New researches

Monday, April 18, 2022

Mapping Bird Biodiversity, Tech Industry Influence, My Community Census Explorer, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, April 18, 2022

Mapping Bird Biodiversity, Tech Industry Influence, My Community Census Explorer, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, April 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Nationwide maps of bird species can help protect biodiversity. “Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison developed the maps at a fine-enough resolution to help conservation managers focus their efforts where they are most likely to help birds — in individual counties or forests, rather than across whole states or regions. The maps span the contiguous U.S. and predict the diversity of birds that live in a given area, related by traits such as nesting on the ground or being endangered. Those predictions are based on both detailed observations of birds and environmental factors that affect bird ranges, such as the degree of forest cover or temperature in an area.”

Radboud University: New digital tool reveals spheres of influence of big tech companies. “These companies bring innovations to these domains, but their involvement also results in all kinds of new dependencies, which we are often completely unaware of and which are inadequately regulated. The new tool reveals how far this influence goes and offers both a visual representation and a database with examples of activities of tech companies that are reaching beyond their original spheres of influence.”

US Census Bureau: Census Bureau Launches New My Community Explorer Tool. “Today the U.S. Census Bureau launched its latest data explorer tool, My Community Explorer (MCE). MCE is an interactive map-based tool that highlights demographic and socioeconomic data that measure inequality and can help inform data-based solutions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: WhatsApp Is Launching Community Chats, Adding Emoji Message Reactions To Texts. “WhatsApp is taking a page from Telegram’s book with new Community group chats, expanding voice calls to handle up to 32 participants and adding emoji reactions to messages.”

Engadget: Opera’s crypto browser is now available on iOS. “Opera launched its dedicated ‘Crypto Browser’ into beta back in January, promising to make Web3 as accessible as any Web2 website. The company released the browser for Windows, Mac and Android users back then, but the version for iOS devices still wasn’t ready for rollout. Now, Opera has announced that the Crypto Browser for iPhones and iPads is out and available for download from its website.”

USEFUL STUFF

SlashGear: You Probably Didn’t Know This iPhone Photo Search Hack. “Anyone with a large photo library on their iPhone knows it can be a bit of a hassle to find one specific image quickly, even if photos are grouped into folders. But it turns out iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS 12 Monterey do have a workaround for it via Live Text, though Apple doesn’t seem interested in advertising this feature. In a way, Apple’s silence about Live Text makes sense, as the function isn’t particularly accurate at the moment.”

How-To Geek: How to Make LibreOffice Look Like Microsoft Office. “If you’re a longtime Microsoft Office user, you might find trying out LibreOffice difficult because of the foreign interface. To make things more comfortable, you can give LibreOffice a look that’s similar to MS Office with a few simple tweaks.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: GitHub: Attacker breached dozens of orgs using stolen OAuth tokens. “GitHub revealed today that an attacker is using stolen OAuth user tokens (issued to Heroku and Travis-CI) to download data from private repositories. Since this campaign was first spotted on April 12, 2022, the threat actor has already accessed and stolen data from dozens of victim organizations using Heroku and Travis-CI-maintained OAuth apps, including npm.”

Techdirt: Disney Gets Fans Who Made Their Own ‘Club Penguin’ Online Game Arrested Over Copyright. “In the pantheon of aggressive intellectual property bullies, Disney certainly would be one of the companies that would be competing to be Zeus. Disney has simply never seen an opportunity for IP enforcement that it hasn’t acted upon, be it copyright, trademark, or anywhere in between. More to the point for this post, Disney also has this fun mindset that even if it isn’t going to use an IP it owns, it doesn’t like it if anyone else does, either…. Remember Club Penguin?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: You—Yes, You!—Would Be a Better Owner for Twitter Than Elon Musk. “Twitter’s ownership problem began long before Musk’s machinations. The conversations and communities that Twitter hosts have always been, legally at least, commodities to be bought and sold. The prospect of handing this essential piece of democratic infrastructure to the world’s richest man is a symptom of that underlying design.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Clearer disclosure of political advertising needed on social media. “While all political ads on television, radio and in print are required to clearly disclose who has paid for them, it is much harder for the Australian Electoral Commission to monitor the fine line between political content and advertising on social media. The sheer volume of political content on social media is astonishing: the Australian politics hashtag, #auspol, on TikTok has generated 447 million views alone. And Twitter is a constant stream of political wise-cracks, putdowns and promos.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Harvard International Review: The Space Race Expands: Why African Nations Are Shooting for the Stars. “Egypt’s Nilesat 101 launched in 1998, providing multimedia services to over five million homes in the region. Since then, over 40 satellites have taken to the stars, with more than 20 in the last five years. In addition, the first satellites to be entirely developed in Africa were launched by South Africa’s Cape Peninsula University of Technology from Cape Canaveral in January 2022. The African space industry’s immense growth in recent years is a product of innovation in its applications, a need for stronger control of natural resources, and a desire to join the ranks of the preeminent space powers of the 21st century.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!

