1/ Tonight I got to see Jim Comey speak at Town Hall, in conversation with David Remnick. He said one thing that proved to me yet again- despite what some may argue- that Russia influenced the election outcome. Here's the thing:
2/ In the book, which I have yet to read, he describes the existence of a classified document about Loretta Lynch that he did not think was accurate that would cause people to doubt her impartiality if it became known.
3/ He said that when the Russians hacked the DNC and the documents were exposed, it made him think that it was possible they could have that memo somehow, or that it might be exposed in a subsequent leak, rather than remaining classified and unknown for decades.
4/ That influenced how he handled the disclosures around the Clinton email investigation, and the calculus he used to decide how to calibrate those disclosures to, in his view, preserve the independence of the FBI and Justice Department.
5/ Thus, those disclosures, which @NateSilver538 and many others believe may have tipped the outcome to Trump, can be attributed in part to the Russian interference campaign.
This is devastating, of course, and we must figure out how to stop it from happening again. Our ability to choose our elected leaders as we see fit is an inalienable right we must protect. #MarchForTruth
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The New Yorker digs deep on the Russian Alfa Bank - Trump campaign data connection: “Is it possible there is an innocuous explanation for all this? Yes, of course. And it’s also possible that space aliens did this. It’s possible—just not very likely.” newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…
"And why were computers at Alfa Bank and Spectrum Health trying to reach a server that didn’t seem to be doing anything? After analyzing the data, Max said, 'We decided this was a covert communication channel.'”
More history on the inexplicable October 2016 headline “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No clear Link to Russia” which seems to have contradicted @EricLichtblau's actual reporting:
The Crisis of Election Security: As the midterms approach, America’s electronic voting systems are more vulnerable than ever. Why isn’t anyone trying to fix them? The right question, @KimZetter: nyti.ms/2N3hoAh
"The Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community and election officials have all insisted that there is no evidence that Russian hackers altered votes in 2016. But the truth is that no one has really looked for evidence."
"The stakes are high ... and the concerns about Russian hackers are warranted. But the focus on Russia, or any would-be election manipulators, ignores the underlying issue — the myriad vulnerabilities that riddle the system and the ill-considered decisions that got us here."
America's opioid crisis, as advertised on Zuckerberg's websites: Instagram has become a sizable open marketplace for advertising illegal drugs, with personalized drug-related content aimed directly at folks who show an interest in buying, per @lizzadwoskin washingtonpost.com/business/econo…
Eric is right, this is outrageous: “They are playing whack-a-mole here. They take them down, and then they come back again,” Feinberg said. “If [the tech companies] were really doing a full-court press, we wouldn’t keep finding what we are finding.”
Facebook, wrt terrorist content, foreign info ops and now illicit drugs. "Please allow us to go on breaking the law, it's just that we are so big, you know, and so profit... I mean, give us a few years and the AI will be perfected, okay?"
A meticulous analysis of online activity during the 2016 campaign makes a powerful case that targeted cyberattacks by Russian hackers and trolls were decisive in the election, reports @JaneMayerNYer: newyorker.com/magazine/2018/…
“Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know,” by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is available next week. amazon.com/Cyberwar-Russi…
"...Jamieson makes a strong case that, in 2016, 'Russian masterminds' pulled off a technological and political coup. Moreover, she concludes, the American media 'inadvertently helped them achieve their goals.'"
Our winner this year: Towards a Mind Controlled Hearing Aid: Decoding Attention Without Access to Clean Sources, a project by @CUSEAS postdoc and faculty members Dr. James O’Sullivan and Nima Mesgarani. engineering.columbia.edu/news/nima-mesg…
First prize went to Relevant Motion, an @nyutandon Integrated Digital Media project from Todd Bryant and Kat Sullivan that blends evidence-based rehabilitation activities with immersive and interactive technologies for in-home or in-clinic occupational therapy.
1/ At tomorrow's @nycmedialab Summit, we'll discuss everything from neural interfaces to synthetic media to digital equity. Here is a brief run down of what to expect at #NYCML18summit.nycmedialab.org
2/ We'll kick the morning off bright and early with a talk from Thomas Reardon, the CEO and co-founder of neural interfaces startup @CTRLlabsCo , on a new generation of human-computer interaction ctrl-labs.com
3/ We'll have a great discussion on synthetic media- whether we are ready for the explosion of hyper-realistic audio, video, text and other forms of media generated using deep-learning & AI techniques featuring @karenkornbluh, @elipariser, @MattHartman, Ken Perlin and @manoushz.