For.Your.Information

!?! HACKERS WANTS YOUR VOTE IN OVER 30 COUNTRIES !?! Elections in 18 separate nations were influenced by online disinformation campaigns last year, suggests research. Independent watchdog Freedom House looked at how online discourse was influenced by governments, bots and paid opinion formers.... In total, 30 governments were actively engaged in using social media to stifle dissent, said the report. Educating users to spot fake news and making tech firms police their networks could combat the manipulation, it said. Devastating impact The annual report studied the state of internet freedom across 65 nations - covering about 87% of the world's net-using population. For the seventh year running, it said, net freedom had declined as governments stepped up efforts to control what citizens said, did and shared online. The different tactics used to influence online speech included: automated bots that echoed official messagesarmies of paid commentators that swamped discussions with pro-government viewsfalse news sites that spread misleading informationtrolling that soaked up critics' time with personal attacks Used alongside more overt technical controls such as firewalls, content filters and blocks on technical tools such as virtual private networks, the manipulation of social media had become a key tool for repressive regimes, it said. "Not only is this manipulation difficult to detect, it is more difficult to combat than other types of censorship, such as website blocking, because it's dispersed and because of the sheer number of people and bots deployed to do it," said Sanja Kelly, head of the Freedom on the Net research project. Ms Kelly said China and Russia had pioneered widespread net controls but the techniques had now gone "global". Many other nations, including Turkey, the Philippines, Syria and Ethiopia, now employed them extensively, she said. "The effects of these rapidly spreading techniques on democracy and civic activism are potentially devastating," added Ms Kelly. Official efforts to control debate were most obvious during elections, said the Freedom House report - which were held in 18 of the countries researchers examined. Usually the activity was contained within one nation, but increasingly governments were looking to social media to subvert debate beyond their own borders. Russia, in particular, said the report, had made significant efforts to influence the US presidential election. It said less than 25% of the world's net users lived in nations where net access could be considered free, meaning: no significant obstacles to getting onlinefew restrictions on what could be shared or viewedsurveillance was limitedno significant repercussions for those exercising free speech The report said net freedom could be aided by: large-scale programmes that showed people how to spot fake newsputting tight controls on political advertsmaking social media giants do more to remove bots and tune algorithms to be more objective

!?! THIEVES STEAL YOUR UBER CREDITS WHILE COMPANY LOOKS THE OTHER WAY !?! Hackers stole the personal data of 57 million customers and drivers from Uber Technologies Inc., a massive breach that the company concealed for more than a year. This week, the ride-hailing firm ousted its chief security officer and one of his deputies for their roles in keeping the hack under wraps, which included a $100,000 payment to the attackers. Compromised data from the October 2016 attack in...Continue reading

!?! GOOGLE STARTS CYBER WARFARE FIGHT WITH RUSSIA !?! Google and several leading Russian search engines have completely wiped 786 'pirate' sites from their search results. That's according to telecoms watch Rozcomnadzor, which reports that the search providers delisted the sites after ISPs were ordered by a Moscow court to permanently block them. Late July, President Vladimir Putin signed a new law which requires local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor to maintain a list of ba...nned domains while identifying sites, services, and software that provide access to them. Rozcomnadzor is required to contact the operators of such services with a request for them to block banned resources. If they do not, then they themselves will become blocked. In addition, search engines are also required to remove blocked resources from their search results, in order to discourage people from accessing them. Removing entire domains from search results is a controversial practice and something which search providers have long protested against. They argue that it’s not their job to act as censors and in any event, content remains online, whether it’s indexed by search or not. Nevertheless, on October 1 the new law (On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection) came into effect and it appears that Russia’s major search engines have been very busy in its wake. According to a report from Rozcomnadzor, search providers Google, Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler, and Sputnik have stopped presenting information in results for sites that have been permanently blocked by ISPs following a decision by the Moscow City Court. To date, search engines have stopped access to 786 pirate sites listed in the register of Internet resources which contain content distributed in violation of intellectual property rights, the watchdog reports. The domains aren’t being named by Rozcomnadzor or the search engines but are almost definitely those sites that have had complaints filed against them at the City Court on multiple occasions but have failed to take remedial action. Also included will be mirror and proxy sites which either replicate or facilitate access to these blocked and apparently defiant domains. The news comes in the wake of reports earlier this month that Russia is considering a rapid site blocking mechanism that could see domains rendered inaccessible within 24 hours, without any parties having to attend a court hearing. While it’s now extremely clear that Russia has one of the most aggressive site-blocking regimes in the world, with both ISPs and search engines required to prevent access to infringing sites, it’s uncertain whether these measures will be enough to tackle rampant online piracy. New research published in October by Group-IB revealed that despite thousands of domains being blocked, last year the market for pirate video in Russia more than doubled.

