Once you sign up for an employee scheduling app, every member of your team is immediately updated with open shifts and appointment availability.

If you are looking for a new job, sign up for the app.

Als je op zoek bent naar een nieuwe baan, meld je dan aan voor de app.

Door een internet service locator te gebruiken, kunt u al uw opties voor service providers leren kennen voordat u zich aan een bedrijf bindt.

By using an internet service locator will allow you to learn about all of your options for service providers before you commit to a company.

3 Ways an Employee Scheduling App Can Streamline Your Business

Microsoft Security recently released a report which detailed a widely successful phishing attack technique used against over 10,000 of its customers…

What do you do if you are using a new, more phishing-resistant form of attack?

Wat doet u als u een nieuwe, meer phishing-bestendige aanvalsvorm gebruikt?

The user believes the request and contained link is coming from a site or service they legitimately interact with, but instead when they click the link are really first redirected to a rogue website, which will then pass along (proxy) anything the user performs or types to the user’s intended legitimate site or service the user thought they were going to in the first place. The rogue website that sits eavesdropping in between the potential victim and the legitimate website is known as a man-in-the-middle (MitM) proxy website. The MitM proxy site can capture anything the legitimate website sends back to the user, including personal information and private records.

Microsoft Security heeft onlangs een rapport gepubliceerd waarin een zeer succesvolle phishing-aanvalstechniek wordt beschreven die tegen meer dan 10.000 van zijn klanten is gebruikt ... een phishing-aanval die werkte zelfs als de klanten zogenaamd superveilige multifactorauthenticatie (MFA) gebruikten. De malafide website die zich tussen het potentiële slachtoffer en de legitieme website bevindt, staat bekend als een man-in-the-middle (MitM) proxy-website. De MitM proxy site kan alles opvangen wat de legitieme website terugstuurt naar de gebruiker, inclusief persoonlijke informatie en privégegevens.

Microsoft Security recently released a report which detailed a widely successful phishing attack technique used against over 10,000 of its customers…a phishing attack that worked even if the customers were using supposedly super secure multi-factor authentication (MFA).

The attack works like this. The potential victim receives a phishing email or website page containing a rogue link. The user believes the request and contained link is coming from a site or service they legitimately interact with, but instead when they click the link are really first redirected to a rogue website, which will then pass along (proxy) anything the user performs or types to the user’s intended legitimate site or service the user thought they were going to in the first place. The rogue website that sits eavesdropping in between the potential victim and the legitimate website is known as a man-in-the-middle (MitM) proxy website. It can capture anything the user types, including logon name, password, and any manually provided MFA credentials (such as one-time passwords). The MitM proxy site can capture anything the legitimate website sends back to the user, including personal information and private records.

Critically, the rogue proxy site can also capture the access control token cookie that the legitimate site sends back to the user after they have performed a successful logon, whether or not that logon was performed using a logon name and password, MFA, or biometrics. The access control token cookie is simply a text file sent to the user’s browser containing a session ID, which identifies the user and their subsequent actions performed on the site to the site. It is essentially a ticket that tells the site, “I successfully authenticated and here is my identity.” Any user or browser session with the cookie will be treated as the legitimate, authenticated user. It is like a bearer bond in finance. In the attack discussed by Microsoft, the MitM proxy website steals the user’s access control token, takes over the user’s session, and allows malware or the hacker to perform further malicious actions that result in harm to the individual and/or their organization and other online entities.

Even though it is not obvious from Microsoft’s article, this is far from a new attack method, although Microsoft gives it its own unique name (i.e., adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attack). The author of this article first wrote about this exact type of attack in 1989. KnowBe4 has been covering and presenting on this this exact attack method for years, including on several documents located on this portal dedicated to MFA and the various ways it can be hacked and bypassed. KnowBe4’s Chief Hacking Officer, Kevin Mitnick, has been demoing this exact attack for many years as well. Most people who are not aware of this attack method are surprised just how easy it is to bypass the most popular forms of MFA.

Microsoft is warning its customers that this type of attack can easily bypass of MFA because they are seeing a significant rise in successful attacks against its customers using MFA. This is no surprise, as more and more customers are moving to MFA and the hackers are just responding. It is often a surprise to MFA customers that they can be so easily hacked because Microsoft (and Google and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others) have been telling everyone, incorrectly, that MFA stops 99% of all attacks. It does not.

It is also important to note that it is not just Microsoft’s MFA that is susceptible to MitM proxy attacks. Perhaps 90% to 95% of all MFA can be bypassed using the same method. This means the vast majority of MFA can be bypassed and its secret logon codes stolen just as easily as passwords. For this reason, organizations and users should strive to use phishing-resistant MFA whenever possible. There are many different types of MFA solutions that are not susceptible to MitM proxy attacks and which are phishing-resistant. It is unfortunate that most MFA users are not using them. And vendors such as Microsoft and Google (and many others) are working to provide more secure forms of MFA.

If you are interested in an exact list of what MFA is phishing-resistant, here is a list I keep updated as much as possible.

Here are some other previously published articles on phishable MFA written by me:
• Don’t Use Easily Phishable MFA and That’s Most MFA!
• US Government Says to Avoid Phishing-Resistant MFA and Why Is the Majority of Our MFA So Phishable?

In fact, I have an upcoming one hour webinar entitled, “Hacks That Bypass Multi-Factor Authentication and How to Make Your MFA Solution Phishing Resistant” where I am going to cover what makes or does not make a MFA solution phishing-resistant along with the stronger forms of MFA that better protect end users.

But what can you do if you already use a MFA solution that is susceptible to phishing and you cannot easily choose to use a new, more phishing-resistant form?

Education is the key. Simply teaching users to aggressively inspect every link before they click on it could prevent both the majority of phishing attacks, whether they involve MFA or not. Teach your users what a legitimate URL looks like and how to spot rogue links. One way to do that is to recommend all users watch my Combatting Rogue URL webinar.

Also, no matter which type of MFA you choose, educate everyone (i.e., buyers, evaluators, implementers, users, senior management, etc.) on the following topics:
• How the particular MFA solution they are using works
• Strengths and weaknesses of the MFA solution
• How to correctly use the MFA solution
• Known successful attacks against the MFA solution
• What to do during rogue attacks (i.e., how to prevent, reporting the attack, etc.)

You want to defeat MitM proxy attacks? Teach yourself and your co-workers how to spot the rogue URLs that take people to the fake websites in the first place. No other defense works as well. Many vendors and security companies will tell you that using MFA is key to defeating the most attacks. This is not true. MFA is good and everyone should use phishing-resistant MFA where they can to protect valuable data and sites, but preventing users from clicking on bad links will work even better. It works whether you are using passwords, MFA, biometrics, or whatever form of authentication you are using. Microsoft’s announcement is proof that MFA, alone, by itself, often does not work.

Hovering Over Links Will Protect You More Than MFA

As the debate about how to rein in Big Tech and its anti-competitive practices continues, news publishers and telecommunications providers are increasingly calling for large pay-outs from major platforms. However, these proposals risk restricting users into ever-smaller walled gardens and cementing...

The debate about net neutrality in Europe is growing, writes Brett Frischmann.

Het debat over netneutraliteit in Europa neemt toe, schrijft Brett Frischmann.

As the debate about how to rein in Big Tech and its anti-competitive practices continues, news publishers and telecommunications providers are increasingly calling for large pay-outs from major platforms. The request for large platforms to pay telecom providers to carry their content is not new. In 2011, the same group (absent Deutsche Telekom) attempted to levy charges on Google and other content providers, suggesting an overhaul of how data travels across the internet.

Terwijl het debat over de beteugeling van Big Tech en haar concurrentieverstorende praktijken voortduurt, vragen nieuwsuitgevers en telecommunicatieaanbieders steeds vaker om grote uitbetalingen van de grote platforms. Het verzoek aan grote platforms om telecomaanbieders te betalen voor het doorgeven van hun inhoud is niet nieuw. In 2011 probeerde dezelfde groep (zonder Deutsche Telekom) kosten in rekening te brengen bij Google en andere contentproviders en stelde zij voor de manier waarop gegevens over het internet worden getransporteerd, grondig te herzien.

