The most important thing happening during these next few weeks might *not* be the presidential election. I think one can make an argument that today’s antitrust case filed against Google might ultimately be a bigger deal. Our daily lives, our stock market, our mental health, our communities, and our jobs [Keep reading]
Writing about fairness in the business section risks ridicule and derision, but only from people who read just the first few pages of their Econ 101 textbook, then nap through the rest of the class. There’s some great research into people as economic actors and how they react to unfairness. [Keep reading]
From Harri Hursti Filing Declaration There’s been lots of noise around potential problems with mail-in voting lately, but it’s not hard to find flaws in the way America counts ballots. What would you think if a state paid more than $100 million to buy all-new electronic voting machines, and it [Keep reading]
When you’re playing a game with someone who doesn’t play by the rules…who doesn’t play by any rules….who doesn’t even really want to win the game….who simply wants to game to go on and on…well, you can’t win. That’s how disinformation works, says today’s guest on the Red Tape Chronicles [Keep reading]
This is quite a business card. One of my prized possessions from James’ better days. ‘Because there should be only one you.’ I ended up in a press release issued by the Department of Justice last week — I believe that was a first for me. Fortunately, I was not [Keep reading]
“If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.” That’s a truism about the digital age so obvious that you’ve no doubt become sick of hearing it. Facebook denies this plain reality in a just-published response to the ragingly-popular film, The Social Dilemma. That makes it pretty hard [Keep reading]
Black voters were labeled for “deterrence,” and in states narrowly won by Trump, many stayed home on election day 2016. Click to watch Channel 4’s exclusive reporting. The Cambrdige Analytica scandal, and dirty digital electioneering tactics in general, are always going to be complex stories that are hard to get [Keep reading]
Don’t believe everything you see The easiest way to hack an election in our media-intense age is not to hack the election itself — but merely to hack the results. Specifically, the appearance of results. Imagine if official government websites were hacked on election night to display vote tallies [Keep reading]
(FBI image) INTRODUCTION It might be the worst-kept secret in all of cybersecurity: the FBI says don’t pay ransomware gangs. But corporations do it all the time, sending millions every year in Bitcoin to recover data that’s been taken “hostage.” Sometimes, federal agents even help victims find experienced virtual ransom [Keep reading]
Click to visit the FTC’s Covid complaint dashboard. U.S. consumers have now filed 203,000 Covid-19-releated complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, and counting. Vctims say scam artists have stolen $144 million, or about $300 per incident, the FTC’s dashboard says. “While people are scared about their health and finances, con [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan