New researches

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Facebook Roundup, April 14, 2022

Facebook Roundup, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Queensland: UQ sheds light on campaign spending trends. “The social media spending trends of candidates seeking to secure votes in the upcoming Federal election will be highlighted by a data dashboard created by University of Queensland academics. Experts in political and computer sciences have joined forces to build the UQ Election Ad Data Project to map and analyse data on Facebook election advertising during the 2022 campaign.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Mark Zuckerberg Ends Election Grants. “Mark Zuckerberg, who donated nearly half a billion dollars to election offices across the nation in 2020 and drew criticism from conservatives suspicious of his influence on the presidential election, won’t be making additional grants this year, a spokesman for the Facebook founder confirmed on Tuesday.”

Engadget: Meta will close a loophole in its doxxing policy in response to the Oversight Board. “Meta has agreed to change some of its rules around doxxing in response to recommendations from the Oversight Board. The company had first asked the Oversight Board to help shape its rules last June, saying the policy was ‘significant and difficult.’ The board followed up with 17 recommendations for the company in February, which Meta has now weighed in on.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: Facebook takes down Brazil environmental disinformation network with ties to military. “Facebook owner Meta Platforms said on Thursday it had removed a network of social media accounts with ties to the Brazilian military that posed as fake nonprofits to play down the dangers of deforestation. Although the individuals involved in the network were active military personnel, Meta’s investigation did not find enough evidence to establish if they were following orders or acting independently, said a person with knowledge of the matter.”

Ars Technica: Project “Zuck Bucks”: Meta plans virtual coin after cryptocurrency flop. “Meta has drawn up plans to introduce virtual coins, tokens and lending services to its apps, as Facebook’s parent company pursues its finance ambitions despite the collapse of a project to launch a cryptocurrency. The company, led by chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is seeking alternative revenue streams and new features that can attract and retain users, as popularity falls for its main social networking products such as Facebook and Instagram—a trend that threatens its $118 billion-a-year ad-based business model.”

Washington Post: Some women shared the messages they get on Instagram. It’s not pretty.. “Women on Instagram are exposed to an ‘epidemic of misogynist abuse,’ according to a new report… In one shocking statistic, the CCDH found that Instagram didn’t act on 90 percent of abuse sent via direct message to the women in this study, despite the messages being reported to moderators.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Instagram beyond pics: Sexual harassers, crypto crooks, ID thieves. “A platform for everyone to seamlessly share their best moments online, Instagram is slowly turning into a mecca for the undesirables—from sexual harassers to crypto ‘investors’ helping you ‘get rich fast.’ The Gram today has a dark side that goes beyond fancy filters and reels. The network is being actively abused by shady marketers to promote obscene content or by Bitcoin investors with dubious whereabouts.”

New York Times: Adults or Sexually Abused Minors? Getting It Right Vexes Facebook. “The company reports millions of photos and videos of suspected child sexual abuse each year. But when ages are unclear, young people are treated as adults and the images are not reported to the authorities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Streetsblog NYC: Opinion: Fake Plates are Hiding in Plain Sight on Facebook, Yet Authorities Do Little . “For a certain kind of person, license plates are a pain. If you want to drag race, leave the scene of a crash, avoid bridge tolls, park illegally, or ignore speed cameras, license plates mean you can get busted. That’s where fake temporary tags come in. These paper license plates are almost totally unregulated. The NYPD is well aware of the problem — Det. Thomas Burke appeared on NBC News last year to say that the plates even facilitate drive-by shootings. The Port Authority, according to that report, complained to eBay and Craigslist, asking them to quit selling fake tags. But today, the market has moved to Facebook Marketplace and fellow Meta app Instagram.”

Evening Standard: Instagram ‘failing to protect women in the public eye from misogynist abuse’. “A study by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which included input from several women in the public eye such as actor Amber Heard and broadcaster Rachel Riley, suggests that Instagram was failing to remove accounts that sent abuse to women, in violation of the site’s rules.”

