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August 19, 2024
The Promise of Geoengineering
It is memory-holed now, but acid rain was the largest environmental threat in the 1980s. Grisly pictures emerged, prompting research and then action by the government to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. From 1980 when action started in earnest to 2015, SO2 emissions were cut by 80 percent in both the United States and Europe. This drive…
August 19, 2024
What Did You Expect?
About 20,000 years ago, the world was in an ice age. The era is called the Last Glacial Maximum and had global sea levels more than 120 meters (~400 feet) lower than they are today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There was no North Sea, English Channel, or Persian Gulf, and Australia…
August 16, 2024
NASA Cancels the VIPER Project, Reiterating the Need for Project Oversight
By early 2024, NASA had made significant progress on its ambitious lunar exploration project, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). NASA had unveiled VIPER in 2019 as a solution to a costly space exploration challenge: the expense of launching heavy materials, particularly water, into space. But on July 17th of this year, following a comprehensive…
August 15, 2024
Everyone Loses in Google’s Antitrust Ruling
Last week, US District Judge Amit P. Mehta handed down a significant ruling, finding that Google unlawfully maintained a monopoly in general internet search and search text advertising. This decision marks another chapter in a four-year saga initiated during the Trump administration, with Google already signaling its intent to appeal. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is spiking the…
August 15, 2024
Open AI Models: A Step Toward Innovation or a Threat to Security?
As AI models become more advanced, the conversation around their accessibility has intensified. At the heart of this debate is a crucial question: Should the “weights” of large language models be openly accessible to the public, or should they be closely guarded to prevent misuse? In the realm of AI, especially deep neural networks, weights…
August 14, 2024
The Hidden Danger of Security Code Debt: Why Thorough Vetting Is Crucial Before Deployment
Last week’s headline, “Microsoft lashes out at Delta: Your ancient tech caused the service meltdown,” captures the frustration of the intertwined information technology infrastructure challenges. We’ve learned over the past three weeks how the fast-paced world of software updates and the pressure to release new features can overshadow the crucial need to keep security at the…
August 14, 2024
Minimalism Mingling with Maximalism: The Supreme Court on Social Media Regulation
Examining the constitutionality of laws affecting speech on social media platforms, the US Supreme Court seems torn between issuing minimalistic decisions that sometimes even avoid a case’s substantive merits and making a combination of broad pronouncements and tangential observations that provide lower courts and lawmakers with guidance and guardrails. Consider the Court’s 2017 ruling in the First Amendment case…
August 13, 2024
In a Blow to the FCC, Court Suggests Net Neutrality Is a Major Question That Congress Should Decide
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reclassified broadband as a common carrier service subject to Title II requirements originally designed to discipline the landline telephone system. By doing so, the agency reversed a 2018 decision that determined broadband was better classified as a Title I information service—a decision that itself overturned a 2015…
August 12, 2024
What’s Behind the Antitrust Ruling Against Google?
In the groundbreaking case U.S. v. Google, Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Monday that the tech giant has been using its agreements with Apple, Mozilla, and wireless companies to become the default search engine, which illegally harms competition. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted…
August 9, 2024
Revisiting Australia’s Facebook News Contracts Three Years On
In 2021, Australia’s ultimatum to internet media platforms, including Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company) and Google to “voluntarily” settle with mainstream media providers for use of their news content in platform posts, or face mandatory government-sponsored mediation to determine the terms under which such payments would be made led the world. While Google complied, Meta initially…