NEW RESOURCES

Kimball Parker has launched a new Web site with the idea of connecting underserved communities to more legal resources. “He created a crowd-sourced platform, which weaves research into one coherent visual map of the law, giving its users access to different pieces of logic related to an area of the law. For example, users can choose a legal topic such as “patent law” or “information privacy law,” and with the click of a button they can easily find cases and other legal information that may help them research their own legal information.”

Fidelis Cybersecurity has launched a new threat intelligence database (PRESS RELEASE). “The Fidelis Barncat™ Intelligence Database includes more than 100,000 records with configuration settings extracted from malware samples gathered during Fidelis’ incident response investigations and other intelligence gathering operations over the past decade. The typical remote access tool (RAT) malware sample includes a large number of configuration elements, including those controlling the behavior of the malware on the host and others related to command-and-control traffic. Barncat is updated with hundreds of new configuration records each day…. Barncat is available for use by CERTs, research organizations, government entities, ISPs and other large commercial enterprises. Access is free, but users must request access and meet specific criteria.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WordPress 4.6 beta 4 is now available.

Google is now offering training for Google Apps. “Designed to be simple and efficient, Training for Google Apps is a new interactive in-app learning experience to help users get quickly up and running with Google Apps. Built on the Google Cloud Platform, Training for Google Apps acts like a virtual coach inside of the Google Apps interface. Users have access to voice and text interactive modules that are searchable by topic within any of the Google Apps products, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Google+, and even Classroom.”

Instagram is apparently working on an anti-spam tool. Of course, the famous people get it first. “Instagram’s revealed it’s testing a new feature on high profile accounts which is designed to prevent inappropriate or spam comments. After her high profile feud with Kanye West, hundreds of snake emojis appeared on Taylor Swift’s account. However, users noticed that the snakes later disappeared.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Irish Times has a pretty extensive archive on the National Library of Ireland. “Since 2011, the department has amassed more than 1,000 websites that are either Irish, or of Irish interest, working in partnership with the Internet Memory Foundation in Paris. Staff select those websites for the foundation, to later receive copies back from Paris that are then put on the Library’s website. And even if those source sites become defunct – as many have over the last five years – the Library will always have a permanent record available.”

Hmm. It looks like Verizon is the one getting Yahoo. For $5 billion. Which just seems way too high! “Verizon and Yahoo are set to announce that they are striking an acquisition deal, according to sources close to the situation. The news is expected by Monday, although it could come earlier or later. But Yahoo told other bidders this afternoon — those interested in buying Yahoo have included private equity firm TPG and a group led by Quicken Loans’ Dan Gilbert — that the telco giant was the winner of the four-month process, said sources.” This story is from Saturday

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Yahoo has been ordered by a judge to explain how mail that, according to its own policies, couldn’t have been recovered was actually recovered. “Defense lawyers in the case claim that six months of deleted emails were recovered—something which Yahoo’s policies state is not possible. The defense therefore speculates that the emails may have instead been collected by real-time interception or an NSA surveillance program.”

It sounds that way from reading the news: DDOS attacks are getting worse. “Over the past 18 months, Arbor detected an average of 124,000 DDoS attacks a week. The peak size jumped a stunning 73 percent compared to 2015, up to 579Gbps. Just in the first six months of 2016, there have been 274 attacks over 100Gbps — in the whole of 2015 there have been 223 such attacks.”

Apparently France has a problem with Windows 10 – specifically, privacy and security issues. “The chair of France’s National Data Protection Commission (CNIL) has issued a formal notice to Microsoft letting it know that it collects far too much information and that its pin security is too deficient….The body has given Microsoft three months to comply with the data protection act, CNIL says this is a formal notice and Microsoft hasn’t yet been sanctioned for non-compliance.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Social Media Explorer: What We Learned from Analyzing 6.2 Billion Facebook Reactions. “Facebook Reactions were introduced in mid-March. Initially the response could be described as tepid, but new research from Unmetric shows that Reactions are gaining ground. As part of this study, Unmetric analyzed 6.2 billion Facebook Reactions from over 32,000 brand pages between April 25th and July 3rd.”

TheNextWeb: Twitter’s new ‘automated’ verification scheme feels desperate. “When Twitter decided to make account verification a simpler process, many rejoiced at the opportunity to be branded. Some accounts were obviously lacking verification, while some just covet it. And now that it’s here, verification feels like desperation.” Good morning, Internet…

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