New researches

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Yandex Food Leak, Helping Ukrainian Refugees Stay in the United States, Ukrainian military Oscars, More: Ukraine Update, April 2, 2022

Yandex Food Leak, Helping Ukrainian Refugees Stay in the United States, Ukrainian military Oscars, More: Ukraine Update, April 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Bellingcat: Food Delivery Leak Unmasks Russian Security Agents. “Russian tech giant Yandex has blamed one of its employees for the hacking and subsequent leak of data from Yandex Food, a popular food delivery service in Russia. Among the many users affected are serving agents of Russia’s security services and military, who in several cases even ordered food to their places of work using their official email addresses.”

Deseret News: One month ago she woke up to a missile attack. Now, this teen is helping other Ukrainians stay in the U.S.. “On Thursday, Utah-based tech company SixFifty launched a new tool that effectively automates the incredibly long application for both temporary protected status and asylum. Founder and CEO of SixFifty Kimball Parker likens it to TurboTax — anyone looking to apply needs to enter personal information like a name and address, and the automated tool does the rest, translating the entries from Ukrainian to English. The applicant is later emailed a copy of their forms, whether it’s for asylum or temporary protected status. Parker says it’s best to apply with an attorney present, but it’s not necessary.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Deadline: Google Tells Publishers They May Be Demonetized For Certain Ukraine War Content. “A message sent late on Friday warned publishers that the demonetization extends to ‘claims that imply victims are responsible for their own tragedy or similar instances of victim blaming, such as claims that Ukraine is committing genocide or deliberately attacking its own citizens.’ Google also indicated that it may also demonetize for other reasons.”

CryptoPotato: Crypto Donations to Ukraine Top $100 Million. “As the war in Ukraine unfolds, the international cryptocurrency community has raised millions in donations to support its people. At present, the number of tallied funds raised for the invaded nation tops $100 million.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Jerusalem Post: In ‘Ukrainian military Oscars,’ Ukraine mocks Russia and promotes its army . “Ukraine has been using memes and humor on state social media accounts in its information warfare strategy during the Russia-Ukraine War, and its state social media accounts were notable prior to the war for their effective use of memes to advocate foreign policy positions. Many of the selections for the ‘Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Oscars’ utilizes pre-existing wartime memes and symbols used by Ukraine and its supporters.”

Grid: ‘A gruesome way of accounting’: The politics of body counts in Ukraine. “The use of casualties for political benefit has been particularly evident in this conflict — given that Ukraine has outside support in this element of the ‘information war’ and the extent to which Russia is doing everything possible to hide or minimize the truth of what is happening to its soldiers.”

Radio Free Asia: How Russia’s disinformation on Ukraine is spreading to democratic Taiwan, via China. “Russian and Chinese disinformation about Ukraine, which is ideologically linked to ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda on Taiwan, is breaking through into online discourse on the democratic island, a fact-checking organization based there has said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Global News: Canadian intelligence flags Russian disinformation campaigns amid Ukraine war. “Canada’s electronic espionage agency is warning that Russian state-backed actors are seeding online disinformation around the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. While the news comes as no surprise to those familiar with Russian information warfare tactics, publicly releasing an assessment based on classified intelligence gathering is an unusual step for the Communications Security Establishment.”

Kyodo News: Japan ramps up online messaging on Ukraine to prepare for hybrid war . “Japan’s Defense Ministry has been ramping up its messaging on social media over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it tries to prepare for ‘hybrid warfare,’ which combines conventional weapons and information warfare such as the manipulation of public opinion.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Task & Purpose: The real reason Ukraine’s information war is so successful. “Just as surprising as the current state of the ground war is how Ukraine has adeptly defended against Russian information warfare efforts. The current debate now is whether Ukraine has gone even further and achieved supremacy in the information domain; this is a reality that a month ago seemed unlikely, as Russia’s use of information and hybrid warfare to achieve its strategic objectives was regarded as vastly superior to that of Ukraine’s. The tables have turned. It’s also clear that Ukraine is engaging in propaganda to highlight its military successes, rather than its failures. Information doesn’t exist in a vacuum, however, and any praise or critique of the Ukrainian information warfare effort should consider that it is their current successes on the ground that are leading to victories in the information domain.”

