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Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Leaked Document Shows How Big Companies Buy Credit Card Data on Millions of Americans

Leaked Document Shows How Big Companies Buy Credit Card Data on Millions of Americans
Motherboard – Yodlee, America’s largest financial data broker, says the data it sells it is anonymous. A confidential document obtained by Motherboard shows people could be unmasked in the data. “Yodlee, the largest financial data broker in the U.S., sells data pulled from the bank and credit card transactions of tens of millions of Americans to investment and research firms, detailing where and when people shopped and how much they spent. The company claims that the data is anonymous, but a confidential Yodlee document obtained by Motherboard indicates individual users could be unmasked. The findings come as multiple Senators have urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Envestnet, which owns Yodlee, for selling Americans’ transaction information without their knowledge or consent, potentially violating the law. “Let me be blunt. This is bullshit ‘anonymization,'” Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley, told Motherboard in an email after reviewing a section of the document….”



 Baboons on the loose in Sydney's inner west
Baboons have escaped a facility at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the University of Sydney.



Boys Club

Four Corners uncovers evidence of how a desire to protect reputation at all costs has allowed a toxic culture to flourish.



KERRY BROWN and EMMA LUO. Degrees of espionage(Chatham House/The World today 



Fears are rising in countries…that China is wielding undue influence through its supposed infiltration of universities and institutions and by its spying on companies and government. Continue reading →

Harvey Gilmore (Monroe College), Enron Meets Academia ... Altered Grades, Manufactured Transcripts, and Store-Bought Diplomas, 19 Fla. Coastal L. Rev. 567 (2019):

As Enron and Bernie Madoff once showed us the depths that people will go to hide who they really are, there are many others out there who have created entire academic profiles... and even careers... under false pretenses. This is the story of only a few of them.






As electric car sales soar, the industry faces a cobalt crisis Wired. Resilc: “EVs for most of USA USA will not happen in our lifetimes. Leap on to hydrogen.”


Study: Freedom Of Expression… Except For Arts Workers


More than eight out of ten survey respondents agreed that “workers in the arts and cultural sector who share controversial opinions risk being professionally ostracised”. The overwhelming message that comes across from more than 1,000 free text comments – running to 60,000 words – is neatly summed up by one person, who said “I often feel pressured to self-censor for fear of being ‘cancelled’ or bullied for not conforming to the orthodoxy”. –Arts Professional



 A really annoying piece but its intro list is useful. Blames victims. No recognition of how neolibearlism has undermined community and forced workers into having to spend more time merely to (barely) get by. Also presumes that progress as conventionally measures is the best metric (how about noting instead the way the US is no longer the leader in average height, a measure of childhood nutrition?)
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