CNBC: Meta’s A.I. exodus: Top talent quits as the lab tries to keep pace with rivals. “At least four prominent members of Meta AI have departed in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter and LinkedIn analysis. Between them, the scientists have published dozens of academic papers in world-renowned journals and made multiple breakthroughs that Meta has used to enhance Facebook and Instagram.”

Toronto Star: Social media is too important to public discourse to let Facebook call the shots. “Social media takes social discourse and similarly externalizes it, placing the conversations, expressions, pronouncements and debates into the space of the web. The public sphere is now no longer quite an abstract idea of what is being said by the chattering classes, but a collection of things happening on screens. It all sounds a bit abstract, but more plainly: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and more own a big chunk of public discourse. The effects of that are clear: an intensified, polarized political discourse, and a frazzled attention economy that can be upended by a bizarre event at the Oscars or whatever is exercising people that week.”

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April 14, 2022 at 07:28PM
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Backup Ukraine, Conflict Misinformation, Worldwide Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 13, 2022

Backup Ukraine, Conflict Misinformation, Worldwide Disinformation, More: Ukraine Update, April 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IFL Science: Project Aims To Digitally Preserve Ukraine’s Landmarks And Artifacts Threatened By War. “Called ‘Backup Ukraine,’ the non-profit project is in partnership with the Danish National Committee of the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Blue Shield Denmark, Polycam, and a VICE media group Using the Polycam app, people can capture data of cultural heritage relics and sites using their camera, then use the app to create three-dimensional renderings of the works, digitally preserving them away from the bombs and missiles.”

This is from the end of February but I completely missed it and haven’t seen mentions of it anywhere. The Social Media Lab at Ryerson University: Introducing The Russia-Ukraine ConflictMisinfo.org Dashboard . “The dashboard is an information management tool for monitoring online misinformation and disinformation about the Russia-Ukraine war. It tracks and visualizes debunked claims from hundreds of trusted fact-checkers based around the world, such as AFP, Reuters, and others. The dashboard is available in English, Ukrainian and Russian.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: TikTok created an alternate universe just for Russia. “Last month, as many tech companies sided with Ukraine over Russia’s invasion, TikTok appeared to follow suit by suspending new video uploads and live streams from Russia. The company said it made the move to protect Russian users from the country’s new laws criminalizing criticism of its military. But the wildly popular, Chinese-owned social media app also walled off Russian users from seeing any posts at all from outside the country, including from Ukraine — effectively creating a second, censored version of its platform. For the tens of millions of Russians on TikTok, the outside world has fallen silent.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Conversation: Libraries around the world are helping safeguard Ukrainian books and culture. “Librarians and libraries across the world play a role in preserving and sharing Ukraine’s cultural history. They acquire western observations about Ukraine or material printed on its territories. And people can learn a lot from these resources.”

Deutsche Welle: How Russia is waging a successful propaganda war in Latin America. “Russian state media were a major force in Latin America before the war in Ukraine. Promoting populist content to lure their audience, they are an established presence — not just in countries with authoritarian regimes.”

New York Times: Russian Tech Industry Faces ‘Brain Drain’ as Workers Flee. “By March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country and that an additional 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus of workers from Russia, but their departure could have an even more lasting impact on the country’s economy.”

Campaign US: It’s our brand: Ukraine’s government turns nation’s bravery into biggest cultural export. “Throughout Vladimir Putin’s bloody attack, one beacon of light cast across all the horrors is the admirable bravery of the Ukrainian nation. So, while other countries base their economies on natural resources like oil, The Office of the President of Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine intend to make bravery Ukraine’s biggest cultural export.”

Slate: The People Who Believe Russia’s Disinformation. “Russia has been running propaganda campaigns since the Cold War. What does feel new is the preponderance of true information available—and perhaps equally importantly, the speed at which it spreads. Social media, satellite imagery, and 24/7 reporting are directly refuting Russian disinformation in real time. That news is only reaching some people, however. It’s worth stepping back to consider the various audiences for Russia’s disinformation campaigns and examine where they’re working and where they’re not.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Business Insider: Ukrainian prosecutor investigating potential Bucha war crimes says that Russians left behind a computer server that could help identify perpetrators. “The chief regional prosecutor in Bucha, Ukraine, told the New York Times that Russian soldiers left behind a computer server with potentially damning information as investigators are zeroing in on killings and mass graves in the city.”

National Post: Russia’s disinformation campaigns now targeting CAF members, including doctored pictures claiming Canadian military fighting in Ukraine: CSE. “Russia is spreading doctored pictures falsely claiming Canadian military members are currently fighting on the front line in Ukraine as part of a new disinformation campaign targeting Canada, says our country’s digital spy agency.”

The Verge: Ukraine says it stopped a Russian cyberattack on its power grid. “An attack on Ukraine’s power grid was foiled by cybersecurity analysts and officials, as reported by Reuters. After investigating the methods and software used by the attackers, cybersecurity firm ESET says that it was likely carried out by a hacking group called Sandworm, which The Record reports allegedly has ties to the Russian government.”

WIRED: Russia Is Leaking Data Like a Sieve. “Since Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s borders at the end of February, colossal amounts of information about the Russian state and its activities have been made public. The data offers unparalleled glimpses into closed-off private institutions, and it may be a gold mine for investigators, from journalists to those tasked with investigating war crimes. Broadly, the data comes in two flavors: information published proactively by Ukranian authorities or their allies, and information obtained by hacktivists. Hundreds of gigabytes of files and millions of emails have been made public.”

April 14, 2022 at 06:29PM
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Banned Books, Taxation Transparency, South African History Archive, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022

Banned Books, Taxation Transparency, South African History Archive, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New York Public Library: Books For All: NYPL Supports the Right to Read Banned Books. “The New York Public Library’s mission is rooted in the principles of free and open access to knowledge, information, and all perspectives—in essence, the right to read. In light of recent, prominent efforts to ban books in communities across the United States, we have now partnered with publishers Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, and Scholastic to make a small selection of commonly banned or challenged books available to anyone who chooses to read them—all for free via our e-reader app, SimplyE.”

ProPublica: America’s Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed. “Secret IRS files reveal the top US income-earners and how their tax rates vary more than their incomes. Tech titans, hedge fund managers and heirs dominate the list, while the likes of Taylor Swift and LeBron James didn’t even make the top 400.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Daily Maverick: South African History Archive relaunched at Wits. “On 6 April, the South African History Archive was officially relaunched at Wits university by its Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi. It will form part of an Archives and Research Hub that will give concerted attention to social justice archives. The devastating fire last year at UCT brought the general crisis of archives sharply into focus and it is clear that universities and civil society will need to be more active in this space.”

Search Engine Land: Yelp adds searchable eco-friendly business attributes. “In addition to being highlighted in Yelp’s search results, the new sustainability attributes will appear on Yelp business pages. Yelp today announced a new addition to its platform: searchable, eco-friendly business attributes. It is free for businesses to add these attributes.”

PR Newswire: OCLC and Google now connect web searchers directly to library collections (PRESS RELEASE). “OCLC and Google are working together to link directly from books discovered through Google Search to print book records in the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries. This feature is part of Google’s ongoing effort to connect people to their local libraries through Google Search. The initial phase of this new program connects people using Google Search to the catalogs of hundreds of U.S. libraries whose books are cataloged in WorldCat, a worldwide database of information about library collections, and made available for discovery on the web.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: How to send a voice message in any chat app, even if you think you can’t . “There’s something uniquely appealing about sending voice messages through chat apps. Not only are they more intimate and personal than typed text, they’re also more permanent than an audio or video call—the recipient can listen to them again and again…. With that in mind, perhaps you should be sending more of these personalized, informal audio snippets that can say just about anything (whether you’re arranging a party or despairing about a sports game, a voice message works). Many messaging apps now support voice recordings as standard, and there are workarounds for the rest.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $41.39 billion . “Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter TWTR.N for $41.39 billion, a regulatory filing showed on Thursday.”