The Lowy Institute: Ukraine: This isn’t the information war you were looking for. “The war in Ukraine has illustrated how cyber and information warfare are primarily grey zone tools and arenas. We should stop thinking of grey zone activity as an ill-defined period between or leading into kinetic conflict. Rather, the grey zone is the constant backdrop against which conflict occurs, interacting with events. It is characterised by noise, turbulence and confusion. Waiting for clarity or clear space – or a point of culmination – misinterprets the nature of the information environment.”

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April 2, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Social Media Research Toolkit, Caregiving for Autistic Children, The Futures of Democracy, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022

Social Media Research Toolkit, Caregiving for Autistic Children, The Futures of Democracy, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 2, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: New Toolkit Offers Social Media Insights To Conflict Mediators. “As digital dimensions reshape the scope and intensity of violent conflicts, a new toolkit helps peacemakers to analyse social media activities and better understand how these insights can complement dialogue and mediation efforts.” This description isn’t as helpful as it could be. The toolkit gives you an overview of acquiring data from social media platforms, from what’s possible to a really nice Case Studies section. Plenty of resources but not as specific as step-by-step instructions.

World Health Organization: WHO’s training for caregivers of children with autism goes online. “The online training includes pre-recorded information sessions on topics such as using everyday routines as opportunities for children to learn, engaging with children through play and problem-solving. Sessions to help caregivers improve their own well-being are another important feature of the course. Quick tip videos, quizzes and reminders are included to support sustained learning. The training has been set up in such a way that caregivers can learn at their own pace, fitting the course into their schedules in a way that works for them.”

Arizona State University: PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast. “PBS presents ‘The Futures of Democracy’ podcast, launching on March 30 and produced and hosted by Nicole Anderson, director of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University, and Julian Knowles, professor of media and music, and chair of media and communications at Macquarie University, Australia. In this bi-weekly podcast series, world-renowned experts will examine the emerging challenges of possible futures for democracy in the 21st century. The project reflects upon the health and operation of our democracy as a common good in an environment that has profoundly shifted over the past 20 years. ”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google Search’s new highly cited label helps you get to the source of a story. “Google is adding a new ‘highly cited’ label to search results frequently sourced by other publications, the company is announcing today. Anything from local news stories, to interviews, announcements, and even press releases will be eligible for the new label being added to the search result’s preview image, so long as other websites are linking to it. More info is also being added to Search’s ‘rapidly evolving topics’ and ‘About this Result’ notices.”

Washington Post: The first census records of four American presidents … almost. “On Friday, the Census Bureau released the individual records collected during the 1950 Census. (Bureau policy is to maintain the privacy of census documents for 72 years.) There has probably never been a census release in which so many living Americans can trace their own roots, given the size of the baby boom and the extended life expectancy that boomers enjoy. And that offers us an interesting historical challenge: digging up the first census records of our first three baby-boom presidents.”

USEFUL STUFF

ZDNet: Microsoft To Do vs Google Tasks: The best list manager app for you. “Two of the biggest tech companies in the world have created similar, yet philosophically different solutions to managing your daily tasks. We take a look at which solution is best for the widest variety of users.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Capitol Hill Seattle Blog: Google Street View has gone dark for parts of Capitol Hill. “Maybe it is testament to the area’s nightlife bonafides. Maybe it is a momentary glitch in massive scale tech. But for some reason, large stretches of Capitol Hill are being rendered in fuzzy, overexposed nighttime scenes in the Google Street View system. It’s not an April Fools’ Day prank. The murky scenes appeared in December following an update to the neighborhood’s imagery. A Google spokesperson initially responded to our inquiry about the issue weeks ago but we haven’t heard back from her since.”

