Facebook Roundup, August 24, 2022

Facebook Roundup, August 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: A Facebook bug spammed celebrity comments to everyone for hours. “Facebook experienced a bizarre bug on Wednesday morning that filled user feeds with endless posts from celebrity accounts. Multiple Verge staffers who attempted to use the social media network experienced the same issue, where their main News Feed was flooded with minor posts sent to pages for artists like Lady Gaga, Nirvana, and The Beatles. As of 5:15AM ET the issue appears to have been resolved after creating three hours of chaos.”

Engadget: Meta’s anti-misinformation strategy for the 2022 midterms is mostly a repeat of 2020. “Meta has outlined its strategy for combatting misinformation during the 2022 US midterm elections, and they’ll mostly sound familiar if you remember the company’s 2020 approach.”

Ars Technica: Amid backlash from privacy advocates, Meta expands end-to-end encryption trial. “Meta is ever so slowly expanding its trial of end-to-end encryption in a bid to protect users from snoops and law enforcement.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNN: They built their businesses on Instagram. Then the platform changed. “As Instagram increasingly prioritizes videos and recommended posts in users’ feeds in an effort to keep pace with rival TikTok, some small businesses that were built on the platform are having a harder time reaching their followers and facing declining engagement, and say they’re worried about the future of their businesses.”

Reuters: Asset managers on alert after ‘WhatsApp’ crackdown on banks. “Asset managers are tightening controls on personal communication tools such as WhatsApp as they join banks in trying to ensure employees play by the rules when they do business with clients remotely.”

Engadget: Dozens of Facebook contractors lost their jobs after an algorithm reportedly chose them ‘at random’. “A firm contracted by Meta recently told dozens of its workers that their work for Facebook ‘was soon being taken away,’ according to a new report from Insider. The cuts affect about 60 employees of Accenture, a firm that oversees teams of Facebook moderators and other contractors.”

Washington Post: Facebook bans hate speech but still makes money from white supremacists. “Last year, a Facebook page administrator put out a clarion call for new followers: They were looking for ‘the good ole boys and girls from the south who believe in white [supremacy].’ The page — named Southern Brotherhood — was live on Tuesday afternoon and riddled with photos of swastikas and expressions of white power. Facebook has long banned content referencing white nationalism. But a plethora of hate groups still populate the site, and the company boosts its revenue by running ads on searches for these pages.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Misconfigured Meta Pixel exposed healthcare data of 1.3M patients. “U.S. healthcare provider Novant Health has disclosed a data breach impacting 1,362,296 individuals who have had their sensitive information mistakenly collected by the Meta Pixel ad tracking script. Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) is a JavaScript tracking script that Facebook advertisers can add to their site to track advertising performance.”

CNET: Meta Reaches $37.5M Settlement in Facebook Location Tracking Lawsuit. “Court documents show that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has reached a $37.5 million settlement in a lawsuit accusing the company of violating the privacy of some users by tracking their movements through their smartphones without permission. This is not the first time Facebook has been accused of tracking users.”

CNET: FTC Drops Mark Zuckerberg as Defendant in Antitrust Lawsuit. “The Federal Trade Commission has removed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a defendant in an antitrust lawsuit that aims to block the company’s acquisition of virtual reality startup Within Unlimited. The agency said in a filing in a Northern California federal court that it had agreed to remove Zuckerberg as a defendant after the Facebook parent company’s CEO agreed to not try to personally purchase Within Unlimited.”

NPR: Nebraska cops used Facebook messages to investigate an alleged illegal abortion. “A 41-year-old woman is facing felony charges in Nebraska for allegedly helping her teenage daughter illegally abort a pregnancy, and the case highlights how law enforcement can make use of online communications in the post-Roe v. Wade era.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mashable: It took just one weekend for Meta’s new AI Chatbot to become racist. “The company’s new BlenderBot 3 AI chatbot — which was released in the U.S. just days ago on Friday, August 5 — is already making a host of false statements based on interactions it had with real humans online. Some of the more egregious among those include claims Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and is currently president, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, as well as comments calling out Facebook for all of its ‘fake news.'”

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August 24, 2022 at 07:46PM
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Smushy Search: A Tool for Topical Searching on Google

Smushy Search: A Tool for Topical Searching on Google
By researchbuzz2

Every now and again I have to pause and marvel at the fact that Web directories as a category are pretty much defunct. There are specialized directories for specific categories, of course (while older directories like Jasmine and Starting Point have pivoted to business listings), but the idea of an Internet-wide searchable subject index dimmed considerably with the death of DMOZ. (Props to Curlie for soldiering on.)

This remains inexplicable to me and over the years I’ve come up with various schemes to remedy what’s a serious lack (I won’t bore you with them here.) At the same time I’ve mused a lot on the problem caused by a lack of Web directories – topic browsing is a pain!

Yes, you can go to Google and type cooking or beer or whatever and get search results that are useful. But you’re limited to whatever you find when you enter the topic through Google’s “front door.”  And those results are just one aspect of your topic (and depending on how popular that topic is, the results might be warped by SEO.)

How to get different results? Add more keywords, of course. And that takes us to the essential question of searching online: how do you ask about/think about/talk about what you don’t know?

Any keywords you can add to a search are predicated on your own knowledge/awareness. That makes topical browsing a challenge when your knowledge is limited (or worse, corrupted by mis/disinformation.) If you don’t have a subject index through which you are guided through a series of subtopics, how can you explore a topic that takes you beyond Google’s “front door” of results without relying on your knowledge of keywords (which may be nonexistent or incorrect?)

I tried to answer that question with Smushy Search. It’s available at https://researchbuzz.github.io/SmushySearch/ and does not require an API key or anything like that.

Making It Go

Here’s how Smushy Search works:

• You enter the topic term for which you want to search (in the screenshot above it’s cooking.) Optionally you can add additional keywords to tilt your search in a certain direction (in the screenshot above it’s beginner.)
• Choose if you want to filter out some common ecommerce results (removes some big ecommerce sites and tries to filter out other pages via search exclusions. Doesn’t work completely but it helps.)
• Choose if you want to restrict your Google results to pages from edu and gov domains. Helps when you’re searching for something scholarly but will seriously narrow down your search results.
• Finally, set the maximum frequency for the words that are going to augment the Google search. Word frequency is the number of times a word appears per million words of English text. The higher the frequency, the more common the word; light has a word frequency of a little over 173, while powdered clocks in at 2.35.

But where are the words coming from? That’s where the Datamuse API comes in.

Feeding Smushy Keywords With the Datamuse API

Once you’ve selected your words and options, Smushy Search sends your word to the Datamuse API. The API finds a set of adjectives related to your topic word and returns that to Smushy.  Here’s where the frequency option comes in. Adjectives that relate to your topic might relate to lots of other topics as well! By specifying a lower frequency, you can zero in on words that are both related to your topic and unlikely to bring you irrelevant results.

Smushy Search takes the array of words returned by the Datamuse API and filters it to eliminate any words that are more common than your frequency option. It then selects four of those words and groups them into two OR sets ( (wordone | wordtwo) (wordthree | wordfour) ) and adds them to your original keywords to make a Google query URL, which then opens in a new window. The query ends up looking like this:

(wordone | wordtwo) (wordthree | wordfour) topicword optionalword1 optionalword2

Smushy in Action

Let’s see how it works with the topic cooking and the tilt word beginner. When I hit the Smush button I get this page of Google results in a new tab:

Hmm, lots of cooking classes and easy recipes. (Do you see the query that Smushy used the Datamuse API to make?) Let’s do another search:

Now Smushy has taken us to a page of results about Asian cooking, with some healthy recipes thrown in. Let’s take one more spin:

Mmmmm… Creole food. Okra. Now I’m hungry. (Why do I always use food examples?)

Do you see how Smushy Search takes you past Google’s “front door” of searches, or even any keywords you might think of yourself? It’s like a Web randomizer, only it keeps you within a certain topic. It’s a fun toy for exploring and a bit of a timesink!

I shared Smushy Search with my Patreon supporters yesterday (without them I could not do this) and I had some feedback about expanding this to search other collections, like maybe Internet Archive or Google Books. What do you think?

Thanks for reading.

August 24, 2022 at 07:04PM
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Open Diffusion, Google, Alt Text, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2022

Open Diffusion, Google, Alt Text, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Mixed: Open Source DALL-E “Open Diffusion” is now available via website. “Open Diffusion is now available via a web interface. After logging in, you can generate images via text prompts, similar to DALL-E 2, and have several additional options for fine-tuning. As with DALL-E 2, there are restrictions on prompts, such as sexual or violent images.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google search updates will prioritize real reviews over clickbait. “Google is making a series of updates to Search that aim to tackle clickbait and improve the relevancy of search results, prioritizing original and authentic reviews over recycled information that passes around aggregator sites. The changes in the form of two updates are being rolled out in the weeks ahead, according to a blog post announcing the ranking updates.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: What Is Alt Text? Why You Should Use It, and How to Write It. “Have you noticed prompts to write image ‘alt’ text (sometimes stylized as ALT text) when creating blog posts or sharing photos on social media? Here’s why this part of the HTML standard is important and how you can write it well.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Know Your Meme: Woman Pictured In The Viral ‘Girl Explaining’ Meme Explains The Origins And Her Reaction To Sudden Internet Fame. “Also going by the name of ‘Bro Girl’ and ‘Girlsplaining,’ we dove into researching the format this week in order to get to the bottom of what exactly was being said in the original. Through our search, we managed to find the woman depicted in the photo, whose real name is Denise ‘Denu’ Sanchez, and learned just what was going on that night in 2019.”

CNET: Funny Business: TikTok Is Putting a New Spin on Standup Comedy. “The short-form video app’s fingerprints are all over the Fringe this year, shaking up the 75-year-old arts festival with an injection of new talent and energy. Freshly TikTok-famous comedians have come to the Fringe for the first time, buoyed by their online success, while old hands are using the platform to find new audiences and experiment with material.”

Deadline: Google’s Covid Outbreak Is Currently The Largest Of Any Employer In Los Angeles. “The number of Covid infections among Los Angeles-area Google employees nearly doubled over the weekend, according to the count on the county’s official Covid workplace outbreak site.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless and negligent cybersecurity policies. “Twitter has major security problems that pose a threat to its own users’ personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy, according to an explosive whistleblower disclosure obtained exclusively by CNN and The Washington Post. The disclosure, sent last month to Congress and federal agencies, paints a picture of a chaotic and reckless environment at a mismanaged company that allows too many of its staff access to the platform’s central controls and most sensitive information without adequate oversight.”

Reuters: U.S. lawmakers unveil bill to help news media negotiate with Google, Facebook . “A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Monday released a revised version of a bill aimed at making it easier for news organizations to negotiate collectively with platforms like Google and Facebook.”

Ars Technica: Old laptop hard drives will allegedly crash when exposed to Janet Jackson music. “It sounds like something out of an urban legend: Some Windows XP-era laptops using 5400 RPM spinning hard drives can allegedly be forced to crash when exposed to Janet Jackson’s 1989 hit ‘Rhythm Nation.’ But Microsoft Software Engineer Raymond Chen stands by the story in a blog post published earlier this week, and the vulnerability has been issued an official CVE ID by The Mitre Corporation, lending it more credibility.”

The Hacker News: Google Uncovers Tool Used by Iranian Hackers to Steal Data from Email Accounts. “The Iranian government-backed actor known as Charming Kitten has added a new tool to its malware arsenal that allows it to retrieve user data from Gmail, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Outlook accounts.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: That Painted Greek Maiden at the Met: Just Whose Vision Is She? . “Two German archaeologists use science to recreate the lost colors of antiquity. Historians debate just how authentic their version of the past really is.”