As the debate about how to rein in Big Tech and its anti-competitive practices continues, news publishers and telecommunications providers are increasingly calling for large pay-outs from major platforms. However, these proposals risk restricting users into ever-smaller walled gardens and cementing the dominance of a few big players.

On Valentine’s day, an open letter from the CEOs of Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange surfaced. In the letter, the heads of Europe’s biggest telecommunications providers called “for large content platforms to contribute to the cost of European digital infrastructure that carries their services.” Claiming that the current situation is “not sustainable” for their companies, they argued that “Europe will fall behind” if this situation is not addressed.

The request for large platforms to pay telecom providers to carry their content is not new. In 2011, the same group (absent Deutsche Telekom) attempted to levy charges on Google and other content providers, suggesting an overhaul of how data travels across the internet. In 2013, Orange struck a deal with Google under which Google would pay an undisclosed amount to the carrier for the traffic sent across its networks.

For years, telecom operators have tried to catch up with innovation, but with little real success. In the beginning, it was their inability to identify ways to diversify their centralized business models within the internet’s more decentralized environment. Instead, they have used their political capital to keep pushing, unsuccessfully, for proposals based on the simple idea that everyone else should have to pay up. They even went as far as the ITU. And, the more the internet has grown, the more telecom providers have remained stuck in outdated business models. Part of the problem has always been that telecom providers have never fully grasped the fact that users are mainly paying to connect to the ends of the network and not the middle. In other words, the value of the internet connection comes from the fact that Google, Facebook, or TikTok—not to mention smaller and regional platforms excluded from big telecom deals—make it valuable for them. Without large and small platforms and their services, users would have no reason to use telecom providers’ networks.

This dynamic of requiring large platforms to pay telecom providers to carry their content may bring the net neutrality debate to mind. But, this post is not about net neutrality. This post is about a different trend that is picking up speed: attempting to force big technology companies to negotiate, with very little transparency, deals that end up creating barriers to entry for smaller businesses on both sides of the equation. Make no mistake, the concern about the concentration of power in big technology companies should neither be underestimated nor ignored; more fundamentally, however, promoting secret deals as the solution to any of the current problems will only make things worse.

And it’s not just the telecom providers. Last year, Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code set the tone for the relationship between Big Tech and publishers by forcing Google and Facebook to negotiate and pay publishers—namely, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp—to host the publisher’s content.. France followed soon after, with Google agreeing to pay the Alliance de la presse d’information generale (APIG) $36 million dollars in the first case under the new EU Copyright Directive. Canada is considering similar rules, while the UK, Argentina, Brazil, and Germany have all enacted – or are in the process of enacting – such rules. Big Tech is paying and it is paying big time. Now, telecommunication providers want a piece of this payout, and they might get it.

The obvious question here is how sustainable this is in the long run, especially considering the fact that these deals create an even greater financial interest in maintaining Big Tech’s dominance.

In this context, the paradigm that is forming is one where power will concentrate in the hands of even fewer telecommunications and Big Tech players. While Google and Facebook may be able to afford huge payouts to host publisher content and travel on telecom provider networks, smaller companies cannot. This means more users will be limited to increasingly walled-in ecosystems and services with more concentrated threats to user privacy and expression, especially as smaller players get shut out of such deals.

The openness and freedom that define the internet at its best suffer within walled-garden spaces. These kinds of deals will exacerbate this problem as Facebook and Google become centers for more kinds of user interaction, adding new services that draw users further into their closed systems. In the case of Facebook News in France, for example, users are exposed to the news and information only from certain “partners” adhering to Facebook’s terms and conditions. Independent journalism and informal reporting will vanish or, at best, get hidden.

Now, imagine if Facebook’s and Google’s reach were to extend to infrastructure. Although it is premature to guess the level of involvement and investment Big Tech will be required to commit and what it will mean exactly, it is almost a certainty that big technology companies will get unprecedented access to infrastructure opportunities they have long desired. We are already witnessing a trend towards more privatized networks and more privatized internet infrastructure, with research suggesting that big technology companies are “gaining control over not only the content but the means of transferring the content.” If core parts of the internet’s infrastructure are co-opted by big technology firms, it would further the existing dependencies we tend to experience in the latter. As Brett Frischmann argues:

And, no regulation from Europe will be able to prevent this; once Big Tech is in Europe’s infrastructure, there won’t be a way out.

