The RISKS Digest
Volume 32 Issue 2

Sunday, 21st June 2020

Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems

ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

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Contents

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Fans Say They Sank Trump Rally
The New York Times
Widespread VSAP failures in California March 2020 primary
LA County
China Reports Progress in Ultra-Secure Satellite Transmission
NYTimes
U.S. blacklists ‘China's MIT’ as tech war enters new phase
Nikkei Asian Review
French Court Strikes Down Most of Online Hate Speech Law
NYTimes
Who's a Bot? Who's Not?
NYTimes
Microsoft 365 Security vulnerability
Forbers
Russia to install Orwellian facial recognition …
Moscow Times
Apparent suicide by 20-year-old Robinhood trader who saw a negative $730,000 balance prompts app to make changes
CNN
Mild virus cases may bestow far lower immunity
AFP
Contact Tracing
Lauren Weinstein
Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Fans Say They Sank Trump Rally (NYTimes)

Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 08:21:23 -0400

Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning and Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times website, 21 Jun 2020 [not yet in print]

Did a successful prank inflate attendance expectations for President Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla.? […]

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Mr. Trump's campaign rally as a prank. After the Trump campaign's official account @TeamTrump posted a tweet asking supporters to register for free tickets using their phones on June 11, K-pop fan accounts began sharing the information with followers, encouraging them to register for the rally — and then not show.

The trend quickly spread on TikTok, where videos with millions of views instructed viewers to do the same, as CNN reported on Tuesday. “Oh no, I signed up for a Trump rally, and I can't go,” one woman joked, along with a fake cough, in a TikTok posted on June 15.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html


Widespread VSAP failures in California March 2020 primary (LA County)

“Peter G. Neumann” <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Sat, 20 Jun 2020 16:23:51 PDT

“During the 2020 primary election, Los Angeles County launched its new Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP), a highly ambitious project that dramatically changed the experience of voting in the nation’s most populous county. Although many voters welcomed the improvements, many others experienced significant challenges, including excessive wait times at Vote Centers.” […]

“Overarching quality control breakdowns and vendor management issues: Inadequate vendor and timeline management resulted in a lack of quality assurance for election processes and technology deployments. Poor technology vendor management resulted in the lack of identification of critical design issues. This led to long wait times and a poor voter experience during the election.”

https://ceo.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/LAC-Voting-Assessment-Summary-of-Findings.pdf (5 Jun 2020)

A commissioned evaluation report is also relevant:

LAC-Voting-Assessment-Summary-of-Findings.pdf

China Reports Progress in Ultra-Secure Satellite Transmission (NYTimes)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Tue, 16 Jun 2020 15:35:44 -0400

Researchers enlisted quantum physics to send a secret key for encrypting and decrypting messages between two stations 700 miles apart.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/science/quantum-satellites-china-spying.html


U.S. blacklists 'China's MIT' as tech war enters new phase (Nikkei Asian Review)

Dave Farber <farber@gmail.com>
Wed, 17 Jun 2020 19:56:44 +0900

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/US-blacklists-China-s-MIT-as-tech-war-enters-new-phase


French Court Strikes Down Most of Online Hate Speech Law (The New York Times)

Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 20:28:24 -0400

PARIS — A top French court on Thursday struck down critical provisions of a law passed by France's parliament last month to combat online hate speech, dealing a severe blow to the government's effort to police Internet content.

The court’s ruling comes as authorities around the world try to regulate what can be shared on vast Internet platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, all American companies with attitudes toward free speech and government oversight that often differ from Europe's.

The flagship provision in France's new law, which was supported by President Emmanuel Macron's government and sponsored by his party, created an obligation for online platforms to take down hateful content flagged by users within 24 hours. If the platforms failed to do so, they risked fines of up to 1.25 million euros, or about $1.4 million.

But the Constitutional Council, a French court that reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French constitution, noted in its ruling on Thursday that the measure put the onus for analyzing content solely on tech platforms without the involvement of a judge, within a very short time frame, and with the threat of hefty penalties.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/europe/france-internet-hate-speech-regulation.html


Who's a Bot? Who's Not? (NYTimes)

Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 08:53:28 -0400

It sometimes seems that automated bots are taking over social media and driving human discourse. But some (real) researchers aren't so sure.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/science/social-media-bots-kazemi.html


Microsoft 365 Security vulnerability

Peter G Neumann <Neumann@CSL.SRI.COM>
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 20:18:57 -0700

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/06/18/genius-hackers-hijack-oxford-university-tech-for-masterpiece-attack-on-microsoft-users/


Russia to install Orwellian facial recognition … (Moscow Times)

Dave Farber <farber@gmail.com>
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 19:19:05 +0900

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/06/16/russia-to-install-orwell-facial-recognition-tech-in-every-school-vedomosti-a70585


Apparent suicide by 20-year-old Robinhood trader who saw a negative $730,000 balance prompts app to make changes (CNN)

Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Sat, 20 Jun 2020 09:50:45 -0700
Poorly designed UIs can have devastating consequences. (LW)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/business/robinhood-suicide-alex-kearns/index.html


Mild virus cases may bestow far lower immunity (AFP)

geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Sat, 20 Jun 2020 16:57:09 -1000

People who catch COVID-19 but don't show symptoms may have significantly lower levels of immunity against the virus than those who become severely ill, new research showed Thursday.

The majority of virus patients display relatively minor signs of infection, and a small proportion show no symptoms at all.

Very little is known about this group, given that they are far less likely to be tested than those who go on to develop severe symptoms including respiratory problems.

Researchers based in China compared two groups of individuals infected with COVID-19 in Chongqing's Wanzhou district: 37 who showed symptoms versus 37 who did not.

The researchers analysed blood samples from both groups taken a few weeks after recovering and found that just 62.2 percent of the asymptomatic group had short-term antibodies, compared with 78.4 percent of symptomatic patients.

After eight weeks of convalescence, antibody presence had fallen in 81.1 percent of asymptomatic patients, compared with 62.2 percent of symptomatic patients.

What's more, asymptomatic patients were found to have lower levels of 18 pro- anti-inflammatory cell-signaling proteins than the symptomatic group, suggesting a weaker immune response to the novel coronavirus.

Authors of the study, which was published in Nature Medicine, said their findings called into question the idea that everyone who has had coronavirus are immune to future infection. […]

https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/mild-virus-cases-may-bestow-far-lower-immunity-study-doc-1to46y1


Contact Tracing

Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Sun, 21 Jun 2020 12:40:16 -0700

As I predicted, contact tracing here in the U.S. is largely a failure. Most people don't trust any apps for this purpose, and refuse to give personal information to human tracers who contact them (no pun intended). This wasn't rocket science to predict.

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