Four short links: 2 October 2019
Data Fallacies, Transparency Reports, Encryption, and Experimental Declarative Programming Language
- Data Fallacies to Avoid — nifty infographic for the beginning torturer of data.
- Transparency Reports Suffering — “The momentum has faded,” says Peter Micek, general counsel with Access Now. The digital rights advocacy group is updating its index of transparency reports, which it last posted in 2016, and this pending revision will document serious stagnation in these disclosures. The worst rollbacks have happened when companies have merged or sold off large parts of their customer base, leaving the people involved doing business with new management that lacks the old management’s commitment to transparency.
- How Long Will Unbreakable Commercial Encryption Last? (Lawfare) — I believe the tech companies are slowly losing the battle over encryption. They’ve been able to bottle up legislation in the United States, where the tech lobby represents a domestic industry producing millions of jobs and trillions in personal wealth. But they have not been strong enough to stop the Justice Department from campaigning for lawful access. And now the department is unabashedly encouraging other countries to keep circling the tech industry, biting off more and more in the form of law enforcement mandates. That’s a lot easier in countries where Silicon Valley is seen as an alien and often hostile force, casually destroying domestic industries and mores.
- Sentient — an interesting experimental language to describe problems (Prolog-like), with SAT solvers under the hood to find solutions.
