Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Cyber: Getting prepared to prototype

It is estimated that 90% of the world’s data was generated in the last two years by MEdia Dragons...

Austerity is an Algorithm: What happened when Australia tried to replace some social services with software. Logic. Dr. Kevin: “Spoiler! It didn’t go well.”

China’s Surveillance State Should Scare Everyone Atlantic 

The Path to Cryptomania – Bitcoin and Beyond by Daniel Martin Katz. Posted on February 1, 2018. Computational Legal Studies. “These materials will review the factors leading up to Bitcoin and other follow on Crypto offerings. We consider whether the massive increase in crypto related investments could simply be (yet) another asset bubble. However, this might also be a fundamental technological transformation? Only time will tell.” 

22 Headlines That Went Viral. Have These Marketers Cracked the Code?


  











New Service, Same Old Equifax: Credit Locking App Freezes Up








CyberScoop
Putting together a thorough cyber-espionage campaign in order to spy on hundreds of people can be surprisingly inexpensive, new research by Citizen Lab explains and private sector cybersecurity experts agree. 

Yale Notice & CommentSusan Morse (Texas) & Leigh Osofsky (Miami), How Agencies Communicate: Introduction and an Example, Yale J. on Reg.: Notice & Comment (2018):

Would you like to hear from the government? Many people might say no. Or at least, not usually.

But, of course we hear from the government all the time. Many times, this contact comes from administrative agencies. Agencies shape, among many other things, the air we breathe, the taxes we pay, and the question of who may cross our borders. This online symposium, How Agencies Communicate, considers how agencies do and should try to explain what they mean, and how we do and should listen to them.

Agencies can choose from a broad menu of communication strategies. They can make final regulations by following the structured and lengthy notice-and-comment process under the Administrative Procedure Act. In addition, agencies often communicate entirely outside this statutorily prescribed rulemaking process. Agencies communicate with advisories, letters, announcements and press releases. They post on social media. They tweet.





18F Guide – Getting prepared to prototype

Mark Headd: “In product development, we often use prototypes — small, lightweight, temporary applications or artifacts — to understand user needs and reduce risk. Prototypes are a great way to test out ideas or approaches before you actually commit to building anything. Although more people are recognizing the value of prototyping, governments are not always set up to develop and use prototypes efficiently before building digital services. Through our work with federal agencies and state governments, we’ve used prototypes to help clarify technical complexity, understand user needs, and to inform software procurements. Here are a list of factors that governments should consider to become better prepared to build prototypes in designing and improving digital services…”

A fast-evolving new botnet could take gadgets in your home to the dark side MIT Technology Review 


Privacy: Judges say the UK’s Snooper’s Charter is illegal Beta News

Review – best free anonymous browsing software for Windows

TechRadarPro: “If you’re looking for the best free privacy software to help you browse the web anonymously, then you’ve come to the right place, as we’ve listed the top choices to help protect your privacy. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why you’d like to use privacy software to browse anonymously.  As well as preventing third parties building up a profile of you, the best free privacy software can open up the web, granting you access to sites blocked in your country, to access region-locked content when you’re travelling away from home, and to add a layer of protection when you use a public Wi-Fi network. If you would prefer to keep your personal details private, a VPN or proxy tool will help. You can check out our best VPN buying guide (or our best free VPN guide) or See our guide to setting up and maintaining a VPN.”


ComputerWeekly.com: “UK and European businesses expect to spend hundreds or thousands of hours a month dealing with customer queries about the upcoming European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)…Meanwhile, most organisations aren’t confident they know where all their data is stored and most aren’t aware of the fines, which can run into millions of euros, that non-compliance can bring…”







Metrics Toolkit provides evidence-based information about research metrics across disciplines

“The Metrics Toolkit is a resource for researchers and evaluators that provides guidance for demonstrating and evaluating claims of research impact.  With the Toolkit you can quickly understand what a metric means, how it is calculated, and if it’s good match for your impact question. The Metrics Toolkit provides evidence-based information about research metrics across disciplines, including how each metric is calculated, where you can find it, and how each should (and should not) be applied.  You’ll also find examples of how to use metrics in grant applications, CVs, and promotion dossiers.” The Toolkit was “developed by a group of information professionals who are passionate about using the best possible evidence for research evaluation.”

Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Officer – “As part of Data Privacy Day, we’re introducing a new education campaign to help you understand how data is used on Facebook and how you can manage your own data. We’re also announcing plans to make your core privacy settings easier to find, and sharing our privacy principles for the first time. These principles guide our work at Facebook…” Privacy principles are:
  • We give you control of your privacy
  • We help people understand how their data is used
  • We design privacy into our products from the outset
  • We work hard to keep your information secure
  • You own and can delete your information
  • Improvement is constant
  • We are accountable







HBR How the Data That Internet Companies Collect Can Be Used for the Public Good

Harvard Business Review: “A new year has arrived, along with the usual air of optimism. Yet the 21st century is already shaping up to be a challenging one. From climate change to terrorism, the difficulties confronting policy makers are unprecedented in their variety, but also in their complexity.
Our existing policy tool kit seems stale and outdated. Increasingly, it is clear, we need not only new solutions but also new methods for arriving at solutions.



Should AI be in charge of sentencing Australia's criminals?
"Criminals sentenced by artificial intelligence would face fairer and more consistent punishments than those handed out by human judges, two Swinburne University researchers argue." (iTnews)
Govinfo is out of beta: December 2017 Release Notes