COVID-19 increased censorship circumvention and access to sensitive topics in China
Keng-Chi Chang et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25 January 2022
Abstract:
Crisis motivates people to track news closely, and this increased engagement can expose individuals to politically sensitive information unrelated to the initial crisis. We use the case of the COVID-19 outbreak in China to examine how crisis affects information seeking in countries that normally exert significant control over access to media. The crisis spurred censorship circumvention and access to international news and political content on websites blocked in China. Once individuals circumvented censorship, they not only received more information about the crisis itself but also accessed unrelated information that the regime has long censored. Using comparisons to democratic and other authoritarian countries also affected by early outbreaks, the findings suggest that people blocked from accessing information most of the time might disproportionately and collectively access that long-hidden information during a crisis. Evaluations resulting from this access, negative or positive for a government, might draw on both current events and censored history.
Kaspersky: Many wearables and healthcare devices are open to attack due to vulnerable data transfer protocol TechRepublic: “Kaspersky security researchers announced this week that a popular data transfer protocol used by healthcare devices is full of critical vulnerabilities. Researchers identified 33 weaknesses in 2021, which is an increase over problems found in 2020. Kaspersky reported that 90 vulnerabilities have been identified since 2014. That total includes critical vulnerabilities that are still unpatched, according to the analysis. Researchers also found vulnerabilities in the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wearable platform, which is also used in many wearable health trackers. The MMQT protocol is often used in devices used for remote patient monitoring. These devices record continuously or intermittently heart activity and other health metrics. The problem with the MMQT is that authentication is “completely optional and rarely includes encryption,” according to Kaspersky. This makes the protocol “highly susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks ” and puts medical data, personal information and potentially a person’s location at risk for theft. Maria Namestnikova, head of the Russian Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky, said in a press release that telehealth services extend well beyond video calls. “We’re talking about a whole range of complex, rapidly evolving technologies and products, including specialized applications, wearable devices, implantable sensors and cloud-based databases,” she said. “However, many hospitals are still using untested third-party services to store patient data, and vulnerabilities in healthcare wearable devices and sensors remain open.”…
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Bahnemann, Greta, Michael Carroll, Paul Clough, Mario Einaudi, Chatham Ewing, Jeff Mixter, Jason Roy, Holly Tomren, Bruce Washburn, and Elliot Williams. 2021. Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverability: A CONTENTdm Pilot Project. Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. https://doi.org/10.25333/fzcv-0851.
“This report shares the CONTENTdm Linked Data Pilot project findings. In this pilot project, OCLC and five partner institutions investigated methods for—and the feasibility of—transforming metadata into linked data to improve the discoverability and management of digitized cultural materials. Transforming Metadata into Linked Data to Improve Digital Collection Discoverabilityshares the findings from the CONTENTdm Linked Data Pilot project. In this pilot project, OCLC partnered with five institutions that manage their digital collections with OCLC’s CONTENTdm service to investigate methods for—and the feasibility of—transforming metadata into linked data to improve the discoverability and management of digitized cultural materials and their descriptions. Five institutions partnered with OCLC to collaborate on this Linked Data project, representing a diverse cross-section of different types of institutions:
- The Cleveland Public Library
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
- The Minnesota Digital Library
- Temple University Libraries
- University of Miami Libraries..”
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