NEW RESOURCES

From Harvard Dataverse, discovered on Twitter: Select American State Party Platforms, 1846-2017. “Archive of select American state party platforms 1846-2017 in .txt format.” Not too big; 20.6 MB zipped.

RadioFreeEurope: Digitizing Uzbekistan’s Desert Art. “Nine hundred pieces from Uzbekistan’s Nukus Museum of Art are now online after volunteers armed with cameras and cell phones created an open catalog of the works in the hope it will prevent theft from one of Asia’s most unique and valuable art collections.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Google will introduce a new system for tracking Chrome browser users.. “Google’s plan to eliminate cookies by the end of next year is a potentially huge shift for the digital advertising industry, though it is not clear if the new method, which the company will start testing in the first quarter this year, will be any less alarming to advertisers and regulators. Google Chrome, the world’s most widely used web browser, is used by two of every three people surfing the internet, according to StatCounter.”

Texas Tribune: Attorney General Ken Paxton defies county official’s order to release records related to Jan. 6 Trump rally. “Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Travis County district attorney’s determination that Paxton violated open records laws by withholding information related to his trip to Washington, D.C., on the day of the Capitol insurrection was ‘meritless’ and that his office had fulfilled its obligation under the law.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: The best free apps for video calling. “Remember last summer, when things were starting to open up and Omicron was just a Greek letter you found in crossword puzzles? Yeah, me too. But now, many of us are still relying on video calls to keep in touch with work colleagues, family, and friends. And for most of us — especially those who are facing financial difficulties — free is best. Zoom continues to top the list of videoconferencing apps, but there are a bunch of applications out there that will allow you to meet others online for free.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Lowell Sun: Lowell brothers hope to keep online data ‘Cloaked’. “Two brothers native to the Mill City are looking to change the future of user privacy online. Arjun Bhatnagar serves as the CEO and Abhijay Bhatnagar as the chief technology officer of their new startup, Cloaked. The brothers co-founded the company in 2020 and are hoping to ensure privacy and security for users, while still allowing them to use the services they enjoy.”

Daily Beast: Shady Network of Fake Mossad Job Sites Targets Iranian Spies. “VIP Human Solutions’ website is one of 16 such sites that use the same pitch, phrasing, logos, phone numbers, and, for some, web infrastructure over the past four years to lure former spies and soldiers in Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to come work for Israel. Intelligence experts say the crude and clumsy sites are fakes, with no plausible connection to Israel’s spy services. But the bogus recruiters’ websites have nonetheless endured, surfacing and disappearing at a number of hosts over the same four-year period to pitch to internet users in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon through Google Ads.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Google Drive flags nearly empty files for ‘copyright infringement’. “Dr. Chris Jefferson, Ph.D., an AI and mathematics researcher at the University of St Andrews, was also able to reproduce the issue when uploading multiple computer-generated files to Drive. Jefferson generated over 2,000 files, each containing just a number between -1000 and 1000. The files containing the digits 173, 174, 186, 266, 285, 302, 336, 451, 500, and 833 were shortly flagged by Google Drive for copyright infringement.”

Infosecurity Magazine: Red Cross: Supply Chain Data Breach Hit 500K People. “The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has revealed a major data breach that compromised the personal details of over 515,000 ‘highly vulnerable’ victims. It was stolen from a Swiss contractor that stores the data on behalf of the global humanitarian organization headquartered in Geneva.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Hyperallergic: This Extremely Satisfying Website Ranks Emojis By Actual Size. “In a light parody of infographics and wall signs you might find in a museum that offer information of actual pedagogical value — such as the size of marine animals or dinosaur species — Emoji to Scale presents us with common sense we learn in early childhood development, like the fact that a mosquito is smaller than a rat, which is smaller than a cat. Beginning with the mosquito emoji, clocking in at three millimeters, a visitor scrolls down to introduce larger emojis, so that at any given point in time every emoji on the screen has the correct proportions in relation to one another.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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