Big Data

At a dinner party the other night, a very accomplished business person told a story about how he and his wife were certain that their devices were listening to their conversations. “I was talking to my wife about a pair of designer shoes that she wanted to purchase, and not 10 minutes later while she was doing some online research for work, she saw an ad for that exact pair of shoes. She hadn’t searched for the shoes; the ad just appeared. Clearly, our computers or our phones are listening.” Some people nodded in agreement, and others began to chime in. Continue Reading →

The US Government is looking into banning TikTok. Will it happen? Shelly Palmer talks with with Kerry Drew and Bianca Peters about social media addiction, data privacy and how the Chinese government is involved on Fox 5's Good Day New York. Original airdate: July 14, 2020 Continue Reading →

Facebook removed 88 ads Thursday posted by the accounts of President Donald Trump, the Trump campaign and Vice President Mike Pence that the social media giant said were “violating our policy against organized hate.” Continue Reading →

As a follow on to this week’s “I believe in science” theme, I will ask you to do three things today. I need you to watch a short video that explains Exponential growth and epidemics, another entitled, Simulating an epidemic, and then read an advance release copy of a CDC research paper entitled, “High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2.” It will officially be published in Volume 26, Number 7—July 2020. Continue Reading →

Good luck finding name-brand hand sanitizer in a store or online. The good news: you can easily make it at home. Here’s a low-tech hack. Continue Reading →

After speaking to numerous infectious disease experts over the past few days, I'm starting to wonder: is our reaction to COVID-19 the exact reaction an adversary in an information war would hope for? Said differently: is the COVID-19 story the Information Age Pearl Harbor we've been expecting? Continue Reading →

Facebook has cancelled F8 and is banning ads that mention coronavirus if they attempt to "create a sense of urgency" around the virus or promise to cure it. Continue Reading →

There have been calls to break up big tech. People are scared that without regulation, we are destined to live in a “surveillance state.” But people are also scared of coronavirus (COVID-19). Is this the moment that big tech proves that big data can be used for the greater good? What is big tech’s role in the fight against coronavirus? What should it be? Continue Reading →

The Attorney General of the United States announced that the government had confirmed that the Equifax hack was the work of the Chinese military. As we enter the age of AI-assisted warfare, it’s important to unpack some of the underlying issues. Continue Reading →

There have been a couple of stories this week about relatively large data breaches. Wyze Labs, Inc., reported a data leak that could affect up to 2.4 million customers, while Wawa, the Philadelphia-based gas station and convenience store chain, recently discovered and reported that malware (which went undetected for approximately nine months) had created a "large-scale data breach." Several lawsuits have been filed by customers claiming to have been impacted by the hack... but who was really hurt? Continue Reading →