April 18, 2022 at 10:14PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/rXTx2pC

War Memes, Call Russia, RapidILL Ukraine, More: Ukraine Update, April 18, 2022

War Memes, Call Russia, RapidILL Ukraine, More: Ukraine Update, April 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

I have a great interest in the intersection between military conflict and Internet culture, so I’ve been reviewing Ukraine/Russia war compilations on YouTube. The Meme Orange does compilations of spicy memes/ war memes regularly, while Memenade does daily meme compilations which include Ukraine memes. I think my favorite, though, is Dima Maleev. His channel states he is Ukrainian; I have not confirmed this but have no reason to disbelieve it. Anyway, instead of simple meme aggregations he takes four or five meme topics and gives background, context (like audio recordings) and plenty of meme reactions. There are only about four of these “WAR MEMES” videos (I’m sure they take a huge amount of work) but they’re well worth viewing. If you have trouble understanding accented English turn the captions on; they’re auto-generated but very good.

iNews: Call Russia: UK volunteers phone random Russian numbers to ‘plant seed of doubt’ about Ukraine war. “These ‘phone calls to end the war’ are part of Call Russia, a volunteer network of more than 30,000 people from around 116 countries dialling into Russian homes to speak directly about war in Ukraine. It’s the brainchild of 45-year-old Paulius Senuta, the Lithuanian CEO of Not Perfect Companies who has experience working across Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.”

Internet Archive Blogs: Supporting Ukrainian Scholars Through Interlibrary Loan. “Internet Archive’s full collection of books and periodicals are now available, for free, to Ukrainian libraries through interlibrary loan (ILL) via RapidILL.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Radio Free Europe: Russia Blocks Websites Of The Moscow Times, Radio France International Over Ukraine War Coverage. “France Medias Monde, a state-owned holding company in charge of French international broadcasting, said it will continue to look for ways to distribute RFI reports in Russia.”

The Moscow Times: Moscow Times’ Russian Service Blocked Over War Coverage. “Russia blocked The Moscow Times’ Russian-language service on Friday after it published what authorities call a false report on riot police officers refusing to fight in Ukraine. The Moscow Times’ English-language edition is not affected by the block. MT Russian remains accessible abroad and while using a VPN.” I did this one before the one that included Radio France.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NPR: Meet the activists who projected a giant Ukrainian flag on Russia’s Embassy in D.C.. “Anti-war activists engaged in a light beam battle against Russian diplomats in Washington, D.C., Wednesday evening in a display of disapproval over the country’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The activists spent hours projecting the Ukrainian flag on the Russian Embassy’s exterior walls with ultra-bright light.”

New York Times: 5 Ukrainian Art Accounts to Follow on Instagram Now. “Social media give us responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost instantly, but some of the most moving responses I’ve seen come from the young Ukrainian artists who’ve managed to make new work documenting events as they unfold. What follows are four accounts run by Ukrainian artists — one currently in Austria, and three still in the country — and one by Ukrainian Americans, all working to keep the world’s attention on what’s happening on the ground.”

Business Insider: Ukrainian pilots launch ‘Buy Me A Jet’ campaign to help defeat Russia’s massive air superiority. “The Ukrainian military has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the purchase of new fighter jets, say reports. In a video showing destroyed Ukrainian military equipment and devastated homes and towns, a Ukrainian pilot looks into the camera and says, ‘buy me a fighter jet.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Russian Court Says Google, Wikipedia Face Fines Over ‘Fake’ Content. “A Russian court has threatened U.S. Internet giant Google and Wikipedia owner Wikimedia Foundation with fines for failing to delete what it said was ‘fake’ information about the Ukraine conflict, Interfax news agency reported on Friday.”

