Category «Data Mining»

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, January 13, 2024

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Swatting: The new normal in ransomware extortion tactics; EFF Unveils Its New Street Level Surveillance Hub; IRS has ‘unconscionable delays’ in helping identity theft victims, taxpayer advocate says; and Outlook is Microsoft’s new data collection service.

Subjects: AI, Criminal Law, Cryptocurrency, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Financial System, Healthcare, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, November 11, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Every car is a smart car, and it’s a privacy nightmare; Cybercriminals Are Using Siri and Google Voice Assistants To Scam People; NIST releases revised cyber requirements for controlled unclassified information; and DELETE Act closes ‘big loophole’ and tightens regulations on data brokers.

Subjects: Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Federal Legislative Research, Financial System, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

The Tech at ‘Cop Con’: Cigarette Carton Trackers, VR for School Shootings, and ‘Peacekeeper Batons’

Ese Olumhense a reporter at The Markup gives us an overview of how the International Association of Chiefs of Police brings police leadership and tech vendors together at its annual conference, where clear trends about the future of law enforcement emerged.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Data Mining, Human Rights, Legal Research, Privacy

Predictive Policing Software Terrible At Predicting Crimes

Crime predictions generated for the police department in Plainfield, New Jersey, rarely lined up with reported crimes, an analysis by The Markup has found, adding new context to the debate over the efficacy of crime prediction software. Geolitica, known as PredPol until a 2021 rebrand, produces software that ingests data from crime incident reports and produces daily predictions on where and when crimes are most likely to occur. Aaron Sankin, Investigative Reporter and Surya Mattu, Senior Data Engineer and Investigative Data Journalist examined 23,631 predictions generated by Geolitica between Feb. 25 to Dec. 18, 2018 for the Plainfield Police Department (PD). Each prediction they analyzed from the company’s algorithm indicated that one type of crime was likely to occur in a location not patrolled by Plainfield PD. In the end, the success rate was less than half a percent. Fewer than 100 of the predictions lined up with a crime in the predicted category, that was also later reported to police.

Subjects: Big Data, Civil Liberties, Criminal Law, Data Mining, Privacy, Spyware, Technology Trends

We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You

If you spend any time online, you probably have some idea that the digital ad industry is constantly collecting data about you, including a lot of personal information, and sorting you into specialized categories so you’re more likely to buy the things they advertise to you. But in a rare look at just how deep—and weird—the rabbit hole of targeted advertising gets, Investigative Data Journalist Jon Keegan and Visualizations Engineer Joel Eastwood of the The Markup analyzed a database of 650,000 of these audience segments, newly unearthed on the website of Microsoft’s ad platform Xandr. The trove of data indicates that advertisers could also target people based on sensitive information like being “heavy purchasers” of pregnancy test kits, having an interest in brain tumors, being prone to depression, visiting places of worship, or feeling “easily deflated” or that they “get a raw deal out of life.”

Subjects: Big Data, Civil Liberties, Competitive Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, E-Commerce, Health, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, July 22, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: 81% of Americans unaware digital health apps can sell personal data; How NIST is helping to guide the government conversation on AI; You may deactivate anyone’s WhatsApp account with a simple email; and The scary world of online behavioral advertising.

Subjects: Big Data, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, E-Government, Email, Government Resources, Healthcare, Privacy, United States Law

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, June 24, 2023

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: How Your New Car Tracks You; Democratic senators concerned Amazon health platform ‘harvesting consumer health data from patients’; How generative AI is creating new classes of security threats; and US cyber ambassador says China can win on AI, cloud.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Healthcare, Intellectual Property, KM, Legal Research, Privacy, RSS Newsfeeds

Satellite data: The other type of smartphone data you might not know about

Subject matter experts Tommy Cooke, Alicia Sabatino, Benjamin Muller and Kirstie Ball used critical code and documentary research methods to identify that raw satellite location measurement data are perpetually created in our devices all the time. Because satellite data are building blocks used by our phones to determine where we are, they don’t always get turned off — nor are they collected and treated the same way as location data. The collection and use of these data are a significant risk to our privacy.

Subjects: Big Data, Data Mining, Legal Research, Mobile Technology, Privacy

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 10, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Apple Commits to Encrypting iCloud, Drops Phone-Scanning Plans; Darknet Markets Generate Millions in Revenue Selling Stolen Personal Data, Supply Chain Study Finds; Top EU court rules Google must delete inaccurate search results; and Who Is Collecting Data from Your Car?

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Encryption, KM, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, September 17, 2022

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Four highlights from this week: Consumer Data: Increasing Use Poses Risks to Privacy; Border Agents Surveil Americans’ Phones Without Warrants: Wyden; Social Media Execs Submit to Time-Honored Public Lashing Before Congress; and You should know that most websites share your in-site search queries with third parties.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Government Resources, Legal Research, Privacy, Search Engines, Social Media, Travel, United States Law