BuzzFeed News: YouTube Is Facing An Identity Crisis As Its Creators Burn Out. “In the latter half of the 2010s, to be a prominent YouTuber was to consistently push the envelope of what you could create without getting banned, chasing the glorious high of a video that would get tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of views. YouTube financially rewarded creators who went viral. So creators pushed themselves to do bigger stunts, pull off weirder or more outrageous pranks, and became embroiled in seemingly constant hostile feuds with one another. This created one of the most toxic cultures on the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Found to Unfairly Block Rival Payments on India Store. “The Competition Commission of India found Google discriminated against developers in its Play store billing policy, according to documents seen by Bloomberg News. The findings come after a months-long investigation triggered by protests from developers, who’ve complained the U.S. internet giant charges an unfairly high fee in return for using Android app stores and its proprietary payments service.”

SC Media: Cybercriminals target mobile as consumers embrace digital transactions. “With 75% of potential cyberattacks targeting mobile digital transactions, it seems clear that bad actors are going after mobile financial transactions as they see those as easier and more lucrative, according to a cybercrime report from LexisNexis Solutions. The findings were based on an analysis of transaction data from the LexisNexis Digital Identity Network in the second half of last year, which analyzed 35.5 billion transactions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Baltimore Sun: Last year, Maryland started shielding certain arrest records from view. It’s putting the public in danger.. “Case Search, the Maryland judiciary’s online archive of court cases and ‘the primary way that the public may search for records of court cases,’ according to its website, goes even further to block information from the public. As of January 2021, criminal and traffic cases that prosecutors abandon or dismiss, or the defendant is acquitted or found not guilty, are suppressed from view in the archive, leaving no public record of the arrest. This goes beyond automatic expungement in that (1) a dismissed case instantly disappears and (2) any count not resulting in conviction also disappears.”

Simon Fraser University: Google autocomplete helps mislead public, legitimize conspiracy theorists: SFU study. “Google algorithms place innocuous subtitles on prominent conspiracy theorists, which mislead the public and amplify extremist views, according to Simon Fraser University researchers.” Good morning, Internet…

April 2, 2022 at 06:18PM
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Friday, April 1, 2022

1950 Census, Toronto Traffic Collisions, Colorado Reading Programs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 1, 2022

1950 Census, Toronto Traffic Collisions, Colorado Reading Programs, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Associated Press: ‘Gold mine’ of census records being released from 1950. “The records released by the National Archives and Records Administration will be indexed into a searchable website. The digitized, handwritten forms have information about household members’ names, race, sex, age, address, occupations, hours worked in the previous week, salaries, education levels, marital status and the country in which their parents were born. The website will include a tool allowing users to fix any incorrect names or add missing names.”

Toronto Star: Our most dangerous streets: Huge new collision database points to Toronto’s postwar suburbs. “A Star analysis of a huge new database of Toronto traffic collisions is shining a bright spotlight on a distinctly suburban problem. The new data set, much larger and more complete than any previously available records, offers a comprehensive account of nearly 500,000 collisions reported to Toronto police between 2014 and 2021, most mapped to the nearest intersection.”

Chalkbeat Colorado: Did this Colorado transparency law make it easier to understand how schools teach reading?. “Colorado has unveiled an online database showing what reading programs schools use in kindergarten through third grade, part of a broader state effort to improve how schools teach reading. At a time when lawmakers in many states want teaching materials publicly posted in order to limit what schools teach about race, gender, and history, the reading database is a very different example of curriculum transparency.”

University of Arkansas: Law Students Create National Survey of State Law Privileged Communications for Human Trafficking Service Providers. “[Savannah] Luna and [Alex] Millsap worked tirelessly to research and review existing resources and communications protected by state law privilege. The result is the National Survey of State Law Privileged Communications for Human Trafficking Service Providers, an extensive online tool accessible to all those who need it.”