Washington Post: Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers. “Ukrainian officials have run more than 8,600 facial recognition searches on dead or captured Russian soldiers in the 50 days since Moscow’s invasion began, using the scans to identify bodies and contact hundreds of their families in what may be one of the most gruesome applications of the technology to date.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Progressive Policy Institute: The War In Ukraine Highlights A New Era In Information Warfare. “The war in Ukraine has relied heavily on information warfare and the struggle to control the global narrative. It has highlighted both the impact that online campaigns can have on international crises, as well as the danger posed by false information on internet platforms. Social media-based disinformation is not the unknown threat it once was, but despite acknowledgement by internet platforms, online users, and American public officials that state-sponsored disinformation was likely to disseminate in the days following the Russian invasion, false claims have succeeded in blunting the world’s overwhelmingly adverse global reaction to Putin’s war.”

Articles of War: Ukraine Symposium – Cultural Property Protection In The Ukraine Conflict. “This post will address various issues related to the protection of cultural property, including the treaty law that applies, the practical issues that arise from those binding international law obligations, and the potential for war crimes prosecutions after the fact as a sanction or a deterrent for such conduct. The post will examine the obligations of both parties to the war in Ukraine and answer basic questions, such as, what efforts have the defenders made to protect cultural property? Is the obligation to protect cultural property separate from or paramount to the clear obligation to refrain from attacking civilians and other civilian objects? And what can be done to hold parties who violate these rules of warfare accountable?”

April 18, 2022 at 09:28PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/MqRyfzu

Saturday, April 16, 2022

North Carolina Criminal Justice, Ireland Pirate Radio, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 18, 2022

North Carolina Criminal Justice, Ireland Pirate Radio, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, April 18, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

GCN: NC rolls out criminal justice data portal. “North Carolina’s Criminal Justice Analysis Center (CJAC) announced a new centralized, interactive portal for criminal justice data collected by agencies across the state. The Justice Data Portal aims to provide broad access to criminal justice data and is launching with data from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the FBI’s crime database.”

Southgate Amateur Radio News: Irish pirate radio . “We are developing an audio archive of Irish pirate radio as part of the commemoration of the clampdown on the unlicensed broadcasting sector 30 years ago…. Our aim is to build a sustainable audio archive of pirate radio for future generations, in collaboration with as many partners as possible.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNBC: Twitter board adopts ‘poison pill’ after Musk’s $43 billion bid to buy company. “Under the new structure, if any person or group acquires beneficial ownership of at least 15% of Twitter’s outstanding common stock without the board’s approval, other shareholders will be allowed to purchase additional shares at a discount. The plan is set to expire on April 14, 2023.”

Ars Technica: Wikipedia community votes to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations [Updated]. “More than 200 long-time Wikipedia editors have requested that the Wikimedia Foundation stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The foundation received crypto donations worth about $130,000 in the most recent fiscal year—less than 0.1 percent of the foundation’s revenue, which topped $150 million last year. Debate on the proposal has raged over the last three months.”

KnowTechie: TikTok now lets anyone make their own AR filters. “TikTok’s newest tool, Effect House, lets you create your own AR effects. It’s the latest tool in the arsenal of budding creators and shows that AR is here to stay.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Beast: Here’s What the Metaverse Apocalypse Will Look Like. “Whether we like it or not, metaverse fever is rising. From flaming Travis Scott towering over players in Fortnite, to suit-clad avatars arguing spreadsheets on Teams, to Facebook swapping its face for Meta—it seems there’s been an onslaught of new virtual playgrounds brought to life every day. But for every new virtual world being born, there’s a digital graveyard of realms that have already died.”

New York Times: Substack’s Growth Spurt Brings Growing Pains. “The publishing platform’s founders want Substack to be an ‘alternate universe on the internet.’ But it faces copycat rivals, an exodus by writers and a need to move beyond newsletters.”

Lifehacker: Squardle Broke My Brain, and Then I Won. “Waffle is like a Rubik’s cube. Letters are provided, and your job is to make crafty swaps. It’s elegant, and so simple it doesn’t require a keyboard. If you’d like to get into square Wordles (which I am now sure will have their own variations on variations), Waffle is a good one to start with. And once you’re hooked, I’d like to drag you further into the depths of confusion and despair. Play Squardle with me.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

University of Wisconsin-Madison: You’re muted — or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen even when mic is off. “Kassem Fawaz’s brother was on a videoconference with the microphone muted when he noticed that the microphone light was still on — indicating, inexplicably, that his microphone was being accessed. Alarmed, he asked Fawaz, an expert in online privacy and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, to look into the issue.”

Mashable: How to report plagiarized NFTs as stolen art. “So you’ve been ripped off. Someone took your art and, without your permission, minted it as a non-fungible token. And now that same scammer has listed those NFTs of your plagiarized art for sale, and is raking in the ill-gotten gains. This is a depressingly common occurrence, and thankfully you’re not completely without recourse — though getting your stolen art removed from massive NFT exchanges like OpenSea and Rarible isn’t going to be easy.”

CNN: House lawmakers voice ‘serious concerns’ about facial recognition used by contractor ID.me. “Two top House lawmakers on Thursday began probing ID.me, a company that uses facial recognition technology to verify identities for many state and federal agencies, into the ‘efficacy, privacy and security’ of its services and products. The move, which comes months after the IRS halted a plan to require taxpayers to use ID.me when logging onto their accounts amid a privacy backlash, further ratchets up scrutiny of the service in Washington.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MedicineNet: Who Are the New ‘Patient Influencers’ on Social Media?. “Patient influencers like [Gem] Hubbard fill social media these days, and a new report says pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers view them as an increasingly popular direct-to-consumer marketing tool. These patient influencers share their stories in online health forums and on social media, using their personal experiences to help inform and educate others.”

The Verge: Google’s Little Signals concepts show what ‘ambient’ notifications could look like. “Google has shown off a ‘design study’ in ambient computing, with a series of objects that can subtly deliver notifications through taps, gentle breezes, and shifting shadows (shout out to Verge alumn Dieter Bohn for tweeting this to our attention). The company calls the experiment Little Signals and says it’s exploring ‘calm computing,’ or ways of keeping you in the loop without having your phone blare a notification chime and light up a screen.” Good morning, Internet…

April 16, 2022 at 05:26PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/90kJ1BH

Friday, April 15, 2022

Black History Illinois, Android, FindMyPast, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022

Black History Illinois, Android, FindMyPast, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Chicago Tribune: University project aims to show how everything you know about the history of Black Illinois is kind of lacking. “…two years ago, [Kate] Masur and a handful of Northwestern undergraduates and graduate students started work on an online exhibition of sorts, part of an even larger archive that now spans several universities and museums, to document the radical importance of the Colored Conventions movement, one of our first nationwide conversations on race. Recently launched, their website… does not have the sexiest title: ‘Black Organizing in Pre-Civil War Illinois: Creating Community, Demanding Justice.’ But its history is more accessible than academic and its intent is ambitious: No less than a reframing of Black Illinois itself.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google quietly launches its awaited ‘Switch to Android’ app on iOS. “Last year, reports began circulating that Google was developing a ‘Switch to Android’ app for iOS users looking to make the jump from iPhone to a smartphone running Google’s Android OS. Now that app has arrived. On Monday, Google quietly launched the Switch to Android app on the App Store in a number of global markets, including the U.S. As expected, the app promises to make the transition between mobile platforms easier to manage by helping users import their contacts, calendar, photos, and videos to their new Android phone.”

FindMyPast: Hold the front page! We’ve hit 50 million. “Back in 2011, we set out to digitise the British Library’s entire newspaper collection and open it up to the public as the British Newspaper Archive. Today we’re proud to announce that we’ve passed the 50 million pages milestone. But we’re not stopping there.”