!?! SELF DRIVING CAR PLAYS GOD ON ROAD TEST !?! It’s a bright, sunny day and you’re alone in your spanking new self-driving vehicle, sprinting along the two-lane Tunnel of Trees on M-119 high above Lake Michigan north of Harbor Springs. You’re sitting back, enjoying the view. You’re looking out through the trees, trying to get a glimpse of the crystal blue water below you, moving along at the 45-mile-an-hour speed limit. As you approach a rise in the road, heading south, a s...Continue reading

!?! A.I Will Destroy Everyone One Day !?! Elon Musk believes it’s highly likely that artificial intelligence (AI) will be a threat to people. The Tesla founder is concerned that a handful of major companies will end up in control of AI systems with extreme levels of power.... In Mr Musk’s opinion, there’s a very small chance that humans will be safe from such systems. Maybe there's a five to 10 percent chance of success [of making AI safe], he told Neuralink staff after showing them a documentary on AI, reports Rolling Stone. He also told them that he invested in DeepMind in order to keep an eye on Google’s development of AI. Mr Musk has called for the companies working on AI to slow down to ensure they don’t unintentionally build something unsafe. Between Facebook, Google and Amazon and arguably Apple, but they seem to care about privacy they have more information about you than you can remember, he told Rolling Stone. There's a lot of risk in concentration of power. So if AGI [artificial general intelligence] represents an extreme level of power, should that be controlled by a few people at Google with no oversight? Though he didn't expand on what sort of threat it could pose, he's previously said that AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation. He believes its development needs to be regulated proactively. I have exposure to the most cutting-edge AI and I think people should be really concerned about it, he said in July. I keep sounding the alarm bell but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal."

!! 5 Billion in sales on Black Friday... What experts think next? !! American shoppers spent a record $5 billion in 24 hours. That marks a 16.9% increase in dollars spent online compared with Black Friday 2016, according to data from Adobe Digital Insights, which tracks 80% of online spending at America's 100 largest retail websites. Digital retail giant Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) said Friday that orders were rolling in "at record levels." More than 200,000 toys were sold in just... the first five hours of the day, the company said. Amazon did not provide sales figures for Black Friday. Meanwhile, malls and big-box retailers were left only slightly emptier. Early estimates from ShopperTrak, a data analytics company that measures the number of shoppers at stores, said foot traffic "decreased less than one percent when compared to Black Friday 2016." A meager dip is good news for traditional retailers. As online-savvy businesses continue to gobble up more and more of the market share, companies like Macy's (M), JCPenney (JCP), Gap(GPS) and Sears (SHLD) have suffered. It remains to be seen exactly how much in-store shoppers were willing to spend. That will be a crucial data point in assessing retailers' woes. But Brian Field, senior director of advisory services for ShopperTrak, is optimistic. "There has been a significant amount of debate surrounding the shifting importance of brick-and-mortar retail, and the fact that shopper visits remained intact on Black Friday illustrates that physical retail is still highly relevant and, when done right, profitable," Field said in a statement. Looking at both Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, however, in-store foot traffic was actually down nearly 2% compared to the same two days last year. Field says that's likely because "a greater number of brick-and-mortar retailers opted to close on Thanksgiving Day." We'll know more about how it all shakes out in the coming months and early 2018, when big-box retailers post their next round of earnings reports. In the meantime, there's plenty of busy holiday shopping days to come. Adobe predicts that Cyber Monday will be even bigger than Black Friday, bringing in as much as $6 billion in digital sales.