Europe has repeatedly said it wants to be a leader in innovation. Of course, it means every word of it. But, no one is – nor should be – entitled to the proceeds of technical innovation, and trying to enforce that through regulation is a bad idea.

Big Tech Pay-Outs to European ISPs Would Just Concentrate Their Power

The ship's three massive masts are too tall for the nearly century-old bridge's 40-meter clearance.

When it comes to luxury yachts, it’s probably the biggest challenge in the world.

Als het op luxe jachten aankomt, is het waarschijnlijk de grootste uitdaging in de wereld.

That’s according to local reports cited by Dutch News and Boat International which claim the city of Rotterdam will temporarily disable its historic Koningshaven bridge so a luxury superyacht rumored to have been commissioned by Bezos can make its way out to sea. Oceanco reportedly approached Rotterdam’s municipality and requested the bridge s dismantling because its 40-meter clearance isn’t tall enough to accommodate the yacht’s three gargantuan masts. Oceanco and Bezos have reportedly offered to fund the dismantling themselves.

Dat is volgens lokale berichten, geciteerd door Dutch News en Boat International, die beweren dat de stad Rotterdam haar historische Koningshavenbrug tijdelijk buiten werking zal stellen zodat een luxe superjacht, waarvan het gerucht gaat dat Bezos er opdracht voor heeft gegeven, zijn weg naar zee kan vinden. Het schip is ontwikkeld door de Nederlandse custom yacht bouwer Oceanco en heeft een geschatte lengte van 127 meter (417 voet). Naar verluidt heeft Oceanco de gemeente Rotterdam benaderd met het verzoek de brug te ontmantelen omdat de doorvaarthoogte van 40 meter niet hoog genoeg is om de drie reusachtige masten van het jacht te kunnen plaatsen.

Amazon founder turned rocket-man Jeff Bezos wants to prove that, with enough money, you really can move mountains—or at least, in this case, cherished bridges. That’s according to local reports cited by Dutch News and Boat International which claim the city of Rotterdam will temporarily disable its historic Koningshaven bridge so a luxury superyacht rumored to have been commissioned by Bezos can make its way out to sea.

The main issue here is the boat is just too damn big. Developed by Dutch custom yacht builder Oceanco, the ship comes out to an estimated 127 meters (417 feet) in length. When completed, the colossus will become the world’s largest sailing yacht, according to Boat international. Oceanco reportedly approached Rotterdam’s municipality and requested the bridge s dismantling because its 40-meter clearance isn’t tall enough to accommodate the yacht’s three gargantuan masts. Oceanco and Bezos have reportedly offered to fund the dismantling themselves.

The hefty bridge meanwhile, a national monument first built in 1927, is known locally as “De Hef,” according to Dutch News. De Hef was reportedly badly damaged during the bombing of Rotterdam in War War II and has since undergone multiple renovations, most recently in 2017. The most recent dismantling was supposed to mark the last time the bridge would be disabled for the foreseeable future, but the Dutch Council reportedly made an exception for the world’s richest man.

Needless to say, not everyone in Rotterdam is thrilled about the idea of manipulating a nearly century-old local landmark at a billionaire’s behest despite claims from some that the project may add temporary jobs. “Employment is important, but there are limits to what you can and may do to our heritage,” Ton Wesselink, a member of the Rotterdam Historical Society said according to the NL Times.

Rumors of the Amazon founder’s involvement with the boat started with Brad Stone’s 2021 book about the founder called Amazon Unbound, first excerpted in Bloomberg Businessweek. In addition to the 127-meter behemoth, Stone claimed Bezos also commissioned a smaller “support yacht,” that supposedly comes equipped with its own helipad. In related mindless spending efforts, Bezos has also reportedly invested $42 million dollars into a 500-foot tall mechanical clock capable of running for 10 thousand years.

