Ghostery, Twitter, BBC on Mastodon, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2023

Ghostery, Twitter, BBC on Mastodon, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

TechRadar: Track the trackers together: Ghostery opens up its adblocker library. “Blocking and filtering online trackers since 2009, Ghostery was already used to collaborating with external experts to feed its database. Now, the team decided to make this process more transparent and accessible by the broader online community. TrackerDB is now open-source and fully available on GitHub.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Jezebel: Elon Musk Forced to Take Down Disastrous ‘X’ Sign on Twitter Building After 3 Days. “Over the weekend, days after police had to stop the company from taking down its Twitter sign as they didn’t have the necessary safety permits, Musk rolled out an enormous, blinding ‘X’ sign at the top of the building. The brightly lit eyesore—which inevitably poses a risk to those vulnerable to seizures—terrorized neighbors across the street. Well, as of Monday afternoon, the ‘X’ sign has vanished from the top of the office building following a string of very vocal complaints from neighbors, CBS reports.” Note to posterity: we find this just as ridiculous now as you will then. I got nothing, fam.

The Verge: BBC launches an ‘experimental’ Mastodon server. “The BBC has launched its own ‘experimental’ Mastodon server, marking one of the first major news outlets to establish an instance on the Twitter alternative. You can access the server at social.bbc, which encompasses posts from a handful of BBC accounts, including BBC Radio 4, BBC Taster, BBC Research & Development, and a few more.” If you haven’t gotten into Mastodon yet, or if you HAVE gotten into Mastodon and you’re looking for your fam, check out MastoGizmos. 11 tools for exploring, browsing, and making the most of Mastodon. Free and ad-free.

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: The Best Way to Bulk Export Your Apple Notes. “Apple Notes is among the best free note-taking apps out there, but it doesn’t make it easy to export notes in bulk. Whether you’re thinking of switching to another app—such as Obsidian, which has better support for Android and Windows—or just considering backing up all your notes, you’re going to need a bulk export tool to handle the job.”

Engineering .com: Can I 3D Print This? New Tool from EOS Will Tell You. “The tool is designed to make the viability of metal and polymer 3D printing more accessible to newcomers. Focused on using laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) for production, the tool is squarely aimed at industrial 3D printing, a.k.a., additive manufacturing (AM). Users can input information about their current manufacturing method(s) along with a part design file and receive an automatically generated analysis that includes a cost estimation, predicted production time, and a recommended EOS system and material.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Progress: Threat and promise of AI looms over fall semester at UVa. “‘I’ve used ChatGPT to write answers to essays and discussion questions,’ an undeclared first-year student said. ‘Professors thought I wrote it. Almost everyone I know has probably cheated with it at some point. It’s the future, and it’s so easy.'”

Associated Press: Poetry academy announces grants. “A digital poetry archive in Utah, slam poetry workshops in South Carolina and creative writing programs in New Mexico are among the initiatives being supported by more than $1 million in grants from the Academy of American Poets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: CISA warns of breach risks from IDOR web app vulnerabilities. “CISA warned today of the significant breach risks linked to insecure direct object reference (IDOR) vulnerabilities impacting web applications in a joint advisory with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) and U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). IDOR vulnerabilities are flaws in web apps (or apps that use affected web APIs) that enable attackers to access and manipulate sensitive data by directly referencing internal objects or resources.”

New York Times: U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations. “American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations, including during a Chinese move against Taiwan.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford Law School: Rethinking Algorithmic Decision-Making. “In a new paper, Stanford University authors, including Stanford Law Associate Professor Julian Nyarko, illuminate how algorithmic decisions based on ‘fairness’ don’t always lead to equitable or desirable outcomes.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 2, 2023 at 12:42AM
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ALERTCalifornia, Student Loan Repayment, National Library of Australia, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2023

ALERTCalifornia, Student Loan Repayment, National Library of Australia, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 1, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

ALERTCalifornia: ALERTCalifornia Launches to Provide Essential Tools to Understand and Adapt to Wildfires and Natural Disasters in the Golden State. “Fire and emergency management personnel input was essential to create the new, mobile friendly, public website interface, which now features a camera view “quilt” or collection of camera views targeting a specific area of interest as well as panoramas that show a high-resolution stitched-together 360-degree view for each camera.”

CNN: First on CNN: Biden administration launches new income-driven student debt repayment plan. “The Biden administration is launching a beta website for its new income-driven student loan repayment plan today, officials told CNN, allowing borrowers to begin submitting applications for the program as federal student loan payments are set to resume in October.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

National Library of Australia: National Library of Australia launches modernised Catalogue. “The National Library of Australia has launched its modernised Catalogue making it easier for patrons to search the Library’s collections.”