EVENTS

Northeastern University: Panel: “Digital Archives, Anti-Racism, and Critical Metadata Practices”. “Please join us for a virtual panel hosted at Northeastern University on April 14, 12–2pm (Eastern), on the topic of antiracist metadata practices. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required, RSVP here. This two-hour virtual event brings together four leading scholars and archivists for a conversation on anti-racist metadata practices in digital archives.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Wyoming: UW’s Global Vegetation Project Develops Online Educational Materials. “The Global Vegetation Project, started in 2020 by the University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute, recently published K-12 educational materials on its website. The Global Vegetation Project was developed to fill a need for more resources to teach vegetation ecology online. The vision for this project is to curate a global database of open access vegetation photos that can be used by educators around the world.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

High Country News: How a California archive reconnected a New Mexico family with its Chinese roots . “When I met Aimee [Towi Mae Tang] on Zoom for the first time in February 2021, she showed me a wrinkled notebook full of anecdotes about her family history, the fruit of more than a decade of research…. She wondered if I, a Chinese immigrant working as a journalist in Albuquerque, could help answer some of her questions. I was new to Albuquerque, a sprawling city of a half-million people, few of whom looked like me, and I often felt lonely and out-of-place. I agreed to help her; perhaps, I thought, I might find my own sense of connection in the history of this family and my city’s long-vanished Chinatown.” A wonderful read.

Reuters: Taiwan puppeteers look to NFTs to keep their art alive. “A group of Taiwanese puppeteers are looking to use non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, to help bring their traditional art form into the modern era and keep it relevant for a new audience.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Russian-linked Android malware records audio, tracks your location. “A previously unknown Android malware has been linked to the Turla hacking group after discovering the app used infrastructure previously attributed to the threat actors. Turla is a Russian state-supported hacking group known for using custom malware to target European and American systems, primarily for espionage.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Food & Beverage: New study examines social media’s role in reducing food waste. “Social media campaigns can play a role in people’s food waste behaviours but work best when combined with other intervention tools, according to a new Fight Food Waste CRC report.”

Stanford Medicine Scope: Bringing principles of ethics to AI and drug design. “Over the years, researchers have used AI to analyze troves of biological data, scouring for differences between diseased and healthy cells and using the information to identify potential treatments…. But with AI’s potential in drug development comes a slew of ethical pitfalls — including biases in computer algorithms and the philosophical question of using AI without human mediation. This is where the field of biomedical ethics — a branch of ethics focused on the philosophical, social and legal issues in the context of medicine and life sciences — comes in.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NASA: What Sounds Captured by NASA’s Perseverance Rover Reveal About Mars. “The result of the recordings: a new understanding of strange characteristics of the Martian atmosphere, where the speed of sound is slower than on Earth – and varies with pitch (or frequency). On Earth, sounds typically travel at 767 mph (343 meters per second). But on Mars, low-pitched sounds travel at about 537 mph (240 meters per second), while higher-pitched sounds move at 559 mph (250 meters per second).” Good afternoon, Internet..

April 2, 2022 at 03:27AM
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Asset Whistleblowers’ Portal, Mapping Damaged Cultural Heritage, Verifing OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 1, 2022

Asset Whistleblowers’ Portal, Mapping Damaged Cultural Heritage, Verifing OSINT, More: Ukraine Update, April 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Agency on Corruption Prevention (Ukraine): Ukraine launches a new web portal for whistleblowers to report the assets of persons involved in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. “The Ukrainian Task Force on the Training, Freezing, and Confiscating Assets of those Involved in Russia’s War Crimes has launched a Whistleblower Portal on the Assets of Persons Involved in the Russian Aggression against Ukraine. If you have information about the property of the aforementioned people, We call on you to file a whistleblower report on their property abroad.” The organizers behind the portal ask that you only file reports about property that isn’t already covered by OSINT (news reports, etc.)

