Group items tagged

"But on the downside it has led to a loss of face-to-face contact, which can have negative consequences, particularly when it comes to education. What's more, there are also health impacts to consider. New scientific research indicates that spending large amounts of time in front of the computer, or other devices such as tablets and cell phones, can be harmful to our health. This is largely due to the blue light emitted by electronic devices, which expose us to light-emitting diodes (LEDs)."

"But as a growing body of research shows, these electronic systems are not perfect. Our new study shows how often these technology-related errors occur and what they mean for patient safety. Often they occur due to programming errors or poor design and are less to do with the health workers using the system."

"As examples, Kowolowski noted that companies wanting to protect their intellectual property or individuals sending tax returns may be happy to use traditional PGP/SMIME technology to encrypt the body of their messages, but that "a freedom fighter working on an oppressive country" would be just as concerned about the metadata."

Youngtroopz might find this interesting...

Ooh this is interesting - how printers are being used to trace us and information.

"Fighting the creep of government use of face surveillance and the related risks can seem overwhelming. Police agencies, and the spy tech vendors that profit from the growth of a surveillance state, have much to gain by deploying this invasive spying technology. "

"In 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19b, and promised users that it wouldn't harvest their data and mix it with the surveillance troves it got from Facebook and Instagram. It lied. Years later, Facebook mixes data from all of its properties, mining it for data that ultimately helps advertisers, political campaigns and fraudsters find prospects for whatever they're peddling. Today, Facebook is in the process of acquiring Giphy, and while Giphy currently doesn't track users when they embed GIFs in messages, Facebook could start doing that anytime"

"Staying on the subject of "we live in a dystopian digital hellscape": a Gizmodo investigation identified 32 data brokers selling access to the unique mobile IDs of people pegged as "actively pregnant" or "shopping for maternity products". At least one company was also offering access to a catalogue of people using the same sorts of emergency contraceptives that some Republican's want to outlaw or restrict."

"The most effective of the existing bans on government face surveillance have crucial elements in common. They broadly define the technology, provide effective mechanisms for any community member to take legal enforcement action should the ordinance be violated, and limit the use of any information acquired in an inadvertent breach of the prohibition."

"Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware. Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared nor concerned about the harms they are inflicting on students. "

"Some of those rules have had unintended consequences: a law meant to prevent piracy also prevents you from fixing your own car, using generic printer ink, or adapting your e-reader for your visual impairment. And a law meant to encourage innovation is routinely abused to remove critical commentary and new creativity."

"A new regime of interoperability can revitalize competition in the space, encourage innovation, and give users more agency over their data; it may also create new risks to user privacy and data security. This paper considers those risks and argues that they are outweighed by the benefits. New interoperability, done correctly, will not just foster competition, it can be a net benefit for user privacy rights."