But Bezos isn’t the only billionaire busting out cash for luxury yachts. While the global economies crawled back from a year of lockdowns and millions of Americans struggled to make due on government relief efforts, yacht sales were booming. Superyachts had a banner year in 2021, with a total of 887 sold worldwide according to a report from maritime data firm VesselsValue, viewed by Bloomberg. That marks a 77% increase in sales from a year prior and more than double the yachts sold in 2019.



According to that same report, an unprecedented pandemic era wealth gain among the world’s richest cohort and renewed demand for semi-isolated activities were partly the reason for the surge in yacht sales. Lonely billionaires needed something to spend all that new capital on.

Now though, it appears all that yacht demand has outpaced supply. Recent supply chain disruptions tacked on alongside the ships’ inherently long build times, means the hefty prices may swell even larger, Bloomberg notes.

Historic Bridge May Be Dismantled for Jeff Bezos' Big, Beautiful Boat

Shuckworm maintains its focus on Ukrainian targets. Killnet's DDoS and dubious proof-of-work. Iron Tiger's supply chain campaign. TikTok and national security. Dinah Davis from Arctic Wolf shares insights on Dark Utilities. Rick Howard digs into identity management. And an arrest in the case of the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

In our series of letters from across the world, we look at some of the most interesting topics.

In onze reeks brieven uit de hele wereld bekijken we enkele van de interessantste onderwerpen.

Shuckworm maintains its focus on Ukrainian targets. Dinah Davis from Arctic Wolf shares insights on Dark Utilities. And an arrest in the case of the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

Shuckworm blijft zich richten op Oekraïense doelwitten. Dinah Davis van Arctic Wolf deelt inzichten over Dark Utilities. En een arrestatie in de zaak van de Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

Shuckworm maintains its focus on Ukrainian targets. Killnet's DDoS and dubious proof-of-work. Iron Tiger's supply chain campaign. TikTok and national security. Dinah Davis from Arctic Wolf shares insights on Dark Utilities. Rick Howard digs into identity management. And an arrest in the case of the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

Killnet Releases 'Proof' of its Attack Against Lockheed Martin (SecurityWeek)

How Frustration Over TikTok Has Mounted in Washington (New York Times)

Tornado Cash Developer Arrested After U.S. Sanctions the Cryptocurrency Mixer (The Hacker News)

Arrested Tornado Cash developer is Alexey Pertsev, his wife confirms (The Block)

Shuckworm and Killnet continue to hack in the interest of Russia. Iron Tiger's supply chain campaign. TikTok and national security. And an arrest in the case of the Tornado Cash crypto mixer.

Amidst a surplus of funding, despite the economic downturn, here's how 10 startups in the blockchain space are continuing to thrive.

Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies are among the technologies that could become a major threat to the global economy. But what does this mean?

Bitcoin, Ethereum en andere cryptocurrencies behoren tot de technologieën die een grote bedreiging kunnen worden voor de wereldeconomie. Maar wat betekent dit?

Blockchain startups have found strength in the rise of NFT use cases alongside the convergence of blockchain and other emerging technologies like 5G, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). With the blockchain market capitalization poised to skyrocket in the next few years, investors continue to pour billions of dollars into blockchain and crypto startups. As the metaverse gains more inroads into the broader enterprise, investors continue to tap into the endless potentials of blockchain, moving its application far beyond cryptocurrencies, NFTs and any other singular unit.

Blockchain-startups hebben hun kracht gevonden in de opkomst van NFT use cases naast de convergentie van blockchain en andere opkomende technologieën zoals 5G, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) en kunstmatige intelligentie (AI). Nu de marktkapitalisatie van blockchain de komende jaren explosief zal stijgen, blijven investeerders miljarden dollars in blockchain- en crypto-startups pompen. Naarmate de metaverse meer ingang vindt in het bredere bedrijfsleven, blijven investeerders de eindeloze mogelijkheden van blockchain aanboren, waardoor de toepassing ervan veel verder gaat dan cryptocurrencies, NFT's en elke andere afzonderlijke eenheid.

10 blockchain startups to watch

Player First and Warner Bros have rolled out Season 1 to MultiVersus, and have announced new fighters Black Adam and Stripe from Gremlins.

A new battle pass has been announced for the first time.

Er is voor het eerst een nieuwe Battle Pass aangekondigd.

Season One features several additions to MultiVersus, including character balancing, more achievable battle pass requirements, and new free characters in the rotation (these include Arya, Batman, LeBron James and Steven Universe). Player First also plans to add Classic Arcade Mode and a new Ranked Mode in Season One. As part of the Season One launch, Warner Bros have also announced two more characters to the roster: DC Comics’ Black Adam and Stripe from Gremlins.

Seizoen één bevat verschillende toevoegingen aan MultiVersus, waaronder personagebalancering, beter haalbare gevechtspasvereisten en nieuwe gratis personages in de rotatie (deze omvatten Arya, Batman, LeBron James en Steven Universe). Player First is ook van plan om een Classic Arcade Mode en een nieuwe Ranked Mode toe te voegen in Season One. Als onderdeel van de lancering van Season One, heeft Warner Bros ook twee nieuwe personages aangekondigd: DC Comics' Black Adam en Stripe uit Gremlins.

MultiVersus has finally launched its maiden voyage with Season One. The new battle pass is available, including both free and paid varieties. Developer Player First Games also announced two new fighters.

Season One features several additions to MultiVersus, including character balancing, more achievable battle pass requirements, and new free characters in the rotation (these include Arya, Batman, LeBron James and Steven Universe). Player First also plans to add Classic Arcade Mode and a new Ranked Mode in Season One.

As part of the Season One launch, Warner Bros have also announced two more characters to the roster: DC Comics’ Black Adam and Stripe from Gremlins. The two will roll out to players in the coming months. The two fighters previously appeared in leaked rosters. In addition, Morty Smith will join the roster on August 23.

Warner Bros has not confirmed when either Black Adam or Stripe will be playable. Presumably Adam’s addition will coincide with the character’s DCEU movie of the same name, which releases in October. MultiVersus director Tony Huynh confirmed on Twitter that both will roll out during Season One. Rick Sanchez is another character due to join later in the season.

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MultiVersus launches Season One with Black Adam and Stripe

'Leaky abstractions' are transforming software design and programming and leading to better, human-focused technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way it works, according to researchers at the University of Michigan.

Kunstmatige intelligentie (AI) verandert de manier van werken, aldus onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Michigan.

Software development has long demanded the skills of two types of experts. And those who write the code that makes it work. The boundary between the user experience (UX) designer and the software engineer are well established.

Softwareontwikkeling vereist al lang de vaardigheden van twee soorten deskundigen. En degenen die de code schrijven om het te laten werken. De grens tussen de user experience (UX) designer en de software engineer ligt vast.

Software development has long demanded the skills of two types of experts. There are those interested in how a user interacts with an application. And those who write the code that makes it work. The boundary between the user experience (UX) designer and the software engineer are well established. But the advent of “human-centered artificial intelligence” is challenging traditional design paradigms.

“UX designers use their understanding of human behavior and usability principles to design graphical user interfaces. But AI is changing what interfaces look like and how they operate,” says Hariharan “Hari” Subramonyam, a research professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a faculty fellow of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).

In a new preprint paper, Subramonyam and three colleagues from the University of Michigan show how this boundary is shifting and have developed recommendations for ways the two can communicate in the age of AI. They call their recommendations “desirable leaky abstractions.” Leaky abstractions are practical steps and documentation that the two disciplines can use to convey the nitty-gritty “low-level” details of their vision in language the other can understand.

“Using these tools, the disciplines leak key information back and forth across what was once an impermeable boundary,” explains Subramonyam, a former software engineer himself.

Less is not always more

As an example of the challenges presented by AI, Subramonyam points to facial recognition used to unlock phones. Once, the unlock interface was easy to describe. User swipes. Keypad appears. User enters the passcode. Application authenticates. User gains access to the phone.

With AI-inspired facial recognition, however, UX design begins to go deeper than the interface into the AI itself. Designers must think about things they’ve never had to before, like the training data or the way the algorithm is trained. Designers are finding it hard to understand AI capabilities, to describe how things should work in an ideal world, and to build prototype interfaces. Engineers, in turn, are finding they can no longer build software to exact specifications. For instance, engineers often consider training data as a non-technical specification. That is, training data is someone else’s responsibility.