PsyPost: Science opponents believe their knowledge ranks among the highest, but it is actually among the lowest. “People with the greatest opposition to the scientific consensus tend to have the lowest levels of objective science knowledge but the highest levels of self-rated knowledge, according to new research published in Science Advances. The findings are in line with the Dunning-Kruger effect, a well-documented phenomenon in which people who are lacking in skills or knowledge tend to overestimate their abilities.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 24, 2022 at 05:31PM
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Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, YouTube, Image Search, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022

Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, YouTube, Image Search, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Globe Newswire: Medical Device Association Launches Hub for Research, Standards, News: AAMI ARRAY (PRESS RELEASE). “The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has launched a new online platform to bring together its many resources for the health technology, medical device, and sterilization communities. That platform, called AAMI ARRAY, functions as a ‘one-stop shop’ for accessing AAMI’s journal content, industry news, and association updates, as well as the most up-to-date standards, guidance documents, and books.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: YouTube kicks off podcast strategy with new landing page. “YouTube’s podcast push started with a new ‘Podcasts’ page. The website youtube.com/podcasts will 404 for some people, but for others, they’ll see a landing page highlighting podcast content.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to search for images you can (legally) use for free. “If you’re looking for an image that you can repurpose for one of your projects and aren’t able to take a photo yourself, there are a ton of free images you can use online without running into any copyright issues — you just have to know where to look.”

WIRED: The Best Podcasts for Kids. “These are our top podcasts for kids. If you’re a podcast listener yourself, you might be thinking that spoken audio will never entertain your kids. But the best kids’ podcasts are more than just people talking, they’re more like radio plays, incorporating music, sound effects, and multiple voices to tell absorbing stories your kids will love.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Elon University: New book by Amanda Sturgill examines anonymous #AltGov social media movement. “The associate professor of journalism wrote ‘We Are #ALTGOV: Social Media Resistance from the Inside,’ highlighting how and why the #AltGov Twitter movement challenged official governmental statements to inform the American public.”

Tricycle: Landed, a New Social Media App Based on Gratitude, Fosters Personal Connection. “Landed connects users one-on-one via a specific and limited course of action: sending audio messages back and forth…. Users are also given the option to share a challenging experience. They log in on Sunday and have until Monday at 8 p.m. in their local time zone to submit their message. On Tuesday, they’ll receive an audio message from their randomly assigned match for the week. After that, the matched pair can act like digital penpals, sending voice messages back and forth for the rest of the week, if they choose. On Sunday, all records of the conversation disappear.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NiemanLab: Canada’s Online News Act shows how other countries are learning from Australia’s news bill. “Why does Google care what Canada does? The answer likely lies in how this bill evolves and builds on the model implemented in Australia, and the fact that other countries around the world are watching this evolution and developing their own similar laws. The Canadian code probably won’t have a material financial impact on these platforms, but countries learning from each other, improving on the model, and it spreading globally very could. So what does the Online News Act do, what does it get right and wrong, and should it be passed, scrapped or improved?”

Global Investigative Journalism Network: Why Small Investigative Outlets Lead the Way on Newsroom Digital Safety. “It’s no accident that some of the most significant progress in newsroom information security over the past decade has been in smaller, more recently-formed digital startups. While the journalistic community has historically demonstrated a poor understanding and appreciation of the importance of strong information security skills and techniques, smaller outlets are proving they can effectively incorporate strong infosec strategies into their highly adaptive and responsive workflows.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Smartphone Video Motion Analysis Detected Narrowed Neck Arteries That May Lead to Stroke. “Motion analysis of video recorded on a smartphone accurately detected narrowed arteries in the neck, which are a risk factor for stroke, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.”

Mongabay: Mongabay Investigates: tracking deforestation with data-driven journalism. “As technology has advanced, so has the availability of near real-time data. Over the years, Mongabay has kept pace using this innovative technology to inform reporting on the world’s most vulnerable and ecologically significant places.” 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!

