New researches

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Doc Helm Photography, State Prisons Data, 1950 Census, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 31, 2022

Doc Helm Photography, State Prisons Data, 1950 Census, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

Sorry this is late. We had a tornado warning and I had to go lurk in the basement.

NEW RESOURCES

Illinois Times: A huge collection, now digitized and accessible online. “Thousands of Doc Helm’s photographic negatives from his long career as state photographer are housed at the Illinois State Archives’ Margaret Cross Norton Building in Springfield.” This article merely gives you an overview of the resource; click here for more background on this prolific Illinois photographer.

Bureau of Justice Statistics: Now available—the new, modern Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) with prisoners data. “For the first time, the dashboard combines data from the National Corrections Reporting Program and National Prisoner Statistics program. This dashboard provides data users central access to more comprehensive, in-depth, state-level data on persons in state prison, including data by age, sex, race or ethnicity, offense, sentence length, time served in prison, and type of admission and release.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: 1950 Census data to be unveiled Friday, after 72 years under wraps. “…the National Archives will unveil a huge batch of the intimate details from the 1950 Census — on 6.4 million pages digitized from 6,373 microfilm census rolls. The data will include names, ages, addresses and answers to questions about employment status, job description and income.”

CNET: Apple iOS 15.4.1 Fixes Battery Drain Issue and More. “Apple released iOS version 15.4.1 Thursday, a few weeks after the release of iOS 15.4. The latest update includes a fix for a bug that drains the battery of some iPhones that have installed iOS 15.4.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: IndiGo: Man says he hacked airline website to find lost luggage. “A man says he was forced to hack into a domestic Indian airline’s website to find his missing luggage. Nandan Kumar, 28, called IndiGo – a low-cost carrier – for help, after realising that he had swapped his bag with a co-passenger. But after IndiGo refused to help him trace the other person, Mr Kumar said he was able to retrieve information about him from the airline website.”

Brookings Institution: U.S. regulatory inaction opened the doors for the EU to step up on internet. “The American digital platform companies, after long fighting domestic regulation, are going to reap the rewards of that opposition. They will have to live with rules made by other nations—rules that some claim have protectionist overtones. These platform companies have become rich by riding on a ubiquitous internet that allowed them to ‘make it once and sell it everywhere.’ Now, the same network that created that economic miracle has become the network whose ubiquity imposes rules even if the companies operate outside of the EU.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Museums + Heritage Advisor: Do museums deserve more freedom on social media?. “As The Charles Dickens Museum becomes the latest museum to suffer at the feet of heavy-handed algorithms, Advisor asks if it is time to allow cultural institutions more scope to police their own content.”

The Register: Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia are top sources of online misinformation . “Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the top three proliferators of state-linked Twitter misinformation campaigns, according to a report released Wednesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).”

University of Colorado Boulder: Interactive map gets closer to pinpointing African origins erased during slave trade. “Conflicts among African nations during the collapse of the kingdom of Oyo in the early 19th century resulted in the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of people. Soldiers and traders removed men, women and children from their homes, transported them to coastal ports and loaded them onto slave ships—their names, birth places and family ties erased. Historians have a pretty good record of where these individuals departed Africa, but due to a lack of primary sources, little is known about where they originated before boarding slave ships. CU Boulder researchers are hoping to change that with a first-of-its-kind mathematical model estimating conditional probabilities of African origins during the transatlantic slave trade.” I have this under “Research” instead of “New Resources” because the map is more an expression of the model and not a polished mechanism for attaining information.

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Associated Press: Scientists finally finish decoding entire human genome. “An international team described the first-ever sequencing of a complete human genome – the set of instructions to build and sustain a human being – in research published Thursday in the journal Science. The previous effort, celebrated across the world, was incomplete because DNA sequencing technologies of the day weren’t able to read certain parts of it. Even after updates, it was missing about 8% of the genome.” Good evening, Internet…

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April 1, 2022 at 04:05AM
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Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, Refugee Children, NashStore, More: Ukraine Update, March 31, 2022

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, Refugee Children, NashStore, More: Ukraine Update, March 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Harvard University: Web Archive Preserves Data Related to Russia’s War on Ukraine. “The new “Russia’s War in Ukraine” collection seeks to document Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 which resulted in a full-scale war after eight years of military conflict between Russian and Ukraine.” The archive looks to include a variety of content, from news articles to Web sites.

ReliefWeb: New website and translated app create softer landing for children fleeing the war in Ukraine. “An app which helps children experiencing stress or worry has been translated into Ukrainian, and a ‘warm welcome’ website for refugee children has been launched in Denmark, as part of series of initiatives by Save the Children to support refugee children across Europe.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AFP Fact Checker: Fake CNN tweet shared in posts accusing broadcaster of fabricating ‘Ukraine bomb’ story . “Multiple social media posts claim CNN fabricated a story about a ‘bomb attack’ at the hotel of a journalist in Ukraine in a tweet that actually showed an old photo of a hotel in Serbia. However, CNN reported no such story and said the tweet was fake. The screenshot of the doctored tweet features the social media handle of a prankster who has previously shared fake CNN tweets.”

PC Mag: Russia’s Alternative to the Google Play Store Launches May 9. “With the sanctions against Russia hitting just about every sector (and forcing Russia to consider software piracy), anyone with an Android device in the country is unable to use Google Play to purchase apps anymore. This is because Google suspended all payment services earlier this month. As Reuters reports, this has spurred the development of an alternative. The new store will be called NashStore, which translates as ‘OurStore’ in English.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Insurance Journal: Zurich Removes ‘Z’ From Social Media Branding as Russia Uses Symbol in Ukraine War. “Zurich Insurance said it has removed the letter ‘Z’ from its social media branding as a result of Russia’s use of the letter during its war in Ukraine.”

CBS News: TikToker’s old phone enables social media updates from behind Russia’s “iron curtain”. “American social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have been blocked or limited in the country. TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, voluntarily restricted its platform to Russian users so they are only able to see new videos uploaded in Russia. Eager to remain connected to the outside world, 24-year-old Natalia, whom we are referring to by only her first name to protect her identity, tried switching on an older phone she still had lying around. The software on it had not been updated in years.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Foreign Policy: Russia Prepares Destructive Cyberattacks. “Russia is preparing disruptive cyberattacks that could target U.S. energy and financial industries to cause further pain to the Biden administration, in retaliation for heavy sanctions against the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine, several people familiar with the matter told Foreign Policy.”

Reuters: Russian hackers targeted, NATO, eastern European militaries – Google. “Russian hackers have recently attempted to penetrate the networks of NATO and the militaries of some eastern European countries, Google’s Threat Analysis Group said in a report published on Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Council on Foreign Relations: Russia’s Cyber War: What’s Next and What the European Union Should Do.. “As the Russian military shifts its objectives, resources and bandwidth will be freed up to fight from the rear. A cornered Moscow–with few other options left on the table–is likely to resort to the cyber domain, as other pariah states have done, as the ideal vector to circumvent isolation, spy on and disrupt Western defense plans, steal technology and intellectual property it will be cut off from, and heighten its global nuisance with disinformation operations. Recent attacks on a major Ukrainian telecommunications firm, Ukrtelecom, have heightened fears that Russia’s stalling military campaign could cause it to turn to cyber operations as another means of achieving its aims.”

Modern Diplomacy: A call to protect cultural property in Ukraine and all other zones of conflict. “Walk of Truth demands that all parties to all ongoing and frozen conflicts must respect international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international law generally. Moreover, bearing in mind its base in The Hague, Walk of Truth demands that all such parties must comply with all relevant instruments of international law including those associated with The Hague such as the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict plus its two Protocols from 1954 and 1999 and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”

The National Academies: Breakthrough Prize Foundation Partners with U.S. National Academy of Sciences to Support Scientists Forced to Flee Ukraine. “The Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced a new partnership with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to support humanitarian relief efforts for scientists forced to flee from Ukraine by the Russian invasion. Part of a $3 million fund pledged for humanitarian relief, the Foundation will dedicate $1 million to the NAS’s Scientists and Engineers in Exile and Displaced (SEED) initiative, which helps scientists and engineers maintain their livelihoods and dignity during the current upheaval, remaining employed and connected to the global scientific community.”