Search Engine Land: Google’s new highly cited label for top stories now live. “Google’s new highly cited label for top stories in the mobile US English search results are now rolling out. Google announced this feature a few weeks ago and told us it would be rolling out soon, and now it is.”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo: The Hidden Hack for Super-Speedy Web Browsing. “Chances are you spend a lot of time in a web browser every day—so anything you can do to speed up the way you get around the internet is going to make a significant difference to your productivity levels (and give you extra time to do something more exciting). Yes, even on the best web browsers. Here’s one such hack you might not have tried yet: Mouse gestures.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Television Academy Foundation: Foundation Announces National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to Preserve The Interviews. “The Television Academy Foundation today announced it has been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for the preservation of its online archive The Interviews: An Oral History of Television…. Under the direction of Television Academy Foundation Chair Cris Abrego and Vice Chair of the Foundation and Chair of The Interviews committee Jonathan Murray, the Foundation is focused on additional fundraising to secure the core collection for the next 100 years, prioritizing inclusive representation for future interviews, and making The Interviews more accessible with captioning and language translation.”

CNET: Pakistan Journalists Move to YouTube as Political Upheaval Forces Them Off TV. “When Imran Riaz Khan lost his job as an anchor at Pakistan’s Samaa TV last weekend, he joined a growing list of journalists who’ve found themselves out of work amid the country’s political turmoil. Luckily, Riaz Khan has a YouTube channel with 2.6 million subscribers to fall back on.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Axios: DOJ charges three Russians running ‘disinformation network’. “A prominent Russian legislator and two of his aides have been charged with running a disinformation campaign targeting U.S. citizens, including lawmakers, for several years, the Department of Justice announced Thursday…. Aleksandr Babakov, 59, and two staffers allegedly operated an ‘international foreign influence and disinformation network to advance the interests of Russia,’ between 2012 and 2017, according to an indictment filed in Manhattan federal court.”

Orange County Register: Santa Ana police blasted Disney songs to prevent a resident from filming them . “The idea, according to the videographer and others, was that because social media platforms remove home-made videos with copyright-protected music, any video made by the blogger wouldn’t spend much time online and wouldn’t be seen by many people. The video was shot anyway. And it wound up starring Santa Ana police and a city councilman, Johnathan Ryan Hernandez, who chastised an officer for waking his neighbors and disrespecting his community.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: An individual’s personality appears to be highly correlated with their Twitter behavior. Uh-oh. “Do we project our true personalities on our social media accounts? While many people use social media as a way to express themselves, others see it as an opportunity to present a false persona. So, how telling are our Twitter posts about our personalities? A study published in Computers in Human Behavior suggests that our online behavior does, in fact, reflect our true behavior.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 16, 2022 at 12:50AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/C2dZevW

Scrabble, OpenMind Magazine, Baseball Games, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022

Scrabble, OpenMind Magazine, Baseball Games, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, April 15, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Comicbook: Scrabble Launches Website With Free Online Play. “To celebrate International Scrabble Day (which celebrates the birthday of Scrabble creator Alfred Mosher Butts), Hasbro has announced that the popular word tile game is launching its very own website, Scrabble.com, that includes a free-to-play online version of the game. Scrabble.com will support both PvP and PvE modes along with ranked competitions. Other features include an official Scrabble word finder and dictionary, a Scrabble blog, and a moderated Scrabble forum.”

NiemanLab: A new magazine delves into the ways that people consume wrong information. “There’s a new magazine in town, one dedicated to pieces about misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and other ways that people consume wrong information. OpenMind Magazine (whose tagline is ‘tackling science controversies and deceptions’) was officially launched in mid-March and was really the result of old friends wanting to launch a magazine together.” The article notes that everything published in OpenMind Magazine is made available under a Creative Commons license, but I can’t find that information on the site itself.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Major League Baseball will stream 15 games on YouTube this season. “Like an ambitious butcher trying to cleave a dollar of meat out of a ten cent steak, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday that it is carving out a bit more of its television broadcast rights, renewing its four season-old deal for the ‘MLB Game of the Week Live on YouTube’ with the Alphabet property. But unlike other recently struck deals, these streaming exclusives will be free to watch and without local blackout restrictions.”

The Verge: The Twitter board is reportedly not interested in Elon’s takeover offer. “Twitter’s board is also reportedly considering using a ‘poison pill’ strategy to make it more difficult for Elon to acquire a large stake in the company and avoid a hostile takeover. Poison pills can, as one example, flood the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a certain limit, making them easier to acquire for others (and costly for a single investor to buy up) when someone attempts a takeover.”

