WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: I missed that one when it was published last year. The document lists and compares tens of solutions and provides great overview of their characteristics. A great starting point.

WHY IT MATTERS: fascinating stories of espionnage using modified hardware by China. Everyone knows China, Russia, USA, and others do it. Just painful to see it in writing. A consequence of global supply chains (read the book "the world is flat" to understand why this is so) and a strong business case to bring back some of the manufacturing in our country even if it makes some devices more expensive. Considering that we are carry with us smart phones and that they are all made in China, this is going to be tough. This article is also a great case for strong data encryption for all data at rest and in flight.

WHY IT MATTERS: security has become central in our age of digital transformation. Yet, it seems, most people are either unaware of basic security principles, or not willing to invest time or money to do it. And I am not even talking of doing it *well*. Just implementing proper security measure. In this case it affect Parler, which in itself I don't much care about (they deserve it for such a stupid mistake). But their lack of security impacts their users privacy as well. And that includes potentially millions of people (in the photo, 68000 video have been geolocated - too bad for keeping your anonymity ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: install the contact tracing app on your phone, because without at least 60% adoption it won't be very useful. Know that bluetooth technology will respect your privacy but has limited effectiveness. Alternatives that use more precise GPS data unfortunately also have privacy issues. No perfect solution but everyone needs to install the app we have now.

Download COVID Alert is Canada's free exposure notification app: www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/covid-alert.html

WHY IT MATTERS: geek must-read just off the press is the framework to enable the Canadian digital ID. 

WHY IT MATTERS: this technical paper explains how Facebook engineering team has developed a framework to help facilitate the deletion of data in their social graph. This can be used in other contexts.

To me it highlights the primitive state we are in when it comes to permanently deleting the data we produce in our daily activities - so called "data exhaust". But what the framework fails to enable is metadata - for example the inferences that were made from the post such as the political preferences - are not reverted when deletion occurs. Thus the original data still leaves traces - the original event is forgotten but its impact is not. Much more needs to be created to ensure true "deletion" in order to enable that digital systems "forget". 

WHY IT MATTERS: very interesting article that reviews the different websites and systems where everyone should claim its spot. Financial, government and others are reviewed. I would add the "social media" category in the list: facebook, linkedIn instagram, etc.

WHY IT MATTERS: a nice reference on hackers and hacking along with a how-to guide if you want to get started! Digital transformation often requires a hacker's mindset to get around problems and think outside the box so this should be mandatory reading for anyone in the field! ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: yes the new normal may include being tracked by governments and employers for contact tracing. At some point the data will need to be be stored somewhere and the question will become: where is it stored? is it secure? is privacy protected?

WHY IT MATTERS: this article presents detailed numbers and references that show facial recognition is not accurate for dark skinned persons and that Amazon technology called rekognition is in use by law enforcement via ring doorbells...

WHY IT MATTERS: a very interesting visualization of the data captured by the main platforms. Usually I am not a big fan of infographics but this one is different as it conveys true information. The article has a. longer form version of this.

WHY IT MATTERS: not very surprising that this exists. Snowden has shown that USA has been doing this to spy and thus expects China is doing the same in the 5G networking equipment. I say they probably all are doing it. One more argument in favor of strong encryption everywhere.

WHY IT MATTERS: covid contact tracing appears an important component of public health safety. Apple and Google are embedding the solution into their OS quite fast. This is great news to prevent covid spread in the future. It raises a ton of questions about privacy and contact tracing outside of the health crisis. 

WHY IT MATTERS: using phone location and big data analysis tools it is possible to track where spring break party-going students have gone after the beach closed. Amazing to see, great and powerful to predict pandemic propagation. Also another reason to fear privacy invasion...

Direct link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq2zuE3ISYU 

WHY IT MATTERS: cameras are everywhere - phones, streets, home, office - and AI enables new capabilities that can present massive surveillance possibilities as well as personal protection and real-time data. This very well done video - as is the case with most VOX videos - should give you a good rundown of the plus and minuses...

WHY IT MATTERS: an article full of eye opening data on hacking and security (like only 750$ to hack someone's password) and links to protect your Google accounts (like adding recovery phone number).

WHY IT MATTERS: with voice enable devices making their way into the professional settings like doctors offices or lawyers office, the impact of devices that record everything that is being said in very private settings should concern us all.

WHY IT MATTERS: with digital transformation comes new tools and techniques that we need to learn to keep our privacy. These are 5 of them.

WHY IT MATTERS: for geeks that want to understand which trackers exists and how they appear on mobile apps and websites. Can also be used to add them to your apps of sites, unfortunately...

WHY IT MATTERS: I wrote about this many years back and it is worth an update given this very interesting article from WP. The growth of mobile tracking, yes even on iPhone, should be cause for concern. They also link to a solution, disconnect.me which I also covered in the past when it was launched as the collusion chrome plugin (in 2013!!!!). Moreover the very good github list of trackers is quite mindblowing. Yes it has been 6 years and the state of privacy has worsened in serious ways. Follow the links in the article for details but here are the 2 I consider most useful:

https://disconnect.me/

https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection

WHY IT MATTERS: this simple extension will inform you when your user-password has been stolen - prompting you to change your password or take action. Must have for everyone.

WHY IT MATTERS: want to know what augmented reality will look like in 10 or 20 years. Read this. But don't expect it to come together in the short-term, this is a *long* play

WHY IT MATTERS: China is using facial recognition to monitor its citizens, this is a well documented fact. Unfortunately, not all the steps required to protect this very private information are being taken, as evidenced by this article. This raises again the importance of security to be built into our every activities, especially those that involve government or security activities.

WHY IT MATTERS: the article explains how this team has successfully retrieved private information from discarded connected devices. It raises concerns about the disposal of connected products which, has everyone knows, will soon included pretty much everything in our homes and offices, from lightbulbs to refrigerators.

WHY IT MATTERS: this article explains how and why security companies must rely on humans to teach computers how to do object recognition on security camera feeds. This may lead to privacy concerns until such time that camera video feeds are encrypted and access to the data controlled. Today, neither is done.