Gizmodo: Mars Rover Being Packed Into Storage After Russian Launch Scrapped. “The European Space Agency is scrambling to figure out the ExoMars rover’s next-possible launch window after the agency suspended cooperation with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

March 31, 2022 at 06:44PM
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West African Arabic Manuscript Database, North Korean Prison Database, India Lost and Found, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 31, 2022

West African Arabic Manuscript Database, North Korean Prison Database, India Lost and Found, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from The Conversation: Timbuktu manuscripts placed online are only a sliver of West Africa’s ancient archive. “While Mali Magic displays 45 very photogenic manuscripts from one private library, the site doesn’t begin to tell the full story of the wealth of West Africa’s manuscripts that are found from the Atlantic to Lake Chad. But thanks to decades of scholarship and, recently, digitisation, that information is now accessible at a bilingual, open-access, online union catalogue of nearly 80,000 manuscripts at the West African Arabic Manuscript Database. This is a resource I began 30 years ago at the University of Illinois that now provides students access to most of the titles and authors that make up West Africa’s manuscript culture.”

Korea Future: Launching the North Korean Prison Database. “Today we launch the North Korean Prison Database — a growing and comprehensive archive of international human rights law violations and atrocities that have transpired in the North Korean Penal system. The database preserves and manages evidence gathered through detailed investigations by Korea Future. To date, we have identified 597 perpetrators linked to 5,181 human rights violations committed against 784 detainees in 148 penal facilities.”

New-to-me, from TRT World: New initiative documents India’s lost heritage sites. “Delhi-based photographer Amit Pasricha is a man on a mission: to document India’s lesser-known and often forgotten heritage sites. It was a desire that manifested over several years, one that finally culminated in a sprawling project titled, India Lost and Found (ILF) in 2018.”

Library of Congress: VHP’s New Online Exhibit: Transcribed Correspondence Collections. “Today, the Veterans History Project (VHP) debuts ‘Line by Line: Transcribed Correspondence Collections,’ a new online exhibit focusing on nine digitized, fully transcribed correspondence collections.”

EVENTS

A sponsored post in Physics World: Society opens up electrochemical research . “From 3 April, in an annual event called ‘Free the Science Week’, [The Electrochemical Society] will lift the subscription paywall on more than 170,000 articles across its entire digital library – which includes journals, conference proceedings, and the society’s Interface magazine – allowing researchers across the globe to explore the archive as well as the latest research results.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google rolls out AI improvements to aid with Search safety and ‘personal crisis’ queries. “Google today announced it will be rolling out improvements to its AI model to make Google Search a safer experience and one that’s better at handling sensitive queries, including those around topics like suicide, sexual assault, substance abuse and domestic violence. It’s also using other AI technologies to improve its ability to remove unwanted explicit or suggestive content from Search results when people aren’t specifically seeking it out.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: The Best Discord Bots (and How to Use Them). “Discord bots are AI-powered tools that automate tasks and add music, games, welcome messages, memes, and other interesting content to your server. These bots make it easy for you to engage with an audience, build your community, and moderate your server. There’s a whole army of bots to choose from, each of which serves specific purposes—one may automatically welcome new users, while others use webhooks to integrate with other applications—and it can be overwhelming for new users to figure out which ones will deliver the best results for their needs.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Okayplayer: How Sample Drill Is Leading One Of Rap’s Most Bizarre Sampling Eras. “Sample drill is perhaps the most online iteration of rap music we’ve ever seen. A particularly postmodern recycled medium, born in the wake of a pandemic that made in-person sessions all but impossible, the phenomenon speaks to how online the creation of music — specifically rap — has become. The scrolling thumb has replaced the dusty finger; it’s crate-digging in the post-record shop era. Let’s call it ‘cloud-digging,’ where, in the case of sample drill, everything from 2Pac’s ‘I Ain’t Mad At Ya’ to Dick Dale’s ‘Miserlou’ is fodder for a drill beat.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Apple, Facebook and Discord reportedly gave user data to hackers posing as law enforcement. “Apple, Facebook and Discord turned over user data to hackers posing as law enforcement officials, according to a new report in Bloomberg. The demands, which were forged to look like authentic legal requests, reportedly came from legitimate email accounts that had been ‘compromised.'”

