TechLetters #155 - Stopping civilian hacking during wars? Extracting thoughts from the brain with help of AI. Targeting ads based on ambient speech and microphone always-on. Moore's law and geopolitic
Probably a break until the end of the year. Let’s see.
Security
The ICRC calls "on States to stop turning a blind eye to the participation of civilian hackers in armed conflict". Is it possible for States to prohibit hacking/hacktivism during wars? It doesn't work well in peacetime. How to prohibit it? They cause for caution in the use of civilian satellite communication be prohibited? "the more civilian infrastructure, such as civilian satellite communication or cloud infrastructure, is used for military purposes, the greater the risk of civilians and civilian infrastructure being targeted"
Privacy
US law for AI results in identification of privacy measures. NIST is doing it. Meanwhile, the EU AI Act not only does not contain any such provisions, it isn't even finalised.
Russian SVR cyber operations disrupted. U.S. CISA, the Polish Military Counterintelligence Service, CERT Polska, and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre collaborated to disrupt Russian cyber espionage operations.
The law legitimising the use of Pegasus-like systems. "France, Italy, Finland, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Sweden aim to undermine European law aimed at protecting freedom/independence of media in Europe ... advocate for authorizing surveillance of journalists in the name of “national security”?
Extracting human thoughts from the brain activity and converting them to text. EEG-to-text. Perhaps one day it will help paralyzed people?
Marketing team in media giant CMG claims it has the capability to listen to ambient conversations of consumers. Through microphones in smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices, to gather data and use it to target ads. Details unclear, but caution advised. Always-on microphone would have a big toll on battery life.
Technology Policy
The limits of chip miniaturization. And how the demise of Moore's law may impact global geopolitics. "gap is narrower than it ever has been between Intel and SMIC, China’s top chipmaker". Does it even make sense to reach 1 nm gate size?
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