Our weekly picks of digital trust-related articles

From data theft to interference in democratic processes, we've often warned of the negative consequences of digitalization in our weekly picks. To end the year on a more positive note, I like the way this site allows you to visualize the migrations flows of different bird species. Beautiful and peaceful.

Looking for something different this holiday season, but don’t want to go overboard? Consider exploring social media feeds without relying on "The Algorithm" to dictate what you see. While this option isn't available on every platform and isn't equally sensible for all, the EU has made it possible for you to have this choice. We're hopeful for further improvements to come.

Soon Santa Claus will be the easiest thing to explain to kids watching Christmas videos, thanks to AI generating other more curious peculiarities.

Séquence nostalgie en ces périodes de fêtes. Nouvo a 20 ans, et c'était une (petite) révolution avant-gardiste dans le monde de la télévision suisse: un aperçu rapide et accessible des sujets d'actualité du web, des innovations et des tendances émergentes, ceci avec un montage dynamique et une approche multi-canaux.

Say cheese! This artist has created a whimsical website that allows New Yorkers to take selfies with traffic surveillance cameras installed all over the city. Maybe it can be used to track Santa's whereabouts?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a drone? In a year full of much-needed escapism, from 24/7 Moo Deng livestreams to embracing a 'brat summer,' let's wrap up 2024 by imagining the mysterious sightings in the US East Coast were none other than Santa's sleigh!

I always supposed naively that once a breach in a system is detected, it will be fixed in a timely manner. Even more so if it's in an important system from the government, like the networks used for data gathering of the telecommunication companies. Reality shows that even after many months, the FBI is still not sure how much hackers are still present in these networks. And the hacking goes on...

I like this step-by-step discovery of a potential supply chain vulnerability described in the article. It's easy to follow and shows some of the impasses the author went through, and how they solved the problem in the end. Bonus points for OpenWRT to be really reactive and fixing their systems in a timely manner!

I like this article because it gives us a peek into how an organization develops responsibly and with intention an AI use policy aligned with its mission and operations. In this case, the stakes are high, as the International Committee of the Red Cross operates in conflict zones and humanitarian crises. They emphasize the importance for them as a humanitarian organization of explaining when, why, and how AI will be used and suggest avoiding it if these explanations aren't possible. In this AI-charged era, that seems like prudent advice for any sector.

This report provides an overview of the cybersecurity maturity across the EU, highlighting that member states have developed their own cybersecurity strategies. What stands out most is the term "heterogeneous" used in the findings. In response, the report uses the terms "common," "unified," "harmonized," "comprehensive," "coherent," and "coordinated" to describe recommended policy efforts.

This article reveals how smart devices gather more information than typically required for their functions, including personal data, location, audio recordings ... and this even for devices (like air fryers) that clearly do not require those. This (again) shows a lack of transparency and poses critical questions about consumer privacy.

On the one hand, I love the idea of having a personal shopper, someone who can tick off my shopping list while finding me the best deals. On the other hand, just thinking about the level of information the AI shopping agent has to collect and consolidate about me (and millions of other consumers) – my preferences, travel bucket list, who I care enough about to buy a gift for, their preferences, where I live, where they live, what my budget is – the mind reels. Are we fully equipped to manage the risks and potential consequences of such a technology? Are our laws prepared to handle any misbegotten consequences?

This article is an overview of how AI-generated content, most notably images, are used by far right parties across Europe. It incidentally also highlights how lacking current abuse safeguards and strategies truly are, as almost all of the content presented in the article would surely fall under most companies' prohibited use.

If you thought it's hard to keep systems safe in your datacenter, think about these poor people who have to do the same in space! I was always marvelled by the fact that NASA can keep contact with the Voyagers probes. But things will get more and more complicated with people having unauthorized access to those space-computers. And there is nobody around to press the 'reset' button...

The UN is working on a convention on cybercrime. The subject is a sensitive one, and international collaboration can only be a good idea to curb this scourge. On the other hand, and unfortunately as is often the case, this initiative is being used by certain countries to try and push through major infringements of human rights and privacy.

When we think of workplace surveillance, we usually think of the U.S. with its more unforgiving workplace environment and general lack of adequate privacy protection. However, as this report shows despite having more labour rights and stronger privacy protection, European workers are not safe from intrusions into their privacy in the workplace either.

If you want to attack a network of an organization which has a good firewall, a good entry point is the wireless network. But what do you do if the organization is on the other side of the globe? Easy: you hack a nearby organization with a bad firewall, then use their wireless network to connect to the destination network. You can even do two hops... Very nice and technical article on how to do such an attack.

Researchers at Google DeepMind are making progress in interpretability of AI models using “sparse autoencoders”, a tool that helps shine light on the inner workings of a model’s logic, how it works, and when it errs. By identifying these features of a model, the model can, in principle, be steered away from undesirable outcomes like biased output, inappropriate content or incorrect answers. This is a positive step towards developing AI that is explainable and trustworthy.

This article discusses a study suggesting algorithmic bias favoring Republican-leaning content, and its owner Elon Musk's posts in particular, on the social media platform X. The study further claims that this bias dates back to when Musk officially started supporting Donald Trump. While it is of course impossible to prove these allegations without access to X's internal algorithms, it is deeply concerning that a platform with such far reach is not above suspicions of instrumentalisation. This raises troubling questions about the health of public discourse on such platforms when throwing a switch on the whim of it's owner is not only possible but also acceptable.

The on-going journalist investigation into a data set obtained as a free sample from a US-based data broker continues to show how problematic the global data market really is. The latest article focusing on US Army bases in Germany reveals that not only can critical personnel be tracked by identifying their movement profiles, but that these profiles can also be aggregated to map sensitive areas. In my opinion the key takeaway from this should be that if even personnel trained in operational security gets caught in the data brokers' drag nets, we cannot expect common users to be able to protect their privacy in a meaningful way.

Most people are nowadays aware of phishing attempts by e-mail and double-check an e-mails trustworthiness before clicking any links. But how many are just as cautious with their physical mail? This unusual campaign distributes its malware via the Swiss postal services. Phishing attempts by letter is definitely a new one for me, and a reminder to always be vigilant when visiting links - be it by directly clicking on a link or by scanning a QR code - no matter the medium.

Perhaps you heard of iPhones rebooting if they are not in use for some time. This addresses security vulnerabilities where the phones have been unlocked, so the decryption keys are in the memory, but currently the screen-lock is active. In this article you'll learn which parts of the iPhone are responsible for triggering the reboot. And that the reboots are probably not triggered over wireless, as some reports wrote.

Interesting to see that 12 out of the 15 top vulnerabilities published by CISA, America's cyber defense agency, are from 2023. Log4j2 from 2021 is also still in the list! So make sure that your systems are up-to-date with regard to these vulnerabilities, even if it's not 0-days anymore.Bleeping Computer

The Markup's guide to protecting your privacy when seeking abortion care has thankfully less urgency in Switzerland than in the United States. It serves nonetheless as a stark reminder that preserving privacy in the digital age is neither an academic exercise nor an end in itself, but a means to protect vulnerable people should the political environment deteriorate.