Ars Technica: Google’s next US antitrust issue: Google Maps. “Google’s latest antitrust headache is coming from the US government, which is starting to take issue with how Google bundles Google Maps and restricts developers from using competing services. Nothing’s official yet, but Reuters’ sources say the US Justice Department ‘breathed new life into an investigation of Google Maps to determine if bundling the service together with other Google software illegally stifles competition.'”

Independent: Two men arrested in US based on post-riot Google searches: ‘Is it illegal to go into the Capitol’. “Two men accused of storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 were arrested last week after their Google searches and the information they shared on Facebook allegedly incriminated them.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Financial Times: DeepMind accused of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations. “A former DeepMind employee has accused the artificial intelligence group’s leadership of mishandling multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment, raising concerns over how grievances are dealt with at the Google-acquired company. The female member of staff, whom we call Julia to protect her identity, claimed in December 2019 that a senior researcher at the London-based group had sexually assaulted her twice, threatened suicide, and alluded to previous instances of rape, among other concerning behavior.” Good morning, Internet…

March 31, 2022 at 05:26PM
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Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Mariupol.is, Israel Seder Hosts, Grustnogram, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, March 30, 2022

Mariupol.is, Israel Seder Hosts, Grustnogram, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, March 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Discovered via Reddit: Mariupol.is. From the front page: “Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the people of Mariupol – a city of half a million – have been besieged. We have heard from our families and friends, still stranded in our city, that hundreds of thousands remain – with no stable food source, no potable water, little mobile connectivity, electricity, or gas, all in freezing weather conditions.
These are their stories.”

Times of Israel: Where are you for Seder? Website pairs Israeli hosts with new Ukrainian immigrants. “In an effort to help ease their integration into Israeli society and in response to many offers of assistance from Israeli citizens, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, along with the Jewish People Policy Institute think tank and Army Radio, launched its new initiative, in which Israelis offer to host new immigrants for the Seder meal by filling out an online form (Hebrew)…. Alongside this initiative, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry also unveiled a new program to allow Israelis to offer various forms of assistance to the new immigrants from Ukraine, as well as those from Russia and Belarus, who have also been increasingly coming to Israel in the wake of Moscow’s war.”

Core77: In Russia, a “Social Media Network for the Sad” Instagram Replacement. “With Instagram now banned in Russia, some 80 million users are unable to access the app. Thus Russian app developers Alexandr Tokarev and Ivan Semkin say they’re launching a sad (as in melancholy) alternative to the app this week, called Grustnogram.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Sky News: Ukrainian viral cat sensation raises £7,000 for charity after fleeing shelling by Russian forces in Kharkiv. “A Ukrainian cat who went viral on TikTok has escaped to France and raised £7,000 for charities providing aid to animals caught up in the conflict.”

Daily Beast: Pregnant Woman Smeared as Ukrainian ‘Crisis Actor’ in Hospital Bombing Gives Birth. “Marianna Podgurska, a beauty blogger from Mariupol who was caught on camera with her face covered in blood after Russia bombed a maternity ward and a children’s hospital in Mariupol, gave birth to a baby girl on Thursday night, her relatives said. Marianna’s aunt, Tetyana Liubchenko, who lives in Bodrum, Turkey, confirmed the news to The Daily Beast in a phone interview. She said Marianna’s husband Yuriy was able to call them this morning to let them know.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: 4,000 letters and four hours of sleep: Ukrainian leader wages digital war. “Weeks after Russia invaded, Ukraine’s youngest cabinet minister launched a complaint to the Chinese drone company DJI, claiming that Russia’s military was using its popular technology to target missile attacks. ‘@DJIGlobal are you sure you want to be a partner in these murders?’ tweeted Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation. ‘Block your products that are helping russia to kill the Ukrainians!'”

The Economist: The invasion of Ukraine is not the first social media war, but it is the most viral. “YOU HAVE probably seen the videos from Ukraine. There is the one where Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, stands outside Kyiv’s government quarter in dim light, holding his smartphone with the camera pointed selfie-style at himself and several senior officials. ‘We are all here,’ he declares, days after Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, sent his tanks across the border. Or the one a Ukrainian soldier took, showing his mates in a snowy field firing anti-tank missiles, set to a thumping techno soundtrack.”

The Intercept: Google Ordered Russian Translators Not To Call War In Ukraine A War. “IN EARLY MARCH, contractors working for Google to translate company text for the Russian market received an update from their client: Effective immediately, the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine could no longer be referred to as a war but rather only vaguely as ‘extraordinary circumstances.’ The internal email, obtained by The Intercept, was sent by management at a firm that translates corporate texts and app interfaces for Google and other clients.”

New York Times: How War in Ukraine Roiled Facebook and Instagram. “Meta has made more than half a dozen content policy revisions since Russia invaded Ukraine last month. The company has permitted posts about the conflict that it would normally have taken down — including some calling for the death of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and violence against Russian soldiers — before changing its mind or drawing up new guidelines, the people said. The result has been internal confusion, especially among the content moderators who patrol Facebook and Instagram for text and images with gore, hate speech and incitements to violence. Meta has sometimes shifted its rules on a daily basis, causing whiplash, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Exclusive-Hackers Who Crippled Viasat Modems in Ukraine Are Still Active Company Official. “Hackers who crippled tens of thousands of satellite modems in Ukraine and across Europe are still trying to hobble U.S. telecommunications company Viasat as it works to bring its users back online, a company official told Reuters. Viasat Inc has been working to recover after a cyberattack remotely disabled satellite modems just as Russian forces pushed into Ukraine in the early hours of Feb. 24.”

CNN: ‘I can fight with a keyboard’: How one Ukrainian IT specialist exposed a notorious Russian ransomware gang. “As Russian artillery began raining down on his homeland last month, one Ukrainian computer researcher decided to fight back the best way he knew how — by sabotaging one of the most formidable ransomware gangs in Russia. Four days into Russia’s invasion, the researcher began publishing the biggest leak ever of files and data from Conti, a syndicate of Russian and Eastern Europe cybercriminals wanted by the FBI for conducting attacks on hundreds of US organizations and causing millions of dollars in losses.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Euractiv: ‘Russia burns our books hoping to destroy our nation’. “With Russian invaders’ goal being the destruction of the Ukrainian nation, they confiscate books and destroy school textbooks on the history of Ukraine. They are particularly interested in destroying those on the history of Maidans, the war in Donbas during 2014-2022, and the history of Ukrainian liberation struggles writes Roman Rukomeda.”

March 31, 2022 at 02:26AM
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Covid.gov, Abandoned and Derelict Marine Vessels, Chrome, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 30, 2022

Covid.gov, Abandoned and Derelict Marine Vessels, Chrome, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Putting this here instead of CoronaBuzz because it’s especially important. NPR: Covid.gov: New website offers a single stop for COVID info, tests and treatment. “According to the White House, there are now more than 2,000 test-to-treat locations around the country where people can get tested for COVID-19 and, if a prescriber says they need it, immediately get antiviral pills. COVID.gov has a new locator tool, making it easier to find these services quickly.” The site also provides information on vaccines, local health risk, and more.

NOAA Marine Debris Program: Now Available: The Full Salvaging Solutions to Abandoned and Derelict Vessels Webinar Series. “Thousands of abandoned and derelict vessels (ADVs) litter coastal waterways all over the country, obstructing navigational channels, causing harm to the environment, and diminishing commercial and recreational activities. For many communities, assessing, removing, and disposing of these vessels is complex and requires significant financial resources. Over the past year, experts from across the country shared their experiences, solutions, and lessons learned through our Salvaging Solutions to Abandoned and Derelict Vessels monthly webinar series to help communities facing ADV issues. We are pleased to share that the full webinar series is now available on our website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome 100 released with new features, icon, and more. “Google has released Chrome 100 today, March 29th, 2022, to the Stable desktop channel, and it includes a new logo, security improvements, development features, and more.”

The Register: Google resumes shoveling stuff into its ‘Privacy Sandbox’. “In separate messages to Chromium developers declaring their ‘Intent to Experiment,’ Google software developers on Friday said Origin Trials for the company’s FLEDGE API and its Topics API will commence following the March 31 debut of Chrome 101 Beta. Testing is expected to continue at least until Chrome 104 Beta, three months hence.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: How China’s TikTok, Facebook influencers push propaganda . “As China continues to assert its economic might, it is using the global social media ecosystem to expand its already formidable influence. The country has quietly built a network of social media personalities who parrot the government’s perspective in posts seen by hundreds of thousands of people, operating in virtual lockstep as they promote China’s virtues, deflect international criticism of its human rights abuses and advance Beijing’s talking points on world affairs like Russia’s war against Ukraine.”

Vanderbilt University: Heard Libraries acquire collection of jazz, world music master Yusef Lateef. “Vanderbilt’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries are now home to a rich collection of research materials from the life and career of Yusef A. Lateef, a Grammy-winning musician who played a pioneering role in bringing Middle Eastern and Asian sounds to American jazz. Lateef also was an author, visual artist, educator and philosopher. He died in 2013, but his cultural significance lives on through his artistry.”

Bloomberg: New Social Media App BeReal Is Trending at Colleges as ‘Casual Instagram’. “At a varying time each day, BeReal users receive a single notification en masse prompting them to take two photos — simultaneous images, shot through the front- and back-facing lens on their phone cameras. Everyone is given two minutes to take the photographs, which are then shared with their followers on the app. People who miss the daily notification can post late, but such images are conspicuously marked for being tardy. To see everyone else’s contributions, a user must first upload their own daily shots.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: Congressional Chair Asks Google and Apple to Help Stop Fraud Against U.S. Taxpayers on Telegram . “After ProPublica investigations revealed thriving cybermarkets on Telegram where fraudsters buy and sell stolen personal information for unemployment insurance fraud, Rep. James Clyburn is hoping to enlist Apple and Google in the fight.”

UK Government: Naming and shaming failing landlords. “The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will highlight poor practice by landlords including on its social media platforms. This will include published findings by the Housing Ombudsman of severe maladministration, and judgements of the Regulator of Social Housing that consumer standards have been breached.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Smithsonian: Negative Effects of Social Media May Impact Adolescent Girls and Boys at Different Ages . “Girls and boys appear to be susceptible to the negative effects of social media use at different ages, according to new research. A study published today in Nature Communications suggests that teens and tweens have different windows of vulnerability to technology depending on their biological sex.” Good afternoon, Internet…

March 31, 2022 at 12:44AM
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Protecting Cultural Heritage, Bot Farms, Video Game Piracy, More: Ukraine Update, March 30, 2022

Protecting Cultural Heritage, Bot Farms, Video Game Piracy, More: Ukraine Update, March 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Ukraine dismantles 5 disinformation bot farms, seizes 10,000 SIM cards. “The Ukrainian Security Service (SSU) has announced that since the start of the war with Russia, it has discovered and shut down five bot farms with over 100,000 fake social media accounts spreading fake news. The network, which operated in Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ternopil, and Zakarpattia, aimed to discourage Ukrainian citizens and instill panic by distributing false information about the Russian invasion and the status of the defenders.”

BusinessWire: Comtech Telecommunications Corp. Responds to Aid Request from The Ukrainian Government (PRESS RELEASE). “Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ: CMTL), a leading global provider of next-generation 911 emergency systems and secure wireless communications technologies, announced today that the Company has donated COMET troposcatter systems at the request of the Ukrainian government.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TIME: Ukrainian Museums Are Racing to Save Artifacts That Tell the Country’s Story. “They’ve done everything from evacuating works of art over the border to hiding objects in safe storage. Cities are trying to safeguard monuments and statues by surrounding them with sandbags and covering statues with fireproof material to protect them from bombing and shelling.”

