TechLetters #125 - My book, Philosophy of Cybersecurity. Data center under water. MS EDGE leaking data. AI. Phishing parrot risk increases.
My book, Philosophy of Cybersecurity is in the production phase. Still, a lot of work for me.
My upcoming paper will be a chapter of the book 'Handbook on the politics and governance of big data and AI'. Concerning governance of privacy-preserving ad systems.
Security
Google's data center (cloud services) under water. Really. There's also a known case when a data center is on fire (and it all burns down). These are rare events, but they explain the nature of risk management. Sometimes the rare happens.
The popular Linux/unix/macOS program 'sudo' removes the scary message. The "this incident will be reported" message when a wrong password is entered is out. Good. To be more precise, it is still to be displayed - if the system has email notifications enabled. Then it will be: "This incident has been reported to the administrator."
Privacy
OpenAI is implementing new privacy controls for ChatGPT. Clearly, in response to GDPR concerns and threat of blockade/fines. “Conversations started when chat history is disabled won’t be used to train and improve our models”. It’s opted-in by default.
Is there anyone at the AI steering controls? "[AI] pace of development means data protection regulators need to be prepared for another scandal like Cambridge Analytica". Now imagine a car company putting a new vehicle on the market without safety features.
Microsoft Edge leaking data. Microsoft Edge web browser is leaking information about visited websites, to Microsoft. Feels like 2013.
Privacy analysis of Google's Privacy Sandbox Topics API. "privacy protections not sufficient to provide users with confidence that they cannot be reidentified and tracked". Validation do not point to strong attacks. So, unclear outcome of the analysis but highlights good points! Another.
Live-streaming needs consent. European Court of Justice found that the live-streaming system for school classes during the COVID-19 pandemic had to be in line with GDPR, so based on teacher consent. It was prohibited for States to force the teachers to comply with custom laws.
The Royal Society report from the expert meeting on the future of UK's data protection. Including aspects of UK-EU data transfers adequacy. I was happy to take part in it, and support the work.
Technology Policy
Western countries (G7) at a collision point with China over AI? In the summary of the meeting, it was noted that artificial intelligence/AI is to be based on "democratic values". According to Chinese law, it is supposed to support "socialist values". And what now? “should be human centric and based on democratic values, including protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the protection of privacy and personal data.”
Other
Unveiled AI/LLM platform to plan/manage military activities. Using artificial intelligence methods. AI in the military is a revolution.
Scientists taught parrots how to make video-calls. With other parrots. They love it. Now parrots can hold video-calls, which significantly improves their parrot lives. What about parrot privacy? Also, now there’s non-zero risk that parrots may engage in offensive cyber activities, or their parts, such as phishing.
In case you feel it's worth it to forward this content further:
If you’d like to share: