Research about the influence of computing technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), on society relies heavily upon the financial support of the very companies that produce those technologies. Corporations like Google, Microsoft, and IBM spend millions of dollars each year to sponsor labs, professorships, PhD programs, and conferences in fields like computer science (CS) and […]
Attackers exploit fundamental flaw in the web’s security to steal $2 million in cryptocurrency
By Henry Birge-Lee, Liang Wang, Grace Cimaszewski, Jennifer Rexford and Prateek Mittal On Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022, attackers stole approximately $2 million worth of cryptocurrency from users of the Korean crypto exchange KLAYswap. This theft, which was detailed in a Korean-language blog post by the security firm S2W, exploited systemic vulnerabilities in the Internet’s routing […]
Calling for Investing in Equitable AI Research in Nation’s Strategic Plan
By Solon Barocas, Sayash Kapoor, Mihir Kshirsagar, and Arvind Narayanan In response to the Request for Information to the Update of the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan (“Strategic Plan”) we submitted comments providing suggestions for how the Strategic Plan for government funding priorities should focus resources to address societal issues such as […]
T’Mobile: Deleting Stale Data Reduces Liability
T-Mobile’s data breach in August 2021 exposed the social security numbers and drivers license numbers for over 40 million former or prospective customers. I recently discovered that I was one such victim because of an alert that popped up on my phone this weekend from my credit monitoring service. I was surprised because I have […]
“Signal Loss” and advertising privacy on Facebook
The 2021 Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology, a major award administered by a Japanese foundation, goes to Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, a Chinese computer scientist who earned PhDs from Harvard and the University of Illinois before being a professor at MIT, Stanford, and Princeton and then becoming Dean of an important theoretical computer science education program […]