New researches

Sunday, March 20, 2022

New York City Vital Records, Catalogue of Mathematical Datasets, OER, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 20, 2022

New York City Vital Records, Catalogue of Mathematical Datasets, OER, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 20, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

6SqFt: NYC launches online platform with free access to 9.3 million historical birth, death, and marriage records. “The New York City Municipal Archives has launched a digital search platform as part of a mass digitization project that will ultimately provide online access to 13.3 million historical birth, death, and marriage records. At 70 percent complete, the NYC Historical Vital Records Project currently has 9.3 million genealogical records accessible in digital form, free of charge.”

New-to-me, from Database of Ring Theory Blog: Check it out: Catalogue of Mathematical datasets. “I’ve seen the question asked on math.stackexchange and mathoverflow a few times where people want to make a big list of mathematical databases online. But recently when talking to the maintainers of π-Base, I discovered that someone has really outdone themselves.”

Creative Commons: Open Education Week 2022 Lightning Talks: Recordings and Slides. “In honor of Open Education Week (March 7-11, 2022), the Creative Commons Open Education Platform community offered Lightning Talks, or seven-minute presentations on specific updates or stories in open education. Moderated by Stephen Downes, the lighting talks covered everything from leveraging tax legislation for open education funding, to theories and practices around OER, fireside stories of open sharing, and even a Texas Sing-a-long!”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Chrome Unboxed: Google Forms API now available for all, out of restricted Beta. “In October 2021, Google introduced the Google Forms API, further increasing its potential and providing a way to manage forms and act on responses programmatically. However, the API was made available only as a restricted Beta at the time. Google has now provided an update on this beta and has made the API generally available.”

Ars Technica: Android 13 preview locks down notifications, adds more to the tablet taskbar. “Android 13 Developer Preview 2 is out, and with it come a bunch of changes for the next version of Android. Preview 2 is still a very early look at Android 13, and most of the big feature reveals for these Android previews come during Google I/O.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The Top 7 Plugins for Cloning a WordPress Website . “Cloning your WordPress website is a useful way of backing up your files or transferring your site to a staging or live environment. You can do this the manual way if you’re comfortable working on the backend of websites. But an alternative approach is to use a WordPress plugin. A plugin is the easier method, and in this article, we’ll take a quick look at seven of the best.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian Magazine: Conserving and Digitizing the Hewitt Sisters’ Diaries . “Earlier this week, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives launched a new Smithsonian Transcription Center project to transcribe the diaries of Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt. Curious how these well-loved diaries made their way from our library shelf to your computer screen? Conservation and digitization staff describe the work that goes on behind-the-scenes to make these volumes available.”

New York Times: Securing the TikTok Vote. “Social media has played a role in political campaigning since at least 2007, when Barack Obama, then an Illinois senator, registered his first official Twitter handle. Since then, enormous numbers of political bids have harnessed the power of social platforms, through dramatic announcement videos on YouTube, Twitter debates, Reddit A.M.A.s, fireside chats on Instagram Live and more. TikTok, with its young-skewing active global user base of one billion, would seem a natural next frontier.”

NBC News: The internet’s meth underground, hidden in plain sight. “In December, Paul went home for the holidays. Like many people, he hadn’t seen his family for almost a year. But instead of spending time with his loved ones, he said he stayed in his room and injected methamphetamine. While his family was downstairs, Paul said he pretended to be sick while he relapsed in a multiday meth binge. Though he was alone in his room, he was using drugs with other people. As he was injecting methamphetamine, he connected with hundreds of other individuals doing the same thing over Zoom.” Very deep dive.

