NEW RESOURCES

Engadget: America’s original hacking supergroup creates a free framework to improve app security. “Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), a hacking group known for its activist endeavors, built an open source tool for developers to build secure apps. Veilid, launched at DEF CON on Friday, has options like letting users opt out of data collection and online tracking as a part of the group’s mission to fight against the commercialization of the internet.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: Google Discover getting air quality (AQI) card. “In addition to directly surfacing it when searching for air quality, Google is getting ready to show AQI in Discover on Android and iOS.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: 14 podcasts to teach kids about history, identity, and current events. “Mashable spoke with [Christine] Elgersma and scoured Common Sense Media’s review guides to get the top recommendations for child-friendly and thought-provoking podcasts that cover a range of topics from history to politics to identity.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Bleeping Computer: Best VPN browser extensions for Google Chrome. “If you’re searching for the best VPN extensions for Google Chrome, you’ve come to the right place. Keep your information private and prevent trackers from intercepting your data.”

Taiwan News: Unlocking the Past: Digital Archives Illuminate Taiwan’s History. “When we flip through photo albums from our childhood days, the pictures call up memories both bitter and sweet. Those experiences shaped the people we have become. If we extend this notion back by 30, 50, or 100 years to images of the places where we and our families have lived, will we not find clues to the living conditions and historical events that our parents and grandparents experienced, and discover the elements that have molded the era in which we live today?”

Poynter: How some local newsrooms are using AI. “When OpenAI unveiled its natural language model ChatGPT in November, local news publishers quickly took notice, imagining what the tool could do for their journalism. One of them was Scott Brodbeck, founder and CEO of Local News Now, which operates local news sites in Virginia including flagship ARLnow.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Music labels sue Internet Archive over digitized record collection. “Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and other record labels on Friday sued the non-profit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records.”

The Register: Inside the Black Hat network operations center, volunteers work in geek heaven. “Every summer, pandemics permitting, a group of volunteers gather in a Las Vegas hotel to run one of the more unusual examples of IT infrastructure on the planet: the Black Hat network operations center. With more than 20,000 conference attendees spending the best part of a week attending classes to hone security skills, and talks about the latest exploits, you’d expect the network to be under constant assault. Attacks do happen, but as one of the NOC crew explained to The Register, not as often as you might think.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: U.S. senators tend to have greater approval and reach when using “greed communication” in tweets. “An analysis of tweets of U.S. senators holding office between 2013 and 2021 showed that a specific communication factor called ‘greed communication’ predicts their approval and reach on the social media platform. Democratic senators who used more greed communication tended to have greater approval and retweets compared to Republican senators who used the same communication pattern.”

PC World: Robots soundly beat humans in bot-spotting captcha tests. “Websites use captchas to protect online systems and forms from automated robots that crawl sites daily for various purposes. But a new study from the University of California shows that today’s robots are actually better and faster at solving captcha challenges than humans.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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