Norfolk Southern: Norfolk Southern donates Norfolk and Western Railway archives, $750,000 to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. “The collection dates to the 1840s and includes thousands of photographs and glass plate negatives, as well as business records, annual reports, blueprints, plans, bridge drawings, advertisements, portraits, and three-dimensional artifacts from predecessor railroads that together provide a fascinating look into the growth of rail transportation across the eastern United States. The company will also donate $750,000 to support the collection in perpetuity.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sixth Tone: China’s Judicial Transparency Project Faces an Uncertain Future. “In 2013, China’s Supreme People’s Court officially launched China Judgements Online, a free online database containing decisions from all levels of China’s legal system, from local courts all the way up to the SPC itself. By 2020, the database was home to more than 100 million documents…. But now, that may be coming to an end. Zhou Yuzhong, a lawyer, found that courts uploaded slightly more than 100,000 judicial documents in 2021, a nearly 80% drop from the previous year. Meanwhile, a number of rulings have quietly disappeared from the database.”

Bloomberg: Google Tightens Philippines Apps Review to Curb Loan Sharks. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google will tighten approval for personal loan apps made available in the Philippines to fight illegal and abusive lending practices, the nation’s Securities and Exchange Commission said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Civil Liberties Groups Urge Social Media Platforms to Better Protect Free Flow of Information in Crisis Zones. “Whether in Ukraine or in other crisis zones around the globe, social media platforms have a duty to ensure that people have access to the free flow of life-saving information, according to a statement issued today by 31 international human rights and civil liberties organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).”

Stanford News: What to know about disinformation and how to address it . “[Eileen] Donahoe and Stanford scholars from across the social sciences are studying the threats disinformation poses to democracy and also other areas of public and private life, such as health and education. In many instances, researchers are providing specific recommendations for what governments, digital platforms and the public can do to counter its deleterious effects. Here are some of those findings and recommendations, as well as insight into the role disinformation played during the global pandemic and more recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Good morning, Internet…

April 14, 2022 at 05:26PM
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Wednesday, April 13, 2022

FIFA+, National Recording Registry, Woodstock Memories, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 13, 2022

FIFA+, National Recording Registry, Woodstock Memories, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Hollywood Reporter: FIFA Launching Soccer-Focused Streaming Platform FIFA+. “The new ad-funded service will include live matches, a huge archive of World Cup clips and games, plus original content, including feature docs and series, with hopes that it will become the ‘undisputed destination of football content.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NPR: The Library of Congress is preserving these major historical recordings for posterity. “When the World Trade Center was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, staffers at the city’s largest public radio station struggled to report the news — not because their transmitter was atop one of the Twin Towers. But our colleagues at WNYC persevered and managed to keep New Yorkers informed throughout the horror and chaos of that terrible day and provide the first eyewitness accounts of the attack. Now, WNYC’s 9/11 broadcasts will be archived in the National Recording Registry. Every year since 2000, when the Registry was first established by an act of Congress, the Library of Congress picks 25 titles to be preserved for posterity.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Sullivan County Democrat: Preserving Memories of The Woodstock Music & Art Fair. “The Museum at Bethel Woods, the National Register Historic Site of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair, is working on compiling an archive of oral histories of Woodstock from the people who experienced it firsthand. The Museum is asking festival alumni to connect, and arrange for their stories to be heard and recorded. The goal is for these combined narratives to tell the untold story of the festival, preserving them for generations to come.”