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Vimeo is sorry, and here’s how it’s changing. “Vimeo has announced that it’s making some major changes to its bandwidth policy, after several creators spoke out about how the company pulled the rug out from under them by demanding large sums of money if they wanted to keep hosting their videos on the platform. The new policies replace nebulous terms with definitive ones, and guarantee that creators will have time to prepare for changes.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Core 77: REscan: A Helmet-Based System for Scanning and Capturing 3D Spaces, Hands-Free. “…the helmet essentially has the array of cameras and lasers that self-driving cars do, just up on your dome. Best of all, it’s hands-free, so you can carry things, open doors, take notes, sketch, etc. as you’re scanning and capturing.”

Boing Boing: This website turns text into music. “Typatone assigns musical tones to letters. Start typing (or paste in any text) to hear original music.” I tried it. The music I made reminded me of some of those trippy Sesame Street animations from the early 70s. Good morning, Internet…

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March 20, 2022 at 05:35PM
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Saturday, March 19, 2022

Ukraine VIINA Dashboard, Crowdsourcing for Refugees, Protestware, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon March 19, 2022

Ukraine VIINA Dashboard, Crowdsourcing for Refugees, Protestware, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon March 19, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

George Mason University: New web-based app maps violence in Ukraine based on in-country news sources. “A new web-based app developed by a George Mason University professor visualizes near-real-time data collected from media sources on the ground in Ukraine. The app allows users to filter an interactive map of rapidly developing events in specific neighborhoods throughout the besieged country. A link to the original media outlet accompanies each data point representing a military or nonmilitary event.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Al Jazeera: Last apps standing? Telegram, WhatsApp duck Russia bans. “Chat platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram have avoided being blocked by Russia – unlike some of the world’s biggest social networks – in a tenuous tolerance that experts warn could end suddenly.”

AFP: Telegram booms as Russia’s digital landscape shrinks. “The Telegram messaging app has become a go-to platform since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite concerns over its data security and defenses against misinformation. It has benefitted from the gap left by Russia’s blocking of Facebook and Instagram, offering a platform for mass messaging in a way similar to social media. The platform also provides one of the last windows on Russia, but also an open channel to the horrors facing an under siege Ukraine.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Engadget: Impostor poses as Ukraine’s Prime Minister in video call with UK defense secretary. “The British defense secretary has ordered an inquiry into a video call he received on Thursday from an imposter pretending to be Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister. In a series of tweets, the Right Honorable Ben Wallace disclosed that the man asked ‘several misleading questions’ and he eventually ended the call after becoming suspicious. The official described the hoax as a ‘desperate attempt’, and pinned the blame on Russia.”

Mashable: Loser.com ‘honors’ Putin with Wikipedia page redirect. “The URL often redirects visitors to whomever its owner, Brian Connelly, deems as the biggest ‘loser’ of the moment. Connelly has previously shared that he registered Loser.com back in 1995. Unsure of what type of website to develop for the domain name, he has been using redirects in order to troll world-renowned losers ever since.”

BBC: Ukraine: How crowdsourcing is rescuing people from the war zone. “The UN says more than three million people have have now fled Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion just over three weeks ago. So how do people actually find safe passage out of the country? One way is via transport arranged by dozens of volunteers based thousands of miles away, who liaise with fellow volunteers in Ukraine. They, in turn, send information in real-time about safe roads to drivers who can rescue busloads of people. But even using this method, travelling is not without considerable danger.”

Joe: Inside the Facebook groups where desperate Ukrainians are searching for spare rooms. “Ukrainian refugees are making desperate pleas on social media – writing of their fear of being raped, their grief at losing their homes and livelihoods, and their fear about what the future holds for their loved ones. They are also expressing concern about being a ‘burden’ on potential hosts in this country and are listing all the ways in which they could help around the house from baking to babysitting.”

