Weekend Reads 030323

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2023/3/270206-a-turning-point-for-cyber-insurance/fulltext
Insuring against the consequences of cybersecurity seems too good to be true given the underlying problem has perplexed researchers and practitioners for going on 50 years.

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2023/3/270207-mapping-the-privacy-landscape-for-central-bank-digital-currencies/fulltext
Payment records paint a detailed picture of an individual’s behavior. They reveal wealth, health, and interests, but individuals do not want the burden of deciding which are sensitive or private.

https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2023/3/270211-the-ai-tech-stack-model/fulltext
Presently, enterprises have implemented advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to support business process automation (BPA), provide valuable data insights, and facilitate employee and customer engagement.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/22/google_milestone_quantum/
Google is claiming a new milestone on the road to fault-tolerant quantum computers with a demonstration that a key error correction method that groups multiple qubits into logical qubits can deliver lower error rates, paving the way for quantum systems that can scale reliably.

https://telecoms.com/520115/mwc-2023-whats-the-point-of-5g/
Four years into the 5G era, the technology is still struggling to find an identity. 3G was about the introduction of mobile data, which matured in the form of 4G, but what is 5G all about?

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/24/europe_gigabit_transformation_consultation/
The European Union yesterday decided it’s time to start “laying the ground for the transformation of the connectivity sector” in the region with three initiatives – one of which codifies the idea that Big Tech should pay for the networks that carry its traffic.

https://circleid.com/posts/20230222-brand-impersonation-online-is-a-multidimensional-cybersecurity-threat
Brand impersonation happens much more often than people realize. In CSC’s latest Domain Security Report, we found that 75% of domains for the Global 2000 that contained more than six characters from the brand names were not actually owned by the brands themselves.

https://circleid.com/posts/20230221-european-union-wants-to-fix-the-gdpr
In light of this, the European Commission is proposing a new law before the summer to improve how EU countries’ privacy regulators enforce the GDPR.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/chatgpt-and-ai-are-all-companies-want-to-talk-about-in-earnings-calls
A lot of the companies tossing around the phrase AI are just taking advantage of the hype. Some are speaking aspirationally about how they see AI transforming their businesses — one day, some day.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/03/online_privacy_tracking/
But according to a trio of privacy researchers, opting out doesn’t always work – visitor data still gets collected.

https://telecoms.com/520384/mwc-2023-recap-whats-the-point-of-telecoms/
When we asked the operator figure what the point of telecoms is they said it’s “very uncertain”. The danger of becoming a ‘dumb-pipe’ utility seems greater than ever.

https://circleid.com/posts/20230227-domains-under-the-most-abused-tlds-same-old-dns-abuse-trends
While threat actors can use any domain across thousands of top-level domains (TLDs), they often have favorites. For instance, you may be familiar with Spamhaus’s 10 most-abused TLDs for spamming.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/oss-security-best-practices/
Typosquatting, also known as URL hijacking, is a form of cyber attack where an attacker registers a domain name that is similar to a well-known website, but with a slight typo.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/28/mit_researchers_interference_busting_radios/
Radio interference can be a pain to deal with, regardless of whether it’s a rogue baby monitor interrupting your Wi-Fi or a stadium full of smartphone signals drowning each other out.

https://circleid.com/posts/20230228-internet-shutdowns-on-the-rise-worldwide-says-report
From the Middle East to South Asia to Africa, shutdowns are becoming a norm of authoritarianism—an accepted means of silencing criticism, stifling dissent, and controlling the population.