Reuters: Google to invest $9.5 billion in U.S. offices, data centers this year. “Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Wednesday it plans to invest about $9.5 billion across its U.S. offices and data centers this year, up from $7 billion last year. Google said the investment will create at least 12,000 full-time jobs in 2022 and focus on data centers in several states including Nevada, Nebraska and Virginia.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

University of Missouri: MU professor says Google v. Oracle case leaves fair use ‘muddy’. “After more than a decade of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Google did not violate copyright laws by including 11,500 lines of code from Java (which is owned by Oracle) in its own Android operating system. It was the first time the court updated fair use precedents since 1994 and one of the few cases specifically addressing how these laws intersect with software development. Now, new research from Gary Myers, Earl F. Nelson Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law, is urging another look at the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision. He said the ruling could introduce uncertainty when deciding how new software can build on what came before.”

WIRED: The Tricky Aftermath of Source Code Leaks. “Businesses, governments, and other institutions have been plagued by ransomware attacks, business email compromise, and an array other breaches in recent years. Researchers say, though, that while source code leaks may seem catastrophic, and certainly aren’t good, they typically aren’t the worst-case scenario of a criminal data breach.”

Associated Press: Lawsuit accuses Elon Musk of breaking law while nearly doubling Twitter stock. “Elon Musk’s huge Twitter investment took a new twist Tuesday with the filing of a lawsuit alleging that the colorful billionaire illegally delayed disclosing his stake in the social media company so he could buy more shares at lower prices.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SciTechDaily: When It Comes to AI, Can We Ditch the Datasets? Using Synthetic Data for Training Machine-Learning Models. “A machine-learning model for image classification that’s trained using synthetic data can rival one trained on the real thing, a study shows.”

Phys .org: What our negative comments and consumer gripes on social media reveal about us. “We’ve examined the issue of consumer anger on social media because, as marketing academics, we’re interested in how companies handle the excessive toxicity that comes with corporate social media engagement. But our research also helps explain the causes of this culture of complaint. Our findings point to this behaviour meeting two basic psychological needs.”

University at Buffalo: These stunning 3D models of coral reefs are a crucial research tool. “Where do coral larvae, called planulae, like to settle? What seascapes help youngsters of different coral species flourish? And do varying species compete for the same microhabitats/spots on the reef? To study these questions, University at Buffalo scientist Ángela Martínez Quintana has created stunning 3D digital models that visualize the surface of coral reefs in painstaking detail. And these artful re-creations aren’t just beautiful: They’re also filled with data on the distribution of young corals, known as recruits, that scientists are analyzing.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 14, 2022 at 12:51AM
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Mitsuo Aoki, Food is Medicine Massachusetts, Book of Kells, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, April 13, 2022

Mitsuo Aoki, Food is Medicine Massachusetts, Book of Kells, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, April 13, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Hawaii News: Virtual access to works of the “Cosmic Dancer,” Mitsuo Aoki. “A Preservation & Access Grant awarded by the Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities in 2021 with matching funds from the Mits Aoki Legacy Foundation supported the digitization of Aoki’s papers and videos for the purpose of increasing access and preservation of the resources. The digitization of these collections provides preservation and significantly increases access to the personal and professional papers of a man whose contributions exceeded academia and touched the lives of thousands through his spiritual guidance through a process of melding Buddhism and Christianity.”

HealthLeaders: Food Is Medicine Initiative Launched In Massachusetts. “The Massachusetts Food is Medicine Service Inventory website has been launched to connect individuals, healthcare providers, and community-based organizations to Food is Medicine services in their communities.” “Food is Medicine” seems pretty self-explanatory but if you want more information on this initiative, check out the Food Is Medicine Coalition Web site.