Independent: The YouTube channels revealing what ordinary Russians really think of the war: ‘I want to show every perspective’. “…one forum – at least so far – remains unblocked: YouTube. And on certain channels, one can still get a glimpse of what the Russian people are thinking. One such channel is 1420, where a 21-year-old man named Daniil wanders the streets of Moscow, collecting pedestrians’ comments on the latest news. The channel provides a fascinating chronology of Muscovites’ opinions, especially because Daniil posts so often. Watching his videos, we learn how Russians feel before the war, after it starts, one week in, two weeks in – and in the meantime, more and more restrictions of speech emerge from the Kremlin, to which the pedestrians respond in real time. Many become more reticent, but an impressive few become bolder.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Pro-Ukraine ‘Protestware’ Pushes Antiwar Ads, Geo-Targeted Malware. “Researchers are tracking a number of open-source ‘protestware’ projects on GitHub that have recently altered their code to display ‘Stand with Ukraine’ messages for users, or basic facts about the carnage in Ukraine. The group also is tracking several code packages that were recently modified to erase files on computers that appear to be coming from Russian or Belarusian Internet addresses.”

Ars Technica: Leaked ransomware documents show Conti helping Putin from the shadows. “For years, Russia’s cybercrime groups have acted with relative impunity. The Kremlin and local law enforcement have largely turned a blind eye to disruptive ransomware attacks as long as they didn’t target Russian companies. Despite direct pressure on Vladimir Putin to tackle ransomware groups, they’re still intimately tied to Russia’s interests. A recent leak from one of the most notorious such groups provides a glimpse into the nature of those ties—and just how tenuous they may be.”

Techdirt: Ukrainian Soldier Moves To Trademark ‘Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself” Because Of Course. “You may recall the name Roman Gribov. He was one of several soldiers stationed on Snake Island in the Black Sea. When Russian warships began their part of the assualt of their sovereign neighbor, those warships communicated with Gribov, demanding that he and his fellow soldiers surrender. While staring down the barrel of the Russian Navy, Gribov offered up what is now an iconic response: ‘Russian warship… go fuck yourself!’ From there, the rebuttal took on meme status…. Which perhaps partially explains why Gribov, thorugh his family, is attempting to trademark the now iconic verbal middle finger.

RESEARCH & OPINION

Business Insider: The splinternet in pictures: What the internet looks like for Russians right now. “To see what the internet looks like for users inside Russia, Insider tracked the DNS rejections of various Russian ISPs, using the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) explorer. Insider worked with OONI’s researchers as well as analysts at Top10VPN who were able to take a look at what the BBC news site looks like in Russia using the Astrill Virtual Private Network (VPN).”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

March 20, 2022 at 12:28AM
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Teaching Resources, PayPal Updates, RuTracker, More: Ukraine Update, March 19, 2022

Teaching Resources, PayPal Updates, RuTracker, More: Ukraine Update, March 19, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New York Times: Teaching Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the War in Ukraine. “We’ve sifted through many of the thousands of news items, including articles, Opinion essays, maps, photos, graphics, videos and more, that have appeared on nytimes.com since the invasion began, looking for what we thought might be best suited for classrooms. Because The Learning Network and everything we link to is accessible without a Times digital subscription, teachers clicking on these resources from our site can use them with their students free of charge. But this is just a starting point.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: PayPal enables customers to send money to Ukrainians. “PayPal said Thursday that its users will now be able to send money to Ukrainians, both in the war-ravaged country as well as those now refugees across Europe. Previously, people in Ukraine were only able to use the payments platform to send money out of the country. They will now be able to receive funds, as well as make transfers within Ukraine and abroad.”

Search Engine Land: Google Business Profiles new emergency help attributes for Ukraine support. “Google Business Profiles is rolling out a new business attribute under a new category called ’emergency help’ where you can say if your business or organization accepts donations, employs refugees, needs volunteers or offers free products or services.”

USEFUL STUFF

Euronews: Debunking the most viral misinformation about Russia’s war in Ukraine . “In times of conflict and crisis, when people are hungry for details about the war in Ukraine, misinformation can be equally as viral as verified facts. Here is a selection of some of the false claims that had been widely circulating and have since been debunked by fact-checkers.” Appears to be updated on a regular basis.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Hill: Kremlin targets influencer after posts turn political. “Veronika Belotserkovskaya, who goes by the handle ‘Belonika’ on Instagram normally posts about her glitzy lifestyle on the social media platform. However, her posts became increasingly political after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.”

