Latest Technology Posts

Brief #37—Technology
By Linda F Hersey
Artificial intelligence is poised to take over many job functions beyond bolting doors on vehicles at auto plants or filling orders at Amazon warehouses.  Jobs that many people assume require a human touch are at risk. They include roles in telemarketing, bookkeeping, employee compensation, office administrative duties, delivery services, proofreading and market research analysis. Within five to 10 years, driverless cars and trucks are expected to transform road transport services, including long-haul trucking and popular door-to-door food delivery. Should humans performing more complex business functions be looking over their shoulder? Perhaps. Emerging roles of artificial intelligence across industries are diverse and sweeping in scope, including entertainment/media, financial services, health care and energy.

Brief #36—Technology
By Charles A Rubin
The drama surrounding the wild trading and social media fueled speculation in the shares of stocks GameStop, AMC Entertainment, Bed Bath & and Beyond, Blackberry and other underperforming companies has thrust Wall Street near the top of a crowded list of issues that President Joe Biden’s regulatory team needs to tackle early in its term.
The wild fluctuations in these stocks which played out in the waning days of January revealed a new dynamic of Reddit subgroups, trading apps with no business model for profit and sophisticated social media personalities. There is excitement that the individual investor will be able to reap the benefits that had been only available to savvy and secretive Wall Street types. There is equal concern that we are creating bubbles that will seriously damage our economy when it can least sustain any more shocks.

Brief #35—Technology
By Charles A Rubin
In the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol inspired by then President Trump, Twitter and Facebook banned him permanently from their platforms for violations of their terms of service. In the days that followed and in the wake of other individuals being prohibited from using those services, many in the right wing camp moved to services such as Parler and Gab. These services were removed from both the Apple and Android application stores and Parler’s servers, hosted in the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure, were shut down.

Brief #34—Technology
By Scout Burchill
Facebook has been targeting online “patriot” and militia groups with ads for military gear such as body armor and weapon accessories. Despite a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from members of Congress, calls from State Attorney Generals, and internal warnings by Facebook employees, research by the Tech Transparency Project reveals that these ads were still targeting users as late as January 17th.

Brief #33—Technology
By Scout Burchill
On January 6th, in the wake of the Capitol Hill riots, Twitter announced that President Donald Trump’s account would be suspended. Twitter followed this up on Friday, January 8th by permanently banning President Trump from its platform “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Other tech platforms almost immediately followed suit, including Reddit, Twitch, Shopify, Snapchat, Discord, Stripe and Facebook, which declared a ban “indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks.” Facebook has since sent this decision to their newly created oversight board for further review.

Brief #32—Technology
By Charles A Rubin
The US Defense Intelligence Agency and other government entities routinely collect cell phone location data on US residents without a warrant, according to a memo reported by The New York Times on Friday January 22, 2021. The agencies buy the information on the open market from data brokers, who often get it from third-party apps running on users’ phones.

Brief #31—Technology
By Charles A Rubin
In December 2020 Solarwinds, a major provider of computer network monitoring software, revealed that several of its servers that were used to distribute software updates to customers had been compromised. The servers had been routinely delivering altered code to computer networks throughout the US government and corporations that gave nefarious actors unfettered access to communications and internal systems. The malware created multiple “backdoors” that could be exploited in the future. Further, this compromise had gone undetected for several months. One month later the full extent of the intrusion is still not fully understood and the amount of information that has been exposed has not been completely assessed.

Brief #30—Technology
By Scout Burchill
As vaccines for the COVID-19 virus begin to be distributed across the country, social media platforms have pledged to combat anti-vaccination misinformation.

Brief #29—Technology
By Charles A Rubin
On December 13, 2020 news broke that computer networks at several US government agencies including the Departments of Treasury and Commerce had been compromised by a state actor.