US Embassy & Consulates in Italy: Racing to protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage. “Russian bombing has already damaged about 25 works by Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko that were stored in Ivankiv Museum, Kyiv. Picasso had called her an ‘artistic miracle.’ Another 25,000 pieces of art were exposed to snow and rain when another bomb hit near Kharkiv’s main museum weeks ago, possibly causing irreversible damage. Ukrainians and others around the world have mobilized to prevent further damage.”

Global News: The Russia-Ukraine information war: How propaganda is being used in two very different ways. “…while information is currently being both suppressed and controlled by both sides, experts say the motivations for censorship for Ukraine and Russia are vastly different.”

Wall Street Journal: Yandex, Russia’s Internet Giant, Struggles to Dodge Geopolitics. “If you thought Silicon Valley had a problem with politics, spare a thought for Russia’s top internet company. Nasdaq-listed Yandex, which runs the largest Russian search engine and ride-hailing service, is caught between its local customers and regulators on the one hand, and American technology and finance on the other.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Waypoint: Russian ‘Loop Hero’ Devs Tell Players to Pirate Their Game Because of Sanctions. “Four Quarters, the indie Russian game developer behind the surprise hit Loop Hero, are telling players they should pirate the game if they can’t find a way to buy it legitimately because of wide-ranging sanctions imposed on the country since its invasion of Ukraine in late February.”

Washington Post: How Ukraine’s Internet is still working despite Russian bombs and cyberattacks. “Despite being attacked by a major military power with vaunted cyber capabilities, Ukraine’s Internet is still largely intact, allowing the millions of people who remain in the country to communicate, and giving the world a front-row seat to the devastating war. Here’s how Ukraine has managed.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Ukraine has been winning the messaging wars. It’s been preparing for years.. “Before the Ukraine invasion, many observers believed that Russia had an advantage in propaganda. But since the war began, journalists and academics alike have expressed admiration for Ukraine’s savvy information narratives and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s effective wartime messaging. This isn’t as surprising as it seems. As my research shows, Ukraine laid the groundwork for its information advantage well before the invasion. Over many years, Ukraine has learned how to limit Russian information exploitation and craft a national narrative.”

The Soufan Center: IntelBrief: Chinese Disinformation Seeks to Support Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. “At a meeting just last week of NATO leaders, the alliance released a statement that called for ‘all states, including the People’s Republic of China… to abstain from supporting Russia’s war effort in any way, and to refrain from any action that helps Russia circumvent sanctions.’ Nevertheless, China’s disinformation tactics at home and abroad reveal that Beijing is seemingly aligning with Moscow in the information warfare space.”

WIRED: TikTok’s Black Box Obscures Its Role in Russia’s War . “Findings by social media research collective Tracking Exposed suggest that TikTok enfolded its Russian users in a vast echo chamber intended to pacify president Vladimir Putin’s government. Inside that digital enclave, a network of Russian accounts posting pro-invasion content somehow kept operating. ‘There was clear manipulation of the information ecosystem on TikTok,’ says Salvatore Romano, head of research at Tracking Exposed.”

The Conversation: Putin’s war on history is another form of domestic repression. “Although Putin’s historical revisionism has been most intense around issues surrounding the Second World War and the supposed historical justification for ‘reunion’ with Ukraine, it has also had a profound effect on another aspect of Russian history that hasn’t received as much attention — the study of Stalinist repression in the Soviet Union.”

March 30, 2022 at 06:54PM
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KinderMiner Web, Underrepresented Histories, Google Docs, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 30, 2022

KinderMiner Web, Underrepresented Histories, Google Docs, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Morgridge Institute for Research: New search app gleans ‘collective consciousness’ from a massive research database. “The PubMed database contains more than 33 million papers that represent the ‘collective consciousness’ of what humans know about biomedicine. It is impossible for researchers to keep up with this vast literature where more than 1,000 new papers get added daily. A new web application, KinderMiner Web, developed by Ron Stewart’s Bioinformatics Group at the Morgridge Institute for Research, gives researchers a fighting chance.”