Reuters: Russia Tells Google to Stop Spreading Threats Against Russians on YouTube. “Russia on Friday demanded that Alphabet Inc’s Google stop spreading what it called threats against Russian citizens on its YouTube video-sharing platform, a move that could presage an outright block of the service on Russian territory.”

BBC: How Kremlin accounts manipulate Twitter. “The Russian Government has a huge network of official Twitter accounts – the BBC found more than 100 of them. They range from accounts that represent foreign missions or embassies, with a few thousand followers, to accounts with more than a million followers. President Putin has his own account. Many of the accounts are labelled as Russian Government organisations by Twitter. Yet, while many of these accounts have spread disinformation, Twitter deals with them differently to Russian state media – like RT or Sputnik.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Independent: The Kremlin unblocked a torrent site so Russians can watch movies – so the site has banned Russians from using it. “A torrent site that could have been used by Russians to watch Hollywood movies amid sanctions has now banned Russian citizens from using it in solidarity with Ukraine.”

Axios: Congress sounds digital alarm bells over cybersecurity. “Since the start of the war, much of the attention has been on how to supply humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. Now, lawmakers are thinking about nonmilitary attacks Russia could unleash on the United States.”

Bleeping Computer: Google: Chinese state hackers target Ukraine’s government. “Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) says the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and other Chinese intelligence agencies are trying to get more info on the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine. Google TAG Security Engineer Billy Leonard says Google notified Ukrainian government organizations targeted by a Chinese-sponsored hacking group.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

France24: European Space Agency suspends joint Mars mission with Russia. “A Russian-European mission to land a rover on Mars has been suspended due to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Space Agency announced Thursday, as Moscow said it regretted the ‘bitter’ decision.”

Nottingham Trent University: Expert blog: The Information War – how to deal with fake news and misinformation. “Over the past few weeks, we have seen a growth in the use of the term ‘Information War’. The term, at first glance, would appear to be fairly innocuous…. I mean, how hurtful or harmful could information actually be? However, as the conflict in Ukraine continues, we have seen the use of information take on a more powerful, weaponised status. The use of information – or to be more accurate, misinformation and disinformation – in the context of conflict is nothing new; what is new is the depth, breadth, and virulence with which such information is being spread.”

March 19, 2022 at 07:13PM
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WSJ Guide to Student Loans, National Gallery of Ireland, Google Maps, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 19, 2022

WSJ Guide to Student Loans, National Gallery of Ireland, Google Maps, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 19, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wall Street Journal: The WSJ Guide to Student Loans: Navigating the Myths and Misunderstandings About College Debt. “Which college majors pay off? Is graduate school a golden goose or a money pit? Are Ivy League degrees usually worth it? The Wall Street Journal answers these questions—and many more—in a first-of-its kind guide to student debt. Readers can download The WSJ Guide to Student Loans: Navigating the Myths and Misunderstandings About College Debt, free by following this link.” I cynically expected that link to go to some kind of required registration before download, but nope – it goes straight to a 148-page PDF file. Good on you, WSJ.

National Gallery of Ireland: National Gallery of Ireland launches new digital collections platform. “The National Gallery of Ireland – together with Minister Catherine Martin T.D. – today launched Source, a new online resource providing access to digitised collections. Exploring the story of Irish art, the platform provides access to the collections held in the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art and Yeats Archive at the Gallery.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google confirms Maps is down for some users, says it’s working on a fix. “Google Maps is currently down for some users around the world as the mapping service is experiencing a partial outage, Google confirmed to TechCrunch on Friday. ‘We’re seeing reports of difficulties accessing some Google Maps and Google Maps Platform services. Our team is investigating and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,’ a spokesperson from Google said in an email.”

TechRadar: Google lands its new subsea cable in Africa. “Google’s Equiano subsea cable which will run from Portugal to the West Coast of Africa has finally arrived to the continent after first being introduced back in 2019. The company’s latest subsea cable will connect Europe to Togo, Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa and St. Helena to provide Africa with faster and more reliable internet.”

The Verge: Twitter Spaces hosts will be able to share clips from recordings in new test. “Twitter is testing a new feature for its Spaces audio rooms that allows a host to share a clip of recorded Spaces on their timeline. The feature is now available to ‘certain Hosts on iOS.'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Internet Archive: New Project Will Unlock Access to Government Publications on Microfiche. “Government documents from microfiche are coming to archive.org based on the combined efforts of the Internet Archive, Stanford University Libraries, and other library partners. The resulting files will be available for free public access to enable new analysis and access techniques.”

University of Wyoming: UW, Partners Secure History Grant to Assist State’s Libraries, Museums. “The University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center (AHC) will hire a project archivist to build an information network among records stewards from Wyoming’s libraries, museums and archives, with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).”

Philippine Star: FVR Presidential Library launched as he turns 94. “An online presidential library and oral history project on former president Fidel V. Ramos were launched to mark his 94th birthday yesterday.” The project has been launched, but it does not appear that a substantive resource will be available until the 4th quarter.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Brazil supreme court orders suspension of Telegram app in the country -reports. “Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of messaging app Telegram, following a request from the country’s federal police, local news broadcasters TV Globo and CNN Brasil both reported on Friday. The decision comes after the messaging app, which is widely used by Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, failed to respond to court orders to block certain accounts that had been found to disseminate disinformation, Globo reported.”

Bleeping Computer: Free decryptor released for TrickBot gang’s Diavol ransomware. “Cybersecurity firm Emsisoft has released a free decryption tool to help Diavol ransomware victims recover their files without paying a ransom.”

Reuters: Google is accused in lawsuit of systemic bias against Black employees. “A lawsuit filed on Friday accuses Google of systemic racial bias against Black employees, saying the search engine company steers them to lower-level jobs, pays them less and denies them opportunities to advance because of their race.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Tech Xplore: A new model to automatically detect and filter spam emails. “Over the past few years, computer scientists have developed increasingly advanced computational models to automatically detect spam emails. To perform well, however, most of these models need to be trained on large email datasets, which were manually labeled by humans. Researchers at Sinhgad Institute of Technology Lonavala in India have recently created a new technique for the automatic detection of spam emails.” Good morning, Internet…

March 19, 2022 at 05:27PM
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Friday, March 18, 2022

Equitable Learning, Flickr, Posthumous Photo Management, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2022

Equitable Learning, Flickr, Posthumous Photo Management, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Australian Academy of Science: New educational website to help teachers promote equitable learning. “Teachers are provided with examples that will help their students to ‘figure things out’ through problem-oriented teaching and learning, all aligned to the Australian Curriculum. The program incorporates sensemaking, a way to build on individual student experiences, and is designed to develop each student’s confidence to engage with the world through science.” The resources appear to me to be Australia-focused but not Australia-specific.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Flickr is paywalling the ability to upload NSFW photos. “Flickr isn’t very good at making money, but as the old adage goes, sex sells. So, in an attempt to draw in more paying subscribers, Flickr changed its content guidelines to only allow Flickr Pro users to post ‘restricted’ or ‘moderate’ content, which includes photos of ‘full-frontal nudity and sexual acts.'” Honestly had no idea that Flickr allowed NSFW content in the first place.

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Leave Your Photos to Someone When You Die. “LEAVING YOUR FAMILY photos to your children, grandchildren, and extended clan used to be easy—you went and died, and they would find the albums gathering dust in your attic or tucked away in a drawer. Sure, there were a lot of terrible holiday snapshots to sort through, but there were always some treasured photos to be kept in a wallet, framed beside a bed, or pinned to a dart board. Now though, things are trickier. Most people’s photos are kept on their smartphones, locked away behind passwords and encryption.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: How WordPress And Tumblr Are Keeping The Internet Weird. “Matt Mullenweg is the CEO of Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com, which he co-founded, and Tumblr, the irrepressible social network it acquired from the wreckage of AOL, Yahoo, and Verizon. Matt’s point of view is that the world is better off when the web is open and fun, and Automattic builds and acquires products that help that goal along. That bet is perhaps most pronounced with WordPress itself.”

