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Friday Five for January 14, 2022

Following is a list of things BruinTechs should know and share with others:
 
 
1. Data Privacy Day: Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Join the UC Campus Privacy Officers in celebrating Data Privacy Day on January 28, 2022 at noon, with a panel discussion between UC data and privacy experts who will be discussing the film, The Social Dilemma, the future of data, what UC’s role should be (if any) in solving the social dilemma, and how viewers can take active steps to better control their data and the data entrusted to them by the UC Community. Register here.
 
 
2. Lawsuit aiming to break up Facebook group Meta can go ahead, US court rules

The US competition watchdog can proceed with a breakup lawsuit against Facebook’s owner, a federal judge has ruled.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had asked a court to dismiss an antitrust complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for the second time. However, Judge James Boasberg said on Tuesday that the FTC’s revised lawsuit should be allowed to proceed. Continue reading.
 
 
3. Podcast Recommendation: Tech Won't Save Us

Silicon Valley has a solution for everything, but who do its ideas really serve? Every Thursday, Paris Marx is joined by a new guest to critically examine the tech industry, its thought leaders, and the worldview it spreads. They challenge the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward by showing that separating tech from politics has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable. But if tech won't save us, what will? This podcast isn't simply about tearing tech down; it also presents radical ideas for tech designed for human flourishing instead of surveillance, acquisitions, or to boost stock prices. A better world is possible, and so is better technology. Check it out.
 
 
4. Explore: Surfacing

Undersea fiber-optic cables are critical infrastructures that support our global network society. They carry 99% of all transoceanic digital communications, including:

  • phone calls,
  • text messages,
  • email,
  • websites,
  • digital images and video,
  • and even some television.


It is cable systems, not satellites, that transport most of the Internet around the world.

In Surfacing, you are a signal traveling across the undersea network. You begin on the coast, carried ashore by undersea cable. From your landing point, you can traverse the Pacific Ocean by hopping between network nodes. You might surface at cable stations where signal traffic is monitored, on remote islands that were once network hubs, and aboard giant ships that lay submarine systems. In the process, narratives about the history of the cable network, the companies that construct it, and the ecologies that it runs through will orient you in your journey. Explore.
 
 
5. Federal investigators say they used encrypted Signal messages to charge Oath Keepers leader

Federal investigators say they accessed encrypted Signal messages sent before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol, and used them as evidence to charge the leader of Oath Keepers, an extremist far-right militia group, and other defendants in a seditious plot.  Continue reading.