Storing data in DNA is a lot easier than getting it back out Humanity is creating information at an unprecedented rate—some 16 zettabytes every year (a zettabyte is one billion terabytes). And this rate is increasing. Last year, the research group IDC calculated that we’ll be producing over 160 zettabytes every year by 2025. All this data has to be stored, and as a result we need much denser memory than we have today. What’s impressive for computer scientists is the density of the data that DNA stores: a single gram can hold roughly a zettabyte. But nobody has come up with a realistic system for storing data in a DNA library and then retrieving it again when it is needed. Today that changes thanks to the work of Federico Tavella at the University of Padua in Italy and colleagues, who have designed and tested just such a technique based on bacterial nanonetworks. The principle is simple. Crucially, bacteria can transfer plasmids from one cell to another in a process known as conjugation. That’s the basis of the new technique.
How do I permanently delete my account? | Facebook Help Centre Resisting technology, Appalachian style When people hear “Appalachia,” stereotypes and even slurs often immediately jump to mind, words like “backwards,” “ignorant,” “hillbilly” or “yokel.” But Appalachian attitudes about technology’s role in daily life are extremely sophisticated – and turn out to be both insightful and useful in a technology-centric society. Many Americans tend to view Appalachian life as involving deprivation and deficit. This can be particularly pointed regarding technology: Rural residents are frequently neglected in research on technology use, and where they are included, the data usually focus on the lower rates of ownership and use of smartphones and laptop computers in rural areas. Articles can come across as scholars and reporters saying something like, “Poor rural Appalachians – they don’t even own the newest iPhone!” It’s true that many rural areas aren’t served with the fastest broadband and the most robust cellular coverage in the U.S. Skepticism and caution Using humor to express concerns
No, You Can’t Use My Photo for Your Fake Identity, and No, I Can’t Prevent It That’s my photo, but that’s not my name or occupation. My mug has been hijacked by someone pretending to be someone who does not exist. Like many of you, I had no idea this kind of thing went on. It’s called Catfishing. Welcome to the dark underbelly of openness. I’ve read with the greatest respect how Alec Couros has dealt with this. It’s happened a lot to Dean Shareski, too. Maybe it’s just Canadian educators who’s photos get stolen to create fake online identities to lure woman on dating sites to somehow con them. It’s the kind of thing that makes you say ‘GROSSSSSS’. My number came up today; a fellow flickr user sent me a message to say she had seen my photos reported on romancescam as some dude named David Frederickson (not the most suave non de plume -why is it not Dirk Savage, or Hank Grockman), with links on Facebook and LinkedIn. This is the photo David is using to be me. creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog But what I can do is ask for help and
Mozilla's Internet Health Report Diagnoses Life Online Lessons learned from social media identity theft - Regina MOOSE JAW – Kathy Cassidy has over a dozen followers in her grade one classroom at Westmount Elementary School in Moose Jaw. Online, she has over 8,000. But that popular identity was stolen. “The first feelings are panic and betrayal,” Cassidy said. “You feel so vulnerable.” An imposter quickly gained hundreds of Twitter followers, while posting crude and offensive things that Cassidy – a classroom technology advocate – never would. “It had the same photo, the same header, same background picture, the same biography, the same links,” she said. “The only thing different was the username.” Duplicating an online profile only takes seconds, according to Alec Couros. The social media expert and University of Regina professor says a well-known identity on the web not only fuels impersonation, but is also the solution. “To be able to say, ‘I know this person, I know that’s not this person who is online, that you’re being impersonated,’ is the number one skill to have,” said Couros. 1. 2. 3.
Why algorithms can’t save us from trolls and hate speech Pete Ryan In the early days of the popularization of the Internet, there was a debate about whether to make online digital experiences seem either casual and weightless or serious with costs and consequences. And there ended up being a massive desire to create the illusion of weightlessness. In the service of weightlessness, Internet retailers would not pay the same sales taxes as brick-and-mortar ones. The result was a mad rush to corral users at any cost, even at the cost of caution and quality. Gamergate turned out to be a prototype, rehearsal and launching pad for the alt-right. One of the consequences of the weightless Internet — first emerging in alt.usenet groups — was an explosion of cruel nonsense. For years, Gamergate was only a plague within digital culture, but by 2016 its legacy was influencing elections, particularly one in the US. Fortunately, more precise terms are available. Do we really want to privatize the gatekeeping of our public space for speech?
Would The Real ‘Alec Couros’ Please Stand Up? Last September, I wrote a post about how scammers had been using my photos to lure women into online, romantic relationships for the purpose of ‘borrowing’ or extorting money. Since that time, the scams have continued. I get, on average, one new report a day from women (and occasionally men) who have been tricked, or nearly tricked, into sending money. In many cases, individuals have reported forming deep attachments or even falling in love with these scammers. These scams are likely not perpetrated by a single individual. Searching ‘alec couros’ on Skype gets these resultsThese fake accounts are often deliberately difficult to detect because the scammers have blocked you from them. Likely, what I’ve learned the most throughout this predicament is that we need better systems for identity verification. Now, please share this post (or the key ideas within) with your colleagues, parents, friends, children, students, etc.
The Covert Opt-In // Michael Bromley: Web Developer About 13 years ago I built a web shop for my dad’s company. Like many small businesses, the company does not have an in-house development or IT department, so anything vaguely website-related tends to end up in my inbox. This is how I recently found myself in a conference call with Dom from IntegriMart1, a company which provides marketing tools for websites. undefined Dom was an upbeat, chatty guy with a mild London accent. As he lead us through the slides, Dom would tell us that this-or-that offering would help us “start a conversation” with our users or “build trust” or “drive engagement”. An example would go something like this: Dom: “Remarkatron” anticipates the customer’s needs, helps drive engagement and keeps the conversation going at the most convenient time for the customer. undefined In the online marketing world, there is the concept of The Funnel. Dom liked to talk about The Funnel. And that can be just fine. A problem arises where this effort becomes covert. undefined undefined
As easy as 123456: the 25 worst passwords revealed | Technology Good news! People are still astonishingly bad at picking secure passwords, and if you run your fingers across the top row of your keyboard, you will probably type seven of the 15 most-used passwords at once. When we say “good news”, we mean “good news for people who want to break into password-protected accounts”, of course. If you are one of the people with a bad password, that is very bad news indeed. Password management firm SplashData has compiled more than 2m passwords leaked over the course of 2015, to find the 25 worst passwords – those used by the most people at the same time. Topping the list for yet another year is the gold standard of awful passwords, 123456, while hot on its heels is perhaps the only password worse still: password. Of course, there will always be some passwords which are the most used passwords. But Brian Spector, the chief executive of security firm Miracl, argues that the list is yet more evidence that passwords are broken altogether. 1) 123456 (unchanged)
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