PR Newswire: Gale Primary Sources Release New Archives Dedicated to Underrepresented Histories (PRESS RELEASE). “Gale, part of Cengage Group, is supporting academic initiatives in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) with the release of six new archives on the Gale Primary Sources (GPS) platform. These archives explore the stories of LGBTQ+ communities worldwide, women, Native Americans and other underrepresented communities.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: # Google Docs is getting more Markdown support. “Google is adding Markdown support to Google Docs on the web, letting you format your document using text shortcuts rather than keyboard ones. In a blog post announcing the feature, Google says it’s doing this through its autocorrect feature, so it will automatically format the text for you after you type it in Markdown format. For example, if you type ‘# Google Docs is getting more Markdown support’ it’ll automatically get converted to a level one heading.”

Engadget: TikTok users will soon have an easier way to add popular GIFs. “TikTok users will soon have even more ways to make their videos stand out from the crowd. The service has announced the TikTok Library, which will grant creators access to more entertainment-based content. You’ll be able to find GIFs, clips from your favorite TV shows, memes and other content, which you can slot into your TikToks.”

USEFUL STUFF

Genealogy’s Star: New Videos Every Week on the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel. “With over 600 videos, the Brigham Young University Family History Library YouTube Channel keeps growing with 4 or 5 new videos every week. I am sure you can find videos with subjects that will help you with your genealogical research. My latest video is Beginning African American Research, and it should uploaded shortly. The last video I did that is already on the Channel is Beginning Native American Research.”

How-To Geek: How to Download Wikipedia for Offline, At-Your-Fingertips Reading. “Have you ever wished you could download Wikipedia in its entirety, and have a copy of it for yourself? There are a handful of ways to do just that — all you need is a third-party program and about 150 gigabytes of storage.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Chicago Tribune: At 40, Gerber/Hart, the Midwest’s independent LGBTQ library and archive, is on the move — again. “Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, an independent library and archive of LGBTQ materials incorporated here in 1981, hasn’t always operated in the most becoming environs. But it sure beats the alternative. Many of the materials Gerber/Hart collects, mostly from the 20th century American Midwest, narrowly escaped the furnace, where generations of queer people consigned their letters and diaries to avoid discovery.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Hackers tried to breach email accounts of election officials in 9 states, FBI says. “Unidentified hackers tried to breach the email accounts of election officials in nine states last October in an apparent ‘coordinated effort’ to target election officials, the FBI said Tuesday while asking election officials to be on guard for hacking attempts as the midterms approach.”

Reuters: Russia draws up cases against Google for not removing banned info. “Russia’s communications regulator on Tuesday said it had drawn up two administrative cases against Alphabet Inc’s Google for failing to remove banned information from its YouTube video-sharing platform, accusing it of blatantly promoting false content.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Wisconsin La Crosse: Exploring Egypt: UWL professor, alums creating 3D database of ancient statues. “UWL’s David Anderson is bringing people as close to that experience as possible through photogrammetry — the science of using photographs to produce 3D immersive models. Anderson and two of his former students spent January 2022 working on a new project at the Mut Temple in Luxor, Egypt, photographing nearly 300 statues of the lioness-headed goddess Sekhmet. The photos will be stitched together into moveable, 3D models that can be viewed by anyone anywhere with a phone or computer.”

University of Georgia: Creating databases to help cure diseases worldwide. “Jessica Kissinger never set out to make databases. From the time she was a little girl, she wanted to be a biologist. Today, the University of Georgia professor not only studies deadly pathogens like malaria and Cryptosporidium (a waterborne parasite), but also is a driving force behind worldwide, groundbreaking collaborations on novel databases. During her time at UGA, she has received nearly $40 million in federal and private grants and contracts.”

Keys News: Bill shifts public notices away from newspapers. “The Florida Legislature has been roundly condemned this year for focusing on ‘culture war’ issues and ignoring real issues that affect constituents every day — things like property insurance, affordable housing and building safety issues. We agree. There’s another issue, though, that legislators should have ignored but didn’t: If HB 7049 is signed by Gov. DeSantis, it will allow local governments to place public notices somewhere on their own websites instead of in the local newspaper.” Good morning, Internet…

March 30, 2022 at 05:25PM
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