Search Engine Roundtable: New Google Merchant Center Policy Says AI Generated Reviews Are Spam & Disallowed. “Google has posted a new policy saying AI-generated reviews are against its policies, disallowed and considered spam. If you find such content, Google said you must mark it as spam in your feed with the is_spam attribute.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WHO13: Google glitch burns Urbandale business at worst-possible time. “Google is now the business lifeline. Without it, Lenz is only doing about ten jobs a day, and that’s only because this business, one that usually takes calls, is now making them. ‘The gals in the office are calling out, reaching out to friends, using Facebook,’ he said. Lenz said he’s losing $30,000 to $40,000 a day. But what’s worse are his fears that he’s losing his customers’ trust.”

The Guardian: Twitter neighbours complain of lit-up ‘X’ sign working at high intensity. “San Francisco’s building inspectors said it might be in violation of rules. One wrote in a report that company representatives denied roof access, twice, to officials seeking to inspect the logo. The inspector noted one representative said the sign was temporary.”

NBC News: Online games struggle to rein in hateful usernames, report finds. “Usernames that include racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, ableist and white supremacist terms go unmoderated on some of the most popular online games, according to a report published Monday by the Anti-Defamation League.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Researchers Poke Holes in Safety Controls of ChatGPT and Other Chatbots. “A new report indicates that the guardrails for widely used chatbots can be thwarted, leading to an increasingly unpredictable environment for the technology.”

Northeastern Global News: New smartphone vulnerability discovered by Northeastern Ph.D. student reveals hackers could track your location. “A newly discovered vulnerability in text messaging may enable attackers to trace your location, according to Northeastern Ph.D. student Evangelos Bitsikas. His research group exposed the flaw by applying a sophisticated machine-learning program to data gleaned from the relatively primitive SMS system that has driven texting in mobile phones since the early 1990s.”

Washington University in St. Louis: Analyzing generative AI’s copyright crisis. “The recent explosion of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot have supercharged the assistance available to programmers. However, AI assistants may strip out comments embedded in code to convey copyright and attribution guidelines, leaving human coders none the wiser yet still on the hook legally for intellectual property infringement. To combat this problem, computer science & engineering researchers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis have developed CodeIPPrompt, the first automated testing platform to evaluate how much language models generate IP-violating code.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington State University: Viral TikTok health videos tend to cover three topics, rely on influencers. “Sexual health, diet and exercise are the three topics that steal the show when it comes to popular health-related videos on TikTok. Unfortunately, there’s little else in terms of engaging health-related content on the video sharing platform, a Washington State University study found.”

University of California Riverside: Google & ChatGPT have mixed results in medical info queries. “When you need accurate information about a serious illness, should you go to Google or ChatGPT? A study led by University of California, Riverside, computer scientists found that both internet information gathering services have strengths and weaknesses. The team included clinical scientists from the University of Alabama and Florida International University.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 1, 2023 at 05:27PM
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Digital Equity Dashboard, Donald Judd’s Books, Arc Browser, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2023

Digital Equity Dashboard, Donald Judd’s Books, Arc Browser, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EdWeek: Ed-Tech Inequities Abound. A New Data Dashboard Seeks to Bring Them Into the Open. “The Digital Equity Dashboard, created by the Consortium for School Networking, consolidates national data sets into one resource, providing detailed information on tech access and other characteristics of communities, anonymized and broken down by county, school district, and zip code.”

Glasstire: Judd Foundation Launches Online Catalog of Donald Judd’s Marfa Library. “The books cover a wide range of topics such as art, architecture, philosophy, literature, anthropology, natural history, and world history. The catalog features a visual map of bookshelves in the library, and when a shelf is clicked, the site displays a photograph of the actual shelf. The bookshelves, built by local craftsmen, were designed by Mr. Judd in response to the dimensions of the room.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: The excellent Arc browser is now available for anyone to download. “Arc, the Mac and iOS browser from The Browser Company, is finally ditching its waitlist. The company has been testing the app for more than two years and has, until now, made every interested user sign up for a waitlist. But now, it’s launching for real. Arc’s version number just jumped to 1.0, and anyone who wants to use Arc can go to arc.net and get the browser.”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: How to Switch Browsers Without Losing Your Bookmarks and Passwords. “IF YOU’RE THINKING of switching browsers—maybe because you like the features in a different application, or you’re fed up with the one you’re using—all of your accumulated data, extensions, and bookmarks can feel like a reason to stay put. It doesn’t have to be, though: Getting your data out of one browser and into another isn’t as hard as you might think.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WCAX: Vermont Historical Society creates flood archive. “The Vermont Historical Society is collecting photos, videos and more to memorialize the flood of 2023. In addition to creating this brand new archive V.H.S. is also re-vamping their online gallery of the flood of 1927. Juls Sundberg, the metadata librarian at the Vermont Historical Society says they hope having access to both collections can connect viewers to the past, and for those uploading their experiences — provide a little bit of catharsis.”