CNET: YouTube Shorts Rolls Out Ability to Sample Other Videos, Like TikTok. “YouTube is updating a feature of Shorts, the video giant’s competitor to TikTok, that lets creators ‘remix’ segments from other Shorts or YouTube video into their own posts. After introducing the ability for Shorts to sample audio from other videos, YouTube is starting to roll out the ability to sample a short video segment of any eligible YouTube video.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 8 Online Tools to Find Your Doppelgänger. “You’ve heard that each one of us has six lookalikes in this world. While this may not be entirely true, there’s no doubt that many people have doppelgängers. To be honest, we’d all like to discover who our twin is. If you, too, are curious, this guide will show you some online tools for finding your doppelgänger.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Museums Association: Sensory Journeys: creating digital storytelling sessions for children. “South Shields Museum, part of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, launched Sensory Journeys at the end of last year, offering children and their families inclusive digital sensory story-telling sessions that are linked to local history and provide engagement with the museum’s collections. Sensory Journeys are digital audio story-telling sessions where the listener creates the sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes to bring each story to life. Or they can just sit back, relax and listen.”

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco spent $250,000 on a database to track construction delays. Years later, it has never been used. “Three years after developing a database meant to track the performance of contractors on city construction projects, the system of checks and balances remains unused, according to a report from the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome emergency update fixes zero-day used in attacks. “Google has released Chrome 100.0.4896.127 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, to fix a high-severity zero-day vulnerability actively used by threat actors in attacks.”

Mashable: Scammers spoof Amazon Prime Video and trick users into paying fake fees. “We all know those dreaded streaming app screens that pop up on our smart TVs just when we get comfortable on the couch, ready to watch that new latest release. Perhaps it’s an activation screen for that newly downloaded streaming app. Or maybe it’s that dastardly prompt that lets you know the app has internet connection issues. All of us can agree those screens are annoying. However, they’re also turning out to be quite lucrative for scammers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Indiana University: IU team identifies new method of measuring social optimism from Twitter. “There’s no question that 2020 was a whirlwind of a year. Humanity faced a pandemic and social unrest of historic precedence. How did these events influence our optimism toward the future? To address this question, a team of IU researchers, including faculty from the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and IU’s Cognitive Science Program turned to Twitter.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Man of Many: Spacecraft Captures Highest Ever Resolution Image of the Sun and it’s 83-Megapixels of Insanity . “We’re told not to stare at the sun, but in this case, please feast your eyes! The highest ever resolution image of the sun’s full disc has been snapped in all its life-giving glory and is 100% worthy of The Gram (Instagram, for all you space boomers). Whether you view it as gorgeous or oddly terrifying, this is one space photo that simply can’t be missed. Although we’ve posted a close-up image below, you’ll need to download the bigger version if you want to appreciate all the filaments and flares’ in detail.” Good morning, Internet…

April 15, 2022 at 05:27PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/ZWS5COb

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Alexei Navalny, Disinformation Campaigns, Wardoxxing, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, April 14, 2022

Alexei Navalny, Disinformation Campaigns, Wardoxxing, More: Ukraine Update, Afternoon, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Guardian: Alexei Navalny calls for social media ‘information front’ against Russia. “Alexei Navalny has called for an ‘information front’ against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as the jailed opposition leader asserted that poll results showing 75% of Russians support the conflict were a ‘Kremlin lie’. In an extended series of tweets, Navalny called on western leaders to support a massive social media ad campaign in order to break through Kremlin propaganda regarding the invasion.”

Reuters: Yandex appoints Artem Savinovksy as general director in Russia. “Tech giant Yandex said on Thursday Artem Savinovsky has been appointed to lead Yandex LLC, its Russian operating subsidiary, replacing Elena Bunina who held the role of general director since December 2017.”

