The Edge | 08/13/18
The Edge is a daily round up of the most important, or at least the most interesting, reads in technology policy.
The Cyber
“There’s a balance we have to really walk,” Hall said, between proactively looking for vulnerabilities and giving owners of voting equipment time to address them. “We want to find flaws in these machines; we’d like to get them fixed,” Hall added. “But it’s not like general purpose computing where you can get them fixed immediately. It’s not like an election official can go get a patch for one of these machines and just change it on their own.”
The Secure Elections Act of 2018 Arrives in the House | This bill offers voluntary support to states (who are charged with facilitating elections in the United States). It’s origin is bipartisan, but this bill has been floating around for a while and it’s unclear when it will come to a vote.
AI for cybersecurity is a hot new thing — and a dangerous gamble
Blockchain
The World Bank has announced that it has hired one of Australia’s biggest banks to manage what it calls the “first bond globally to be created, allocated, transferred and managed” using a blockchain — one of the clearest signs yet that the technology is going mainstream.
Why security experts hate that “blockchain voting” will be used in the midterm elections | Another one for the “Blockchain won’t Magically Secure the Endpoints” file.
The Group Behind the JPEG Format is Interested in Blockchain… | The question for policymakers: are our laws ready for a world where content makers can design auto-enforcing copyright restrictions on digital goods? Because, like it or not, some people are trying to make this happen.
Space
Is it Time for a Space Force? | This one explains itself.
AI
The problem confronting Mr. Frankle, as well as thousands of travelers, is that few companies participating in the program, called the Traveler Verification Service, give explicit guarantees that passengers’ facial recognition data will be protected.
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