My Modern Met: You Can Now Explore All of ‘The Book of Kells’ for Free Online. “When people think of Ireland, the rolling green hills, Guinness beer, and twisted Celtic knots might be what comes to mind. The small island nation has a storied history of resistance to oppression and perseverance through famine, but the most iconic piece of Irish history dates to the early medieval period. The Book of Kells—held in the library of Trinity College Dublin—is a masterpiece of medieval illumination and manuscript craft. The legendary volume is now available in new high-resolution scans for free online browsing.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: DuckDuckGo announces a new privacy-focused Mac web browser. “DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine with the weird name, already offers web browsers for iOS and Android and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. But on Tuesday, the company announced that it is getting into desktop browsers, too. DuckDuckGo for Mac is available starting today as an invite-only beta that ‘is designed to be used as an everyday browser that truly protects your privacy.'”

Engadget: Snapchat lets news outlets automatically share articles as stories. “People have used social media as a news source for years, and Snapchat hopes to make the most of that reality. As Axios reports, Snapchat has launched a Dynamic Stories test feature that lets media outlets automatically share news articles as Stories on the Discover platform through their existing RSS feeds.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

City of Boston: City Archives Awarded Recordings At Risk Grant. “The Boston City Archives is thrilled to announce that it has been selected as the recipient of a $39,155 Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. The grant will fund ‘Preserving Boston’s Voices: Digitizing the Boston 200 Community Oral History Collection’, a project to digitize oral history recordings of Boston residents collected as part of the Boston 200 Neighborhood History Program in the 1970s.”

Fast Company: How to design the most controversial button on the internet and not screw it up. “In high-stakes moments—like when Trump tweeted praise for insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol—edited tweets need to be understood at a glance, and burying changes deep in the UI doesn’t make a lot of sense for a platform that’s designed to be skimmed.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Frank James, suspect in Brooklyn subway shooting, discussed violence in YouTube clips. “One of the photos police shared of James was a screenshot of a video from the ‘prophet of truth 88’ YouTube channel, a platform where he appears to go on lengthy, profanity-filled rants and express controversial views. He talks about death in several videos and the desire to “exterminate” certain groups of people in one clip.”

WIRED: Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Web’s Biggest Child Abuse Site. “They thought their payments were untraceable. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The untold story of the case that shredded the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity.” As you might imagine from the headline, this article includes disturbing content.

SecurityWeek: The Art Exhibition That Fools Facial Recognition Systems. “The most boring art exhibition in the world has been launched online. It comprises just 100 images of the same painting: 100 copies of the Mona Lisa. But all is not what it seems – and that’s the whole point. Humans see 100 identical Mona Lisa images; but facial recognition systems see 100 different celebrities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: Algorithms, lies, and social media. “Protecting citizens from manipulation and misinformation, and protecting democracy itself, requires a redesign of the current online ‘attention economy’ that has misaligned the interests of platforms and consumers. The redesign must restore the signals that are available to consumers and the public in conventional markets: users need to know what platforms do and what they know, and society must have the tools to judge whether platforms act fairly and in the public interest. Where necessary, regulation must ensure fairness.”

PsyPost: Reading on a smartphone promotes overactivity in the prefrontal cortex and lowers reading comprehension, study finds. “A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports lends support to a body of research suggesting that reading on electronic devices reduces comprehension. The study found that reading on a smartphone promotes overactivity in the prefrontal cortex, less frequent sighing, and lower reading comprehension.” Good morning, Internet…

April 13, 2022 at 07:53PM
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Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Trenton Computer Festival, WordFence, Bypassing Content Blocks, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 12, 2022

Trenton Computer Festival, WordFence, Bypassing Content Blocks, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Hackaday: Trenton Computer Festival Makes YouTube Debut. “Like many events, TCF was forced to go virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant for the first time all the talks were actually recorded. Over the weekend, the organizers announced that all of the talks and demonstrations from 2020 and 2021 had been uploaded to a new YouTube channel, opening them up to a global audience…. thanks to the incredible amount of content that is squeezed into each year’s event, the TCF YouTube channel is currently playing host to more than 80 presentations that run the gamut from live musical performances to deep-dives on the Apollo Guidance Computer and quantum computing.”