Engadget: Twitter’s rebrand to X is causing scam alerts on Microsoft Edge. “Twitters swift rebrand to X is generating yet another issue. As reported by Bleeping Computer, the social media platform is causing Microsoft’s Edge browser to throw up a warning, indicating some sort of security problem.”

Fast Company: ‘You cannot dunk on a public defender.’ Meet the extremely online lawyer-Twitter celebrity. “Lawyers themselves are not known for having great senses of humor, which is something Beth Bourdon considers a massive misconception. Most of the attorneys in her Central Florida office, for instance, trade dark jokes amongst themselves whenever possible. Anything to lighten up the bleak atmosphere that comes with striving to mitigate the death penalty for one’s clients.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Judge blocks Arkansas law allowing librarians to be criminally charged over ‘harmful’ materials. “Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing ‘harmful’ materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.”

Bleeping Computer: BreachForums database and private chats for sale in hacker data breach. “While consumers are usually the ones worried about their information being exposed in data breaches, it’s now the hacker’s turn, as the notorious Breached cybercrime forum’s database is up for sale and member data shared with Have I Been Pwned.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: The Story of the Student Journalist and the Stanford President. “Absent public scrutiny, journals have been consistently slow to act on allegations of research falsification. In a field dependent on good faith cooperation, in which each contribution necessarily builds on the science that came before it, the consequences can compound for years.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 1, 2023 at 12:14AM
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Digital Citizenship in Africa, Henry Moore Art Exhibit Posters, Spanish-Language Audio and Braille, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2023

Digital Citizenship in Africa, Henry Moore Art Exhibit Posters, Spanish-Language Audio and Braille, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, July 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Institute of Development Studies: A new era of digital citizenship in Africa. “With contributions from scholars across the continent, Digital Citizenship in Africa illustrates how citizens have been using social media to run hashtag campaigns and VPNs, encryption and privacy protecting browsers to resist limits on their rights to privacy and political speech. In each chapter authors show how positive examples of digital citizenship are limited and constrained by new forms of digital authoritarianism: internet shutdowns, repressive laws, and by state surveillance and disinformation.”

The Guardian: Poster boy: Henry Moore exhibition art through the ages – in pictures. “Sunday 30 July is the 125th anniversary of artist Henry Moore’s birth. To celebrate, the Henry Moore Archive is unveiling a digitised collection of more than 400 posters featuring Moore’s many shows through the years.”

New-to-me, from Library of Congress: NLS Debuts Site for Spanish-Language Audio and Braille. “At the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), we’ve been delighted by the enthusiastic reader response to the rollout of a Spanish site at the top of our home page. Since the site’s February debut, readers have jumped at the chance to find the newest reading materials in Spanish-language audio and Braille. The new site also features Spanish-language guides to our most popular resources, including frequently-asked questions about our BARD Mobile reading app, information about our accessible music scores and details on how to obtain a free currency reader for blind and visually impaired users.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bureau of Transportation Statistics: BTS Updates Datasets to National Transportation Atlas Database 07/28/2023. “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today released its summer 2023 update to the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, networks, and associated infrastructure.”

NBC News: Ye’s Twitter account is unsuspended months after it was banned over swastika post. “Ye’s account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, was unsuspended Saturday, more than six months after it was banned over a post showing an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.”

