NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from TechCrunch: Conserve the Sound is an archive of noises from old tape players, projectors and other dying tech. “All of us grew up around tech different from what we have today, and many of us look back on those devices with fondness. But can you recall the exact sound your first Casio keyboard made, or the cadence of a rotary phone’s clicks? Conserve the Sound aims to, well, conserve the sound of gadgets like these so that future generations will know what it sounded like to put a cartridge in the NES.”

Newark Public Library: Introducing The Newark Public Library Digital Archive. “As part of the My Newark Story project, the Newark Public Library has digitized over 50 collections and 23,000 items related to African American, Latino and Newark history! These include photographs, city directories, documents, objects, newspapers, documents, maps and more!… Highlights include thousands of photos of Newark Public Schools, the Samuel Berg collection of Newark Street photos, Newark maps and atlases, Newark area newspapers (including the Newark Herald, City News, and La Tribuna!) & so much more!”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Reddit boots hundreds of accounts linked to Russian trolls. “Reddit said Tuesday that it has identified and removed several hundred accounts suspected of being connected to Russia’s alleged campaign to spread disinformation on social media.”

Mozilla Blog: A Scandal, a Napkin and the Health of the Internet. “Today marks the launch of Mozilla’s first full edition of the Internet Health Report, an open source effort to explore the state of human life on the internet. As we put our final touches on the report, the United States scrambled to prepare for testimony by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, following revelations about user data obtained by Cambridge Analytica. The conversation: what should the Senate and Congress ask him?”

USEFUL STUFF

Washington Post: Read Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress, annotated. “The House Energy and Commerce Committee released Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s prepared testimony ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill Wednesday. Read the full remarks below, along with analysis and commentary from Washington Post staff. Zuckerberg will also appear before a joint session of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees Tuesday.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Outline: How Platforms Alter History. “After Nasim Aghdam opened fire at YouTube’s San Bruno headquarters last week, injuring three and killing herself, social media platforms swiftly moved to scour her from the web. Her four YouTube channels disappeared, replaced by a message saying they’d been removed for “multiple or severe violations” of the site’s policies. Instagram and Facebook both deleted her profiles as well. Even her personal website is gone.”

The Guardian: Brexiters seek campaign memorabilia for ‘museum of sovereignty’. “It sounds like a remainer’s worst nightmare: a museum of Brexit with a grand atrium dominated by the ‘£350m for the NHS’ bus, leading to galleries displaying a selection of Nigel Farage’s louder tweed jackets. The reality is quite different, not least as the proposed Brexit museum, officially pitched as a ‘museum of sovereignty’, is thus far nothing more than an idea coupled with an appeal for exhibits.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Daily Nation: Facebook deepens consumer data mining in Kenya with ‘firmware’. “Global social networking giant Facebook, which is facing a storm of international protest over its data mining and consumer data protection, is collecting additional citizen data beyond its users through the Wi-Fi Express programme it launched last year in Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, India, and Indonesia, the Business Daily has learned.”

Graham Cluley: Facebook knew for years scammers were harvesting users’ details with phone number searches. Did nothing. “Facebook ignored a widely-known privacy flaw for years, allowing scammers, spammers, and other malicious parties to scoop up virtually all users’ names and profile details. As I explained way back in 2012, when I was writing for the Sophos Naked Security blog, simply entering someone’s phone number or email address into Facebook’s search box would perform a reverse look-up and tell you who it belonged to, with any information they shared publicly on their Facebook profile.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Rock107: Handwriting by John Lennon, David Bowie & other music legends turned into downloadable fonts. “The new website is offering downloadable fonts based on the handwriting of several well-known late artists, including Lennon, Bowie, late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen and French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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