Chytomo: Russia has Already Damaged More than 100 Cultural Heritage Sites in Ukraine. “The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine has confirmed that more than cultural heritage sites in Ukraine have been damaged, Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko wrote on his Telegram channel.” A user-generated Google Map shows damaged sites.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: World heritage at risk amid Ukraine war, UNESCO says. “Dozens of valuable churches, historical sites and museums have been damaged by the war in Ukraine, the United Nations’ cultural agency said on Friday, adding that it was particularly worried about the northern city of Chernihiv…. UNESCO’s first, preliminary list of totally or partially damaged sites featured 29 religious sites, 16 historical buildings, four museums and four monuments, it said.”

Ars Technica: Mystery solved in destructive attack that knocked out >10k Viasat modems. “Viasat—the high-speed-satellite-broadband provider whose modems were knocked out in Ukraine and other parts of Europe earlier this month—has confirmed a theory by third-party researchers that new wiper malware with possible ties to the Russian government was responsible for the attack.”

The Guardian: ‘Embarrassing’: Russia scrambles to copy banned social media platforms. “As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, opportunistic developers have rolled out a suite of locally made social networks to replace services such as Instagram that have been blocked by the government, or YouTube, which is under growing pressure. Many appear to be hasty imitations or include obvious attempts at surveilling ordinary Russians, as the Kremlin tries to censor news about the war and further clamp down on dissent under the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Verifying Images of the War in Ukraine. “Before The Times can use footage from independent sources for its Ukraine reportage, its reporters and editors make sure they can verify its authenticity. The Visual Investigations team, which produces in-depth video journalism, such as how a U.S. military drone struck the wrong target and an analysis of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, finds and analyzes many of the files. Below, learn how Visual Investigations verifies content from Ukraine.”

The New Republic: Are These Satellite Images War Propaganda?. “Maxar boasts that the News Bureau is a vehicle for ‘social good and global transparency,’ offering services ‘that are powerful complements to good journalism, providing indisputable truth at a time when credibility is critical.’ The company’s images have indeed proven an effective tool; during the buildup to the war in Ukraine, they’ve served as an important counterpoint to Russian disinformation. But Maxar is by no means a neutral player when it comes to global conflict, and thus there are limits to what these images alone can tell us. Sometimes they may provide not an ‘indisputable truth’ but a distorted understanding of the story.”

Washington Post: From Russia with money: Silicon Valley distances itself from oligarchs. “A Putin youth leader-turned-investor once touted connections to wealthy Russians. Now she denies knowing ‘anyone.’”

Vice: Russian Oligarchs Keep Getting Screwed Over by Yacht Selfies. “Partying can be dangerous in the age of Instagram. Ask any oligarch. Their decades of fancy living at the highest possible level of luxury have turned out to be enormously useful for investigators tracking down the assets of Russia’s sanctioned elite. That’s because, in multiple cases, a few careless Instagram posts have blown up the best defense for their secret empires: Anonymity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Times: China accused of hacking Ukraine days before invasion. “China staged a huge cyberattack on Ukraine’s military and nuclear facilities in the build-up to Russia’s invasion, according to intelligence memos obtained by The Times. More than 600 websites belonging to the defence ministry in Kyiv and other institutions suffered thousands of hacking attempts which were co-ordinated by the Chinese government, according to Ukraine’s security service, the SBU.”

Reuters: U.S. targets Russia’s technology sector in fresh sanctions. “The United States on Thursday imposed fresh sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, targeting operators in the technology sector in an effort to prevent Moscow from evading sanctions and expanding Washington’s sanctions authorities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: How Russia’s unanswered propaganda led to the war in Ukraine. “Russian propaganda has grown bolder and unanswered for years, leading to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine while serving to mislead and deceive Russians. The democratic world now appears to have united and become more cohesive in its support of Ukrainians, strengthening Ukraine. Russia, meantime, is weakened. But the war could have been avoided altogether if the West had taken more decisive action much earlier.”

April 1, 2022 at 10:55PM
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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…

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
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/WjqwUmS