August 24, 2022 at 12:57AM
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National Fisherman Photography, VenomMaps, United Facts of America, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022

National Fisherman Photography, VenomMaps, United Facts of America, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Fisherman: The National Fisherman Collection: Penobscot Marine Museum. “National Fisherman is the nation’s preeminent publication in the commercial fishing industry, originally a consolidation of earlier, regional fisheries trade papers. In 2012, Diversified Communications of Portland, ME, donated the magazine’s entire pre-digital photographic archive to the Penobscot Marine Museum. After three years of digitally capturing and describing the comprehensive photo archives of National Fisherman magazine, we’ve come to the effective end of the project.”

Clemson News: Where are the venomous snakes? An app created by a Clemson scientist can tell you. “[Rhett] Rautsaw created VenomMaps, a database and web application containing updated distribution maps and niche models for all 158 pit viper species living in North, Central and South America. Pit vipers are a group of venomous snakes, including rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths. While Rautsaw needed the information for his evolutionary biology research, the maps provide vital information for conservation efforts, citizen scientists and medical professionals.”

EVENTS

Poynter: Poynter and PolitiFact announce speakers for United Facts of America. “The virtual celebration of facts will stream Sept. 27-29 and offer sessions with keynote speakers that bring voters context and clarity on the country’s most pressing issues leading up to the midterm elections like inflation, privacy, climate change, misinformation and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Twitter tests a special tag to highlight phone number-verified accounts. “Elon Musk’s bot-baiting aside, Twitter has had many people call for changes to how it identifies accounts and what can be done to call out which ones are more legit than others. Now engineer Jane Manchun Wong has dug up a Twitter label that would put a mark on accounts with a verified phone number.”

9to5 Google: Google releases ‘Online Insights Study’ app on the Play Store. “Google’s newest Android app on the Play Store is called ‘Online Insights Study’ to allow ‘registered users to participate in market research.’ A site attached to the Play Store listing explains that the “Online Insights Study is a research project conducted by Google.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo AU: Every Time Your Data Is Sent to Google, This Linux Add-on Beeps to Warn You . “This add-on for Linux operating systems lets you know whenever Google receives your data with a sound effect. Listed on Github as ‘Googerteller’, the Linux add-on gives you ‘audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google.’ When it is in action, it sounds a bit like a geiger counter.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Texas State Library and Archives Commission Awards Nearly $1.2 Million in Grants to Texas Libraries. “Selected Texas libraries will soon undertake new projects with funding from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC). Workforce development resources, tools for promoting tech literacy and a wide range of impactful community programs topped the list of grant proposals recently approved by TSLAC. Agency commissioners awarded 42 library grants totaling $1,168,717 for numerous Texas libraries and institutions of higher education at their July 29 meeting in Austin.”

New York Times: How Dan Price’s Social Media Fame Fueled Abuse Allegations. “Mr. Price’s internet fame has enabled a pattern of abuse in his personal life and hostile behavior at his company, interviews with more than 50 people, documents and police reports show. He has used his celebrity to pursue women online who say he hurt them, both physically and emotionally. Ms. [Kacie] Margis is one of more than a dozen women who spoke to The New York Times about predatory encounters with Mr. Price.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Yahoo Finance: Elon Musk demands Jack Dorsey turn over Twitter info on fake accounts. “On Monday, attorneys for Musk filed court documents showing they had issued a subpoena requiring Dorsey to share documents on Twitter’s fake accounts, an issue at the heart of Musk’s rationale for backing out of the $44 billion agreement to acquire the company.” Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO last November and completely left the company in May, so I’m not sure what this is trying to accomplish.

Internet Archive Blog: Launching Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining – Cross Border (LLTDM-X) . “NEH funding for the project, entitled Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining – Cross Border (LLTDM-X), will support research and analysis that addresses law and policy issues faced by U.S. digital humanities practitioners whose text data mining research and practice intersects with foreign-held or licensed content, or involves international research collaborations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Big Data in the ER . “Scientists from the Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine at the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine developed an AI algorithm to predict the risk of mortality for patients suffering a major injury.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Associated Press: New space telescope shows Jupiter’s auroras and tiny moons. “Scientists released the shots of the solar system’s biggest planet on Monday. The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze.” Good morning, 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!