Ars Technica: Reddit calls for “a few new mods” after axing, polarizing some of its best. “Reddit is campaigning to replace numerous longstanding moderators who were removed from their positions after engaging in API protests. Over the past week, a Reddit employee has posted to subreddits with ousted mods, asking for new volunteers. But in its search, the company has failed to address the intricacies involved in moderating distinct and, in some cases, well-known subreddits. And it doesn’t look like the knowledge from the previous moderators is being passed down.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Tom’s Guide: Don’t ‘Bard it’ — Google says you should still Google it to be safe. “Google Bard may be competing with ChatGPT, but it’s also competing with Google Search. Plenty of people are turning to AI chatbots over traditional search engines, which is why Bing Chat and Google Search Generative Experience both exist as AI tools that blend generative AI with traditional search. But unfortunately, generative AI gets things wrong — a lot. So Google is reminding people that when in doubt, you should still Google it rather than Bard it.” Use the whizbang technology, but do not TRUST the whizbang technology. Instead, keep using the old technology, so that it takes twice as long to do a task. But whizbang technology! This is so stupid.

Techdirt: Techdirt Has Been Deleted From Bing And DuckDuckGo. “A few months ago, Jack Yan pointed out to me that if they did a search for Techdirt on DuckDuckGo, it showed only one single link which was (bizarrely) to a random story from like eight years ago. There were literally no other results for Techdirt. I replicated it, but was travelling, and by the time I went back to write about it a few days later, everything seemed back to normal (in the interim there were a few days where it just found a couple hundred Techdirt posts). Jack wrote a short blog post on his own site about it. This morning, however, someone alerted me to the fact that DuckDuckGo currently shows zero results for Techdirt. Not even some random old article. Zero. None. Zilch.”

Huffpost: There’s A Deadly Drinking Problem On TikTok. “While the app has strict rules prohibiting branded content promoting alcohol, creators are still allegedly making money drinking to excess — and at least one has died.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Russia Takes Its Ukraine Information War Into Video Games. “These games and adjacent discussion sites like Discord and Steam are becoming online platforms for Russian agitprop, circulating to new, mostly younger audiences a torrent of propaganda that the Kremlin has used to try to justify the war in Ukraine. In this virtual world, players have adopted the letter Z, a symbol of the Russian troops who invaded last year; embraced legally specious Russian territorial claims in Crimea and other places; and echoed President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to denigrate Ukrainians as Nazis and blame the West for the conflict.”

Euractiv/Reuters: Sweden says it’s target of Russia-backed disinformation over NATO, Koran burnings. “Sweden is the target of a disinformation campaign by ‘Russia-backed actors’ intended to hurt the image of the NATO-candidate country by implying it supported recent burnings of the Koran, its Minister for Civil Defence said on Wednesday (26 July).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

North Carolina State University: Citizen Science Inspires Kids to Take Local Action. “North Carolina State University researchers recently found that a program designed to get Girl Scouts involved in citizen science – programs where members of the public can participate in real scientific research – not only taught girls about the process of science, but also motivated them to tackle scientific or environmental problems in their communities.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 31, 2023 at 05:27PM
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Smithsonian Podcast, Reddit, Photoshop, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2023

Smithsonian Podcast, Reddit, Photoshop, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Smithsonian: Smithsonian Magazine Announces “There’s More to That,” a New Podcast in Partnership With PRX. “Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can—through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. On There’s More to That, listeners will meet the magazine’s journalists as they discover the forces behind some of the biggest issues of our time and give curious listeners a fresh understanding of the world we all inhabit.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Reddit is testing ‘official’ labels for profiles and making parts of its app compatible with screen readers. “Reddit is starting to test a new ‘Official’ label that will make it easier to spot if an account is authentic. The new label will appear sitewide, meaning that it won’t be up to the moderators of individual subreddits to have to verify specific accounts.”

TechCrunch: Photoshop’s new generative AI feature lets you ‘uncrop’ images. “Adobe is building on Firefly, its family of generative AI models, with a feature in Photoshop that ‘expands images beyond their original bounds,’ as the company describes it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: Indian politicians embrace influencers ahead of 2024 elections. “As the campaign for the 2024 elections in India goes digital, social media influencers have become a powerful tool to try and shape voter behavior.”

Associated Press: Saudi Arabia is spending billions to become a global gaming hub. Some fans don’t want to play. “Saudi Arabia, the new home of some of soccer’s biggest stars and a co-owner of professional golf, is proving to be no less ambitious when it comes to another global pastime – the $180 billion-a-year video game industry.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Code Kept Secret for Years Reveals Its Flaw—a Backdoor . “FOR MORE THAN 25 years, a technology used for critical data and voice radio communications around the world has been shrouded in secrecy to prevent anyone from closely scrutinizing its security properties for vulnerabilities. But now it’s finally getting a public airing thanks to a small group of researchers in the Netherlands who got their hands on its viscera and found serious flaws, including a deliberate backdoor.”

