Sunday, October 28, 2018

AI and Fake News

I just completed a busy month writing a post every day in October for National Cyber Security Awareness Week. It was fun and, of course, I learned a lot. This is an annual event and it generates a lot of good content. Watch for it next year!

The theme of Week 1 was to stop and think before you connect and I posted some good tips and links to safety resources. Week 2 focused on young people and jobs and had some popular posts on the number and kinds of jobs available, as well as the skills needed. Week 3 was about workplace cyber safety and I posted about small businesses, who need to ensure cyber security also. Week 4 was about protecting our cyber infrastructure. That's a super-important topic but not really relevant for my target audience of non-technical internet users. So I set myself the subject of fake news and found it fascinating. I'd especially draw the attention of you and your students to the post on identifying fake news on social media, but it's all useful.

One of the few light moments in that series of posts is this video showing how dance moves can be superimposed on even the klutziest of us.



It's a great example of what AI can do in a context that students will enjoy. It's less about fake news than it is about how to deceive with video in general. There's a link to a paper by the authors explaining how they made the video. It would cover two important issues in the classroom--burgeoning uses of AI and deceptive videos that are almost impossible to detect without sophisticated tools, some of which are described in the post.

Consider using it in the classroom!

Monday, October 1, 2018

Have Your Students Changed Their Facebook Passwords Yet?

We all know that Facebook announced last week that it had suffered a breach of 50 million accounts. There's no information yet on who and why, but one thing is clear. This is a good time for all of us to tighten the security around our Facebook accounts.

Actually, I don't use Facebook much. There are a couple of closed groups I enjoy, but public Facebook just got to be too much for me. I decided to change my password on principle and the results were interesting. I wrote a post yesterday that describes who was affected (I wasn't) and tells about my experience in changing my Facebook password.

It also explains why my banking password was related to my Facebook password (doesn't that sound dumb, just on the face of it???) and my experience in trying to change that.

Today I updated it with a post about Facebook's use of our mobile numbers (what we were led to believe when we provided them?) and good ways to use 2-factor authentication to protect a Facebook account.

P.S. Today starts National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and I have committed to trying to post on the subject every day in October. Drop by and find some good tips and resources! Then look for #CyberAware wherever you go in October!

Related Updates
How to find out if your account was included in the September breach