NEW RESOURCES

The Star: State Police unveil crash prediction map, website. This is for Indiana. “The interactive map offers predictions for the current three-hour time window, but users can select an different period of time for that current day. The map updates based on the selections, using color shading to indicate the probability of a crash occurring on that date in geographic zones. Blue indicates a low probability, yellow indicates a moderate probability and red indicates a high probability. Locations of relevant past crashes can be seen as red and gray dots as the user zooms in on an area. Red dots represent fatal and EMS-response crashes, while gray dots indicate property-damage crashes.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Open Preservation: The National Archives joins the Open Preservation Foundation. “The Open Preservation Foundation (OPF) is pleased to welcome The National Archives of the UK as our newest charter member. The National Archives is the official archive and publisher for the UK Government. They are the guardians of more than 1,000 years of iconic national and international documents, including the Domesday Book, Shakespeare’s will, and the Windrush passenger lists.”

Reuters: FCC reversal of net neutrality rules expected to be published Thursday: sources. “The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to publish on Thursday its December order overturning the landmark Obama-era net neutrality rules, two sources briefed on the matter said Tuesday.”

The Verge: Chrome 64 now trims messy links when you share them. “Google’s latest consumer version of Chrome, version number 64, just started cleaning up messy referral links for you. Now, when you go to share an item, you’ll no longer see a long tracking string after a link, just the primary link itself, as spotted by Android Police.”

USEFUL STUFF

Amit Agarwal, who is just on a roll this week: How to Keep your Folders on FTP Server and Google Drive in Sync. “The only issue with using a desktop application is that it needs to be run manually on your computer. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could set up a task that continuously monitors your Google Drive (or Dropbox or OneDrive) for new files and automatically copies them to a specified FTP server?”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Columbia Journalism Review: The Facebook Armageddon. “As digital advertising continues to decline as a source of revenue thanks to Google and Facebook, many media companies are having to rely increasingly on subscriptions. But the readers they want to reach are all on Facebook consuming content for free. Places like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal have the kinds of international brands that will allow them to continue to be advertising destinations and also get the lion’s share of subscriptions. But where does that leave mid-market papers that don’t have the scale or the reach?”

US News & World Report: School Shooting Videos Could Scar Kids _ or Galvanize Them. “The tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High appears to be the first major school shooting of the social media age in which students shared the shocking images in near-real time with young people elsewhere. Experts say the images have the potential to scar kids watching from afar, potentially triggering post-traumatic stress and perhaps numbing them to the violence and causing them to fall into apathy. But the scenes might also galvanize a generation and lead young people to press for change on the political level.”

Bloomberg Quint: Nobody Wants to Let Google Win the War for Maps All Over Again. “Autonomous cars require powerful sensors to see and advanced software to think. They especially need up-to-the-minute maps of every conceivable roadway to move. Whoever owns the most detailed and expansive version of these maps that vehicles read will own an asset that could be worth billions. Which is how you get an all-out mapping war, with dozens of contenders entering into a dizzying array of alliances and burning tens of millions of investment dollars in pursuit of a massive payoff that could be years away.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

This is just weird. From Krebs on Security: Money Laundering Via Author Impersonation on Amazon?. “Patrick Reames had no idea why Amazon.com sent him a 1099 form saying he’d made almost $24,000 selling books via Createspace, the company’s on-demand publishing arm. That is, until he searched the site for his name and discovered someone has been using it to peddle a $555 book that’s full of nothing but gibberish.”

CBR: Over half of Brits aged 18-25 use same password across all accounts. “Research has revealed that young Brits are among the many that lack cyber security awareness, despite the continuing push to boost skills. The surveys of 2,261 respondents revealed that more than 52% of Britons aged 18-25 are using the same password for a number of different online services. Additionally, 27% of respondents admitted to using the same key identifier to unlock their account across all platforms.” Oh boy. Please don’t do this.

SC Magazine: Researchers find free ransomware variant being distributed on the Dark Web. “Security researchers have identified a ransomware variant that is available for free on the Dark Web and is even unregistered. The discovery comes at a time when the ransomware trade is running on handsome commissions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Securing Industry: Database can distinguish gutter oil from edible oil. “Chinese researchers have established a ‘spectral database’ that can be used to determine counterfeit cooking oil and gutter oil, a new paper reveals. Writing in the journal Food Chemistry, the researchers said the emergence of gutter oils – used or waste cooking oil collected from sources such as restaurant fryers, grease traps, slaughterhouse waste and sewage from sewer drains and relabelled as normal edible oil – has the potential to cause health problems and there is growing concern over the practice.” I didn’t know the term gutter oil, and now that I do I’m really glad I’ve had breakfast already. here’s a story from The Star in Malaysia.. Good morning, Internet…

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