TorrentFreak: Turner Classic Movies Airs a Film With ‘Pirated’ Subtitles. “Turner Classic Movies is an invaluable institution for many film aficionados. The same is true for the private BitTorrent tracker Karagarga, which archives tens of thousands of films, many of which are not available through legal channels. While the latter operates without permission from rightsholders, it made a surprise appearance on Turner’s service recently in the form of ‘pirated’ subtitles.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: The war in Ukraine is spurring a revolution in drone warfare using AI. “The design and software innovations, as well as mass dissemination of piloting know-how, are also likely to influence the way drones are used far beyond the war in Ukraine, with serious implications for governments confronting separatist militias, drug cartels and extremist groups seeking to gain a technological edge.”

NBC News: That sports broadcaster you hear could be AI. “Artificial intelligence commentators are edging into roles in sports broadcasting, with major competitions such as the Masters golf and Wimbledon tennis championships using the tech to automatically narrate certain highlight videos posted on the tournaments’ websites and apps.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it survives. “Mainframe computers are often seen as ancient machines—practically dinosaurs. But mainframes, which are purpose-built to process enormous amounts of data, are still extremely relevant today. If they’re dinosaurs, they’re T-Rexes, and desktops and server computers are puny mammals to be trodden underfoot.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 31, 2023 at 12:07AM
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Coronavirus Data, Online Censorship, Google, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2023

Coronavirus Data, Online Censorship, Google, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, July 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of California San Francisco: COVID Tracking Project Records and Resources Now Available. “The UCSF Library Archives and Special Collections is pleased to announce that the COVID Tracking Project (CTP) records are available for research. The CTP is a crowdsourced digital archive that was managed by a group of journalists at The Atlantic and approximately 500 volunteers. This committed group gathered, cataloged, and published state-level COVID-19 data over the first fifteen months of the pandemic.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Russia’s Online Censorship Has Soared 30-Fold During Ukraine War. “To compile its findings, Citizen Lab analyzed more than 300 court orders from the Russian government against Vkontakte, one of the country’s largest social media sites, demanding that it remove accounts, posts, videos and other content. Before the war, Russia’s government issued internet takedown orders to Vkontakte, known as VK, once every 50 days on average. After the conflict began, that number jumped to nearly once a day, according to Citizen Lab.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Officially Rolling Out New Search Settings Interface. “Ashwarya, Google Search Community Manager, posted that Google Search will soon roll out ‘a new experience to make access to key items easier on the Search Results Page on the web.’ In short, it is a new way to access Google Search Settings on desktop and mobile.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NPR: ‘X’ logo installed atop Twitter building, spurring San Francisco to investigate. “The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant ‘X’ sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons.”

Deutsche Welle: Watchdog wants Russia out of UNESCO Heritage Committee. “It was time for humanity to take a stand against this barbarism, Stephan Dömpke, chairman of World Heritage Watch, told DW. Russia had forfeited any right to play a role in international bodies that advise or decide on the protection of cultural property, he said.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Record: Irish court ruling over Google ad practices could have global impact. “An Irish civil liberties group went to court late this week to accuse the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) — the national independent authority responsible for upholding data privacy rights across Europe — of failing to properly investigate Google’s online advertising system, which it says is responsible for the biggest data breach ever recorded. Because of the DPC’s position as an arbiter for data privacy practices across Europe, the court’s decision in the case, expected later this year, could potentially have a significant impact on online advertising practices worldwide.”

Radio Poland: EU sanctions Russian entities, individuals for propaganda in support of war on Ukraine . “The European Union has imposed sanctions on seven Russian individuals and five entities for disseminating propaganda in support of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, officials have said.”

9to5 Mac: App Store to require developers to describe why their apps use certain APIs. “The App Store review process is very strict to ensure that apps comply with Apple’s guidelines. And soon, this whole process will get even more strict. That’s because Apple recently announced that developers would be required to detail why their apps use certain APIs before submitting them to the App Store.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Carnegie Mellon University: Researchers Discover New Vulnerability in Large Language Models. “Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science(opens in new window) (SCS), the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute(opens in new window), and the Center for AI Safety in San Francisco(opens in new window) have uncovered a new vulnerability, proposing a simple and effective attack method that causes aligned language models to generate objectionable behaviors at a high success rate.”

WIRED: The AI-Powered, Totally Autonomous Future of War Is Here. “Autonomous systems with the capacity to kill already exist around the globe. In any major conflict, even one well short of World War III, each side will soon face the temptation not only to arm these systems but, in some situations, to remove human oversight, freeing the machines to fight at machine speed. In this war of AI against AI, only humans will die. So it is reasonable to wonder: How do these machines, and the people who build them, think?”