USEFUL STUFF

Search Engine Journal: How to Block, Scrapers, Hackers and Spammers with Wordfence. “Wordfence is a popular WordPress security plugin. Among the features are scanner that monitors for hacked files and a firewall with regularly updated rules that proactively blocks malicious bots. There’s also a useful feature tucked away in the tool that makes user-configurable firewall rules available that can supercharge your ability to block hackers, scrapers and spammers.” These are powerful techniques that look like they could go powerfully wrong, so proceed with caution.

MakeUseOf: How to Bypass Blocked Sites and Internet Restrictions. “It doesn’t matter where in the world you live; there are times when you’re going to come across blocked sites and a restricted internet. If you come across an internet block, don’t panic. Keep reading to find out more how to bypass barred sites and internet restrictions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Nepali Times: Saving Nepal’s archives from oblivion. “In June 2019, a team from the National Archives reached Taplejung in eastern Nepal to find decaying handwritten parchments, centuries-old manuscripts, and stone inscriptions all lying abandoned…. The initial plan for the Archives team was just to copy the text from two historic bronze bells in front of the Nageshvar Temple, but they decided to stay for three more days, digitising 77 historic documents and 95 letters. The images of those documents are now in the digital archives, even though the originals have been lost. And these were most likely just a tiny proportion of all the material still out there waiting to be discovered.”

The Guardian: The rise of TikTok: why Facebook is worried about the booming social app. “TikTok is on track to overtake the global advertising scale of Twitter and Snapchat combined this year, and to match mighty YouTube within two years, as trendsetting teens and young adults make it the hottest social app of the moment – and Facebook is worried.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: FTC Chair Pushes Privacy Rules; Calls for Limits on Data Collection. “The Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan said it is time the agency, which is tasked with enforcing consumer privacy protections, ‘reassess’ rules around what data companies can collect about consumers and how they secure that data.”

Route Fifty: North Carolina First State to Prohibit Agencies From Paying Ransoms. “State and local government agencies in North Carolina may not submit payments to—or even communicate with—someone who has encrypted their IT systems. Other states are considering similar legislation.”

Krebs on Security: RaidForums Gets Raided, Alleged Admin Arrested. “The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said today it seized the website and user database for RaidForums, an extremely popular English-language cybercrime forum that sold access to more than 10 billion consumer records stolen in some of the world’s largest data breaches since 2015. The DOJ also charged the alleged administrator of RaidForums — 21-year-old Diogo Santos Coelho, of Portugal — with six criminal counts, including conspiracy, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: From Dalí to Picasso, a Museum With a Masterpiece Collection Partially Reopens. “The vaults above inundated basements contain the region’s largest public collection of Pablo Picasso’s works, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of paintings and drawings by masters such as Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Lucian Freud. Nearby, 700 sculptures by iconic artists, including Salvador Dalí and Fernando Botero, are crammed in a large room to protect them against encroaching humidity. This is Venezuela’s Caracas Museum of Modern Art, or MACC, once a regional reference for cultural education, that has fallen victim to economic collapse and authoritarianism.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 13, 2022 at 01:49AM
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Safety Guide for Journalists, Russian Shell Companies, German Academic Exchange Service, More: Ukraine Update, April 12, 2022

Safety Guide for Journalists, Russian Shell Companies, German Academic Exchange Service, More: Ukraine Update, April 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Union of Journalists of Ukraine: NUJU in cooperation with UNESCO and RSF adapted in Ukrainian the famous Safety Guide for Journalists. “In response to the war in Ukraine and the additional dangers for Ukrainian and foreign journalists, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), in partnership with UNESCO, prepared a Ukrainian-language adaptation of the Safety Guide for Journalists. This handbook offers practical advice to reporters going to high-risk areas, where they should be ready for a wide range of dangers that may include armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters and street protests.”