“Engineers and designers have different priorities and incentives, which creates a lot of friction between the two fields,” Subramonyam says. “Leaky abstractions are helping to ease that friction.”

In their research, Subramonyam and colleagues interviewed 21 application design professionals — UX researchers, AI engineers, data scientists, and product managers — across 14 organizations to conceptualize how professional collaborations are evolving to meet the challenges of the age of artificial intelligence.

The researchers lay out a number of leaky abstractions for UX professionals and software engineers to share information. For the UX designers, suggestions include things like the sharing of qualitative codebooks to communicating user needs in the annotation of training data. Designers can also storyboard ideal user interactions and desired AI model behavior. Alternatively, they could record user testing to provide examples of faulty AI behavior to aid iterative interface design. They also suggest that engineers be invited to participate in user testing, a practice not common in traditional software development.

For engineers, the co-authors recommended leaky abstractions, including compiling of computational notebooks of data characteristics, providing visual dashboards that establish AI and end-user performance expectations, creating spreadsheets of AI outputs to aid prototyping and “exposing” the various “knobs” available to designers that they can use to fine-tune algorithm parameters, among others.

The authors’ main recommendation, however, is for these collaborating parties to postpone committing to design specifications as long as possible. The two disciplines must fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Fewer complexities mean an easier fit. It takes time to polish those rough edges.

“In software development, there is sometimes a misalignment of needs,” Subramonyam says. “Instead, if I, the engineer, create an initial version of my puzzle piece and you, the UX designer, create yours, we can work together to address misalignment over multiple iterations, before establishing the specifics of the design. Then, only when the pieces finally fit, do we solidify the application specifications at the last moment.”

In all cases, the historic boundary between engineer and designer is the enemy of good human-centered design, Subramonyam says, and leaky abstractions can penetrate that boundary without rewriting the rules altogether.

Andrew Myers is a contributing writer for the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.

In human-centered AI, UX and software roles are evolving

SAN FRANCISCO–San Francisco police violated the city’s surveillance technology law by tapping into a private surveillance camera network to spy on demonstrators protesting the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation...

Police officers in England and Wales are being warned about their use of surveillance technology.

Politieagenten in Engeland en Wales worden gewaarschuwd voor hun gebruik van bewakingstechnologie.

How transparent are police about surveillance technology? It depends on where you look. When it comes to acceptable levels of secrecy around police tools, states have drawn their lines in very different places, resulting in some communities where it is much harder for the public to know what invasive tools...

Hoe transparant is de politie over bewakingstechnologie? Het hangt ervan af waar je kijkt. Als het gaat om aanvaardbare niveaus van geheimhouding rond politie-instrumenten, hebben staten hun grenzen getrokken op zeer verschillende plaatsen, wat resulteert in sommige gemeenschappen waar het veel moeilijker is voor het publiek om te weten welke invasieve instrumenten...

EFF & ACLU Brief: SFPD Violated Surveillance Law by Spying on Protests for Black Lives

Tornado Cash case demonstrates the difficulties of curbing illicit digital currency transactions. Prosecutions in digital money laundering. California lawmakers halt bill aimed at defending children on social media.

In our series of letters from African journalists, the BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world.

In onze serie brieven van Afrikaanse journalisten stelt de wekelijkse BBC-serie The Boss verschillende bedrijfsleiders uit de hele wereld aan het woord.

Regulating the brave new world of cryptocurrency is at the forefront of lawmakers’ minds, but the fact that transactions on cryptocurrency platforms are supported by code, rather than real people, makes it a difficult beast to contain. In an effort to slow down Tornado Cash’s growth, the Treasury blacklisted the exchange, blocking all property held by the Tornado Cash under US jurisdiction and prohibiting US companies and individuals from conducting transactions on the platform. However, users almost immediately found ways to circumvent the sanctions by transferring funds out of cryptocurrency wallets on the platform and reproducing and relaunching the code on other sites.