Financial Times: Amazon’s Twitch bans some channels after researchers find pro-Russia propaganda. “Amazon-owned Twitch has moved to ban several accounts on the livestreaming platform after research detailed how pro-Kremlin propaganda had spread on the network. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Twitch said it would move to ‘prohibit harmful misinformation actors from using our service’. But a report from the Tech Transparency Project detailed multiple accounts pushing pro-Kremlin falsehoods, such as claims the invasion was ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine and a Russian ‘special operation’. Other streams peddled falsehoods about “biolabs” being set up in the war-torn country.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bloomberg: Russia Wages Social-Media Campaign to Label Bucha Massacre a Hoax. “Russian politicians, foreign embassies and state media accounts on Twitter Inc. with hundreds of thousands of followers tweeted the term ‘Bucha’ more than 1,000 times last week, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonprofit which has been tracking Russian disinformation relating to the war. The campaign was an attempt to manipulate public discourse surrounding the events that unfolded in the Kyiv suburb early this month, according to researchers.”

Bellingcat: Russia’s Kramatorsk ‘Facts’ Versus the Evidence. “On April 8, 2022, a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile struck the main railway station in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of government-controlled Ukraine. The missile killed at least 50 people, including five children. Civilians had gathered at the station to flee the approaching Russian offensive, which has pivoted to the country’s east in recent weeks…. Russian officials have blamed the strike on Ukraine, citing claims that the Russian military does not use the Tochka-U.”

Washington Post: In Ukraine, Facebook fact-checkers fight a war on two fronts. “First came a one-minute video taken on the streets of Bucha, a Kyiv suburb abandoned by retreating Russian forces. The footage showed numerous bodies, civilians in winter coats, scattered along the muddy roads like leaves on a fall day. Then came the deluge of misinformation: On social media, some argued the images were fake, that the bodies were actors pretending to be dead. Others falsely claimed the Ukrainian military had slain their own countrymen. It fell to Valeriia Stepaniuk, 22, to set things straight.”

Atlantic Council: Russian War Report: Russia promotes misleading video accusing Ukraine of using mannequins as casualties. “On April 7, Kremlin-controlled TV channel Rossiya 24 broadcast a video that it claimed was evidence of the Ukrainian military using mannequins to stage war casualties. However, the video was taken in Russia on a set of a TV series.”

PBS NewsHour: Open source intelligence combats disinformation on Russia’s war against Ukraine. “It is often said that truth is the first casualty in any war. Propaganda, disinformation and outright lies have always been dependable tactics to win hearts and minds. But in a world more connected than ever by technology, it is more possible for anyone to root out information. It’s called open source intelligence, and as Miles O’Brien reports, some are using it to lift the fog of war in Ukraine.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Financial Times: Prepare for Armageddon: Ukraine’s tactic against Russian hackers. “Armageddon is not the most sophisticated of Russian government-affiliated hacking groups that have attacked Ukraine, but it is among the most prolific. In 5,000 different attempts, it has unleashed ever more effective malware, hidden within cleverly engineered emails to spy on Ukrainian government bodies. But following Russia’s invasion on February 24, its latest attacks have been parried thanks, in large part, to Ukraine’s deep knowledge of Armageddon’s signature moves.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

C4ISRNET: Ukraine conflict heightens US military’s data privacy vulnerabilities. “Russian operators, or at least their supporters, have flooded the inboxes of Ukrainians, particularly military service members, with malware-laden email. This tactic can be used to distribute disinformation and amass personal data to further their effort of compiling lists of Ukrainians for detention and harm. Similarly, thousands of text messages have reportedly been sent to local police and military members. This risk is not unique to Ukraine, and U.S. leaders must take steps now to harden the United States and protect its service members against similar tactics.”

Washington Post: Here’s how the U.S. should respond to any Russian cyberattacks. “Since before the start of the war, cybersecurity experts — including one of us — have predicted that the likelihood of Russian cyber operations against the West would increase as the United States and its allies placed more severe economic sanctions on Moscow. Now, with the Russian economy beginning to feel the effects of sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears poised to use his intelligence agencies’ significant cyber capabilities to hit back at the West. As these threats loom, the U.S. government has a critical decision to make: How will it respond to Russia’s first wave of major cyberattacks?”

Bloomberg: Ukraine War’s Most Potent Weapon May Be a Cell Phone. “Winning requires resources devoted to telling the stories from the bloody battlefields to the diplomatic boardrooms. Videos have to be crisp and convincing, showing in graphic detail the war crimes being committed daily in Ukraine. This needs to be packaged and moved over the social networks in creative ways that capitalize on the West’s advantages — from getting them in the hands of social influencers in dozens of key countries to setting up professional-quality websites that are easy to navigate.”