August 23, 2022 at 05:28PM
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GriddingMachine, Google, Metaverse Jobs, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022

GriddingMachine, Google, Metaverse Jobs, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Climate Modeling Alliance: GriddingMachine: A new database and software for sharing global datasets. “The ever increasing amount of data, various data formats, and different data layouts are increasing the time spent on handling data—before getting ready for scientific analysis. While the intention of sharing data is to facilitate their broad use and promote research, the increasing fragmentation makes it harder to find and access the data.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

City A.M.: Google ploughs $1.5 billion into crypto and blockchain companies. “Google has been quietly shovelling a massive $1.5 billion into cryptocurrency and blockchain companies for almost a year, data from an intelligence firm has revealed. A research report by Blockdata shows the search engine’s parent company – Alphabet – has been showering blockchain and crypto projects with cash since September 2021.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Metaverse jobs are disappearing as hiring slows at Google, Facebook. “Jobs in the metaverse are declining, with new monthly job postings across all industries with ‘metaverse’ in the title down 81 per cent between April and June, according to workplace researcher Revelio Labs.”

USEFUL STUFF

Ghacks: How to restore Google Image Search in Chrome. “If you prefer Google Images search in Google Chrome, you may restore the classic functionality for now. Please note that this is done by changing the value of an experimental flag; this flag will be removed by Google at one point, forcing all users to use Google Lens in the browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times Magazine: Why Do We Love TikTok Audio Memes? Call It ‘Brainfeel.’. “Welcome to the era of the audio meme, a time when replicable units of sound are a cultural currency as strong as — if not stronger than — images and text. Though TikTok didn’t invent the audio meme, its effortless interface may have perfected it, and the platform, which recently ended Google’s 15-year-long run as the most visited website in the world, would be nothing without sound.”

Independent: Google Maps seemingly captures downed plane in Australia – but experts say it’s not what it looks like. “The fully intact passenger plane was seen seemingly lying in the Cardwell Range in Australia, located about 250km (155 miles) south of Port Douglas on the Queensland coast. It is likely that the passenger jet, which appears to be an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737, was flying at a very low altitude, giving off an impression that it is on the ground.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sky News: Criminals posting counterfeit Microsoft products to get access to victims’ computers. “One such package seen by Sky News is manufactured to a convincing standard and contains an engraved USB drive, alongside a product key. But the USB does not install Microsoft Office when plugged in to a computer. Instead, it contains malicious software which encourages the victim to call a fake support line and hand over access to their PC to a remote attacker.”

CNET: Identity Crime Reports Jumped to Record Level in 2021, Group Says. “Reports of identity related thefts and scams jumped to record levels last year, as the COVID pandemic continued to boost criminal attempts to steal the unemployment and other government benefits of deserving consumers, the Identity Theft Resource Center said Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: Researcher discovers “Galileo manuscript” forgery. “After an internal investigation of the findings of a Georgia State University professor of history, the University of Michigan Library has concluded that its ‘Galileo manuscript’ — for almost a century considered one of the jewels of the library’s collection — is not a document written by Galileo himself in 1609 and 1610 but a 20th-century fake, most likely executed by the well-known forger Tobia Nicotra.” 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!

August 23, 2022 at 01:27AM
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Invasive JavaScript, Covid-19 Government Records, Silicon Valley Elections Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022

Invasive JavaScript, Covid-19 Government Records, Silicon Valley Elections Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Verge: This site exposes the creepy things in-app browsers from TikTok and Instagram might track. “Did you know you’re potentially being tracked when you load an in-app browser on iOS? A new tool reveals exactly how, showing how applications like TikTok and Instagram can potentially use JavaScript to view sensitive data, including your address, passwords and credit card information, without your consent.”

The Intercept: Laying Bare The Secrets Of The Pandemic. “Led by historians and transparency advocates, the Covid-19 Archive, as the project is called, will be a broad, interactive repository of records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and other open records laws. The project launched last week with Fauci’s early 2020 emails, including the one in which he addressed the rumors of his muzzling, and will be expanded by adding local, state, and federal public health records over the coming months.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: In new election, Big Tech uses old strategies to fight ‘big lie’. “For months, activists have urged tech companies to fight the spread of falsehoods purporting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — warning that such disinformation could delegitimize the 2022 midterms, in which all seats in the House of Representatives and more than a third of the Senate is up for grabs. Yet social media giants are pushing forward with a familiar playbook to police misinformation this electoral cycle, even as false claims that the last presidential election was fraudulent continue to plague their platforms.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 15 Online Presentation Tools to Win Over Your Audience. “Using these online tools, you can create and design interactive yet beautiful presentations directly in a web browser that makes your audience go wow. Let’s check out the following list.”

MakeUseOf: 5 Exceptional Free Tutorials to Learn No-Code Development. “In case you didn’t know, no-code tools are a new type of software and online apps that make it easy for non-techies to build tech products without any programming or coding knowledge. This ranges from simple websites and landing pages to complex databases and SaaS. And it’s surprisingly easy too. All you need is a little guidance to get started, which these online experts offer for free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: How Data Is Changing the College Experience. “In the real world, Pounce is a fuzzy game-day presence, rooting on the university’s athletes. In the virtual world, the mascot is a chatbot enhanced with artificial intelligence. The virtual version was introduced in the summer of 2016 to incoming freshmen, who could text questions to Pounce 24/7 and in just seconds get answers about financial aid, registration, housing, admissions and academic advising. Three years later, Pounce was rolled out to the entire student body, with broader capabilities—able not only to answer questions but also to initiate interactions on its own. For example, the chatbot can intervene when a student is determined to be at risk of failing a class or dropping out of school.”

Tubefilter: ‘Cult of the Lamb’ gets viewers into the game with Twitch integration. “The roguelike game, developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital, arrived on seven different consoles on August 11. From a content creation standpoint, the most interesting thing about Cult of the Lamb is its unique set of Twitch integrations. By installing a PC extension (not today, Mac users), Cult of the Lamb players can give some in-game power to their streaming audiences.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Marshall Project: See If Police in Your State Reported Crime Data to the FBI. “Nearly 40% of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. failed to report crime data to the FBI’s national database in 2021 after the transition to a new collection system. The transition creates huge gaps in national crime stats sure to be exploited by politicians in this election year.”

New York Times: A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal.. “Because technology companies routinely capture so much data, they have been pressured to act as sentinels, examining what passes through their servers to detect and prevent criminal behavior. Child advocates say the companies’ cooperation is essential to combat the rampant online spread of sexual abuse imagery. But it can entail peering into private archives, such as digital photo albums — an intrusion users may not expect — that has cast innocent behavior in a sinister light in at least two cases The Times has unearthed.”

Associated Press: Immigration advocates sue LexisNexis over personal data. “Data broker LexisNexis Risk Solutions allegedly violated Illinois law by collecting and combining extensive personal information and selling it to third parties including federal immigration authorities, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by immigration advocates.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Natural History Museum (UK): Natural History Museum celebrates pioneering digital and scientific collaboration with the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum of the National University of Singapore. “The Natural History Museum today celebrated its partnership with the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) of the National University of Singapore. Representatives from both parties met in the Museum’s world-renowned galleries to launch an international digitisation collaboration which will mobilise a wealth of data on the scientific, geological and environmental history of Singapore.”

USGS: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helps map underground geology across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. “This study will cover a vast, 27,500 square-mile area, covering parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia where geophysical data has not been collected for more than 45 years. The study will be funded by and conducted through the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), a partnership between the USGS and state geological surveys to modernize understanding of the nation’s fundamental geologic framework through new mapping and data collection.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 22, 2022 at 05:29PM
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