Technology Industry – PossibleThreat Articles

A call for digital-privacy regulation 'with teeth' at the federal level

March 13, 2024 0 Comments Data privacy, Government, Privacy, regulation, Technology Industry

Credit to Author: scot.finnie@gmail.com| Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 03:00:00 -0700

How did we get to the point where the tech industry is in the user-data business instead of the tech business?

Every day, Google collects data on billions of people worldwide, according to The Regulatory Review. The dodge that users gain some benefit from ad targeting is fallacy. For example, if Google’s search were decoupled from its advertising, there would be less chance for users to be misled by ignored search terms and seemingly hard-wired results.

There’s nothing beneficial to the user about Google’s sponsored search results. That’s also true of the adjacent Google ads that follow you around from site to site.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Failed unsubscribes could be a clue your data's out of control

January 15, 2024 0 Comments data center, Data privacy, legal, Security, Technology Industry

Credit to Author: eschuman@thecontentfirm.com| Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2024 03:00:00 -0800

Anyone who’s eveer tried to unsubscribe to an email list knows that “unsubscribe” button never seems to work — except to verify your email account is working. But what if that failure arises from something more problematic than an unethical person ignoring the request?

What if it is the latest symptom of the overly distributed data problem?

That’s the same issue that undermines compliance and legal discovery rules such as GDPR’s Right To Be Forgotten rule. It’s also the same problem that makes it all-but-impossible for enterprises to have current and comprehensive datamaps.

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ComputerWorld Independent

The top 10 tech stories of 2023

January 13, 2024 0 Comments augmented reality, careers, generative ai, regulation, remote work, Security, Technology Industry, Virtual Reality

The top technology stories of 2023 highlight fundamental changes in culture and geopolitics as well as tech itself: It’s clear that generative AI will affect all aspects of technology and society, while geopolitical tensions are sparking cybersecurity attacks globally. General unease about the dominance of big tech, meanwhile, is pushing regulators to get tougher on mopolistic business practices and multibillion-dollar mergers.

Fired! Rehired! Sam Altman’s ouster and return to OpenAI

The ouster of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI, which sparked the modern era of generative AI when it launched ChatGPT a year earlier, was the tech industry shocker of the year. After the board issued a mysterious statement on November 17 saying that it had fired Altman for not being “consistently candid,” Microsoft announced that it would hire Altman and any other OpenAI employees who wanted to follow him out the door — which turned out to be almost all of them. OpenAI backed down and rehired Altman.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Choosing a genAI partner: Trust, but verify

January 13, 2024 0 Comments Artificial intelligence, generative ai, Security, Technology Industry

Credit to Author: eschuman@thecontentfirm.com| Date: Tue, 19 Dec 2023 10:03:00 -0800

Enterprise executives, still enthralled by the possibilities of generative artificial intelligence (genAI), more often than not are insisting that their IT departments figure out how to make the technology work.

Let’s set aside the usual concerns about genAI, such as the hallucinations and other errors that make it essential to check every single line it generates (and obliterate any hoped-for efficiency boosts). Or that data leakage is inevitable and will be next to impossible to detect until it is too late. (OWASP has put together an impressive list of the biggest IT threats from genAI and LLMs in general.)

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ComputerWorld Independent

Spanish media's $600M suit against Meta is based on GDPR noncompliance

December 5, 2023 0 Comments Internet, legal, Privacy, regulation, Technology Industry

Facebook parent company Meta is facing yet another legal challenge over user privacy, as a Spanish media company representing top media outlets in the country is suing the social media giant for $600 million for competitively unfair advertising practices based on noncompliance with the EU’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR).

The Information Media Association (La Asociación de Medios de Información, or AMI), has filed a €550 million ($600 million) lawsuit against Meta, claiming Meta’s ability to design personalized advertising on its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms based on its enormous user base represents an unfair competitive advantage in the advertising market in Europe, which includes media companies.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Splunk cuts 7% of workforce ahead of Cisco acquisition

November 1, 2023 0 Comments cisco systems, network monitoring, Network security, Technology Industry

The layoffs are happening in the wake of a market retraction, Splunk CEO Gary Steele said.

ComputerWorld Independent

UK's controversial online safety bill set to become law

September 20, 2023 0 Comments encryption, Privacy, regulation, Technology Industry

Four years after it started life as a white paper, the UK government’s controversial Online Safety Bill has finally passed through Parliament and is set to become law in the coming weeks.

The bill aims to keep websites and different types of internet-based services free of illegal and harmful material while defending freedom of expression. It applies to search engines; internet services that host user-generated content, such as social media platforms; online forums; some online games; and sites that publish or display pornographic content.

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ComputerWorld Independent

UK rolls back controversial encryption rules of Online Safety Bill

September 6, 2023 0 Comments encryption, regulation, Technology Industry

The UK government has conceded one of the more controversial parts of its Online Safety Bill, stating that the powers granted by the legislation will not be used to scan encrypted messaging apps for harmful content until it can be done in a targeted manner.

Companies will not be required to scan encrypted messages until it is “technically feasible and where technology has been accredited as meeting minimum standards of accuracy in detecting only child sexual abuse and exploitation content,” said Stephen Parkinson, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Arts and Heritage, in a planned statement during the bill’s third reading in the House of Lords on Wednesday afternoon.

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ComputerWorld Independent

China bans chip maker Micron from key infrastructure projects

May 22, 2023 0 Comments regulation, Security, Technology Industry

Credit to Author: avenkat@idg.com| Date: Mon, 22 May 2023 05:42:00 -0700

A network security review of Micron products sold in China has revealed that these products pose a significant security risk to the country’s key information infrastructure supply chain, according to the Cyberspace Affairs Commission of China.

Micron is a US memory chip giant that produces computer memory and computer data storage including dynamic random-access memory, flash memory, and USB flash drives. The Chinese authorities have not mentioned which Micron products are banned, what kind of security risk they pose, nor what would happen to existing Micron products that are already in use.

“The review found that Micron’s products have more serious cybersecurity problems and pose significant security risks to China’s critical information infrastructure supply chain, affecting China’s national security,” according to a machine translation of a Cyberspace Affairs Commission of China statement.

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