The Irish Times: Pandora Papers: New release reveals more than 800 Russians behind secret companies. “The data includes newly discovered details about companies tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s allies and other Russian political figures who shelter assets behind opaque businesses that can also be used to escape global sanctions. The database now contains information on more than 800,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts, and links to people and companies in more than 200 countries and territories, which can be publicly searched and downloaded.”

The PIE: Germany: DAAD launches platform for Ukrainians. “The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has launched an online platform aiming to help 100,000 Ukrainian students and researchers continue their studies or academic careers in Germany.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: China’s Echoes of Russia’s Alternate Reality Intensify Around the World. “China’s officials and state media are increasingly parroting Russian propaganda organs on the war in Ukraine, undercutting U.S. and European diplomatic efforts, even after the killings in Bucha.”

USEFUL STUFF

Poynter: These viral videos are not from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “For the past few weeks, we’ve watched the crisis in Ukraine unfold on social media. But misinformation follows a crisis. We’re seeing a ton of false or out-of-context photos and videos going viral online, claiming to show what’s really happening in Ukraine. Here are three methods you can use to fact-check these types of posts, both on desktop and mobile.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Estonian World: Estonian startup opens e-classrooms for Ukrainian refugees. “Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Estonian education entrepreneur Maria Rahamägi is using her ed-tech platform to bring Ukrainian students and teachers some semblance of normalcy, by opening online classrooms where they can find solace in community, continue to forge their own identities and reassert their right to self-determination.”

WIRED: The Race to Archive Social Posts That May Prove Russian War Crimes. “IN EARLY APRIL, as Ukraine started to regain control of Bucha and other small towns northwest of Kyiv, appalling imagery began to spread on Telegram and other social networks. Photos and videos showed bodies in the streets and anguished survivors describing loved ones, civilians, killed by Russian soldiers. In Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, attorney Denys Rabomizo carefully built an archive of the gruesome evidence. His aim: to preserve social media posts that could help prove Russian war crimes.”

BBC: Putin’s mysterious Facebook ‘superfans’ on a mission. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned in many parts of the world, but a network of Facebook groups run by people with obscure motivations would like to change perceptions of the country’s leader.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Tech Bans Hurt Russian Dissidents More Than They Help Ukraine. “Sprawling sanctions from Western governments have sought to isolate the Russian economy and punish the regime. While these measures are unprecedented, corporate sanctions have gone further still, suspending business in ways that go far beyond what the law requires or what governments intended…. But with many of the tech company restrictions, in particular, it’s Russian dissidents, not oligarchs, who are getting hurt.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Register: Russia cobbles together supercomputing platform to wean off foreign suppliers. “Russia is adapting to a world where it no longer has access to many technologies abroad with the development of a new supercomputer platform that can use foreign x86 processors such as Intel’s in combination with the country’s homegrown Elbrus processors.”

Washington Post Editorial Board: Opinion: Social media shouldn’t let China do Russia’s dirty work. “Social media sites chose fairly early on in the war to side against the aggressor, and made an impact by preventing RT, Sputnik and their cohorts from disseminating lies. The sites didn’t make this decision according to any broader principle about how to treat state-controlled media on their platforms. Yet China’s insistence on telling the more than 1 billion followers its channels command on Facebook that neo-Nazis running Ukraine bombed a children’s hospital, or that NATO is to blame for the fighting, offers an opportunity for just this sort of bright-line rule.”

MSNBC: Why Russia doesn’t need its lies about Ukraine to be believable. “I’d assumed photos and videos documenting the atrocities would be censored in Russia, that President Vladimir Putin’s regime would pretend the video doesn’t exist rather than confront the magnitude of its crimes….I was wrong. Rather than hide the images from the Russian people, the government has been working overtime to advance a much more chilling narrative, one aimed at persuading people not to believe their eyes.”

April 12, 2022 at 05:52PM
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