ODI’s Friday lunchtime (London time) talks have moved online. These one-hour talks cover topics such as data ethics, social equity, trust, and converting weather into music.
—————————————-
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.
—————————————-
Public Knowledge is running public web events on subjects such as algorithmic amplification of hate speech, the survival of local journalism, and how to protect privacy during a pandemic.
RUSI
—————————————-
London’s Royal United Services Institute is running frequent online events considering topics relating to international politics, terrorism, financial crime, policing, and warfare, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes it will bring.
—————————————-
Singularity University’s upcoming events include reimagining primary education and a series of executive programs aimed at various countries.
