The “cloud” has come to mean the storing and accessing of data (including programs) over the internet rather than on on our device (computer, phone or otherwise). The official definition of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of […] Read More
Elon Musk purchased 9.2% of Twitter today making him the largest shareholder of the company. It is believed that he pursued such a large ownership stake over free speech concerns and the prevalence of “wokeism”.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/04/investing/elon-musk-twitter-shares-stake/index.html
Hi everyone!
Yesterday, Lily and I posted our presentation on echo chambers and social media algorithms:
At the end of our presentation, we discuss potential means of regulation and conclude that a self-regulated framework focused on disclosure and transparency is perhaps the most effective means to deal with the negative effects of algorithmic filtering.
I came across a great article published on WIRED magazine that deals with very similar themes: ‘It’s Not Too Late for Social Media to Regulate Itself’, co-written by an academic and a member of the industry. Interestingly, the article is from 2019, suggesting that in the intermittent time, the urgency felt at the time of writing has not materialized into the development of any self-regulatory organization. This is a downside of self-regulation that we didn’t fully address in the presentation: the initial development of an effective organization requires a lot of momentum and interest, and in a diffuse industry with many stakeholders, it may be hard to translate interest into action. Just some interesting food for thought.
Some highlights from the article:
• As in our presentation, the authors recognize the benefits of personalized algorithms. However, they highlight the potential echo chamber effects and discuss the important goal of promoting public trust “in the integrity of information on search and social platforms.”
• The authors analogize a potential self-regulatory organization to the existing US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which is an SRO supervised by but independent of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Like the tech industry, the financial industry is highly innovative and requires nimble rulemaking to keep pace with rapid change. The authors tout the ability of SRO organizations to “bridge the gap between appropriately slow-moving governments and complex, fast-changing industries.”
• The authors note that a key benefit of self-regulation is the ability of an SRO to “balance the public interest with commercial imperatives”, which would “make a broad framework attractive to all stakeholders involved.” I thought this was a good point. Frequently, in this class and others, we look at regulation from the viewpoint of imposed restrictions – it’s interesting to think about the possibilities of setting up a regulatory system with incentives for industry participation and the potential for support from both the regulators and the regulated.
If you are interested in reading more, the full article can be found here: https://www.wired.com/story/its-not-too-late-for-social-media-to-regulate-itself/
– Jennifer Huang
Video & slides below…
Jon
Hi everyone!
Happy last week of class! We (Lily + Jen) have a presentation for you on the topic of echo chambers and social media algorithms.
We ask that you listen to this brief TED talk before the presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKyFL389qe8
The presentation can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17ddxeLsNrFkR4nBGYIg9xPNEuyW4Kx6W/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=112960695207189737520&rtpof=true&sd=true.
The presentation itself has embedded audio recordings that you can listen to as you go through the slides (you can click on the megaphone icon on each slide), but to listen to them, please download the file as Google Slides does not support the audio. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to follow along visually, we’ve provided a transcription that can be accessed here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tbUzi1wc6lCoUIwbmgWbeS-Bfurz_NZuIDB3arE57mE/edit?usp=sharing
Please feel free to share any comments you may have here.
Thanks!
Lily Le and Jennifer Huang
Here is the SFU article: https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/media/issues-experts/2022/03/google-autocomplete-helps-mislead-public–legitimize-conspiracy-.html
“According to Google, the subtitles generate automatically by complex algorithms and the engine cannot accept or create custom subtitles. ” Is this a good defense? We’ve seen changes to Google and social media platforms following the terrifying amount of mis-and-disinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, where sources are checked and links to government sites are given priority. Even if the algorithm itself cannot be directly amended, there are still avenues for the search platform to provide additional information and warn against questionable sources.
– Uma Wu
Hi everyone,
Happy April! I’m linking here my video presentation on Non-Consensual Disclosure of Intimate Images (NCDII). Please feel free to share any thoughts or comments on this post.
Thank you!
Michelle Markell
During the in-class discussion on cryptocurrency and NFT’s it was mentioned that federal authorities in many countries had been making strides in catching fraudsters. However, given the theme of anonymity that runs through cryptocurrency, I became curious as to how the authorities actually find these scammers and then prove these cryptocurrency frauds.
A recent example of a “rug pull” is that of Ethan Nguyen and Adre Llacuna from Los Angeles who now face fraud and money laundering charges for their role in a $1.1 million scheme involving NFTs. This is one of the first actions the FBI has taken to rein in this booming asset class which is now estimated to be worth an estimated 40 billion.
A recent study by Chainanalysis concluded that rug pulls have emerged as the go-to scam of the DeFi ecosystem, accounting for 37% of all cryptocurrency scam revenue in 2021, versus just 1% in 2020. It is estimated that “rug pulls” resulted in $2.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency being taken from victims in 2021. As such, it is clear that authorities in both Canada and the United States are behind in addressing consumer concerns regarding cryptocurrency and NFT scams. However, the arrest of these 2 individuals represents at least an attempt by authorities to stop some of the fraud taking place.
Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna allegedly earned around $1.1 million by selling non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) based on cartoon-like characters called “Frosties.” After selling the NFTs, they shut down the project and transferred its funds to a series of separate crypto wallets. As such, many consumers were left “holding the bag.” According to the FBI, the pair were currently planning another scheme right before they were caught!
It was explained in the article on businessofbusiness.com that the alleged fraudsters attempted to cover up the scam by using Tornado Cash, which is a “mixer” or “tumbler” that as explained in class, makes it possible to transfer cryptocurrency from one wallet to another without creating obvious links between them. Someone inspecting the blockchain would just see one wallet depositing crypto into the Tornado protocol, with no way of linking it to the wallet that eventually receives the funds. As a result, the FBI subpoenaed Discord, Coinbase, Metamask, Citibank, OpenSea, GoDaddy, T- Mobile, Charter Communications, Bitpay, Fiverr, and PayPal. According to the complaint, Nguyen was identified after the same IP that accessed his Discord account was used to conduct business on a Coinbase account registered to him. Llacuna was identified after the phone number and email address he registered in his Discord was linked to a Coinbase account registered to him. Once the authorities had these links, they were able to uncover other corroborating evidence. Nguyen used a Citibank credit card to register the Frosties website, buy a VPN in an attempt to mask his IP address, and pay for a freelance artist on Fiverr to design the art for the project and the website. Llacuna accessed his Discord account, under the username “heyandre,” from the same IP address used to access his Opensea account, which included his email address and an ENS registration for the “cryptoandre.eth” domain.
While the fraudsters were able to hide the money trail on the blockchain, they were unable to get past the reality that interactions with banks or exchanges often lead back to a real identity because of Know-Your-Consumer Requirements. Additionally, the alleged criminal while sophisticated in NFT’s apparently registered many of these accounts under the same email address which contained part of their legal names.
One interesting and funny part of the criminal complaint is that the fraudsters’ discord names were included. ETHAN NGUYEN, a/k/a “Frostie,” a/k/a “Jakefiftyeight,” a/k/a “Jobo,” a/k/a “Joboethan,” a/k/a “Meltfrost,” and ANDRE LLACUNA, a/k/a “heyandre,” were named as the defendants. If anyone is interested in reading the criminal complaint it can be accessed here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1486816/download
This post was written by Ryan Buchanan
Sources
https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/03/24/frosties-nft-rug-pull-charged-fraud-money-laundering/?sh=315c5c1f26de)
https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/how-the-fbi-made-its-first-nft-rug-pull-bust-just-in-time-to-save-other-victims-from-the-same-fate/
(*Sorry, this is a repost with my name at the bottom*)
Hi everyone,
It was really interesting to hear Liam’s presentation yesterday regarding blockchains, crypto, and more. It was really illuminating to hear about a lot of the issues in this space going forward. If I am completely honest, a lot of it is very confusing to me but nonetheless, I find it very fascinating.
I recently came across a Ted Talk that is somewhat related to yesterday’s topic. This Ted Talk (which I have linked below) is about rural farmers, their goats, and an “inclusive economy.” I think the speaker glosses over a lot of the concerns Liam brought up – especially about the tension between decentralization and scam prevention. The speaker seems to really tout how great the decentralized aspect of a token economy is, which might be true in the case below but of course, there are issues with a decentralized world economy, regardless I thought the whole premise was interesting enough to share.
