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David H. Rothman may have identified one reason why the Kindle Scribe has gone on sale. For $400, Lenovo later this year is to sell a Scribe rival able to record lectures with two built-in mikes and turn handwritten notes into searchable text. Handily, you can sync the audio recordings with notes. Perhaps a tool for journalists, too, not just students?
This paper by Thais Sardá, Simone Natale and John Downey examines how the deep Web, i.e., Web sites that are not indexed and thus are not accessible through Web search engines, was described and represented in British newspapers. Through an extensive content analysis conducted on 833 articles about the deep Web published between 2001 and 2017 by six British newspapers, the authors demonstrate that these technologies were predominantly associated with crime, crypto markets and immoral content, while positive uses of this technology, such as protecting privacy and freedom of speech, were largely disregarded. The consistent association by the British press between the deep Web and criminal and antisocial behaviors is exemplary of a recent “apocalyptic turn” in the imaginary of the Web, whereby Web-related technologies are perceived and portrayed in more negative ways within the public sphere. The authors argue that the use of such negative concepts, definitions and associations engender distrust about uses of the deep Web, propagating user stereotypes that reflect what the authors argue to be an overall criminalization of privacy.
The LibraryEndowment.org started around nine years ago. A national library endowment would reduce the inequalities of the U.S. library world, especially those tied to geography, class, and race. David H. Rothman shares his personal views on topline issues this project faces moving forward: how libraries could accept money from the super-rich while retaining their independence, and the increasing desirability of national digital library systems funded by the endowment, among other sources.
Articles and Columns for October 2022 Presenter’s Guide Series Part III: The Many Benefits of Question Forms – In the third in his series on presentations, Jerry Lawson recommends a simple yet powerful tool that presenters can use to improve presentation quality, especially in some special situations: Requiring audience members to submit all questions in …
David H. Rothman is a former poverty beat reporter, founder of TeleRead.org ebook site, veteran tech writer, a staunch library advocate and an accomplished young adult book author. In this brief article he shares his thoughts on age appropriate reading in the content of a war novel and contemporaneous global events.
Christine Park, Adjunct Professsor of Law, Fordham Law Library highlights risks of and legal restrictions related to digital rights management. LLRX welcomes further discussion of efforts to implement solutions, “before it’s too late.” See also David H. Rothman’s article amazons-new-epub-capability-help-the-anti-drm-movement/">Will Amazon’s new ePub capability help the anti-DRM movement?
The Internet Archive (IA) “is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 624 billion archived web pages.” The IA offers users unrestricted access to its expansive ecosystem of knowledge and educational resources from the public domain. Andy Oram, prolific author, editor, publisher, and technical expert on all aspects of computing, undertook an extensive examination of a game changing case, Hachette v. Internet Archive, that may dismantle this unique, invaluable digital library. In this article Oram examines what the publishers are trying to protect and why they have to wield a large and heavy cudgel to protect it. His inquiry leads to a look at how culture has been privatized as it has become digitized—an effect quite opposed to the hopes of most public advocates who maintain the view that the Internet and the World Wide Web should remain focused on public access, not private sector monetization.
Among the main strengths of this important, highly readable book, says David H. Rothman, is its history of how we got into the mess in the first place. We blew our chance by not making higher education more of a tax-supported public good with academic values prevailing over commercial ones. The GI Bill and other measures helped, but what if the aid had been even more extensive with far less reliance on the marketplace? Even elite Ivy schools got caught up in the mania—wildly overpaying administrators and indulging in ever-more-expensive dorms and gyms and other luxuries to compete for the students from well-off families most likely to donate. So much for the poor and middle class, even with scholarships. The result was that America squandered brainpower.
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: Lens reflections may betray your secrets in Zoom video calls; Multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue; How Pig Butchering Scams Work; and Crypto giveaway scams continue to escalate.
Data mining and knowledge discovery is a quickly evolving field that is part of the portfolio of CI, BI and KM professionals, law librarians, research analysts, infopros, data scientists, data journalists and students in college and graduate programs. This expansive bibliography by Marcus P. Zillman comprises a wealth of information, resources, tools, techniques and applications, as well as links to many open datasets. The subject matter includes data mining, data scrapping, data aggregation, big data and big analytics. The resources include: ebooks and glossaries, research papers, video tutorials and online training, APIs, open source web data extraction tools, datasets, bibliographies, case studies, scientific and academic papers and substantive articles, as well as training and certifications on data mining, and open source code.
With rare bipartisan support, the American Data and Privacy Protection Act moved out of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce by a vote of 53-2 on July 20, 2022. The bill still needs to pass the full House and the Senate, and negotiations are ongoing. Given the Biden administration’s responsible data practices strategy, White House support is likely if a version of the bill passes. Legal scholar and attorney Professor Anne Toomey McKenna, who studies and practices technology and data privacy law, has been closely following the act, known as ADPPA. McKenna contends that if passed this legislation will fundamentally alter U.S. data privacy law.
Patrick J. McKenna is a highly respected lecturer, strategist and advisor to law firms. McKenna’s experience has taught him that the best performing teams have discovered to operate effectively they need to formalize what they should specifically be able to expect of each other as members. He calls these expectations the group’s ‘Rules of Engagement’, and in this article he articulates that to be effective, these rules of engagement must be clear, consistent, agreed to and followed. A challenging endeavor in any workplace, but critical to high performing and innovative law firms.
Peter Krapp, Professor of Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine shares facts that we need to acknowledge. The United States has the largest number of surveillance cameras per person in the world. Cameras are omnipresent on city streets and in hotels, restaurants, malls and offices. They’re also used to screen passengers for the Transportation Security Administration. And then there are smart doorbells and other home security cameras. Importantly, Krapp highlights not only do we live in a surveillance nation, but those who surveil us do so with virtually no constraints or oversight.
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: Report: 47% of orgs experienced a voice phishing attack last year; Rising Cyberthreats Increase Cyber Insurance Premiums While Reducing Availability; FTC explains ‘reasonable’ cybersecurity; and Facebook has started to encrypt links to counter privacy-improving URL Stripping.
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: Should we be worried about real-time facial recognition systems?; Some VPNs can’t be trusted. These are best at privacy and security; In a Post-Roe World, the Future of Digital Privacy Looks Even Grimmer; and Here’s how North Korean operatives are trying to infiltrate US crypto firms.
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: A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate; Cybercriminals target metaverse investors with phishing scams; Tech Experts Urge Congress to Fight Crypto Influence; and Cybersecurity Initiative to Give Consumers New Digital Security Tools.
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: Supreme Court privacy vs. your right to privacy; NIST updates guidance for defending against supply-chain attacks; SafeGraph Will Stop Selling Planned Parenthood Location Data; and Be Smart. Shop Safe. We created this guide to help you shop for safe, secure connected products.