University of Oxford: Researchers successfully train a machine learning model in outer space for the first time . “For the first time, researchers have trained a machine learning model in outer space, on board a satellite. This achievement could enable real-time monitoring and decision making for a range of applications, from disaster management to deforestation.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Los Angeles Times: California’s free prison calls are repairing estranged relationships and aiding rehabilitation. “At a time when most consumers enjoy free or low-cost calling, prison phone calls at their peak in California cost more than $6 per 15 minutes via a private telecommunications provider. That allowed only hurried, superficial conversations between the siblings — with one eye always on the clock. This year California became the second state in the nation, and the largest to date, to mandate free calls in state prisons.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 30, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Heat.gov, Zorin OS, Google Street View, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 29, 2023

Heat.gov, Zorin OS, Google Street View, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, July 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NOAA: Biden Administration launches Heat.gov with tools for communities facing extreme heat. “Heat.gov will provide a one-stop hub on heat and health for the nation and is a priority of President Biden’s National Climate Task Force and its Interagency Working Group on Extreme Heat.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

OMG Ubuntu: Zorin OS 16.3 Released with Upgrade Tool, LibreOffice 7.5. “Zorin OS 16.3 introduces a number of refinements that, its developers say, help ‘elevate your computing experience even further’. On paper, the inclusion of the new Zorin OS Upgrader app is Zorin OS 16.3’s tentpole feature.”

Bloomberg: Google Street View to post first new pictures from Germany in a decade. “Alphabet Inc.’s update will start with new photos of the streets and landmarks of the country’s 20 largest cities and expand from there, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday. Google voluntarily suspended Street View photography in Germany in 2011, after an outcry from privacy advocates and opposition from regulators.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Organize Your Projects With Trello. “As useful as they are, sometimes the to-do list apps on your phone just won’t cut it. In the search for personal productivity apps, a key thing to remember is that project management software, like Trello, is not only for teams in offices. You can use it to manage your personal stuff too.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Media Matters: Crowdfunding platform Ko-fi has raised at least tens of thousands for QAnon figures. “The crowdfunding platforming Ko-fi is hosting and profiting from more than a dozen QAnon figures who have collectively raised at least tens of thousands of dollars on the platform. Several of these QAnon figures moved to Ko-fi after Media Matters’ reporting led to their ban from another crowdfunding platform, Buy Me a Coffee.”

Daily Beast: Twitter Removes Fact-Check on Musk’s Bronny James Vax Post. “A fact-check through the platform’s Community Notes feature soon appeared alongside Musk’s tweet noting that the risk of myocarditis, a rare condition characterized by inflammation of heart muscle, is much higher for patients after a COVID infection rather than after a COVID vaccine. Without explanation, the fact-checking post was deleted from Musk’s tweet, which as of Wednesday still remains on his newly rebranded X platform without any kind of qualification.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

North Carolina State University: Why Computer Security Advice Is More Confusing Than It Should Be. “If you find the computer security guidelines you get at work confusing and not very useful, you’re not alone. A new study highlights a key problem with how these guidelines are created, and outlines simple steps that would improve them – and probably make your computer safer.”

KSL TV: Salt Lake City tattoo shop warns of impersonator social media profiles and scams. “A Salt Lake City Tattoo shop is warning people about impersonator social media accounts after potential clients were swindled out of hundreds to thousands of dollars… The social media/marketing manager, Jackie, said recently several fake Facebook and Instagram accounts have been collecting tattoo deposits in the name of Big Deluxe artists.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: They Didn’t Ask to Go Viral. Posting on Social Media Without Consent Is Immoral . “To be sure, crass and hateful public figures are worthy of ridicule. And we’ve been using the internet to judge strangers for as long as we’ve had the internet. But the common trait shared by much of the most obnoxious content today is that someone chose to elevate a stranger for no reason beyond their own gratification, attracting attention at a scale unimaginable in the days of relics like Hot or Not and People of Wal-Mart.” I have very strong feelings about this based on personal experience but I will spare you.

New York Times: Aided by A.I. Language Models, Google’s Robots Are Getting Smart. “Google has recently begun plugging state-of-the-art language models into its robots, giving them the equivalent of artificial brains. The secretive project has made the robots far smarter and given them new powers of understanding and problem-solving.” Powered by the knowledge of you and me and our intellectual output. Good afternoon, Internet…

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July 30, 2023 at 12:00AM
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