April 15, 2022 at 02:46AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/XzpFE8S

European Film, New Jersey Disinformation Awareness, NY Energy Advisor, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022

European Film, New Jersey Disinformation Awareness, NY Energy Advisor, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, April 14, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Agenda (Country of Georgia): National Film Center unveils new portal introducing European cinema, film art . “A new film portal introducing European cinema heritage and facilitating study of the history of the art form was unveiled by the Georgian National Film Centre on Thursday, with the website aimed to provide access to archival material, video classes and more to young cinephiles…. Allowing young enthusiasts to ‘explore and analyse’ cinema with knowledge of the art form and its history, it has been designed to utilise ‘pedagogical potential across a range of curriculum subjects,’ and involves tests, exercises, video lessons and other visual material on the subjects.” The site is available in Georgian, English, Serbian, and Italian.

StateScoop: New Jersey jumps into disinformation fight. “Disinformation has long been a concern for federal officials, election administrators and health authorities, all of whom have struggled to deflect falsehoods spread by malicious actors seeking to undermine public trust in U.S. institutions. Now the State of New Jersey is getting into the fight, with a new website launched earlier this month by the state’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparation.”

State Of New York: NYSERDA Announces Launch of NY Energy Advisor Website. “The New York State Energy Research and Develop Authority (NYSERDA) today announced the launch of the NY Energy Advisor website, designed to streamline the awareness of and access to clean energy programs and energy assistance for low-to moderate income households in New York State.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Reddit rolls out new search improvements, including a way to find comments. “Reddit announced today that it’s rolling out the ability to search comments, alongside a few other search-related features. With the new comment search function, users no longer have to click on several comments to find threads when looking for a particular conversation.”

Engadget: Amazon is rebranding IMDb TV as ‘Freevee’. “Amazon’s IMDb TV is rebranding. Beginning April 27th, the ad-supported streaming service will be known as Freevee, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Amazon’s Studios division told the outlet the new name is designed to better reflect how much it costs to access the platform.”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo Australia: Clever Stabilised Web Browser Makes Reading on iPads Easier for Users Dealing With Hand Tremors. “As much as technology has helped improve our lives, it’s not always as accessible as it could be, particularly for those with conditions like Parkinson’s disease which can cause tremors that make it hard to use some devices. But a new app called Staybl takes advantage of a feature included in the iPad since day one to make a simple task like surfing the web much easier even when tremors are being experienced.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Spectrum Local News: Hard-to-trace social media accounts stir up online debate about Maine energy politics. “A strange phenomenon can be seen in the replies to almost any social media post about the campaign to replace Maine’s investor-owned electric utilities with a consumer-owned nonprofit. In Twitter threads, Facebook pages and comments on local news articles, a group of at least six self-styled ‘real Mainers’ — their profile pictures showing dogs or lighthouses, with bios such as, ‘Just a girl from Maine!’ or ‘Not from away’ — first appeared online in January and have posted almost exclusively about an early-stage energy policy debate that many might find obscure.”

Inside Higher Ed: A New Tool for Assessing Campus Climate on Religion. “Prospective students and their parents can find a wide range of useful information online about colleges and universities to help them decide which institutions might be the best fit. But there’s no go-to resource to assess how welcoming a college is to students from various religious backgrounds. That’s about to change. A group of researchers at Ohio State University and North Carolina State University has crafted a tool called the Interfaith, Spiritual, Religious, and Secular Campus Climate Index, or INSPIRES, which scores higher ed institutions on their levels of religious diversity and inclusion.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Microsoft’s huge Patch Tuesday includes fix for bug under attack. “Microsoft’s massive April Patch Tuesday includes one bug that has already been exploited in the wild and a second that has been publicly disclosed. In total, the Redmond giant patched over 100 bugs today, including 10 critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Princeton University: What climate choices should cities make? A Princeton data tool helps planners set priorities.. “A new tool for city planners helps them design a portfolio of actions that encompasses compact development, smart electric mobility, electric heating systems, mass timber construction, urban reforestation, and technologies that allow resources to circulate efficiently through the food, waste and energy sectors.” Good afternoon, Internet…

April 15, 2022 at 12:26AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/7OXHzre