The Guardian: Malaysian government’s ‘gay conversion’ app pulled by Google Play. “An app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community ‘return to nature’ has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines. The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sydney Morning Herald: Google admits John Barilaro was defamed in YouTube videos, court told. “Internet giant Google has agreed it published defamatory claims about former NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro in two YouTube videos and when the case proceeds to trial next week it will mainly explore how much should be paid in damages, a court has been told. Mr Barilaro sued Google, which owns YouTube, and political commentator Jordan Shanks in the Federal Court last year alleging he was defamed by videos published on the Friendlyjordies channel titled bruz and Secret Dictatorship.”

Electropages: Google files new patent for skin-touch interface. “The new patent describes different technologies and methods for deploying gestures that can be drawn on the skin with a finger, and the worn device will receive these gestures as commands. Unlike visual systems that see a gesture or a touch screen that can read gestures, the patent describes the earbud’s ability to measure skin acceleration and deformation to determine what gesture has been done. This would effectively turn the user’s body into an interactive system with no interface or need to wear a circuit for reading inputs.”

NJ .com: N.J. Court upholds texting conviction of driver using Google Maps. “A state Appellate Court has upheld the conviction of a motorist who was cited for texting while driving after he tapped the password into his cell phone and opened the Google Maps app to get directions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Brain-Imaging Studies Hampered by Small Data Sets, Study Finds. “Researchers have long used imaging technology to try to understand mental-health ailments. But with relatively few participants, such studies may not be producing valid findings.”

Route Fifty: States Must Expand Data Sources for Strategic Flood Resilience. “Failure to incorporate forward-looking climate data and demographic trends will limit states’ ability to develop effective flood mitigation plans, new research finds.” Good afternoon, Internet…

March 19, 2022 at 12:53AM
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Real-Time Global Trade Sanctions Tracker, Black Women for Black Lives, Arnold Schwarzenegger, More: Ukraine Update, March 18, 2022

Real-Time Global Trade Sanctions Tracker, Black Women for Black Lives, Arnold Schwarzenegger, More: Ukraine Update, March 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Manufacturer: Real-time online sanctions tracker launched to help manufacturing businesses. “The dynamic tool is free to use and covers US, EU and UK sanctions against companies and individuals, dual-use goods, and specifically sanctioned goods. Unlike other static sanctions trackers in the market, the real-time sanctions tracker aggregates data directly from a range of global government sources, including UN, EU and UK dual-use goods lists, the UN, US and EU Consolidated Screening Lists, and US Sanctions List (OFAC), among others, before presenting the information in a dynamic, searchable database.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-Ukraine war video trends on Russian social media. “A Twitter address by Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Russian people is among the top Twitter trends in Russia on Friday and has sparked reaction from various quarters.”

VOA: US Sees No Letup in Russian Influence Operations. “According to U.S. and Ukrainian officials, Moscow’s efforts to win over the world with its accounts of events in Ukraine are doing no better than Russia’s military forces inside Ukraine. More often than not, they are meeting with stiff resistance.”

CNET: Stepan the Internet-Famous Cat Escapes Ukraine, Finds Safety. “Stepan is pure vibes. He’s a 13-year-old tabby cat with more than a million followers on TikTok who relish videos of him cooly leaning against a counter with a drink, while colored lights dance on the wall, looking like his night out at the club is winding down. Stepan is also Ukrainian, which means his life and the life of his favorite human, who goes by Anna on the app, have been utterly upended since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: ‘We come for our own’: How Black volunteers rallied online to help African students in Ukraine. “Black Women for Black Lives, a new coalition focused on helping Black residents escape Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion, amplified the students’ pleas to the international community with the hashtag #SaveSumyStudents. The group started a Change.org petition, which received thousands of supporters, calling on governments to urgently respond to the crisis. And it dispersed upwards of $55,000 dollars in donations to nearly 500 stranded students for food and necessities.”