The speaker starts the story by detailing how a small rural village in Pakistan had to import their water from 2 hours away in nearby Karichi. This drove up the price of water and made farmers have to withhold water from their livestock every second day. The solution was a solar water pump for the village but this pump came at the cost of $10,000 and in a village where the average family makes $70 a month, it made the prospect of buying the pump inconceivable without help from the government or an NGO. Enter our speaker, Fariel Salahuddin, who would become to be known in the village as the Goat Lady. She observed the village had an ample number of goats but little liquid capital and pitched the idea to the head of the village to exchange goats for a water pump. She then flipped the goats during Eid and recovered her money and the village got a water pump to solve their water issues.
How does this relate to yesterday’s topic? From this event, Fariel came up with the idea to tokenize goats so farmers in rural villages could trade goats as currency to purchase things they needed like water pumps, solar installations, etc. Farmers already were selling livestock for currency to pay for various things locally but never were they able to extract higher value from their livestock for “larger more productive assets” as Fariel puts it. The company she set up allows farmers to sell their goats to her company. The company receives the goats at the time of the solar pump installation. They then “tokenize” the goat by recording its various attributes and assigning it a dollar value. The company then sells the goats to supermarkets and larger meat companies to get a return on their investment. Fariel claims that they have worked with 45 communities of 6000+ farmers to allow them to convert their goats into water and electricity.
If you’re interested in hearing the talk you may listen to it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/fariel_salahuddin_goats_blockchain_and_the_future_of_money
If you want to learn more about the company visit their website here: https://uptrade.org/#whatwedo
– Amit Chandi
Hi everyone,
It was really interesting to hear Liam’s presentation yesterday regarding blockchains, crypto, and more. It was really illuminating to hear about a lot of the issues in this space going forward. If I am completely honest, a lot of it is very confusing to me but nonetheless, I find it very fascinating.
I recently came across a Ted Talk that is somewhat related to yesterday’s topic. This Ted Talk (which I have linked below) is about rural farmers, their goats, and an “inclusive economy.” I think the speaker glosses over a lot of the concerns Liam brought up – especially about the tension between decentralization and scam prevention. The speaker seems to really tout how great the decentralized aspect of a token economy is, which might be true in the case below but of course, there are issues with a decentralized world economy, regardless I thought the whole premise was interesting enough to share.
The speaker starts the story by detailing how a small rural village in Pakistan had to import their water from 2 hours away in nearby Karichi. This drove up the price of water and made farmers have to withhold water from their livestock every second day. The solution was a solar water pump for the village but this pump came at the cost of $10,000 and in a village where the average family makes $70 a month, it made the prospect of buying the pump inconceivable without help from the government or an NGO. Enter our speaker, Fariel Salahuddin, who would become to be known in the village as the Goat Lady. She observed the village had an ample number of goats but little liquid capital and pitched the idea to the head of the village to exchange goats for a water pump. She then flipped the goats during Eid and recovered her money and the village got a water pump to solve their water issues.
How does this relate to yesterday’s topic? From this event, Fariel came up with the idea to tokenize goats so farmers in rural villages could trade goats as currency to purchase things they needed like water pumps, solar installations, etc. Farmers already were selling livestock for currency to pay for various things locally but never were they able to extract higher value from their livestock for “larger more productive assets” as Fariel puts it. The company she set up allows farmers to sell their goats to her company. The company receives the goats at the time of the solar pump installation. They then “tokenize” the goat by recording its various attributes and assigning it a dollar value. The company then sells the goats to supermarkets and larger meat companies to get a return on their investment. Fariel claims that they have worked with 45 communities of 6000+ farmers to allow them to convert their goats into water and electricity.
If you’re interested in hearing the talk you may listen to it here: https://www.ted.com/talks/fariel_salahuddin_goats_blockchain_and_the_future_of_money
If you want to learn more about the company visit their website here: https://uptrade.org/#whatwedo
Hi all,
I had real mixed feelings when I came across this article, and I think you might too. The conversation around crypto is dominated by men, and while it’s always great to welcome more women into the conversation regarding crypto and technology more broadly, it’s hard to overlook all the downsides that Liam brought up in his presentation last class.
Here’s the article if you want to read it for yourself. https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/girlz-wrld-crypttoadettez-nfts
– Uma Wu
Communications Law
