Sunday, January 01, 2023

No one is safe until everyone is safe – we applied it to the pandemic, but why not our economy? Why the super rich are inevitable

Best street little big library in Sydney Australia


No one is safe until everyone is safe – we applied it to the pandemic, but why not our economy?


 A behind-the-scenes look at PolitiFact’s 2022 ‘Lie of the Year’

Plus, The Wall Street Journal has a new top editor; the soap opera at 'GMA3' continues; and it has been a deadly year for journalists


 Why the super rich are inevitable Pudding / Alvin Chang: “Why do super rich people exist in a society? Many of us assume it’s because some people make better financial decisions. But what if this isn’t true? What if the economy – our economy – is designed to create a few super rich people? That’s what mathematicians argue in something called the Yard-sale model, and I promise it has something to do with my dumb watch purchase. But first…”


Cyber Criminals Impersonating Brands Using Search Engine Advertisement Services to Defraud Users

FBI Alert: “The FBI is warning the public that cyber criminals are using search engine advertisement services to impersonate brands and direct users to malicious sites that host ransomware and steal login credentials and other financial information. Methodology – Cyber criminals purchase advertisements that appear within internet search results using a domain that is similar to an actual business or service. When a user searches for that business or service, these advertisements appear at the very top of search results with minimum distinction between an advertisement and an actual search result. These advertisements link to a webpage that looks identical to the impersonated business’s official webpage. In instances where a user is searching for a program to download, the fraudulent webpage has a link to download software that is actually malware. The download page looks legitimate and the download itself is named after the program the user intended to download. These advertisements have also been used to impersonate websites involved in finances, particularly cryptocurrency exchange platforms. These malicious sites appear to be real exchange platforms and prompt users to enter login credentials and financial information, giving criminal actors access to steal funds. While search engine advertisements are not malicious in nature, it is important to practice caution when accessing a web page through an advertised link. Tips to Protect Yourself – The FBI recommends individuals take the following precautions…”


Inventing the dark Web: Criminalization of privacy and the apocalyptic turn in the imaginary of the Web by Thais Sardá, Simone Natale, and John Downey. First Monday, Volume 27, Number 11 – 7 November 2022. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v27i11.12691

“This paper 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, we 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. We 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 we argue to be an overall criminalization of privacy.”


From news avoidance to audience trust and newsroom diversity, our researchers have covered key issues in the past 12 months – “2022 has been a challenging year for journalism. While reporting on Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and on the last stages of a global pandemic, news organisations struggled with loss of interest, news avoidance and distrust.