The Verge: If you’re a Russian YouTuber, how do you get paid now?. “When Russia invaded Ukraine, Niki Proshin was already a year into making a living as a vlogger — he had a YouTube channel, a TikTok channel, and an Instagram. He also ran an online Russian club for anyone who wanted to learn the language. His website, like his videos, is in English. Instagram no longer functions in Russia. Google has stopped selling ads in Russia. It is no longer possible to subscribe to his Russian club via PayPal, which has suspended its services in Russia.”

Poynter: Broken URLs helped fuel the unfounded conspiracy theory about biolabs in Ukraine. “Some become suspicious because they say the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine removed fact sheets about the labs on its webpage. It was a technical glitch.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Russian pipeline company Transneft hit by data leak dedicated to Hillary Clinton. “As the Russian invasion of Ukraine moves into its third week, unconventional actors continue to target Russian state-backed businesses with a string of hacks and data leaks — the latest apparently referencing pro-hacktivism comments made by Hillary Clinton. The targeted organization is Transneft, the Russian state-controlled oil pipeline giant. On Thursday, leak hosting website Distributed Denial of Secrets published a link to 79GB of emails from the Omega Company, the research and development division of Transneft.”

New York Times: China’s Information Dark Age Could Be Russia’s Future. “By blocking online platforms, shutting down the last vestige of Russia’s independent media and making it a crime to refer to the fighting in Ukraine as a war, the Kremlin has made it nearly impossible for the Russian people to get independent or international news after its invasion. Most Russians are taking in an alternative reality. That’s exactly what China has been doing to its 1.4 billion people for years.”

The Register: JavaScript library updated to wipe files from Russian computers. “The developer of JavaScript library node-ipc, which is used by the popular vue.js framework, deliberately introduced a critical security vulnerability that, for some netizens, would destroy their computers’ files.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

BBC: Deepfake presidents used in Russia-Ukraine war. “A deepfake video shared on Twitter, appearing to show Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring peace, has resurfaced. Meanwhile, this week Meta and YouTube have taken down a deepfake video of Ukraine’s president talking of surrendering to Russia. As both sides use manipulated media, what do these videos reveal about the state of misinformation in the conflict?”

Fortune: Russia’s social media shutdown is expensive, costing its economy more than $860 million so far this year. “Russia’s social media shutdowns have cost the country’s economy $861 million in 2022, highlighting the steep price of its efforts to silence online dissent since the Ukraine War began. The findings, by the independent research firm Top10VPN.com, also show that the economic impact of Russia’s online censorship exceeds that of all other countries.”

March 18, 2022 at 07:02PM
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Domain Codex, Sydney Harbour Bridge Construction, Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2022

Domain Codex, Sydney Harbour Bridge Construction, Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, March 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Dark Reading: Domain Codex Launches New Search Engine Tool for Researching Domain Intelligence. “Domain Codex allows users to search deep data on domain-related information on more than 20 data points across root domains, allowing a broad and extensive search of domain intelligence data. With Domain Codex, users can quickly identify domains by mix and match data points of interest and easily correlate and compare other domains sharing similar or identical data,mmaking it a one-of-a-kind tool for intelligence research.” Really nice filter selection. Limited free tier for use.

Australian Financial Review: Meet the woman who saved the Sydney Harbour Bridge. “Kathleen Butler is barely remembered today. But in the 1920s, she became known as ‘The Bridge Girl’ – she even went overseas with engineers from [engineer John] Bradfield’s team to review tenders for the construction process…. Now her contribution to the successful construction of ‘The Coathanger’ is being revived, thanks in part to the University of Sydney’s decision to digitise 596 photos of the bridge’s construction from Bradfield’s three personal albums, which he had entrusted to his loyal companion and protégé in 1927.”

