ITGSonline

"As the lava lamps bubble and swirl, a video camera on the ceiling monitors their unpredictable changes and connects the footage to a computer, which converts the randomness into a virtually unhackable code.  Why use lava lamps for encryption instead of computer-generated code? Since computer codes are created by machines with relatively predictable patterns, it is entirely possible for hackers to guess their algorithms, posing a security risk. Lava lamps, on the other hand, add to the equation the sheer randomness of the physical world, making it nearly impossible for hackers to break through."

"Employers argue they make considerable savings on real estate when workers shift from office to home work. However, these savings result from passing costs on to workers. Unless employees are fully compensated, this could become a variant of what urban theorist Andy Merrifield calls parasitic capitalism, whereby corporate profits increasingly rely on extracting value from the public - and now personal - realm, rather than on generating new value."

"Data collection-as Parscale's comment suggested-is perhaps the most powerful thing the Trump 2020 app does. On signing up, users are required to provide a phone number for a verification code, as well as their full name, email address, and zip code. They are also highly encouraged to share the app with their existing contacts. This is part of a campaign strategy for reaching the 40 to 50 million citizens expected to vote for Trump's reelection: to put it bluntly, the campaign says it intends to collect every single one of these voters' cell-phone numbers. This strategy means the app also makes extensive permission requests, asking for access to location data, phone identity, and control over the handset's Bluetooth function."

"Former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden says that tech workers need to think long and hard about how their labor is used by companies to amass power, surveil people, and fundamentally change society, and need to think about whether it is ethical to work at tech companies at all."

"A record 54m tonnes of "e-waste" was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN's Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world's population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019."

"Algorithms and the data that drive them are designed and created by people, which means those systems can carry biases based on who builds them and how they're ultimately deployed. Safiya Umoja Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, offers a curated reading list exploring how technology can replicate and reinforce racist and sexist beliefs, how that bias can affect everything from health outcomes to financial credit to criminal justice, and why data discrimination is a major 21st century challenge."

"These new tracking measures may someday be repurposed to advance governments' mass surveillance programs, Snowden warned"

" To be clear, workers are regularly replaced by automation, but the speed and impact of robots taking jobs is routinely overstated in public discourse; very unlikely to accelerate during a recession; and is one of many other factors that affect or change the nature of work."

"Launched in April, the smartphone app Smittestopp ("infection stop") was set up to collect movement data to help authorities trace the spread of Covid-19, and inform users if they had been exposed to someone carrying the virus. On Friday, the data agency Datatilsynet issued a warning that it would stop the Norwegian Institute of Public Health from handling data collected via Smittestopp."

"Facebook has blocked and in some cases banned users who tried to share a Guardian article about the site incorrectly blocking an image of Aboriginal men in chains. On Saturday, Guardian Australia reported that Facebook had apologised for incorrectly preventing an Australian user from sharing the photo from the 1890s."

"The type of device matters-some are associated with worse student outcomes. Geography matters-technology is associated with higher student outcomes in the United States than in other regions. Who is using the technology matters-technology in the hands of teachers is associated with higher scores than technology in the hands of students. Intensity matters-students who use technology intensely or not at all perform better than those with moderate use. A school system's current performance level matters-in lower-performing school systems, technology is associated with worse results."

"Zoom is not encrypting calls for free accounts with end to end encryption so they can provide law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation with content from those calls. As protesters demonstrate in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, law enforcement has deployed a wide range of surveillance tools to monitor and track protesters－including facial recognition software and contact tracing technology. They are working to get information from every source possible to disrupt and even arrest people involved with the protests."

"Just like the Twitter experiment, and to nobody's surprise -- a Facebook account that copies and re-posts President Donald Trump's posts word-for-word is immediately flagged for inciting violence."

"Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal."

""Social media giants like Twitter receive an unprecedented liability shield based on the theory that they are a neutral platform, not an editor with a viewpoint," he said during an Oval Office signing ceremony for an executive order designed to rein in big technology companies."

"The Singapore government says the wearable device it is developing for COVID-19 contact tracing will not have GPS, internet, or cellular connectivity, so data it collects can only be extracted when it is physically handed over to a health official. These details are being offered up as the government looks to ease concerns about data privacy and drive the adoption of digital tools that can help speed up contact tracing. "

"Microsoft's decision to replace human journalists with robots has backfired, after the tech company's artificial intelligence software illustrated a news story about racism with a photo of the wrong mixed-race member of the band Little Mix."

"The answer is simple: nobody, including opinion pollsters, knew about the Trump campaign's astonishing mastery of social media, especially Facebook. Trump may not have known much about that at the time - he really only understood Twitter - but Brad Parscale and his team sure knew how to make use of Facebook's micro-targeting machine. And they did."