| Internet Governance Ukraine Legalizes Cryptocurrency: Under the new law, both Ukrainian and foreign crypto exchanges will be allowed to operate in the country, subject to regulation by Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission. The new law highlights the impact of cryptocurrencies on the country’s response to the Russian invasion–Ukraine has received over $63 million worth of crypto donations that it will use to aid its defense and humanitarian efforts. |
| Privacy Irish Data Protection Commission Fines Meta for Breach-related Recordkeeping Violations Under GDPR: Following an investigation into twelve 2018 data breaches that affected over 30 million users, the Commission fined the company €17 million for “fail[ing] to have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures which would enable it to readily demonstrate the security measures that it implemented in practice to protect EU users’ data.” |
| Information Security and Cyberthreats Russia-Ukraine Conflict Creates Schism Among Hacking Groups: A new report by Accenture’s Cyber Threat Intelligence team finds that for what seems to be the first time, cybercriminals are “divided along ideological factions” and selecting targets depending on whether they support Russian or Ukraine. Pro-Russian groups are increasingly targeting perceived “enemies of Russia,” including Western financial entities and infrastructure. |
| Intellectual Property Wordle Archive Goes Offline: The site, which let users play prior games of the popular word puzzle, was taken down at the request of Wordle-owner The New York Times. |
| Freedom of Expression and Censorship Russia Blocks Instagram: The country’s censorship body implemented the block after Meta temporarily adjusted its content policies to permit postings calling for violence against Russian soldiers from within Ukraine as a way to “[protect] people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defense.” Facebook and YouTube Remove Zelensky Deepfake: The platforms have removed postings of a fake video of the Ukrainian President purportedly ceding to Russia and calling for Ukrainian troops to lay down their arms. Twitter is monitoring the spread of the video on its platform, and is taking “enforcement action” in instances where the video violates company policies. |
| On the Lighter Side Smart Shirts: An in-development “acoustic fabric” that can detect and produce soundwaves has promising potential uses ranging from detecting an individual’s heart rate to monitoring the build-up of space dust on spacecraft. |
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| Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP |