Category: Technology

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Latest Read: Tor

Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier.

Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy by Ben Collier

Ben holds a MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Criminology from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. He is a Cambridge Cybercrime Centre postdoctoral researcher and long-term collaborator with this interdisciplinary center, focusing on online hacker communities and cybercrime markets. Today he is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Methods at the University of Edinburgh within the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS).

The Dark Web is a subset of the internet that was designed to be hidden from search engines and requires specific software, like Tor. Well known for illegal marketplaces (Silk Road) for drugs, firearms, murder for hire, stolen data, selling breached data, and hacking services, yet in fact is also serving as a privacy resource. Here forums allow users to exchange data regarding whistleblower platforms and also permits journalists to communicate in countries with strict censorship.

Insert irony: the very markets trafficking in illicit goods today rely on a architecture engineered by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

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Education Reading Technology

Latest Read: Defensive Security Handbook

Defensive Security Handbook (2nd Edition): Best Practices for Securing Infrastructure By Amanda Berlin, William F. Reyor III and Lee Brotherston.

Defensive Security Handbook 2nd Edition: Best Practices for Securing Infrastructure By William F. Reyor III and Lee Brotherston.

Amanda holds an Associate in Computer Information Systems from North Central State College. Today she is a Senior Product Manager of Cybersecurity at Blumira. She is co-host of Brakeing Down Security, provides training for organizations on creating tabletop and incident response playbook programs. In addition, Amanda is CEO and co-founder of Mental Health Hackers, a non-profit organization that aims to raise awareness about mental health issues in the cybersecurity community.

William is the Director of Security at Modus Create. His previously served at The Walt Disney Company, Raytheon Technologies, and as CISO at Fairfield University. Reyor is also a co-founder of Security BSides Connecticut.

Lee holds a BSc in Media Technology from Teesside University, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire UK. He is the founding security engineer at OpsHelm and has previously worked across multiple sectors: including finance, telecommunications, hospitality, entertainment, and government.

The authors are recognized for extensive real-world experience and leadership in cybersecurity. This is a perfect update to a cyber world filled with ever increasing high-profile hacks, data leaks, and ransomware attacks. For organizations lacking a formal InfoSec program this provides a baseline and is most helpful for the Information Security community.

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Education Innovation OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Failure to Disrupt

Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education by Justin Reich.

Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education by Justin Reich

Justin holds a PhD from Harvard University’s School of Education. He began his career as a high school history teacher. Today his is an associate professor at MIT and the director of the Teaching Systems Lab and is the host of the TeachLab podcast.

This book is tackling head on the many bold promises that technology can accelerating learning and provide customized education. There are an overwhelming number of technology projects funded by Silicon Valley firms, educational think tanks, and various entrepreneurs bringing emerging educational technology to the most underserved communities.

Recall when MOOCs were claimed to be the educational technology that would revolutionize education? Justin is revealing that MOOCs and even the number of “intelligent tutor” solutions only resulted in confusing educators and bypassing students. Perhaps those funded projects should have determined how benefactors were always students from affluent zip codes. The projects never made the impact as intended.

Schools and Silicon Valley favor programs that scale up. It turns out that technology cannot by itself disrupt education or provide shortcuts past the more difficult challenge of institutional change.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Google Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Grokking Continuous Delivery

Grokking Continuous Delivery by Christie Wilson.

Grokking Continuous Delivery By Christie Wilson

Christie holds a Bachelor of Technology, Data Communication, Network Administration & Security from The British Columbia Institute of Technology. Today she is a Software Engineer at Google working on Go and Python, Specializing in distributed systems, scalable and maintainable code. She co-created Tekton, a cloud-native CI/CD platform built on Kubernetes.

Grokking Continuous Delivery teaches you the design and purpose of continuous delivery systems that you can use with any language or technology stack. I have always enjoyed reading all Grokking titles. Christie outlines in fact, the basic nuts and bolts of continuous delivery. Perfect for for developers and pipeline designers. She demonstrates the proper approaches to tackle real-world challenges regarding CD pipelines.

CD is in fact, a very well written book for software engineers seeking to understand, implement, and master CD pipelines. The book is certainly practical and is a great resource for both new users seeking to understand CD and experienced engineers.

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Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: AI for Good

AI for Good: Applications in Sustainability, Humanitarian Action, and Health by William B. Weeks and Juan M. Lavista Ferres.

AI for Good: Applications in Sustainability, Humanitarian Action, and Health by William B. Weeks and Juan M. Lavista Ferres

William holds a BS in Biology/ChemistryBachelor of Science from Whitman College, MD from The University of Texas Medical Branch, and PhD in Economics from Aix-Marseille University France. Today he is Director, AI for Health at Microsoft and an Adjunct Professor at NYU School of Public Health.

Juan holds a BS in computer science from the Catholic University in Uruguay, MA in Data Mining and Machine Learning from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in AI on Healthcare from Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam.

With a foreword by Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, AI for Good is certainly addressing the exploration of how artificial intelligence is being used today to address the world’s most pressing challenges.

Readers will discover how Microsoft’s AI leaders and researchers are obviously using AI to transform the world for the better. The impact AI is making on data analytics is amazing. William and Juan are detailing their efforts so far.

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