https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/technology/schneiderman-social-media-bots.html

The New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, on Saturday opened an investigation into a company that sold millions of fake followers on social media platforms, some of them copying real users’ personal information.

The company, Devumi, and its sale of automated followers to a swath of celebrities, sports stars, journalists and politicians, was detailed in a New York Times article published earlier on Saturday. While based in Florida, Devumi claims on its website to be based in New York City.

At least 55,000 of its “bot” accounts used names, pictures, hometowns and other details taken from people on Twitter. The real users hailed from every U.S. state, including New York, and dozens of countries, a Times analysis found.

“Impersonation and deception are illegal under New York law,” Mr. Schneiderman wrote on Twitter. “We’re opening an investigation into Devumi and its apparent sale of bots using stolen identities.”


This is really big stuff. Businesses are defrauded of millions every year and the orange anus gets followers. Go Eric!!!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-house-open-gas-tax-001427540.html

WASHINGTON ― Raising the gas tax to help finance infrastructure improvements isn’t off the table for the Trump administration, according to White House aide DJ Gribbin.

“We don’t support it. We don’t oppose it either,” Gribbin, who serves as the special assistant to the president for infrastructure policy, said Thursday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting.

Trump last year said that as a funding source for his much-touted push to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure, he would be open to increasing the federal gas tax for the first time since 1993. The Highway Trust Fund, which helps pay for the nation’s roads, bridges, and transit systems, is primarily funded by the federal fuel tax. But the vast majority of Republican lawmakers, who control both houses of Congress, have opposed raising the levy.

Gribbin told dozens of U.S. mayors on Thursday that Trump’s long-delayed infrastructure proposal will include $200 billion in public spending, with the rest of the $1 trillion plan consisting of private tax incentives. But ways to finance the plan, as well as whether it should include more direct federal spending, will ultimately be left up to Congress, he said.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-nsa-hacker-created-a-tool-to-identify-white-supremacists-online-2018-1

Twitter and Facebook say hate speech is a violation of their policies but they also say it can be hard to identify who is engaged in bona fide hate speech and who isn't.

Twitter demonstrated the problem earlier this week when it came under fire for blocking a German satirical magazine’s Twitter account after it parodied anti-Muslim comments.

Enter Emily Crose, a former NSA analyst, cybersecurity professional and former Reddit moderator.

Crose was appalled by the neo nazi marchers at Charlottesville, Virginia, and the violence that killed three people and injured dozens more. One of the people attacked and injured was Crose's friend.

So she's taken it upon herself to develop a technology she calls nemesis. It uses artificial intelligence to identify white nationalists by scanning the pictures and videos they post. nemesis is looking for the symbols they use to identify themselves, their so called "dog whistles." These might include neo-Confederate flags or certain takes on Pepe the frog.

Her goal with NEMESIS is to help educate people but also to show social media sites how they can find white supremacists and "enforce some decency on their own platforms," she told Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai.

I had it DVR'd and it stopped recording just as they were announcing the various programs and movies. I miss the ending of lots of shows like this.

https://www.ccn.com/putin-orders-work-cryptoruble-escape-western-sanctions/

Three-term Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered Moscow officials to work on creating Russia’s own national cryptocurrency dubbed the ‘cryptoruble’ as a means to evade sanctions.

At a recent government meeting, Sergei Glazev, Putin’s economic advisor, told other officials that a cryptoruble could serve as a ‘useful tool’ to circumvent crippling international sanctions.

In quotes reported by the Financial Times, Glavez said:

This instrument suits us very well for sensitive activity on behalf of the state. We can settle accounts with our counterparties all over the world with no regard for sanctions.

The FT report also cites Moscow officials stating that President Putin commissioned work on developing and establishing a cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency would, in essence, be the digitized equivalent of the fiat ruble “but its circulation would be restricted in a certain way,” Glavez added. The official stopped short of revealing further details but did confirm that the Kremlin would have complete oversight of the cryptocurrency.

CCN reported a closed-door meeting between Putin and Moscow’s political elite in mid-October wherein Russian communications minister Nikolai Nikiforov first revealed Putin’s mandate to create a national cryptocurrency. The cryptoruble will be developed and issued “quickly”, Nikiforov said.

“I so confidently declare that we will launch the cryptoruble for one simple reason: if we do not, our neighbors in the Eurasian Economic Community will do it in 2 months,” the minister added at the time.