Don’t Just Freeze Russia’s Money. Seize It
* * * Why is a Russian Intelligence General in Moscow Lefortovo Prison? Moscow Times
Is Putin Conducting A “Stalinist” Purge of Russia’s Intelligence Service? Ian Welsh
An experimental COVID drug was so successful that they’re shutting down trials early Fortune
Why Are People with Allergic Asthma Less Susceptible to Severe COVID? UNC I assume that they must use inhalers and whatever is in those inhalers….My mother with not very bad COPD was on a daily inhaler
Open source intelligence combats disinformation on Russia’s war against Ukraine
PBS NewsHour: “It is often said that truth is the first casualty in any war. Propaganda, disinformation and outright lies have always been dependable tactics to win hearts and minds. But in a world more connected than ever by technology, it is more possible for anyone to root out information. It’s called open source intelligence, and as Miles O’Brien reports, some are using it to lift the fog of war in Ukraine…”
The New York Times: “Forbes thinks there are 735 of them in America. Another count finds 927. Whatever the answer, the mystery is revealing — and the number is growing rapidly.”
Axios: “The National Urban League’s 2022 “State of Black America” report warns of a systematic effort to “disenfranchise, delude, manipulate and intimidate American voters,” Axios’ Russell Contreras writes.
- “[T]here’s a plot to destroy American democracy,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial told reporters on a call ahead of today’s release of the annual report’s 46th edition.
What’s happening: The report says state legislatures have been restricting voting access in districts with large populations of Black Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.
- The Urban League’s Equality Index was stagnant. The measure estimates the share of the pie Black Americans get compared to white Americans — economic status, health, education, social justice and civic engagement…”
Pete Recommends Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, April 9, 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: Blockchain can power up government processes, GAO says; How QR codes work and what makes them dangerous – a computer scientist explains; Thieves hit on a new scam: Synthetic identity fraud; and Report: One in four employees who made security mistakes lost their job
Blockchain: Novel Provenance Applications, April 8, 2022: “Blockchain, generally, is a database technology that records and stores information in blocks of data that are linked, or “chained,” together. Data stored on a blockchain are continually shared, replicated, and synchronized across the nodes in a network—individual computer systems or specialized hardware that communicate with each other and store and process information. This system enables tamper-resistant record keeping without a centralized authority or intermediary. There are multiple types of blockchains, and, depending on the type, recorded data may be accessible to all users or only a designated subset.
All blockchains share common characteristics, including decentralization (i.e., no centralized authority), immutability (i.e., the blockchain records are unalterable), and pseudonymity (i.e., how users’ real-world identities are handled). Certain blockchain types may offer greater levels of decentralization and pseudonymity than others. New blockchain applications, such as smart contracts, non-fungible tokens, and decentralization autonomous organizations, may automate processes or replace intermediaries in a variety of fields. Recent developments in blockchain governance protocols and consensus mechanisms have raised concerns about the environmental impact, oversight, and accountability of blockchain networks…
The United States is a hub for private-sector blockchain development, and many states and federal agencies are experimenting with novel blockchain provenance applications,including the Food and Drug Administration and Department of Treasury. Proponents claim that blockchain can increase transparency and efficiency in many fields by enabling auditable and immutable recordkeeping. However, there are equally significant concerns. Blockchain technologies are maturing and fully developed use cases outside of the financial sector are relatively limited. In some applications, blockchain technologies can add unnecessary complexity compared with using conventional databases or other alternatives. The technology may also pose security and privacy risks if sensitive information is permanently recorded on a blockchain, encryption algorithms are broken, smart contracts malfunction, or digital wallets and other blockchain applications are hacked. Some blockchains also use energy-intensive processes to validate transactions, which can consume as much energy as small nations. Individual states have passed legislation or established initiatives to develop, incentivize, and regulate blockchain technologies. Some states have taken vastly different approaches to blockchain technologies, so the state-level regulations that do exist vary widely.
A handful of federal agencies have released guidance on blockchain technologies in specific sectors, such as finance, but there is little guidance for blockchain applications in other fields, such supply chain logistics, identity credentialing, or intellectual property and asset registration. In the meantime, China and the European Union have invested heavily in blockchain technologies and developed their own respective regulatory frameworks, so international regulations may also conflict with one another…”
Mazzurco, Sari, The Law of Social Roles for The Platform Internet (February 21, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4040152 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4040152
“Social roles are integral to social life. Roles like teacher, judge, and employee help people navigate interactions by supplying them with meaning—specifically, societal expectations about actors’ appropriate behaviors in a particular relationship. In the emergent relationship between online platforms and people, social roles are altogether uncertain, leading to confusion about how platforms and people should treat one another. When an online platform takes down a mother’s breastfeeding photo, does it act inappropriately? In large part, the answer will depend on whether we construe the platform as a business, speech governor, common carrier, or something else entirely. That is, it will depend on the social role assigned to the platform. Without this basic understanding of platforms’ social roles, most claims that platforms have caused social harm seem impressionistic and unworthy of legal recourse. That is a problem when law seeks to remedy social problems. This Article explores how law contributed to this socio-legal dysfunction and might also contribute to its solution. Law often informs the meaning of social roles and sometimes constructs them anew. In the process, it sets boundaries of appropriate behavior, justifies regulations compatible with the roles it imagines, and generates resistance to others.
Before online platforms rose to prominence, lawmakers were inattentive to the social roles developing in information privacy, speech, and competition law. These areas of law came to respond predominantly to a “business-consumer” relationship that now minimizes platforms’ social obligations and cabins possible legal reforms. Lawmakers may rectify these pitfalls by consciously approaching the question of what roles platforms and people should play as they interact and, ultimately, constructing multiple social roles for platforms and people.
This Article aids that effort by presenting several platform regulation initiatives in terms of the social roles they construct, the boundaries those roles set for platforms’ and people’s behavior, and the subsequent legal reforms they support or resist.”