New-to-me, from University of North Carolina: A monumental visual history. “Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, or CommLand, a partnership with University Libraries, now features the stories of over 1,000 monuments across the state in all 100 counties. It is the largest and most extensive curated site devoted to a single state’s historical monuments and memorials.”

Music Ally: Diverse Representation Music Database launches in the US. “It’s a partnership in the US between Diverse Representation and Color of Change, and will include profiles and CVs for hundreds of Black music industry professionals. The database is designed to be used by labels, streaming services, agencies and other companies in the industry when scouting for new hires.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: March Madness: Google Unveils Its Brackets, New Search Improvements. “It’s March, and that means one thing: college basketball. In that spirit, Google filled out brackets for the men’s and women’s 2022 NCAA Tournaments based on which teams people across the country are searching for.”

Windows Blog: Appears to say: Microsoft Edge now provides auto-generated image labels. “Alt text is critical to making the web accessible, yet it’s often overlooked. Our data suggests that more than half of the images processed by screen readers are missing alt text. To help fill that gap, Microsoft Edge will now provide auto-generated alt text for images that do not include it. Auto-generated alt text helps users of assistive technology such as screen readers discover the meaning or intent of an images on the web.”

Google Blog: Practice sets: a more personal path to learning. “With practice sets, educators can easily transform their own teaching content into interactive assignments and use the autograding tool to cut down on manual grading time. Practice sets also help teachers figure out which concepts need more instruction time and who could use extra support, giving them quick performance insights to shape future lesson plans.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Mashable: Even Heineken thinks its new metaverse ‘beer’ is a dumb publicity stunt. “The brewer is the latest company, and second beer manufacturer, to jump on the metaverse bandwagon with its Thursday release of Heineken Silver — a ‘virtual beer’ that the company insists is, yes, as dumb as it sounds. For starters, Heineken is quick to let everyone know, you definitely can’t drink whatever this new thing is.”

Michigan Daily: TikTok’s quarantine obsession with ‘Cat Trap’. “Its premise is simple: You wall in a cat trying to escape a grid of green hexagons. The darkened hexagons are the only areas the cat cannot jump to, so the player must click on a hexagon, darkening enough to surround and therefore catch the cat. It’s a simple enough game of cat-and-mouse (pun unintended) — well, cager-and-cat — to be surprisingly addictive as frustration builds over your target escaping again and again, resulting in a cathartic gratification at finally achieving success. TikTok has echoed these feelings, capturing users playing the game, often pausing it at the moment of victory or failure to relish or wallow in those emotions.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The National: Syria outlaws social media posts that ‘undermine the economy’. “Syria will penalise social media users with jail terms and fines if they undermine the economy with their posts. The new measures are part of a broad cybersecurity law to prevent online crime, including credit card fraud, defamation and blasphemy. Breaches of the new law would attract a jail term of four to 15 years and a fine as high as 10 million Syrian pounds ($4,000).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Analytics India: Top preprint servers for publishing your AI research . “Preprint servers are open access online archives or repositories that contain research papers before their peer review and publication. Their main aim is to accelerate the dissemination process of research findings and enhance their visibility. As the peer review process takes time and there is a subsequent delay in publication, preprint servers are useful tools for researchers to post a full draft of their research papers and get immediate feedback from their colleagues. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular preprint servers in AI research.”

University of Wyoming: UW Libraries to Launch Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education. “University of Wyoming Libraries soon will launch the Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE), a new, open peer-reviewed journal. The journal is currently accepting scholarly articles that critically analyze the role of open educational resources (OER) in higher education for its debut issue. The journal is anticipated to launch this fall.” Good morning, Internet…

March 18, 2022 at 05:37PM
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