Het reguleren van de dappere nieuwe wereld van cryptocurrency staat vooraan in de gedachten van wetgevers, maar het feit dat transacties op cryptocurrency platforms worden ondersteund door code, in plaats van door echte mensen, maakt het een moeilijk te bedwingen beest. In een poging om de groei van Tornado Cash af te remmen, heeft het ministerie van Financiën de beurs op de zwarte lijst geplaatst, waarbij alle eigendommen van Tornado Cash onder Amerikaans rechtsgebied worden geblokkeerd en Amerikaanse bedrijven en particulieren wordt verboden om transacties op het platform uit te voeren. Gebruikers vonden echter vrijwel onmiddellijk manieren om de sancties te omzeilen door geld over te maken uit cryptocurrency-portemonnees op het platform en de code te reproduceren en opnieuw te lanceren op andere sites.

Regulating the brave new world of cryptocurrency is at the forefront of lawmakers’ minds, but the fact that transactions on cryptocurrency platforms are supported by code, rather than real people, makes it a difficult beast to contain. The Wall Street Journal examines the case of Tornado Cash, a crypto “mixer” (so-called because it obscures the origin of the funds by blending inputs from different users and redistributing them) that the US Treasury Department has accused of laundering billions of dollars in digital currency. In an effort to slow down Tornado Cash’s growth, the Treasury blacklisted the exchange, blocking all property held by the Tornado Cash under US jurisdiction and prohibiting US companies and individuals from conducting transactions on the platform. “It is likely that nearly all responsible registered Virtual Asset Service Providers also took steps to block customers from transacting with these addresses, or face charges of willfully avoiding US sanctions compliance obligations,” tweeted Jeremy Allaire, Chief Executive at Circle, a stablecoin issuer that has already blocked the sanctioned wallet addresses. However, users almost immediately found ways to circumvent the sanctions by transferring funds out of cryptocurrency wallets on the platform and reproducing and relaunching the code on other sites. Tom Robinson, co-founder of risk-management company Elliptic Enterprises Ltd, summed it up, “It is difficult, if not impossible, to shut down Tornado Cash entirely.”

Speaking of Tornado Cash, the identity of the software developer arrested last week by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) for his alleged involvement with the crypto mixing service has been verified, as Ksenia Malik told the Block that the man is her husband, Alexey Pertsev. The FIOD stated that Tornado Cash’s alleged money laundering “included funds stolen through hacks by a group believed to be associated with North Korea. Investigations showed that at least one billion dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies of criminal origin passed through the mixer. It is suspected that persons behind this organisation have made large-scale profits from these transactions." Malik insists her husband did nothing illegal, and several crypto industry executives agree. Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures stated, “They put a man in jail because bad people used his open source code. This cannot stand in any free society,” The arrest came just two days after the US government sanctioned the platform.

Meanwhile in India, TechCrunch reports that India’s anti-money laundering agency has frozen assets worth $46.4 million from Flipvolt Technologies, the India-registered entity of Singapore-based crypto lender Vauld, for facilitating “crime-derived” funds from predatory lending firms. The Enforcement Directorate declared Friday that Flipvolt was used to deposit 3.7 billion Indian rupees by twenty-three entities into wallets controlled by Yellow Tune Technologies, and that Flipvolt MAINTAINS “very lax KYC norms, no EDD mechanism, no check on the source of funds of the depositors, no mechanism of raising STRs, etc,” allowing the accused firms to conduct illicit transactions on the platform.

A measure intended to protect minors on social media was shut down by lawmakers in the US state of California last week, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill would have given California attorneys the power to hold the parent companies of platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok liable for features known to promote addiction among children. However, the measure’s progress was halted in the state senate’s appropriations committee after social media companies warned it could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in liability and force many platforms to completely block minors from their services. Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), Twitter, and Snap had all individually lobbied against the passage of the bill, and a number of internet-privacy groups also opposed the measure, fearing it could impede freedom of speech. Executive director for California and the Southwest at tech-industry group Technet Dylan Hoffman stated, “We’re glad to see that this bill won’t move forward in its current form. If it had, companies would have been punished for simply having a platform that kids can access.”

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