Wednesday, September 20, 2017

This could be very difficult. Some messages are obvious, others not so much.
Web firms told to remove terror content within two hours
Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter must find ways to remove terror propaganda within two hours of being posted online - or face fines, Theresa May will demand.
The prime minister will help lead an international call for the internet firms to be set a deadline of a month to show they can develop the necessary technology fixes.
The move comes as YouTube faced criticism for failing to take down extremist content that included videos praising Hitler and the Taliban.
And days after a report found more jihadist propaganda is viewed online in the UK than any other country in Europe.
… The so-called Islamic State generated 27,000 extremist postings on platforms like Twitter in a five-month period between January and May this year.
The links ranged from bomb-making instructions to calls to commit atrocities with cars and knives, with the majority of shares taking place in the first two hours. [So even a two hour window will miss ‘the majority’ of shares? Bob]


(Related).
Twitter says its controls are weeding out users advocating violence
Twitter said it had removed 299,649 accounts in the first half of this year for the “promotion of terrorism”, a 20 percent decline from the previous six months, although it gave no reason for the drop. Three-quarters of those accounts were suspended before posting their first tweet.


(Related). A drop in the bucket or a way to identify potential solutions?
Google.org launches $5 million innovation fund to counter ‘hate and extremism’
With controversy continuing to mount over the role the internet has played in fueling extremist groups, Google.org today announced a new initiative it hopes will put a dent in the problem.
The organization said it will pump $5 million into an innovation fund that will give grants to researchers and organizations that are building products and services to combat the problem.




We need some new thinking.
The Hill reports:
A District of Columbia court has dismissed two lawsuits over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach disclosed in 2015.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, filed the class action lawsuit against the OPM in June 2015, alleging that the breaches stemmed from gross negligence on the part of federal officials.
The lawsuit was one of two consolidated complaints related to the OPM breach that the U.S. District Court for D.C. dismissed on Tuesday, ruling that both sets of plaintiffs lacked the standing to bring their cases.
Read more on The Hill.
Okay, since these lawsuits weren’t under the same laws we generally see in consumer lawsuits over breaches, we’ll have to dig into this one a bit more to see why the court did not find that the plaintiffs had standing. In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye out to see if any law firms provide an analysis of the opinion on their sites that I can link to here.
Keep in mind that I consider the OPM breach one of the worst breaches ever because of the amount of personal and sensitive information involved. If these plaintiffs have trouble demonstrating why they have standing, well….. maybe it’s time to revisit what it should take to demonstrate standing when your background checks, biometric data, and other personal and sensitive information wind up in the hands of unknown threat actors due to an entity’s failure to adequately safeguard your information.




Not all algorithms are perfect. (But some are amusing.)
Amazon sends accidental gift email to shoppers due to glitch
A technical glitch caused Amazon.com Inc to email some of its customers erroneously that they had received a gift, the company said on Tuesday.
The email displayed an image of a crawling infant and told shoppers they had received a present from their baby registry. A number of recipients, however, reported on social media that they were not expecting a child.
“Amazon just informed me that someone has purchased a gift from my baby registry. My baby is 21, and hopes it’s a keg,” Washington Post reporter Karen Tumulty said on Twitter.




I bet they would! Big money, but is it enough to get the attention of other Boards of Directors?
Equifax May Be Happy to Spend $1 Per Customer for Their Trouble
… While the 118-year-old credit-reporting firm has been hit with more than 100 consumer lawsuits over its massive security breach, legal experts say there’s room for a deal because neither side has a slam-dunk case.
A global settlement of about $200 million is plausible, said Nathan Taylor, a cybersecurity lawyer with Morrison Foerster LLP in Washington. That’s a projection based on the $115 million Anthem Inc. agreed to pay in June -- setting a U.S. record -- to resolve claims that it didn’t protect a smaller number of people from a 2015 criminal hack that stole similarly sensitive information, Taylor said.
With lawyers collecting as much as a third of any payout, the company may end up spending an average of less than $1 per person for credit monitoring and out-of-pocket expenses for 143 million Equifax consumers whose data was compromised.
That’s a good deal for the embattled credit reporting company as its exposure theoretically could amount to $143 billion under a federal law that carries damages of as much as $1,000 per violation, plus punitive damages.


(Related). Look before you leap. Caveat emptor. There’s a sucker born every minute.
LifeLock offers to protect you from the Equifax breach — by selling you services provided by Equifax




A link for my Computer Security students.




I may use this in my next Statistics class.
A visual introduction to machine learning
by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Sep 19, 2017
R2D3 is an experiment in expressing statistical thinking with interactive design: “In machine learning, computers apply statistical learning techniques to automatically identify patterns in data. These techniques can be used to make highly accurate predictions… Using a data set about homes, we will create a machine learning model to distinguish homes in New York from homes in San Francisco…”




Hard to show you’re a serious worker if you can’t even complete the application…
What’s keeping teenagers unemployed? Online personality tests
… Where once teenagers or early 20-somethings may have wandered into their local supermarket and applied for their first job, now a substantial share of employers are using online personality assessments to gauge the skill and character of potential dishwashers, burger-flippers and other entry-level jobs.
That’s putting young job seekers at a disadvantage, according to a report released Wednesday by JobsFirstNYC, a New York City-based nonprofit that advocates for out-of-school and out-of-work young adults. The report is based on an experiment, which asked 18 to 22-year-olds to submit applications to 42 major employers in the New York City area in 2012 and 2014.
The authors found that tests were so extensive — in some cases 200 questions — that they discouraged young people from applying or made it difficult for them to complete the applications, a problem that was particularly acute for low-income young people who may not have regular access to the internet. Young adults may struggle more than older applicants to answer some of the questions because their brain and personality development isn’t complete, they added.


(Related).
Why American teenagers are not interested in adult activities like sex, drinking — or working
Kids today are in no hurry to grow up.
Teenagers are increasingly less likely to engage in adult activities like drinking alcohol, working jobs, driving or having sex according to research from San Diego State University and Bryn Mawr College published in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development Tuesday.




This could be an interesting addition to student research papers.


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