{"id":425,"date":"2020-04-15T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/51.75.254.207\/Club-Freelance\/?p=425"},"modified":"2022-10-10T16:31:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T15:31:35","slug":"weekly-news-digest-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/?p=425","title":{"rendered":"To trace or not to trace \u2014 and how"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the tech news
\nstory of the past few days has been the Apple-Google<\/strong> partnership against
\nCOVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Announced last week, the unlikely union
\nbetween the two giants will focus on developing an app to help determine if a
\nperson has been in close contact with an infected individual.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The system will let users opt-in, providing
\nanonymous and decentralised tracing. Much like a tool previously proposed by
\nMIT researchers, the app will theoretically ensure privacy by leveraging
\nBluetooth connectivity.<\/p>\n

The news, however, has sparked a global
\ndebate on the potential security and surveillance
\nimplications<\/a> of implementing the technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is anonymity really guaranteed? Should this
\npower be in the hands of private companies or controlled by public
\ninstitutions? \u00a0<\/p>\n

The two companies held a media call earlier this week to answer questions by reporters. Here’s TechCrunch’s account<\/a> of what was discussed in that call. \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n

If you’d like to dive deeper into the specifics, here’s a look<\/a> at how these tracing tools work. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And they keep burning 5G towers…<\/em><\/strong> <\/h2>\n

Last week we touched on an ongoing phenomenon
\nthat sounds surreal even in these strange times.<\/p>\n

Some people in the UK are attacking 5G <\/strong>cell
\ntowers, believing them to be linked to COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well — it looks like events keep escalating,
\nfueled by ludicrous conspiracy theories and social media claims that 5G is
\nbehind the spread of the disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to industry body Mobile UK, the country’s
\nnetwork received <\/a>more than
\n20 attacks over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It turns out that one of the attacks was
\ndirected at — wait for it — a 5G tower servicing a nearby hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Genius.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Like the virus itself, this wave of disinformation seems to be spreading like wildfire, with incidents now being reported<\/a> in the Netherlands. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Cybersecurity\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Now more than ever, ensuring your network and
\ndata security is critical for business success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remote
\nwork has multiplied the number of potential points of entry for attackers,
\nwhile phishing attacks are easier to carry out thanks to greater use of social
\nmedia and email tools.<\/p>\n

Just in
\nthe US, a cybersecurity consultancy firm claims<\/a> to have experienced a 500% increase in
\nattacks directly related to work-from-home individuals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now is the time to strengthen your IT security team, if you haven’t done so yet.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But hurry up. The skills shortage is getting worse<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

News from the frontlines…<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

One more week equals one more look at the new
\ntech initiatives being launched to help fight the novel pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking
\nof cybersecurity, Microsoft announced
\n<\/a>that its
\nAccountGuard security service is now available for free for healthcare staff,
\nas well as for human rights and humanitarian organisations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The
\ncompany has also released
\n<\/a>a new
\nsecurity patch addressing 113 bugs. Make sure to update your system.<\/p>\n

Cloud provider DigitalOcean has created a hub<\/a> where developers can share their projects aimed at tackling the crisis. The various initiatives go from hackathons to remote learning and quarantine support platforms. \u00a0 <\/p>\n

A start-up called Thoughtful Human has partnered<\/a> with BetterHelp to offer a free month of emotional support with licensed therapists. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Working on Mars — from home<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Nothing better to remind you that you’re not
\nalone working from home.<\/p>\n

NASA’s Curiosity team keeps operating<\/a> the Mars rover from the comfort of their households. Inspiring to say the least. <\/p>\n

If they can coordinate across time zones and different computing setups to drive a robot that’s millions of miles away, we can all weather this storm.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the tech news story of the past few days has been the Apple-Google partnership against COVID-19.\u00a0 Announced last week, the unlikely union between the two giants will focus on developing an app to help determine if a person has been in close contact with an infected individual.\u00a0 The system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[775,755],"tags":[50,66,174,136,64,60,173],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-review","category-tech-magazine","tag-5g","tag-apple","tag-contact-tracing","tag-covid-19","tag-google","tag-it-news","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6890,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/6890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-uk.mindquest.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}